RoyalBlue Wrote:Where did you dig up this old topic?

Originally visual_jei had posted brief comments on a bunch of years-old topics about buying manga and tacked on boilerplate spam about buying from his site. I guess the spam bit got edited out but not the tips.

Anyway, Kinokuniya http://www.kinokuniya.com is the site that has the $8 flat shipping, free shipping for orders over $100. Unfortunately, that's only a U.S. offer, and there aren't any branches in Europe as far as I know. (There are, I believe, branches in Australia and all over the Asian continent, but I don't know what their shipping policies are.)

Just for the record on the earlier conversations, bk1.jp is now honto.jp.

Europe is such an awful place to be an otaku

I'm not sure if I can return

SomeCallMeChris Wrote:There are, I believe, branches in Australia and all over the Asian continent, but I don't know what their shipping policies are.

Their Australian site says $7 standard shipping throughout Australia. Which is pretty good, but their prices are really high. Even with free shipping it looks like it would be pretty bad value.

Rakuten is good for buying secondhand manga (and other books, games, et cetera). Stores on Rakuten that ship internationally will mostly only use EMS, but you can get really good prices on the comics themselves and there's an excellent range. Manga is fairly light, so the postage cost per volume isn't that bad as long as you order at least a dozen or so at once.
They also have cheap international shipping promotions sometimes.

[RawToast]

dizmox Wrote:Europe is such an awful place to be an otaku

I'm not sure if I can return

It's not bad if you live near a major/capital city. In London there is a Japan Centre and a Mitsukoshi department store on the same street (think there is only one shop between them.) You can buy raw manga from either for the original price marked on the back.

Only problem for me is I have to commute for 2 hours to get there

RawToast Wrote:

dizmox Wrote:Europe is such an awful place to be an otaku

I'm not sure if I can return

It's not bad if you live near a major/capital city. In London there is a Japan Centre and a Mitsukoshi department store on the same street (think there is only one shop between them.) You can buy raw manga from either for the original price marked on the back.

Only problem for me is I have to commute for 2 hours to get there

You can also get JPBooks to mail stuff to you. I had them order a book direct from Japan, and it arrived within 5 days.. very reasonably priced too

Lol. Thanks for busting me SomeCallMeChris. I didn't even realize the date on this thread. Hey Royal Blue, does customs ever hold you back? Or were you just exaggerating about a luggage full of manga?

I want to keep up my reading when I return to the states but I'm afraid I don't want to deal with dragging too much luggage. Has anyone here ever tried to ship a large amount of books from Japan? Personally, not through shopping online.

And re-reading the thread, yes, the $8 shipping I mentioned, it's Kinokuniya.

visual_jei: I posted about 6kg of books from Japan to the UK through JP Post. I chose the slowest postal method and packaged them up according to their Printed Matter rate instructions on their website (box not sealed, wrapped with paper and string so that it can be opened).

It took just over 3 months to arrive and I had no problems with it. I don't think customs even opened it, but books are VAT (sales tax) free in the UK... Can't recall exactly how much shipping cost, though it'll to be different sending stuff to the States anyway. I just remember it being reasonable. Hope that is helpful.

Smelliot Wrote:

SomeCallMeChris Wrote:There are, I believe, branches in Australia and all over the Asian continent, but I don't know what their shipping policies are.

Their Australian site says $7 standard shipping throughout Australia. Which is pretty good, but their prices are really high. Even with free shipping it looks like it would be pretty bad value.

Rakuten is good for buying secondhand manga (and other books, games, et cetera). Stores on Rakuten that ship internationally will mostly only use EMS, but you can get really good prices on the comics themselves and there's an excellent range. Manga is fairly light, so the postage cost per volume isn't that bad as long as you order at least a dozen or so at once.
They also have cheap international shipping promotions sometimes.

Approx. how long does shipping take from Japan to Europe, with EMS?

Stansfield123 Wrote:Approx. how long does shipping take from Japan to Europe, with EMS?

EMS say 3 to 5 days worldwide, which has been accurate for me in Australia.
But in my experience, with Rakuten there can be a bit of a delay before the product is actually shipped. After you place the order, the shop confirms their stock and emails you with a postage quote. You then have to send a confirmation email before they send the package.
Looking back through my email history, it seems to be about a week between placing the order and actually having it sent out. But of course Rakuten has a lot of different shops, and some of them might be more efficient than others.

Thanks guys, I'm dreading the thought of packing, but it's good to get this stuff done way ahead of time. I'm also thinking about looking into this option of having it sent in some big bag option. I read about it awhile back, don't know if it's still offered in Japan, but if anyone does, please send me a message so we don't clock this thread. Thankyou!

Also, I want to add to the old topic that there are a lot of manga in Japanese on the U.S. Amazon.com site now that is dirt cheap. But that's if you don't get brand new titles. Or, if you search for really popular ones that are abundant, their prices are usually comparable to domestic prices.

If you are in Singapore, you can try Kinokuniya at Takashimaya.