This is my first time trying out the Goody Japan deputy service to bid on a figure on Yahoo Japan Auctions. It was fairly painless, as I signed up, made an initial 100 yen deposit from my Paypal, and then went hunting on YJA for my Megahouse Ranka Lee Hobby Japan Limited Edition! Normally you would only be able to get this figure pre-ordering it through Hobby Japan magazine, and only one thousand will be made (or so they claim).
The reason I wanted the Hobby Japan edition is because I have an uncontrollable urge to get limited figures whenever I see them, and because I lurv Ranka, and because her hair in the regular version of this figure is some sort of snot/booger shade of green:
While the limited version is much closer to the deep green shade she sports in the Macross Frontier anime. Plus the white pantsu make her just seem so much more innocent and moe! So after finding an auction for this figure, I then filled out a Bidding form on the Goody Japan website. If you can’t read Japanese while browsing YJA, Google Translate is your friend! Because my bid was above 5000 yen, I had to make a deposit to Goody Japan’s PayPal account with my maximum bid before they would make the bid for me. After that, it was just the waiting game.
Victory was mine though, and now I am waiting for them to calculate the final cost from domestic and international shipping, as well as their commission fee. So far, Goody Japan has been quick with the e-mail notices, and everything has been generally painless. I will definitely use them again if I get my Ranka in my hands safe and sound.
I also saw that Banpresto was releasing another Ichiban Kuji line of figures, and this time around it was the Lucky Star gang cosplaying as the cast of Macross Frontier, with Konata as Alto-hime, Kagami as Clan, Tsukasa as Ranka, and Miyuki as Sheryl. After wiping the drool from my chin, I then went to Toys Logic as I knew they had the Macross Frontier set on pre-order before that I unfortunately missed, meaning I had to track down my Ichiban Kuji lovelies through auctions after they got released. This time, I was much faster on the draw and managed to snag the pre-order on Toys Logic.
There are still some pre-orders of Konata and the gang left too, so snag them before they are gone!
I also am trying out Joseph Tsai’s Tokyo Hunter service for this Dengeki Daioh-exclusive Aisaka Taiga from ToraDora!. Joseph is a fellow who lives in Tokyo who will order these exclusive magazine order figures for you if you don’t live in Japan and ship them too you, obviously with a commission tacked on. His asking price for Taiga here is 10,000 yen, and that’s without shipping, but I figure that it will still be cheaper than what I will see for her later on Yahoo Japan Auctions.
Joseph works through PayPal as well, and he is pretty fast on the e-mail responses, so I am confident here in my purchase.
I still have my regular pre-orders from HobbySearch on top of this rare stuff too, but I unfortunately won’t be getting around to them until next month, as I am still in the hospital going through my surgeries. My first lumbar puncture is tomorrow, wish me luck!
3DComplex 
Despite the urge to get Aisaka Taiga, I thought his asking price was kinda pricey. If it was including shipping then I might consider it.
I’m gonna play the waiting game and hold it out. In time, I might find it cheaper but I get the feeling I doubt I will. T_T
You mind exchanging links?
I was looking to get it at another online seller for cheaper, but they had run out of pre-orders when I checked them.
I don’t mind exchanging links at all. Added you to my blogroll.
GoodyJapan is pretty awesome in terms of service. Somewhat recently I bid on a rare Comiket 75 art book by Tinkerbell and they were quick to bid and get it for me. I shipped SAL and received it in 5 days once they received it from the Yahoo Seller. Their commission is cheaper than other deputy service providers (JapaMart and JapanToDoor to name a couple).
I have a penchant for getting rare figures as well. I’ve got 6 lined up in the next 6 mos. Nendoroids Otome Asakura, Staccato Nao, and Racing Queen Miku + 1/8s Kotobukiya Taiga and Shantiti and Ne-jyu by Tinkle. Got lucky with Taiga…10,900 yen with EMS ship.
I wish Nendoroid Saber Lily was an exclusive…that would make lucky number 7.
Yeah, I was looking elsewhere first for Taiga, but the pre-orders had ran out, so I went with Tokyo Hunter. Rare Nendos were hard to find in Japan for some reason, but maybe I wasn’t looking in the right locations.
