My order from Yokatta, an online shopping service from Japan, came in today. The order shipped out Nov. 31st with SAL (no tracking). I guess the order hit holiday shipping delays, the same way my bk1 orders have (which I will blog about later). This is my first time using Yokatta so I have to say I was a little uneasy when the shipment didn’t come after 4-5 weeks. I emailed them about it and they replied that there wasn’t anything they could do about it, so all I could have done was wait. Glad that nothing happened to my package and it arrived in one piece \(^_^)/.
My Order:
As you can see, I have four items in my order. It was actually two separate requests placed into one service order. Mai-HiME FanBook Vol. 10 by Doropanda Tours (ShizNat doujin) was a Yahoo JP Auction item. I got it for 1000 yen + 800 yen service fee (700 yen + 10% item’s final value) + 280 yen (shipping & bank wiring fees for auction), which is around the price of ordering Doropanda Tours ShizNat doujins from Mandarake, but they didn’t have this volume. The seller rated it as condition: B, but it arrived like what looks like perfect condition to me… I don’t see anything that could really degrade it to an “average” rating. I guess Japanese people have stricter grading policies. I’m not complaining.
I thought I’d end my order there, but then I thought it’d be a waste to just order one item from a deputy service when they could hold items for up to 4 months before shipping. And one of the reasons I chose Yokatta out of all the other deputy services, is because they only charge 700 for up to 3 items for web orders (not auction). So of course, I had to ask Yokatta to place another order from Tora no Ana. The three items I asked for was…
Natsu Kage (夏陰) by circle: Yubisaki Studio (ユビサキスタジオ) / author: Hidari Kagetora (左カゲトラ)
Mai-HiME FanBook Vol. 12 (トリコ仕掛けと優しいケモノ) by circle: Doropanda Tours (どろぱんだTOURS) / author: Nanzaki Iku (南崎いく)
Kimi no Tonari (キミのとなり) by circle: Waterfall / author: Takano Saku (嵩乃朔)
The Package:
The order came in a pretty plain-looking hard cardboard(?) package. They lied in customs.
Inside was a white cardboard package along with a Amazon.co.jp packaging slip. I’m guessing it’s in case customs opened the package to check its contents. I was confused at first, but then I realized my doujins were inside this package.
Conclusion:
I could recommend this place if you’re looking to order doujinshi that you can’t get anywhere else (like Mandarake) and have the money to spend. As a shopping service, this place is a little cheaper than other places I’ve looked into in terms of service charge, but they could be ripping me off in other fees. The service charge is 700 yen for up to three items, which is cheaper than Ash when your items exceed 584 yen each. But as I mentioned, they might have added a few hundred yen here and there, for example, the shipping charges at Tora no Ana, and whatever other fees you may have to pay. I can’t exactly tell though, since I don’t know how much Tora no Ana charged for shipping & handling. I think I’ll still use this service if the fees are well over Ash’s service fees, but in this case, there were pretty comparable so I was probably better off going with Ash.
(Aside: Just FYI, I’ve never read anything from Yubisaki Studio/Hidari Kagetora. I just happened to come across this doujin, which looked appealing enough, and I didn’t have anything else I wanted at the time, so I added Natsu Kage to my order. I haven’t read it yet so I can’t share my experience with this circle/author yet. In terms of the other books, I like Waterfall and Doropanda Tours’ ShizNat doujins so I don’t think I can go wrong with those circles. I will consider writing a blog post about these doujins after reading them, but that may or may not happen.)
Without Restraints 
Hey so there’s something i wanted to ask..since you bought it from one of the bookstore in Japan then does the language too came up in japanese or do u bought an english version one (if there’s any though) ? I mean are you japanese yourself so that’s why it’s ok for you to buy it? Also was it worth a money spent? I haven’t read it yet so i don’t know,so sorry for rambling though im just curious and i tend to do that when im nervous too..ok well hope for your reply soon and care to tell me about this Yokatta shopping service? thanks :)
Hi Syifa,
The doujinshi that I bought is entirely in Japanese. I am not Japanese, but I’ve studied Japanese and could get my way through with the help of a dictionary for unknown words. They do not have English versions, I believe, but typically doujinshi has the possibility of being translated into English by fans. In the case that you are looking for translated yuri (doujinshi or not), in America, Seven Seas Entertainment translated a few yuri series so you’d be able to buy some from them. If you’re looking for translated doujinshi, you could try Dynasty Scans at http://dynasty-scans.com/. They put up yuri manga/doujinshi from multiple scanlation groups.
