GunStarHero Posted June 24, 2020 Share Posted June 24, 2020 (edited) Around the time places started going into quarantine, I was checking out this Japanese proxy service you could use for auctions. There are several auction sites operated in Japan and, without someone to help you ship them (or even buy them in some cases) you can't even use these sites outside of Japan. Websites that help you get around this have been around for a long time, and there are plenty to choose from, but I was admittedly nervous about picking the right one. Can't say with certainty I got the best one, but the service I ended up using, Jauce, worked well enough for me. Jauce is an aggregate site that allows you to shop at multiple Japanese auction sites, as well as some online stores like Amazon Japan. Their premise is simple: you deposit money to bid/buy with, once an item is yours, it ships to the Jauce warehouse in Japan, you can allow multiple items to collect at the warehouse and/or pick a good shipping time from there. Easy enough. I wasn't on board with depositing my money at first but I figured out you could literally just deposit the exact amount needed and then use it to buy what you wanted. There aren't any hidden fees, but there are a couple of additional fees you may not see during your initial purchase. Since this is a Japanese business buying items from Japanese vendors, you have to cover the tax fees, as well. You also may have to pay for shipment to the warehouse if the vendor requires shipment to be paid, as well. Then there's the banking fee, which is a stupid fee Japan is beholden to and is annoying but largely negligible considering how small the amount is anyways. Shipping is the big one here, obviously. I went for a premium shipping cost that covered the insurance of my items, guaranteed I'd get my items with a week of shipment, and would more or less circumvent the Covid restrictions using a coupling of local Japanese shipping services and DHL. Your shipment is calculated first and foremost by weight, and I had some hefty packages, two in total. With all of that I paid about $400. As for the merchandise, the most I spent on a single auction was $26, and my grand total was a measly $96. Just under $500 for everything. Not exactly cheap, but not horrible considering the Covid situation and the premiums I paid for my package. I would say, without all the bells and whistles and just using their ordinary shipping service (when it's available again) I wouldn't expect most stuff to ever break $200 for total shipping fees. I just didn't want my stuff sitting on a boat for 3 months or whatever. The super cheap cost of the items I purchased was the allure, but evidently Japanese vendors have a "junk" section, which is where most of this came from and why I kept shopping around. I would regularly see the same items for sale for way more than what I paid for mine, and this is because I hunted down the vendors with junk sections, so a laserdisc set sold by one person was also for sale for about $5 by another. Really odd but upon seeing how amazing the condition was for practically everything I purchased, I was shocked that these items were labeled "junk" to begin with. Works for me, though. Anyways! Enough of all that crap, here's most of what I bought (lots of pictures included): Sailor Moon Pretty Guardian purse - $5 (retail appears to be around $50) Spoiler Cowboy Bebop 1999(?) Poster/Advertising Laserdisc, VHS, and DVD release - $4.50 Maximum the Hormone 2013 Tour Shirt - $20 (Back) Spoiler Trigun Complete Series Laserdisc Boxset - $26 More of the boxsets Spoiler Individual Laserdiscs The rest of the laserdisc collection and the Satellite Times newspaper, which was included with each disc: Spoiler Outlaw Star Laserdisc Complete Collection - $5 The rest of the collection: Spoiler Evangelion Laserdisc Boxsets - $19 Boxset #1: Contents of Boxset #1: Spoiler Boxset #2 Contents of Boxset #2: Spoiler Boxset #3: Contents of Boxset #3: Spoiler Rurouni Kenshin Boxsets - $10 Boxset #1: Contents of Boxset #1: Spoiler Boxset #2: Contents of Boxset #2: Spoiler Boxset #3: Contents of Boxset #3: Spoiler Boxset #4: Contents of Boxset #4: Spoiler Boxset #5: Contents of Boxset #5: Spoiler Boxset #7 (I was unable to find #6): Contents of Boxset #7 Spoiler @CAC @DBZ4ever @DragonSinger @Mix @Top Gun @Ginguy Edited June 24, 2020 by GunStarHero 8 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GunStarHero Posted June 24, 2020 Author Share Posted June 24, 2020 For anyone wondering, I don't actually plan to watch any of these laserdiscs. I love the art and presentation found in a lot Japanese laserdisc, especially special editions and boxsets. These are more for decoration around my house. I was surprised to find all of these had their original inserts and most still had sleeves. The life-sized Kenshin poster was a shocker, to be sure. Not sure what to do with that. The Evangelion sets all had laserdisc jackets that folded open and had little comics inside and information about the series. Really neat to see, same with the Trigun newspaper that was placed into every jacket. If anyone has any questions or wants to see something I didn't show well/at all, feel free to ask. Also here's the giant stack of laserdiscs from my haul: 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mix Posted June 24, 2020 Share Posted June 24, 2020 (edited) Edited June 24, 2020 by Mix 1 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PokeNirvash Posted June 24, 2020 Share Posted June 24, 2020 It's crazy how a lot of the cool promotional arts for these classic shows come from/are used for the LaserDisc releases. Very cool stuff. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ginguy Posted June 24, 2020 Share Posted June 24, 2020 That is a legendary haul of some really cool collections. Hopefully you can get the posters and some of the other collectable pieces framed and displayed. Particularly the Satellite Times and the Bebop poster, those would look great framed. Awesome job, I hope you enjoy them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DragonSinger Posted June 24, 2020 Share Posted June 24, 2020 I only know of Maximum the Hormone's Death Note songs, but that is a badass shirt. