How to purchase doujinshi
shijima June 4th, 2009 8:06 pm
Not sure if people are interested, but here’s a list of how/where I have purchased doujnshi overseas in the past.
I’ve posted some other links too but I can’t vouch for those.
All these options are pretty darn expensive so I recommend this only if you’ve got money to spare!
Basically just double your order total and that’s about right for the final total.
Otherwise try any of the Japanese P2P out there like Share and Perfect Dark. =)
Node list here.
Mail forwarding service
Pros: Order from any website that accepts a credit card.
Cons: Requires knowledge of Japanese.
Jshoppers Forwarding Service - They are a little slow, maybe 2 weeks to get your stuff, but you can’t beat their EMS shipping prices and they have no handling charge!
S&H here is 2000 yen for what would be 4000 yen at other places.
They won’t do COD though.
I mainly buy stuff from Toranoana.
Melonbooks WILL NOT ship to a post office box anymore.
Japan to Door - Their International Forwarding Service is quite fast and can be tracked online.
I’ve deemed them too pricey for mail forwarding and now prefer Jshoppers.
Postty - (From Erin)
Goody-Japan - (From ydy)
Others:
Pakmail - A mailbox rental service. You have to be in Japan to sign up though.
Private Party Purchasing
Pros: Can use English to communicate. Can get rare items.
Cons: Depends on availability of other party. Requires Japanese to search for goods.
Nydela - Ash is a really nice guy and responds quickly.
Miseya - deverilin is a really nice person. Have ordered some Comiket stuff from her before.
Japanese Websites with International Shipping
Pros: Can order using a credit card.
Cons: Requires knowledge of Japanese. May not have what you want.
Mangaoh - Where I get my Sonobira (NSFW) stuff and manga in general.
I don’t really like Amazon.jp anymore since their packaging is a bit flimsy and the boxes are really dusty. They tend to get compressed a bit in shipping though the contents are still safe.
Mangaoh packs things really nicely and ship EMS.
DLSite - It doesn’t really ship since the doujin are digital but it has an English website. The Japanese website has more entries I believe and yes, you can order from that too.
I haven’t ordered from here in quite a while since it was hard to search.
Websites in English Selling Doujin
Pros: No Japanese is required.
Cons: They may not have what you want.
PaletWeb - Touhou doujin (click the Doujin link on the side)
Doujinshi Store - Took a week and a half to respond to my order
Others:
Marblebooks
Auction Proxy Services
Pros: Will let you order from Japanese auction sites. Can find rare items.
Cons: A bit pricey. Ex) Won an auction for 100 yen but at the end I paid 1300 yen
Shopping Mall Japan
Rinkya - According to Erin:
Rinkya has special pricing on doujinshi–their regular prices look awful, but on doujinshi 1000 yen and under, there’s no commission and only 400 yen handling. So a 100 yen doujinshi would be 500 yen plus shipping from Japan; less, if you win multiple auctions from the same seller on the same day (I have saved SO much money this way), because you only pay 400 yen total for handling on all the auctions combined.
Japan Toy - (From Erin)
Goody-Japan - (From ydy)
Others:
Celga
Japan to Door
Shopping Proxy Services
Pros: Will let you order from Japanese sites
Cons: I suppose it will be pricey
I haven’t tried any of these proxy services but I have used them for other services.
Japan Toy - (From Erin)
Goody-Japan - (From ydy)
Japan to Door
Shopping Mall Japan
Rely on friends/family residing in Japan
Pros: The best/cheapest option.
Cons: Requires knowledge of Japanese to order from websites. Are imposing on others. -__-
Simply borrow someone else’s address.
If you’re in college, try looking for someone who is part of an exchange program like JET.
Shipping from Japan can still be quite expensive.
After all that hard work, take a break, wait for the doujin to arrive and enjoy!
And considering that other places will normally only ship express, you can probably even up the total price by having ash send through Airmail or SAL.
I’ve yet to lose a package that way.
Jshoppers is good if you don’t mind waiting a bit.
I liked it better when they were using EMS.
They’re shipping DHL now, but I’ll admit DHL is really fast.
Sometimes after they’ve processed the shipment, I’ve received the package within 2 days to the US.
EMS sometimes gets stuck in Customs for me.
I’ve only shipped my books via SAL when I order with ash and it’s yet to go wrong. Takes exactly two weeks to Melbourne, Australia so I’m not picky.
That doesn’t sound too bad. I’m pretty patient so I think I’ll be okay.
I dislike EMS since it’s kinda expensive even though it’s fast (about four days?).
DHL doesn’t sound like a horrible service (lol Yamato confused me so bad once since they left my mail in the meterbox) so I’ll give it the benefit of the doubt and give it a go. Thanks again for the review.
Please update your bookmark if you have.
I appreciate the rating very good. It helps me work with this area more and more.
Please visit my site and enjoy your time.
Best reards,
ash
Updated. Thank you for all your help as always.
ash
I agree the EMS shipping is very cheap and also every quarter and just recently they had a thing where if you spend over 1500 yen ($15) you get free EMS shipping to anywhere in the world. I bought twice from this campaign and it was great because you can buy ALOT and even heavy items and you don’t pay the shipping cost.
but yes, their campaigns are good and they do have the cheapest shipping which is why I keep using them.
It seeme like JShoppers forwarding service won’t be available until June 30., so I thought this might be a more expensive alternative.
I like how they can combine packages.
But since they don’t do COD, or offer other shipping options other than EMS, I don’t see how it would be any better (or cheaper) than JShoppers
as you pointed out yourself. =)
Would like to ask a question if you don’t mind, does Jshoppers forward NSFW doujinshi? According to their terms and conditions they do not forward obsence material….
Thanks in advance!
I think Jshoppers will either just unpack it and stick it in another box or just put DHL stickers on the Toranoana box.
Thanks a lot for the info!
Just wanted to make sure I got things right ^^;
If I order a CD from toranoana, I can use a non-japanese credit card to pay for it and just use the Jshoppers forwarding service? Also, do they really only charge the fees shown at http://www.jshoppers.com/forward/special.asp?id=shipping ?
Thanks a lot again! ^^
I haven’t had any problems.
And yes, JShoppers seems to charge only the EMS shipping.
Just to let you know.
Shijima will vouch for me (I hope). I charge 700yen on top of the PO shipping rate.
Yuri
It was definitely a pleasure to meet you and perhaps we can do so again
if I visit Japan within the year.