Japanese Merchandise & Middleman Information
Created and Maintained by:
Athena & Shining Raikou
This guide will serve as a resource for all of our collecting community at PokéBeach. Please feel free to suggest additions to the resources by posting here or PMing Athena or Shining Raikou. We hope you will find this information useful in finding your most wanted Japanese goods, or discovering fun things you didn't know existed!
The Basics
Because Pokémon originated in Japan and is generally more popular there than it is elsewhere, Japan gets a lot of cool merchandise that isn't sold in the US and elsewhere, such a large variety of toys, TCG products, plush, household items, clothing, and more. Much of these things are relatively easy to purchase over the internet via international sites, and parts of this guide will help you find where to look for certain goods. You can also use a middleman service to allow you to bid and purchase items from Japanese sites such as Yahoo! Japan, Amazon.co.jp;s official Pokémon Store, and more. This is a great tool for those who aren't fluent in Japanese or who don't have a friend living in Japan to buy them stuff that can't be bought elsewhere! There is a bit of a learning curve, but most services are not very hard to use, and the stuff you buy on these websites can often be turned around and sold in PokéBeach Marketplace if you find some rare goodies or cheap bundles of Pokémon toys!
Website Resources
Japanese Retailers:
Directly importing Japanese TCG cards and merchandise yourself is often cheaper than ordering from importers. There are several Japanese companies that cater to international customers, and often you can buy product for MSRP or cheaper. Make sure that you are aware of potential shipping costs (and customs fees) before you order, since shipping from another country is usually slower and more expensive.
AmiAmi: A Japanese warehouse retailer whose primary focus is selling figures and trading card products. They have a very large selection of Japanese Pokémon merchandise, including Japanese language TCG Cards, TCG products, figures, candy toys, and more.
Play-Asia: A large exporter that focuses primarily on Japanese video games and associated merch. You can use them to buy Japanese versions of the Pokémon video games and related video game accessories, as well as electronics accessories and a few toys and figures.
CDJapan: A site that sells a large variety of Japanese media. They are one of your best sources for purchasing Japanese DVDs, CDs, or Blu-Rays, and also carry some other merch, including books.
HobbyLink Japan: One of the largest sites for importing Japanese fandom-related items. They specialize in models and toys. Their Pokémon selection primarily includes toys and plush.
Hobby Search: Another large Japanese figure and toy exporter. They have a large selection of Pokémon toys and models.
Amazon Japan: Although the Japanese Amazon site sells a large variety of Pokémon merchandise of all sorts, only media items (books, CDs, DVDs) can be exported. Purchasing any other items will require a forwarding service or middleman.
Specific Japanese Pokémon Resellers:
These are a handful of sites that specifically cater to Pokémon fans looking to acquire product from Japan. They are an excellent source for some products that cannot be acquired from traditional retailer websites, such as Pokémon Center merchandise. However, they do charge commission fees, so they are usually expensive for more common goods and are best used to specifically acquire those rarer items.
Sunyshore: Sunyshore is run by just a small number of Pokémon fans directly for the collecting community. They pick up most of their product in person from the Tokyo Pokémon Center and specialize in plush, figures, and other toys. A great source for new and recent Pokémon Center merch!
PokéVault: Formerly known as “Hardrock-Pokemon”, PokéVault specializes in rare Japanese merchandise, TCG, and other items. They are an excellent source for old and hard-to-find plush, promos, and older Pokémon TCG cards and sets.
American Sites That Sell Imports:
Buying from an importer is often more expensive than buying directly from Japan, but has some benefits, such as easy shopping and faster, cheaper shipping.
Animeraro: This toy and collectible site is based on California and sells a variety of imported and domestic Pokémon toys.
Collector’s Cache: A Trading Card specialist company based out of Kansas. They sell Japanese TCG booster boxes, packs, promo sets, and some card-related merchandise, like sleeves and deck boxes.
Crunchyroll: In addition to their anime streaming services, they also have a site that sells some Pokémon figures and plush, and even some old Japanese booster packs.
ToysLogic: This California-based anime merchandise site sells some imported Pokémon goods, such as capsule toys, plush, Kids, and more.
