Soooo I’ve been meaning to post something for a while but something always came up, so this is going to be a bigger post!
First of all, I noticed that medimops.de has a bunch of Japanese books between 1€ and 2€, so every time my husband ordered there, I randomly picked one or more Japanese books.
Then, I had the pleasure of meeting @Biblio who has a bunch of books to give away (if you are ever in Vienna, there are still a lot of books remaining ), so I got a lot of books!! Thank you so much, I am still so grateful and slowly working my way through all of them
I hadn’t realised 図書館戦争 had a second series (or maybe these are side stories?). I liked the original four books when I read them a while back, maybe I’ll put book 5 on my wishlist…
逆転検事 arrived today! I’m currently playing DQXI though and wanna try and finish that, so it’ll be a bit before I get to this.
I have the first collection digitally (got it either before I started learning JP or before I started thinking about playing games in JP, but that one alone includes JP as a language so luckily I don’t have to think about whether I wanna buy it again) but not either of the others yet. And then there’s the DQIII remaster coming out soon, and DQXII in development… I don’t know how to prioritize.
Skream 2024年8月号 - has トゲナシトゲアリ 2 pg interview and a bunch of other band interviews, reviews, etc
I had no clue 青い花 was larger size. Paper quality is nicer than the usually B6 manga, tho not as nice as the color ones. 桃香さん 同人誌 is nicer quality than I was expecting
First time using a proxy service. It’s easy to search there, but the extra fees + shipping add up… I miss the days when I could just order everything from Suruga-ya, and have free shipping all the time.
Her most popular manga series are all weirdly different sizes. I know it just comes down to the publisher, but I find it funny that I have three of her series and they are all different.
I looked into a proxy service recently, but found it to be confusing and I didn’t like not knowing the cost up front, so I just bought from ebay instead. It probably cost a bit more that way, but it was simpler.
Did something change or is it just that you’re buying stuff you can’t find on there now?
I was pretty happy with the CD Japan proxy service. It’s not at all cheap (I think ¥500 a book?), but you can bundle proxy books with new books that you’d buy from them anyway and save a bit on shipping you’re already paying to them if you were already planning on buying books from them. I’d probably only situationally use it, but a head’s up that it exists.
Interesting. In any case, they certainly look nice
Which one? FromJapan is pretty clear about the costs upfront, with the possible exception of when you order something custom (ex the 同人誌, which was from Melonbooks). It does feel convoluted the first time around, but I think that’s the nature of proxy services. After that, it really depends on how you choose to ship things, no different than if you were putting an order together on Cdjapan or something
I’ve found eBay really variable, sometimes it’s great, but sometimes it’s enough more that I’d look elsewhere first (ex オレが私になるまで | L20 volumes are unreasonably expensive on there rn)
Mix of buying stuff New, to support the creator/publisher, and buying stuff that’s just not on there. Suruga-ya does get some new stuff, but it’s variable and often later, plus somewhat more expensive. It’s mostly that I’ve been buying all the ガルクラ and トゲトゲ merch new, and then throwing in other stuff to balance out shipping.
I was considering trying them next time, as the price may actually work out better, depending on the order. It seems like they’re a little slower with custom requests than FromJapan tho, but probably not the end of the world. I’m gonna do more doujins in October, so maybe I’ll give it a try, since I’ll still be ordering more ガルクラ stuff for months to come anyway.
FromJapan when you sent that to me and one other. The thing that’s unknown is the shipping cost since it’s based on weight and you don’t know how much the item weighs.
That is part of what I ordered, but after all the fees the proxy services would charge this was only a bit more expensive. No matter what it’s going to be more expensive than buying new if it was still in print, which is annoying.
Should be a mix of volume/weight (cuz box size), depending on who you use as shipping provider… And also like what you wanna ship together, but I get what you’re saying, it doesn’t have the calculator like Cdjapan does.
For that series yeah probly. In 青い花’s case, I don’t think so, but since it shipped with the other stuff, I can check exactly what the shipping would have been on its own. Still ordering on Cdjapan (if they had them) would have been 7,616円 before shipping vs 3.339円 at most before shipping (idk exact price, cuz stage 2 fees were for 3 items together)… So I don’t think that’s always the case.
On the whole tho, that’s probably true a lot of the time.
I just checked. It’s 1,200 standard fee per order, and 300 per item (so like if you get a set of 8 books, it’s still 300), plus insurance is free with most of the shipping services. Shipping is estimated, and then they update it once it’s actually there. There might be internal shipping to pay, but sometimes the seller pays it.
So depending on what/how much you’re getting, that’s not bad at all
Yeah, I was just talking about that series. It’s definitely not the case all the time, though it’s surprising how often it’s not a huge benefit to buy in bulk used. For example, I was looking into Summer Time Render, and it’s actually cheaper to buy the whole series new on CD Japan than to buy it used on ebay. Kinda wild.
Yeah a lot of the sellers on eBay are banking on ppl not using the JP websites to order. I’ve gotten some good deals there, but sometimes it’s criminal.
I’d really love to buy オレが私になるまで new regardless, just to support the author, but what can ya do
It’s a choose your own adventure book! If you get the ocean one, you can join us in the next book club! The only problem is it’s out of stock on normal retailers like CDJapan, so I had to order it with a proxy service. (This whole order came from a proxy service because I didn’t want to pay all their fees for just one item.)
Would depend when the bookclub is as I’m limited on funds this month after being off work unpaid I was putting an order in around mid to end of October depending on how short my wages are at the end of September.
My current basket on CD Japan is about £200 including delivery but the book is showing back in stock through them so will be on my list as soon as I can buy it. Maybe I can catch up if the bookclub is still on by the time I get it though
Oooh, thank you for posting this! I’ve been low-key interested in the club for a while but forgot about it, but a Pacific Ocean theme looks awesome! Will try to join if I can.
), so I got a lot of books!! 
Thank you so much, I am still so grateful and slowly working my way through all of them 
I was putting an order in around mid to end of October depending on how short my wages are at the end of September.
but the book is showing back in stock through them so will be on my list as soon as I can buy it. Maybe I can catch up if the bookclub is still on by the time I get it though 
