Surprisingly it only took 3 days for the goods to go from Japan to NZ with DHL. (Shipping cost is about 8,800yen but then EMS is roughly the same anyways so....)
But for some reason Kalafina Record is not there in the package... have this ever happen to your parcels?? I have submitted a question to Tenso site and just waiting for response now.
YAY!!!
WOW! That really was fast! But yeah, that's a hefty shipping fee for sure 🫣 DHL and EMS are always so expensive🤮Then again, all shipping from Japan is crazy expensive these days😔. If possible, I always go for Air Mail but it's super slow and not very convenient. I realise that DHL is much better in that regard (especially since they determine any import taxes and custom fees for you early on during the shipping process so you can just pay via card before the arrival and skip the lengthy procedures at the local customs office - at least that's how it has been for me in the past).
As for you question, no, that has never happened to me before. I'd have to know more about your specific situation in order to provide some useful advice.
Did you purchase the items yourself and had them sent to your Tenso address or did you use Buyee as a proxy service to make the purchase for you? You only mention Tenso but Buyee is technically a Tenso service as well so I just wanna make sure we are on the same page here.
Did you order all the items from the same seller/store? It's best to check your original order(s) and see if everything was actually supposed to come together at the same time or if there's still an item that has yet to arrive at the warehouse (some of these things can take really long unfortunately depending on the seller).
Did the items arrive separately at the warehouse or in one package? Usually, Tenso/Buyee asks you to confirm the content and lists the number of items in the package so at that point, you should have noticed that the number of items didn't match up with your initial order.
Have you already checked the warehouse to see if there's anything registered that has yet to be shipped? Maybe a new/recent arrival?
In case you applied for consolidation, is it possible that you forgot about one of the packages (containing "Kalafina Record")?
I hope you will hear back from their customer service soon. Usually, they are quite fast at handling this sort of stuff.
I'm holding a grudge against all the YouTubers who promoted sponsorships with Buyee because it's the worst Japan proxy I've used.
For one, their coupons only really work if you're spending a lot on products, like over 10,000 yen, which for sites like Mercari, you're probably not spending that much anyways.
Second, it refuses to work with certain shops for no reason, like Suruga-ya, which Rakuten and ZenMarket are able to do.
Third, it piles up more service and shipping fees on you than the competitors.
Posting this in the tags of every popular gacha game I can think of so I can warn people not to use a particular Japanese iTunes card-selling service. For those unaware, iPhone users can purchase Japanese iTunes codes so they can buy in-game currency for Japanese mobile games (usually gacha games).
I'd been using a site called JapanCodeSupply for a bit to buy cards in order to buy in-game currency for my one and only gacha game, Magia Record. It was going okay one day until they sent me a code that had been previously used. Obviously upset by this, I went to their customer support on Twitter and asked for a new code. After doing a bunch of steps to confirm that I wasn't scamming them, they sent me a new, unused code. I figured it was a fluke and moved on.
A few weeks later, I bought another card (this time for a much larger amount) and once again recieved a used code. I was once again pretty upset but decided to go to customer support. They had me go through all the steps again to prove I wasn't scamming them... and then sent me a canned response about how their code system "had a 100% success rate" and how they would not be giving me a new code. No matter how many times I argued, I kept getting generic, canned responses from their support team.
I opened up a case on PayPal (which I had used to pay the site) and am currently waiting for my case to be resolved. This happened back in late August and I wasn't going to say anything until the case closed, but what pissed me off is that JapanCodeSupply was silent for weeks after I opened the case until I escalated it. Then they just provided a tracking number (what? it's a digital order, there would be no tracking number), presumably in the hopes that the PayPal overseer would be overworked, see a tracking number, and decide in their favor.
So yeah, fuck this company. They knowingly send out used codes to people and then refuse to reimburse them even after they provide the evidence the company themselves asked for. If you want an alternative place to buy Japanese iTunes cards, I recommend PlayAsia instead. I have had zero issues with them and they are overall a far more reputable company.
How I Found a Pair of Unobtainium Kits and used a Proxy Service to Increase My Backlog by Two
First and foremost, this is not sponsored. I don’t even take sponsors for my comic – the thing that is effectively my career – so there’s no way I’d do so for the thing I do as a fun hobby. This is all me and my personal experience using a proxy service to buy stuff from Japan.
Anyhoo! What follows is my experience using the proxy buying service called Buyee to purchase a pair of Catsith kits on the Japanese version of the Mercari website. I went into this knowing that many a Retro Tech and Gunpla YouTuber I’ve watched has used it to get stuff. Figured I’d give it shot.
I have had on my old “Kits to Buy” list the HG Catsith – a cute looking grunt suit from the series Mobile Suit Gundam: Reconguista in G (G-Reco for short) – for a while now. It's been sitting on one of my Amazon Wish Lists for so long it’s kind of become a marker for old stuff that never really comes up for a decent price. I say “Decent" because the lowest price it’s ever popped up at was around like $40? It usually runs around $60 or more if it ever pops up for sale.
This is a kit that's Supposed to be priced between $15 to $24 give or take where it's coming from.
Unlike the Hero suit, the G-Self, the Catsith is stuck in relative obscurity thanks to Bandai never reprinting the thing. It may be a Grunt suit but it’s not like a GM or a Zaku. Most of the other characters ended up with fancier mechs that got their own kits. That and G-Reco isn’t all that popular compared to some other Gundam series so you don’t end up with random reprints for the toy hungry fanbase.
