Shopping Guide
HELP / FAQs
By onemall 
TL;DR
There is no single “Japan figure store.” There are four separate supply channels, and the one an overseas collector needs depends entirely on which kind of figure is wanted. Search once for a Japanese figure shop and you will land on a retail site that sells current pre-orders; the figures people actually want — prize figures, Ichiban Kuji prizes, sold-out scale releases — were never sold in a shop at all.
- Four channels, not one — new retail (hobby chains and maker stores), prize (arcade crane machines, run by amusement operators, never retailed),[5] kuji (an in-store paper lottery run by BANDAI SPIRITS),[4] and second-hand chains.
- The famous names split cleanly. AmiAmi runs an English storefront for new and pre-order stock;[9] Good Smile Company sells its own Nendoroid and figma lines through its own English shop;[3] Mandarake serves its order site with an English interface;[2] Suruga-ya states plainly that it ships overseas but only for some items, at rates that differ from domestic.[1]
- Prize and kuji figures have no retail price, so “is this a good price?” is a question only the second-hand market can answer. That market is Mercari Japan and Yahoo! Auctions, and neither one ships abroad.[6]
- Cheap route — a proxy places the order at a Japanese shop for you. Cheapest route — buy the same figure second-hand on Mercari Japan, where a prize figure that cost the arcade operator nothing to distribute lands around $10, and consolidate several boxes into one parcel.
- The real risk is condition wording, not fakes — for boxed figures the words 新品未開封, 開封済み and 箱痛み decide the price, and the counterfeit problem is concentrated in a handful of hot licences rather than the category as a whole.
This guide maps the Japanese figure retail landscape as of August 2026: who the shops actually are, which of them a foreign buyer can use directly, why the best figures are not in any of them, and the cheap versus cheapest way to get one out of Japan.
Why “Japan Figure Store” Is the Wrong Search
Japanese figure retail is not organised the way Western toy retail is. A Western collector thinks: manufacturer makes item, shop sells item, shop runs out. In Japan there are three separate distribution systems running in parallel, and only one of them is a shop.
Retail is what it sounds like. A maker announces a scale figure, opens pre-orders through hobby retailers, produces roughly to order, ships once, and never produces it again. Miss the pre-order window and the retail channel is closed forever — this is why re-run announcements are news.
Prize figures (プライズ) are made for amusement machines. They are supplied to arcade operators, not shops, and are won out of crane machines.[5] Boxes carry 非売品 — “not for sale.” They are usually the cheapest way to own a large figure of a character, and they are physically impossible to buy new at retail because there is no retail.
Kuji (一番くじ) is a paper lottery. You walk into a convenience store or hobby shop that stocks the campaign, buy a ticket, and get whatever prize the ticket names — every ticket wins something, and the final ticket takes a ラストワン賞 “last one” prize that is not otherwise available. The official BANDAI SPIRITS site runs a store finder for exactly this reason, and it now also runs an online arm, 一番くじONLINE.[4] The campaign runs for days, the stock is gone, and after that the prizes exist only second-hand.
So when an English-speaking collector asks “which Japan figure store should I use,” the honest answer is: it depends on which of those three systems the figure came out of, plus a fourth — the second-hand chains that absorb all of them afterwards.
The Store Map
Here is the landscape a Japanese collector actually navigates, and what each name is for.
| Name | What it is | What you go there for | Buying from overseas |
|---|---|---|---|
| AmiAmi | The largest dedicated hobby retailer; heavy pre-order business | Current and upcoming scale figures, model kits, at a standing discount off maker list price | Runs its own English storefront[9] |
| Good Smile Company Online Shop | The maker’s own shop (Nendoroid, figma, POP UP PARADE) | Exclusives and bonus-part editions you cannot get elsewhere | Has an English shop of its own[3] |
| Mandarake | Second-hand specialist; Nakano Broadway is the flagship | Out-of-production scale figures, vintage, doujin, the deep back catalogue | Order site serves an English interface[2] |
| Suruga-ya | Enormous second-hand chain across games, media and figures | Cheap used figures in volume; the bargain end of the market | States it ships overseas, but only some items, at different rates[1] |
| Animate | Anime goods chain | Character goods, store-bonus items, joseimuke lines | Domestic focus; treat as a proxy target |
| Volks / Yellow Submarine / Jungle | Specialist hobby shops | Dolls (Volks), games and kits, used display pieces | Domestic focus; treat as a proxy target |
| Mercari Japan / Yahoo! Auctions | Consumer marketplaces | Everything above, after the fact — prize, kuji, sold-out retail[6] | No overseas shipping at all — proxy only |
Check the shop’s own shipping page before you assume. Japanese retail policies change, and several chains ship abroad for part of their catalogue and not the rest — Suruga-ya says this explicitly.[1] If a shop’s page does not name your country, that is the answer.