How much did you win for the rare Ranka? I mostly see 10,000yen for it on Y!Auction now. ;-;
I won her for around 13000 yen, I had set my max to 15500 yen and it was at 10500 yen for the longest time, but someone bid her up in the last hour. That bastid.
I say you’re still lucky. The average auction for her now on Yahoo! is well over 13,000 yen. xD
Congrats on the limited preorders. I, too, have an insatiable hunger for limited items. That price for the Taiga figure is a bit steep even for me. I got her for less than $80. Geez, I wasn’t half expecting for that Megahouse Ranka Lee figure to be that much. I am not quite sure, but I was informed that she was a lottery, but I don’t know if my friend misunderstood. I preordered the figure, but never got any type of cancellation email. Here’s hoping my preorder stuck.
I was slow on the uptake with the Taiga figure, so now I have to pay the premium for it. But I’ll expect her to be even more on eBay or YJA (especially after the commission and additional domestic shipping fee from using a deputy service). I remember getting the MaxFactory Taiga for around $50, and now I see her for $250 on eBay O_O.
Goody Japan is pretty awesome in terms of service and speed. So far I have gotten every DD thru them and it’s been fairly straight forward. Glad to see you got your rare figure.
Wolf, your blog post on Goody Japan was one of the first things that came up when I was looking for a good deputy service, and it one of the things that steered me to them. I forgot to thank you in my blog post though, but thanks man!
I am glad to be of assistance, I wrote that blog post because the unknown of venturing into YJA has kept me at bay for so long. So when I got hooked onto DD, I had no choice but to venture into YJA. After the fairly painless experience, I decided to spell out in plain English just how much does one has to pay to get the item they want using real life example. Since my blog is build around sharing information, that fit well with my charter as well.
Would you like to share blogroll with me?
I can only imagine how much the DDs cost through Goody Japan, I\’m glad I haven\’t fallen for that money pit yet.
Of course I would like to share blogrolls! Added you to mine.
I only use Goody Japan for all my Yahoo Auction Japan (YAJ) bids too. They are reliable and have the lowest commission rates.
I don’t use Tokyo Hunter because his prices are too pricey for me. I am not an expert but I have been around YAJ long enough to know I can get the figures I want at a lower price than what he quoted.
The price you pay for Ranka is like “Ouch!”. You must have love her loads to pay that kinda money. For me, I would wait for the Megahouse/AlphaxOmega’s Nyan Nyan version of Ranka which is thankfully a normal release.
Btw, you will come to know that auctions on YAJ truly come alive only in the last few hours. ^^”
I just saw that Nyan Nyan Ranka, and she looks awesome! Is there any release date or pre-order date set on her yet?
At least YJA auctions usually have the auction extension on, so when someone bids in the last few minutes or so, the auction is extended. I’ve had so many sniping competitions on eBay where I was madly refreshing the page in the last few minutes of the auction.
Nothing yet although she is slated for autumn release, so likely November I guess. We will probably see her at WonFest Summer 09 next month.
I can understand. Auctions are always so fustrating.
Congrats on winning that Ranka. I want to get that Ranka too. How much was your winning bid might I ask?
That Taiga is quite tempting too since she’s so adorable in that swimsuit. I might consider dropping MegaHouse’s Taiga and get this instead.
Thanks for the info.
My winning bid was around 13000 yen, and my max was 15500, so that was how much I had to deposit initially. I saw her go as high as 15000 and other bids were around 10000 when I last checked them (mine’s started off at 7000), so I guess I was in the middle of the road in terms of how much I snagged her for.
Yeah, the MegaHouse Taiga wasn’t so much to my taste, something was just off with the face, and plus I already had the MaxFac Taiga in the same school uniform, albeit without the bokken.
[…] is the figure that I bid for on Yahoo Japan Auctions through Goody Japan, which I discussed in an earlier post. She is now in my possession safe and sound. With that, I will definitely recommend Goody Japan to […]
[…] through a pre-order through Hobby Japan magazine. I described obtaining this figure in an earlier post, from Yahoo Japan Auctions through the Goody Japan deputy service. While a more simple figure than […]