Time passed and I’d recently found that it’s harder to find neat stuff for my various family members and myself for the holidays and whatnot. My getting the younger folks into Anime and video games is proving to be double-edged sword. Now… I've known about proxy services like Buyee for a while now. They tend to be talked up in Retro Tech and Gunpla videos as a place through which the various YouTubers have purchased stuff. Having seen their results so many times, I figured it was time to give it a try.
Setting up an account was easy enough. Nothing really too different from setting one up at any other online shop. The one thing that’s really different is it's more akin to the old Metacrawler search engine. You can select the shop you want to search but I kinda’ just winged it and tried out Mercari. No rhyme or reason to it. Just the one I though might have something neat that wasn’t a straight up auction site.
At first, I just kinda’ popped in “Gundam" and saw what dropped. Then I remembered something important: It's searching Japanese sites. It makes more sense to use the language of the folks who post things there. So I took a leap and looked up the Catsith’s Japanese name and BAM! I got a whole bunch of hits. Not just the usual “This is a Gundam Kit” results that I normally get searching English language sites but actual kits – both prebuilt and unbuilt kits. It was here I found a listing for two unbuilt kits.
Needless to say, I bought it as soon as I could.
Now things get fun.
Whenever I do something like this (buy something through a site I’m personally unsure of), I use my PayPal account. It acts as a buffer between my personal bank account and the site if things get squirrelly and, if it works, acts as a buffer between my personal bank account and the site if I decide to go on a spending spree. The more steps I put between myself and buying things, the better I am at not putting myself into debt.
I say this because I’m kinda’ to blame for the added time on getting these into my grubby little hands. It took a bit to transfer funds into my PayPal account to use on both buying the items and paying for shipping. -.-
The price for the two kit bundle came out to 4300 Yen or $30.50 at the time of purchase. That’s 3800 Yen for the item, 300 Yen to Buyee to buy the item, 500 Yen for their in-house checking and a 300 Yen coupon to save a Little bit of money on the whole dealie. This all gets the package to Buyee’s warehouse. They can hold stuff there free of charge for 30 days. You can also buy more and consolidate it later… but this time I did a single package.
After some doing and some waiting on money transfers on my end, we get to the hardest part of any international buying: Shipping!
Buyee gives a Bunch of options for shipping. Everything from fairly quick choices to ocean shipping that will take months. Needless to say, I took them up on their Buyee Air service that would take around a week to get here. It cost me 5188 Yen or $37.05 for the one package. Again, Proxy Services (or just international shops that let you consolidate items) tend to work best when you buy multiple items. That’s when shipping gets low enough to not be more than the original item.
All in all, I’m in $67.55 for two kits that would’ve run me about $7 less if I could find and buy just the one on a site like Amazon. The time from start to finish was a little under two weeks. I ended up with not one but Two unobtainium kits and a way for me to shop for the Holidays when my nieces and nephews ask for items that just never come to or came stateside. = )
- Buyer purchases some twisted wonderland goods. Items has arrived and ready for shipping
- Due to buyer circumstances, delayed the shipping. Which I agree to keep the items until January. Most proxy has storage period and that’s why I agreed to keep the items to January.
- Buyer refuse to process shipping even if I’ve offered extended storage period. Told me to find another buyer and ask refund for items.
For anyone else: please understand items have been purchased and paid. I cannot offer any refund if it’s buyer circumstances.
If you don’t want the items anymore, please find another buyer and sell the items yourself. It’s not my responsibility as a proxy to resell your items.
Also, if the said person read this post: I was about to offer you if you want me to sell this on auction site and ONLY refund if the item is sold. But you block me first, so it’s your lost.
That being said, I don’t think I want to do the effort putting the items for sales anymore.
Thanks, I don’t want to deal anything with you anymore.
This is a supplement to my previous posts about buying stuff from Japan. Even for stores that offer English versions of their sites (Amazon Japan, Mandarake), using titles and keywords in kanji/hiragana/katakana will usually get you the best search results. Fortunately, getting the title for a specific Japanese series isn’t hard as long as Wikipedia has a page on it, but figuring out the keywords to narrow your search for specific goods can be more difficult. Below are some of the most common merchandise terms, along with some others that may be of use for the overseas otaku.
アクリルスタンド=acrylic stand (a character/image cut out of acrylic that stands on a base)
バッジ=badge (usually a pin back)
ブロマイド=“bromide (a photo or print, usually of an actor or character)”
カレンダー=calendar
ケース=case (phonecase, etc.)
クリアファイル=clearfile
コースター=coaster
コラボカフェ=collaboration cafe (a tie-in cafe that usually includes limited edition goods)
コスプレ=cosplay
フィギュア=figure
イラストカード=illustration card (a bonus given with manga or other goods)
色紙=shikishi (a thick paper board used for illustrations)
キーホルダー=keyholder/keychain
リトグラフ=lithograph
ノート=“note (notebook)”
ぬいぐるみ=nuigurumi (stuffed toy)
パンフレット=pamphlet/programme for a show, movie, or performance
ピン=pin
ピンバッジ=pin badge
トランプ=playing cards/“trump”
ポストカード=postcard
ポスター=poster
シール=“seal (sticker)”
下敷き=shitajiki
スマホクリーナ=smartphone cleaner (a small piece of special cloth)
ステッカー=sticker
ストラップ=strap (usually a charm on a cord used to decorate phones, etc)