The Vocabulary That Decides the Price
Every figure listing in Japan is priced off a handful of words. Learn these eight and you can read any listing on any of the sites above.
| Japanese | Meaning | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| 新品未開封 | New, unopened | Top of the market. The box has never been opened, so the figure is assumed mint. |
| 未開封 | Unopened | Same idea, weaker claim — often used for older stock that has sat on a shelf. |
| 開封済み | Opened | Displayed or inspected. Usually 20–40% below sealed for the same item. |
| 箱痛み / 箱ダメージ | Box damage | The figure may be perfect. If you plan to display it, this is free money. |
| プライズ | Prize (crane machine) | Never had a retail price.[5] Large, light, unpainted-eye detail, cheap. |
| 非売品 | Not for sale | Printed on prize boxes. It does not mean rare. |
| ラストワン賞 | “Last one” kuji prize | The prize for the final lottery ticket.[4] Genuinely scarce; carries a premium. |
| 正規品 | Genuine article | Sellers use it to distance themselves from bootlegs. Treat as a claim, not proof. |
Prize Figures Are the Overseas Collector’s Best-Kept Secret
A prize figure is manufactured to a target cost that assumes a player will spend a few hundred yen on a crane machine to win it. Because it never carried a retail price, the second-hand price is set purely by how many exist and how much people want that character — and the answer, for most characters, is “a lot exist” and “moderately.” That is why a large, well-sculpted figure of a popular character routinely resells in Japan for the price of a sandwich.
The catch is availability. Prize distribution is tied to the amusement business,[5] so a campaign lands in arcades, gets won, and then everything about that figure lives on the second-hand market. There is no shop to order from, in Japan or anywhere else. A proxy is not a convenience here; it is the entire mechanism.
Cheap vs Cheapest: Three Live Examples
“Cheap” is the retail route: a proxy places a pre-order or an in-stock order at a Japanese shop, pays with a Japanese card, receives it domestically, and forwards it to you. That is the only way to get a brand-new current release with the store bonus attached.
“Cheapest” is the second-hand route, and for figures the gap is wider than in almost any other category, because two of the four channels never had a retail price to begin with. Three live listings on Mercari Japan[6] at the time of writing — one from each channel:
Look at the spread. The retail Nendoroid — a mass-produced item that anyone could have pre-ordered — costs more than the Last One kuji prize that only one person per campaign box could win, which in turn costs more than double the prize figure. That ordering is not an accident; it is what happens when three different distribution systems dump their output into one marketplace.
How to Buy a Japanese Figure From Abroad: Step by Step
- Identify the channel first. Look at the figure’s box in any photo. 非売品 or a prize-line brand name means it was never retailed; a kuji prize letter (A賞, B賞, ラストワン賞) means lottery; anything else is retail.
- If it is a current retail release, try the shop directly. AmiAmi[9] and Good Smile Company’s own shop[3] both run English storefronts, and Mandarake’s order site serves English.[2] If your country is served and the price is fine, you do not need a proxy for that order.
- For everything else, search in Japanese on the second-hand market. The character name in katakana plus the line name works best: ねんどろいど plus the character, 一番くじ plus the series, or the prize brand name. Add 新品未開封 to filter for sealed.
- Read the condition wording, not the headline. 開封済み on a figure you intend to display costs you nothing. 箱痛み costs you nothing unless you collect boxes.
- Check the seller’s photos for the actual figure. A listing that shows only the manufacturer’s promotional render is the single most common warning sign in this category, on any site.
- Buy several and consolidate. Figures are light and bulky, so international shipping is charged on volumetric weight. One box with four figures beats four boxes by a wide margin — this is where a proxy that holds purchases pays for itself.
- Check your import threshold before you commit. The United States revoked its $800 de minimis exemption on 29 August 2025, so US-bound parcels are dutiable regardless of value.[8] Japan Post’s suspension of US-bound mail ended on 14 April 2026, so EMS and Sea Mail are running again with published per-destination rates.[7]
Sealed is not always better. For prize and kuji figures the boxes are thin, the paint is applied thickly, and a figure shipped sealed rattles in a box designed for a crane machine, not an aeroplane. If the listing photo shows the figure out of the box in good condition, that is often the safer purchase.
