You can get it from Sasuga Books for the low, low price of $533.75.

Ya, Jlist is probably the way to go if you want to subscribe.

If you just want one issue, you could probably just ask a friend who lives in Japan to send you one.

mystes wrote:

You can get it from Sasuga Books for the low, low price of $533.75.

Holy shit, I thought you meant yen at first.

Jlist seem like a great site but damn, only "Famitsu DS plus Wii". I was hoping for weekly Famitsu.

I don't suppose if I did manage to find a sub for that, I'd actually get it pretty much the same time the Japanese would? Does anyone know?

kerosan41 wrote:

There is a subscription option.

Famitsu DS plus Wii Reserve Subscription.  It says "This is a revolving magazine subsciption item. Each issue will be automatically sent to you until you ask us to stop."

Though I imagine with shipping its going to be a bit expensive every week.

That's encouraging, but It's Weekly Famitsu I want not so much Wii/DS only (I have those but I got a PS3 as well see... and I like to keep tabs on the others).

It seems they can send them out to you okay but I wonder how far behind it's release date in Japan?

Last edited by Virtua_Leaf (2008 September 19, 5:56 am)

Virtua_Leaf wrote:

kerosan41 wrote:

There is a subscription option.

Famitsu DS plus Wii Reserve Subscription.  It says "This is a revolving magazine subsciption item. Each issue will be automatically sent to you until you ask us to stop."

Though I imagine with shipping its going to be a bit expensive every week.

That's encouraging, but It's Weekly Famitsu I want not so much Wii/DS only (I have those but I got a PS3 as well see... and I like to keep tabs on the others).

It seems they can send them out to you okay but I wonder how far behind it's release date in Japan?

Hmm, http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00013 … B00013AXXA

You can subscribe through Amazon, but I see you're in the UK... so that might not help you.

Japan center looks like its not do bad a deal.  Maybe go with that?

kerosan41 wrote:

Hmm, http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00013 … B00013AXXA

You can subscribe through Amazon, but I see you're in the UK... so that might not help you.

If you look at the other Japanese magazines through amazon, it looks like some guy went around giving them 1 star reviews after trying it out. It sounds pretty bad:

Don't purchase subscriptions from Amazon or Magazine Express.

The following are my experiences with a subscription to Hiragana Times from Amazon.

This page doesn't tell you is that the Japanese magazines subscribed to on Amazon and filled by a company called Magazine Express are shipped SEAMAIL from Japan which mean you'll recieve every issue 8 to 10 after it's released.

I placed my order in January and it to date have not recieved a single issue. After several phone calls, the Magazine Express people (who fill the Amazon subscriptions) said they had to restart my subscription for the May issues which will take 8-10 weeks due to shipping issues. So after ordering in January, I will not receive a single issue of this uncancelable magazine until possibly in late July. Very poor service.


This is unacceptable for a magazine that most US Japanese bookstores can get within a week or that you can order directly from the publisher for ony a few dollars more. If I had known the shipping policy I would not have ordered and the magazine supplier, Magazine Express will not cancel the subscrition.

I advise avoiding ALL Amazon magazine subsriptions due to their poorly stated policies.

**Update, I wrote this review in June. It is now July 8th and I've just been informed I must wait until August 15th to see if an issue arrives. I ordered the magazine on January 9th and I have had no resolution from either Magazine Express or Amazon who provides no way to contact anyone within Amazon about magazine orders. I reiterate, buying magazines from Amazon if a poor idea.

Edit: I've never used it, but fujisan.com seems to do magazine subscriptions. Unfortunately, they look pretty steep as well; the magazine I was looking at had a $6 or $7 shipping fee that would apparently be charged for every issue in addition to the base cost. I guess it would probably come out to be the same as the other options, but seeing it written that way really seemed painful. I think really I'll just have to pray for ebooks to take over; I would really like to be able to get ユリイカ but I'm not prepared to sell a kidney for it.

Last edited by mystes (2008 September 19, 11:35 am)

I don't think they have Kinokuniya in the UK (unless the overseas shops would ship to the UK?).

I used to subcribe to Famitsu (PS2), which I got from this site:

http://www.mangaoh.co.jp/

Under the 定期購読 option. It's been a long time since I had to cancel my subscription and haven't used the site since, but they were good. They dealt with my (probably poorly written) emails about back issues and special orders and shipping items seperately without any trouble, and AFAIR everything came in good condition as well. You don't really pay for a subscription; they just add a recurring entry to your shopping cart with will add the latest issue each time. So you wouldn't be paying hundreds for a set period, just the price of each issue and shipping.

The shipping might have been high, though, which is why I had to stop using it (that and having no money anyway). I think at the time, they only used EMS for overseas, which got kind of expensive. Checking the site, you'll have to pay at least around ?10 (0.5kg orders) to ?15 (1kg) in shipping. I'd think it'd be worth adding other books/magazines to the order before it ships, otherwise you're paying 1,800 yen shipping on a 350 yen magazine (unless you got them all at end of the month or something, which would be a little better but still shipping charges double what you're buying).

I thought Amazon.co.jp did subscriptions, but can't seem to see it now. But shipping would be an issue with Amazon as well.