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Review: Ordering Anime Figures from the Mandarake Website!

Posted on February 15, 2021 | Leave a comment

Last February, I’ve posted my experience on ordering anime figures from the AmiAmi website and this time I will be sharing with you another credible website where you can get buy not just anime figures but also dolls, books, magazines, cards, and a whole lot more under the same spectrum.

MANDARAKE was established in 1987 as a pre-owned manga dealer in Nakano Broadway. Now Mandarake is known as one of the largest manga and anime stores in the world.

Placing an order through the Mandarake website is pretty easy. First, you go to their website: https://www.mandarake.co.jp/ and choose your preferred language – available languages include Japanese. English, Spanish, Italian, Chinese and I believe the other one would be Russian (this needs some verification though). Creating an account is very easy too – the website will prompt you to create one before being able to check out: Here’s the link where you can sign up: https://my.mandarake.co.jp/pre/?lc=en (this is in English, so feel free to change it.)

It’s very easy to navigate, you have the option to choose the category on the drop down if want to zero-in on your search but what I do is I usually keep it on “All Items” which gives me more opportunity to see more related products. The thing about Mandarake is that it will show you all of the related products based on the keyword you entered, so this is when you try to filter your searches because it will show you EVERYTHING – including the sold out items from all of their 14 locations nationwide that includes Sahra, Nakano, Complex (Akihabara), CoCoo (Akihabara), Shibuya, LaLaLa (Ikebukuro), Nayuta, Nagoya, Utsunomiya, Umeda, Grand Chaos (Osaka), Fukuoka, Kokura and Sapporo.

Now this is very important because each store actually has separate shipping since they will be coming from different location so if at one transaction for example, you placed orders from three multiple stores, you will be getting three different shipping quotation about a day, or two after placing your order.

Here’s their complete FAQ page for your reference: https://earth.mandarake.co.jp/help/faq-en.html

I’ve only placed multiple order once because I don’t want to missed the opportunity to get the item that I’ve really been looking for a long time and I guess, to make it worth my money I also added small items in it. I was so glad that the shipping was very minimal. The website offers DHL Express, EMS, Registered SAL and Air Small Packet as shipping option and I usually choose EMS, and I’d get the item in about a week.

Here’s that one multiple order I was referring to:

I really just wanted the Nendoroid Petit Edward Elric but I’ve decided to add these cute Bandai Demon Slayer straps because of their size and I pretty much guess that it won’t make a difference on the shipping since it will be placed in a smaller box via EMS based on the guidelines. I was even able to sell them locally for about $27!

And here’s the other order from another location (Shibuya)

You see, it really is very easy to use the website and receiving a bootleg is almost zero. As they’ve mentioned on their FAQ page – all of their products are carefully checked by their staff with the help of their own large database.

So for those of you are who are looking for ‘affordable’ figures (at least more often than not) – Mandarake is another place you can go to, just have to be very careful and wise when placing your orders!

Review: Ordering Anime Figures from AmiAmi

Posted on March 15, 2020 | 1 comment

I’ve ordered Anime figures from AmiAmi three times now, and I thought I’d let you know about my experience ordering from their website. First, you should know that AmiAmi actually has a physical store located in Akihabara, Tokyo, Japan.

Address: Akihabara Radio Kaikan F4, 1−15−16, Sotokanda, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 101-0021, Japan (source)

I’ve only been to Japan once and I never got to visit Tokyo so I really missed out visiting Akihabara in general but I found out about the store from friends who are fans of anime figures and have been ordering from amiami.com for a while now.

Being one of the largest shops in Akihabara, they offer a lot of figures – brand new, on bargain sale, pre-owned, as well as pre-order items! Take note that their shop is separate from their online shop which may offer different rates!

My first online order with them was May of last year. I thought I’d try ordering four Nendoroid first. I’m a fan of Bungo Stray Dogs and I just couldn’t resist ordering the Osamu Dazai and Chuya Nakahara Nendoroid figures! I was so glad that the Good Smile Company decided to rerelease them and I got them with discounts from AmiAmi! Such a sweet deal!

The ordering process is easy. First, you go to their website: https://www.amiami.com/eng/ – this is the English version, and it’s also in Chinese. I didn’t create an account first, but once your check out – it’ll prompt you to create an account which is easy peasy too!

The website is very easy to navigate and is very straightforward. There is a category list which includes: Figures, Toys Categories, Scale Models, Character Goods, Book & Games and a lot more. And there is a ranking for New Products, Sale Items, w/AmiAmi bonus, Pre-Owned Items and Bishounen Items. I regularly check the Sale and Pre-Owned items haha!

I haven’t tried pre-ordering from them but they have an FAQ in case you’d like to try it yourself. Of the three instances (so far) I’ve order from them, I chose to combine the shipping of each order since they’re “In-stock.”

In ordering, all you need to do is add your chosen items to your cart and once you’re ready to check out, fill out the necessary information that includes your mode of payment, shipping method and contact information.