What Proxy Fees Look Like
Service fees are charged per item and are capped, which is exactly why the maths turns in your favour on ten-dollar prize figures and on multi-item carts.
| Source | OneMall service fee | Min | Max |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mercari / Mercari Shops | price × 3% | ¥200 | ¥300 / ¥1,000 |
| Yahoo! Auctions | (winning bid + tax) × 3% | ¥200 | ¥300 |
| Rakuten / Suruga-ya / ZOZOTOWN | price × 3% | ¥50–¥200 | ¥1,000 |
| Any other Japanese shop, incl. hobby retailers (LinkBuy) | price × 5% | ¥200 | ¥1,000 |
For reference, competing proxies charge flat per-item or per-order fees as of 2026 — Buyee ¥500 per order, ZenMarket ¥500 per item and ¥800 for Mercari, Neokyo ¥350 per item. On a ¥1,480 prize figure, a percentage fee with a ¥200 floor is simply a smaller number than a ¥500 or ¥800 flat charge, and across a cart of six figures the difference is the price of a seventh.
The Bottom Line
The question is not which Japan figure store to use. It is which channel your figure came out of — and for two of the four channels, there is no store on earth that can sell it to you new. OneMall buys on Mercari, Yahoo! Auctions, Rakuten and Amazon Japan from one account, holds purchases for 90 days so a scattered want-list becomes one box, and can place an order at a Japanese hobby shop’s own site through LinkBuy. Hunting a specific line? Our Pokémon trainer figure guide and Genshin Japan-only goods guide go channel by channel, and the Suruga-ya guide covers the cheap end of the second-hand chains. New to proxies? Start with the cheapest proxy fee comparison and the best-proxy buyer’s guide. Ready? Search live figure listings on OneMall.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which Japanese figure store ships internationally?
Several of the big names run their own overseas-facing storefronts — AmiAmi has an English site,[9] Good Smile Company sells its own lines through an English shop,[3] and Mandarake’s order site serves an English interface.[2] Suruga-ya states that it ships some items overseas at rates that differ from domestic.[1] The consumer marketplaces where most sold-out figures live — Mercari Japan and Yahoo! Auctions — do not ship abroad at all, which is where a proxy comes in.
What is the cheapest way to buy figures from Japan?
Prize figures bought second-hand on Mercari Japan through a proxy, consolidated into a single parcel. They were distributed as arcade prizes rather than sold at retail,[5] so their second-hand prices are set by supply alone and routinely sit around $10 for a large figure.
What does 非売品 mean on a figure box?
“Not for sale.” It marks an item that was distributed outside retail — usually a crane-machine prize. It is a description of the distribution channel, not a claim of rarity, and it does not prevent the owner from reselling it.
What is Ichiban Kuji and can I buy the prizes?
It is a lottery run by BANDAI SPIRITS: you buy a numbered ticket in a participating store and receive the prize your ticket names, with a special ラストワン賞 for the last ticket in the box. The official site runs a store finder and an online arm, 一番くじONLINE.[4] Once a campaign ends, the prizes exist only second-hand.
Are figures from Japanese marketplaces fake?
Mostly no, but counterfeits do concentrate in the hottest licences and in the premium scale lines. Judge the listing rather than the category: real photographs of the actual item from several angles, a box with a maker’s licence mark, and a seller with feedback. A listing that shows only the manufacturer’s promotional render deserves no benefit of the doubt.
Should I buy sealed or opened?
If you are displaying it, buy opened and save 20–40%. If you are reselling later, buy sealed. 箱痛み — box damage — is the best value in the category for a display buyer, because it discounts the packaging rather than the figure.
References
- Suruga-ya, official customer guide (取り扱い商品について / 海外発送). https://www.suruga-ya.jp/man/customer_guide/index.html
- Mandarake, official order site (English interface). https://order.mandarake.co.jp/order/?lang=en
- Good Smile Company Online Shop, English storefront. https://goodsmileshop.com/en/
- 一番くじ倶楽部, BANDAI SPIRITS official Ichiban Kuji site (store finder, 一番くじONLINE). https://1kuji.com/
- Bandai Namco Amusement, official site (amusement-machine prize business). https://bandainamco-am.co.jp/
- Mercari Japan, official marketplace. https://jp.mercari.com/
- Japan Post, EMS international service and rate tables. https://www.post.japanpost.jp/service/send/oversea/list/delivery/ems/index_en.html
- International Trade Administration, de minimis value guidance. https://www.trade.gov/de-minimis-value
- AmiAmi, English storefront. https://www.amiami.com/eng/
Last updated: 2026-08-11.