# How to buy figures from Japan

The box, not the tag price, usually decides if the shipment makes sense.

Estimates only. Not a quote, not a customs ruling, and not an offer to sell or ship. Confirm fees, prohibitions, and duty with the proxy and with destination customs. Figures can change after the last-verified date.

JapanLanded may later earn a commission when someone uses a referral link. Affiliate enrollments are not in place, so outbound links are public pages, not tracked referrals. We do not sell the goods. Names of proxies and products are used to describe them and are their owners' trademarks.

Data as of 2026-10-15. Dataset 2026-10-15.3.

## What buyers say, as buyers

r/Buyee and r/AnimeFigures both treat figures, including prize and ichiban items, as a core proxy purchase. Comments say Mercari and Yahoo Auctions are often cheaper than retail for prize figures. That is a crowd report, not a price study. Other comments worry about Buyee's packing and lean toward ZenMarket for expensive figures. Those are preferences, not fee schedules.

A separate thread on Buyee versus ZenMarket shipping is mostly about domestic postage showing up later and about exchange-rate spreads. No spread is stored here, and we do not convert currency.

- [r/Buyee: what do you buy on proxies](https://www.reddit.com/r/Buyee/comments/129d32z/what_do_you_buy_on_buyeeother_proxies/)
- [r/AnimeFigures: proxy services](https://www.reddit.com/r/AnimeFigures/comments/1ign8mv/proxy_services/)
- [r/AnimeFigures: Buyee vs other proxies](https://www.reddit.com/r/AnimeFigures/comments/wcv420/buyee_vs_other_proxies/)
- [r/AnimeFigures: which proxy](https://www.reddit.com/r/AnimeFigures/comments/192stco/what_proxy_service_should_i_use/)
- [r/Buyee: Buyee vs ZenMarket shipping costs](https://www.reddit.com/r/Buyee/comments/1j38i0w/buyee_vs_zenmarket_shipping_costs/)

## Boxes and the blank lines

The research flags figure boxes as large and tells you to watch volumetric weight. This estimator does not compute it. Pass the greater of actual and volumetric weight if you already know it.

Above ¥200,000 of merchandise, Buyee adds a postal customs-brokerage fee. The sample is far under that. US duty is a separate on-arrival question and is not priced.

- [Buyee fees guide](https://buyee.jp/helpcenter/guide/fees/?lang=en)
- [CBP factsheet on suspension of duty-free de minimis treatment](https://www.cbp.gov/sites/default/files/2025-08/factsheet%5Fsuspension%5Fof%5Fduty-free%5Fde%5Fminimis%5Ftreatment.pdf)

## Worked example

4500 yen, 600 g, United States. Export check: nothing in this dataset blocks export to United States. This is not a customs clearance.

| Proxy | Pay now, known | EMS reference |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Buyee | ¥5,150 – ¥6,500 | ¥4,180 |
| ZenMarket | ¥5,300 | ¥4,180 |
| Neokyo | ¥5,350 | ¥4,180 |
| Tenso | ¥4,780 | ¥4,180 |
| FROM JAPAN | ¥4,500 | ¥4,180 |
| White Rabbit Express | ¥4,500 | ¥4,180 |

These partial sums are not a landed total. No cheapest and no fastest proxy. Domestic postage, payment fees, and the proxies' own international rates are missing or ranged, and no transit times are stored. Naming a winner would invent a number.

## Steps

1. **Copy the yen price.** Read the price on the listing yourself. JapanLanded does not fetch the page.
2. **Weigh it, or say you didn't.** Enter grams. If you leave weight blank, the tool uses an unsourced placeholder and labels it.
3. **Read pay-now separately from arrival.** The partial sum is not a landed total. Duty amounts are not calculated.
4. **Check whether it can leave Japan.** Lithium batteries, alcohol, and 100 V gear each have their own note. The result is not a customs clearance.
5. **Order on the proxy's own site.** Outbound links are public pages until affiliate programs are enrolled. We never take payment.

## Questions

### Should I buy the figure on eBay instead?

We do not have a price-comparison study. Run the yen price through the estimator and compare that partial sum with the eBay total yourself.

- [r/Buyee: what do you buy on proxies](https://www.reddit.com/r/Buyee/comments/129d32z/what_do_you_buy_on_buyeeother_proxies/)

HTML: https://japanlanded.com/buy/figures