Auction Sites:
Ebay: Easily the most well-known auction site. Through Ebay, you can buy Japanese Pokémon merchandise and TCG products from sellers all over the world. However, be very careful about bootlegs!
Yahoo! Japan: Yahoo! Japan is the premiere auction site within Japan. You can find a very large selection of new, old, used, and rare Pokémon cards and merch through there that can be difficult to acquire. However, in order to purchase items from there, you need to use a middleman service.
Middleman Services
Some Japanese websites do not sell to foreign customers, such as Yahoo! Japan’s Auctions and Amazon.co.jp’s Pokémon Store. In order to purchase from these websites, you need to use the services of a Middleman, which is a company that will bid and/or purchase items on your behalf and ship them to you. These companies charge service fees on top of the purchase and shipping prices for an item and typically also require a deposit, so make sure to read up on your chosen service’s terms and information before placing an order.
NOTE: To use a middleman service for purchasing or bidding, you place orders/bids directly through the middleman’s website. Do not make a Y!J or Amazon.co.jp account and try to bid or order items yourself.
Shopping Mall Japan: SMJ has bidding and purchase services for a large variety of websites for Japan and other Asian countries. Their Service Info page details their service fees, deposits, and other useful information, and they also have a Tutorials page to help new customers understand how to bid and shop for items.
Noppin: Noppin offers bidding and purchase options for a large variety of Japanese websites. They have detailed fee information available for both auctions and shopping, and also a thorough FAQ for help. For auctions, they allow bids of up to 3 times your current deposit.
Treasure Japan: Treasure Japan offers bidding and purchase options for a large variety of Japanese websites. Their commissions page also offers a conversion tool to help you understand in advance how much you will be paying for items, and there is also a “how to” page to help you understand the order process.
Celga: Celga offers bidding, purchase, and selling options for a number of Japanese retailers. They have a very simple fee system, allow you to place bids of up to double your current deposit, and also have a premiere membership option that offers additional perks.
FROM JAPAN: FJ offers bidding and purchase options through a selection of Japanese websites. Their FAQ offers a lot of useful information about Japanese auctions and they have a calculator program to easily estimate fees. Most interesting, they have a page specifically dedicated to Japanese Pokémon TCG cards, which may be useful for those new to middleman service sites or with minimal knowledge of the Japanese language.
Avoiding Bootlegs
When it comes to ordering merchandise from overseas, be careful to avoid buying bootlegged products. Not only are bootlegs worthless, poor quality items, but the money just gets funneled back into making more bootlegs. These few simple steps can help you make sure that you are buying legitimate merchandise.
- Buy From Trusted Sites/Sellers: Ordering directly from Japanese companies (such as AmiAmi) or through proven sellers (such as PokéVault and Sunyshore) is the best way of insuring that your products are legitimate.
- Avoid Sellers from China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong: These countries have very lax copyright laws. As a result, they are the source of most bootlegged merch that goes through Ebay and other auction sites.
- Do Your Research: Look up images and prices of your product on official sites, such as the Japanese Pokémon Center site, or official manufacturer sites like Banpresto and Takara Tomy. Compare images to seller photos, and beware of sellers that use stock images instead of their own photos. Read descriptions of auctions to find any potential flaws. Be thorough.
- If the deal looks too good to be true, it probably is: Buying legitimate merchandise can be expensive, especially large plushes, rare promo cards, older items etc. Be wary of any auctions or sales that are offering products significantly cheaper than they should be, since they will likely be bootlegged or defective. Do a quick Google search to see if the item being sold looks odd against the real thing.
PokéBeach Hosted Guides
- "How Much Is This Card Worth?": Feel free to ask questions to help judge the value of rare or unique cards you are looking to trade and/or sell.
AmiAmi purchasing guide, Bootleg Plush guide, and More to come!
Future Contributions
This guide is a work in progress! If you have websites for purchasing or middleman services that you feel deserved to be listed here, please post with a URL and some information about the site. If there's a guide you'd like to see made, please suggest it! If you yourself have an idea for a guide that would be useful to the community, feel free to discuss your idea with Athena or Shining Raikou and your guide can be stickied/added here to help others!
Thank you for reading!
Last edited by a moderator:
