Who Knows Some Good LEGIT Japanese Toy Sellers?
 

Or rather, trustworthy sites who carry Japanese toys......frankly, never could figure out the whole shipping through an intermediary thing, and most Japanese sites I've found that do ship to the US charge upwards of $100 shipping if you want your package in less than 3 months. I'll take what I can get though, cause MAN......I REALLY want to buy that re-release of Soul of Chogokin Big O, but "Big Bad Toy Store" has it marked up at OVER $100 THE REGULAR ASKING PRICE! Sadly, they're also the only site that I know is 100% legitimate that actually has it up for pre-order. >< Thing supposedly comes out this month (according to BBTS at least) and it's not even on "Hobby Link Japan"? HOW THE HECK!?!?!

.........sorry, super frustrated here. ^_^; Between BBTS, HLJ, and Amazon, I've always been pretty much set. Now that I'm starting to find items they don't carry (or charge a stupid amount for........seriously BBTS, NOT COOL), I'm not sure where it's safe to look. Google has been pretty much useless lately. I mean, the second result for "Soul of Chogokin Big O" was a news article announcing the release......according to the preview, as the link ACTUALLY took me to some Forbes news article totally unrelated. Seriously, can Google BREAK? 'Cause I think I've broken mine.

Sorry if it looks like I've been spamming the forum lately. ^_^; A tad obsessed with getting my hands on this figure, and Toyark is kinda my only source for decent information (again, Google is ZERO help for me). This is the last thread I'll bug folks with about the Big O thing, promise! Though I DO have to ask, any chance someone will start a sticky thread that lists trustworthy online retailers, maybe with pros and cons for each? That would be a REALLY helpful tool! .....of course, there's a halfway decent chance we already have one of those, and I just missed it. I'm beginning to think I'm cursed when it comes to search functions of any kind.:P

Well, the thing with Big-O is that he's a Web-Exclusive release, meaning he is only sold through the Premium Bandai Webshop which only ships to a Japanese address. Retailers like Hobby Link Japan don't sell this stuff. There is a western outlet for it but they don't sell everything the Japanese one does and sometimes Blufin imports Web-Exclusive items but not always.

In the case of the Big-O reissue, neither of them offer it as far as I know, meaning a middleman service is your only option to go with, or you have to pay the markup of stores like BBTS who raise the price accordingly since they have to jump through the loops of obtaining stock themselves too.

I guess paying a middleman service is the best option but they themselves will raise the price too to make a profit and I don't know how much they charge for shipping to the US.

I only really know Nippon Yasan, they offer a shipping calculator I think so the next time you want to pre-order a Web-Exclusive item that isn't sold through the western Bandai web shop or Bluefin you could check there.

I just looked up the Big-O reissue on Nippon Yasan and they still have it up for pre-order, the price is only about 1000¥ more than what Bandai demands, so I would check that out, see if the shipping price is reasonable and get my order in there. If the shipping is really expensive you might want to go with BBTS regardless even if it stings, I don't know any other options.

The link is here: https://www.nippon-yasan.com/figures...d-edition.html

Aside from Web-Exclusive releases Hobby Link Japan and AmiAmi are my go-to retailers for importing Japanese figures. But I have no access to Bluefin either so I don't know what works better for you price wise.

Hobby Link Japan

HLJ.com

swing and a miss.

Re-read OP post, sorry about that.

I buy from AmiAmi a lot. They will occasionally carry new Premium Bandai Shop exclusives at a reasonable mark up.

They also get "used"* items in, sometimes at a good price:
AmiAmi [Character & Hobby Shop] | (Pre-owned ITEM:B/BOX:B)Soul of Chogokin GX-48 Big O(Released)

Sometimes not so good:
AmiAmi [Character & Hobby Shop] | (Pre-owned ITEM:A-/BOX:B)Soul of Chogokin - Expansion Parts Set For GX-48 Big O [Tamashii Web Exclusive](Released)

I've used Rinkya as a middleman service for over ten years. It's expensive, but 100% reliable in my personal experience.

* The used items I've bought are usually fairly pristine.

no bigs, happens to the best of us.

Nippon Yassan or mykombini get exclusives for not too big a mark up assuming you order early. I think HLJ just used to get the Yamato/Arcadia exclusives.

No idea if they sell that figure, but I used Japan-Select for a Figuarts order and they were very good.