Personally, it was like Christmas when I got the order =D, so it was well worth it for me. Yokatta shopping service was also decent and if you read my conclusion, I also talk about when I think the service is considered “worth it” compared to Ash at http://doujin.dojin.com/.
Hi thanks for your reply,that’s really sweet..However yeah I think I’m gonna pulled off this one since i couldn’t speak japanese nor ever learn about it but I’ll manage ..oh and those sites are very helpful thank you :3 sorry for the grammar fails btw..english isn’t my first language :O ok well thanks again!
p.s – those doujinshis of yours are really cool,ugh im jealous,there i said it,sue me ^^
p.p.s – just something to get you to reply this in which way much longer ..ok so there might be countless tons of manga at your place (then again i wouldn’t know!)..can you listing all of your mangas,animes,doujinshis collections here? (eee i know im evil haha
p.p.p.s – if u remember where you put it that’s it :))
p.p…..s – i’ve lost count of numbers of ‘p’ then i might as well gone for real,k bye!
Haha, good luck! Btw, doujinshi is a bit harder to read than regular manga books in terms of kanji and furigana. There is often no furigana on top of kanji in doujinshi, but in regular manga books, there is so it would be easier to look up words in those.
I have quite a lot of books that make my room look quite messy (both english and Japanese)…I don’t know if I’d be able to list them all. At some point, I did take pictures of my orders when I intended on posting about my bk1 orders (before honto bought bk1), but now they’re just sitting in my harddrive lol. I don’t own a lot of doujinshi actually, but I do have about half a drawer of them.
Tbh this conversation makes me wanna learn more about Japanese. I’ve thought on learning a few languages for awhile tho so might as well get started with this one. I actually quite bummed since i don’t even know what furigana is..uh oh..anyway yeah i agree,once you found a latest manga edition,there’s no time to think bout where you going to put them hence why i need a new self to stack on all of my books..i don’t even have any of doujinshis collection,i just borrowed them from one of my friends who have it :D altho i really wanted one for awhile..if there’s any of doujinshis auctions will you let me know?
Haha, yea, it’s good to learn languages while you’re young, easier to stick to the mind. I actually learned hiragana before college, then when I went to college, I took Japanese courses to learn the foundations. For doujinshi, I think it’d be better if you just went to Japan to get them (there are stores that sell them solely in Japan, Melon Books and Tora no Ana), or if you’re really desperate, go with shopping services like Yokatta. I think any site that sells doujinshi in the US will mark up their prices and sell it to you, which is not worth it, because then you could just buy it cheaper from Japan Yahoo Auctions through a shopping service.
I wouldn’t bother with Yokatta if I were you. I ordered a figure from them back in July – one Kirameki Silver Sword Princess. It got released January 10th but no one bothered informing me that they had it in stock / ready to ship out. So I sat and waited like an idiot for a month. And when I finally tell them to ship it, it took them over a week just to get me a quote. Further, I’m reasonably sure they overcharge on shipping. From previous experience, the size of package I got from them did not warrant a 3400 JPY shipping fee. Finally, the figure was missing a part when I did get her in.
I wouldn’t bother with their service. Instead, try RiderProxy or Buyee
Hey, thanks for posting your experience here. I had a similar experience with Yokatta not telling me or sending things when they received it, in this order actually, but I still received all my stuff intact. I’ve modified my other page w/ the list of proxy services to take them out my recommendation. Perhaps their service has changed a lot since I used them.
I’ll definitely look into RiderProxy and Buyee. Both services seem to have reasonable rates and I may give them a try sometime. Thanks for recommending them!