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Top Gun Posted June 24, 2020 Share Posted June 24, 2020 Not 100% sure why I got tagged in this but goddamn that is a sweet haul. I knew Laserdiscs had some gorgeous box art, but that's amazing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GunStarHero Posted June 24, 2020 Author Share Posted June 24, 2020 18 minutes ago, Top Gun said: Not 100% sure why I got tagged in this but goddamn that is a sweet haul. I knew Laserdiscs had some gorgeous box art, but that's amazing. Tagged you cause seemed to like a previous, similar post I made. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hidden Posted June 24, 2020 Share Posted June 24, 2020 nice purse. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chapinator_X Posted June 24, 2020 Share Posted June 24, 2020 Awesome finds! Might be an abrupt question, but are the discs region-free or do you have a disc player that’s compatible with them? Things have gotten easier to play on devices in the States, but I’ve had to second-guess DVDs to get cause they wouldn’t be able to run on my players. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GunStarHero Posted June 24, 2020 Author Share Posted June 24, 2020 1 hour ago, Chapinator-800 said: Awesome finds! Might be an abrupt question, but are the discs region-free or do you have a disc player that’s compatible with them? Things have gotten easier to play on devices in the States, but I’ve had to second-guess DVDs to get cause they wouldn’t be able to run on my players. I'm not too informed about this but as I understand, all my Japanese laserdiscs would play fine on an American player. I heard PAL laserdiscs are the only other kind besides NTSC. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gina Szanboti Posted June 24, 2020 Share Posted June 24, 2020 What a bitter pill among that haul to not be able to find Vol. 6! Hopefully the rest can soothe that frustration. Really beautiful sets. My instant thought on seeing the Kenshin poster was framing it, but then I thought that they should've used some of the truly frame-worthy art seen in the sets for a large poster like that. It's like a dakimakura in paper instead of fabric. If you find one or both of these promo posters from Woodpecker's Detective Agency on sale somewhere next time you're shopping, let me know. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MasqueradeOverture Posted June 24, 2020 Share Posted June 24, 2020 LaserDisk art is something alright. I feel like packaging as a whole has devolved with each format (most UHD discs are slapped into a pathetic bare plastic case with the most generic cover image possible). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GunStarHero Posted June 24, 2020 Author Share Posted June 24, 2020 9 hours ago, Gina Szanboti said: What a bitter pill among that haul to not be able to find Vol. 6! Hopefully the rest can soothe that frustration. Really beautiful sets. My instant thought on seeing the Kenshin poster was framing it, but then I thought that they should've used some of the truly frame-worthy art seen in the sets for a large poster like that. It's like a dakimakura in paper instead of fabric. If you find one or both of these promo posters from Woodpecker's Detective Agency on sale somewhere next time you're shopping, let me know. I was happy enough to even find the Kenshin sets I did buy. They are pretty rare in general. I've seen the entire collection on eBay go listed at $600+, and the sets themselves are so uncommon, there are almost no pictures of them anywhere online. Not to mention the back of the boxes say they originally retailed for an absurd $220 PER box set. These things obviously did not sell well at that price but I was thrilled to get 6 of the 7 box sets for a mere $10. Yea that Kenshin full body poster has some lame, generic art. It's something I'd expect from a magazine foldout poster, not a $200+ box set. I did a cursory search for that series and found nothing. It may be listed under a slightly different name, though. For instance, Yu Yu Hakusho was actually Yuu Yuu Hakusho, which I only discovered after searching "Hakusho" and seeing most items had Yuu Yuu and not Yu Yu. Who knows, maybe they have it somewhere under some other name. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GunStarHero Posted June 24, 2020 Author Share Posted June 24, 2020 7 hours ago, MasqueradeOverture said: LaserDisk art is something alright. I feel like packaging as a whole has devolved with each format (most UHD discs are slapped into a pathetic bare plastic case with the most generic cover image possible). I'm constantly finding laserdisc art, often from Japan, that blows me away. It's like vinyl art for movies. I hate that box art is just this generic crap most of the time. Makes the package feel less valuable. Its sorta like how video games used for have manuals inside with cool, unique art and info but now you might buy a game that literally only has a dlc code in the box and nothing else. Just a shame. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GunStarHero Posted June 25, 2020 Author Share Posted June 25, 2020 Here's some examples of Japanese laserdisc art that I like. Of the ones shown, I only own Se7en. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GunStarHero Posted June 25, 2020 Author Share Posted June 25, 2020 Just realized I didn't even include Se7en, so here it is: 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DragonSinger Posted June 26, 2020 Share Posted June 26, 2020 3 hours ago, GunStarHero said: Just realized I didn't even include Se7en, so here it is: I was thinking earlier 'Did she spell seven differently or did she mean the movie?' When I have some real time to myself, I'm gonna get one of our laser disc players fixed so I can start watching movies on it again. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.