Looking for Japanese Music Imports

Augmented · 15 Feb 2007 at 17:17

I'm searching for a few Japanese records/music DVDs, and having quite a bit of trouble finding anywhere in the UK that might sell them. I'm after bands like Tokyo Jihen, GO!GO!7188 etc., not J-Pop.

Does anyone here know of any good online or offline shops for Japanese imports?

I've found cdjapan.co.jp- has anyone used this site before? Also has anyone (who can't read Kanji etc.) successfully ordered from amazon.jp? I'm not sure why they don't just offer the ability to buy from their other locales - would make life a lot easier

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jklc · 15 Feb 2007 at 20:56

CD Japan is reliable. I've ordered from them a few times in the past.. kind of expensive though. Yesasia is good too but it focuses on Jpop/Oricon stuff.

fieldy · 15 Feb 2007 at 21:33

I think Amazon do some Japanese imports, I got my melt banana stuff from there

Augmented · 16 Feb 2007 at 09:08

jklc said:
CD Japan is reliable. I've ordered from them a few times in the past.. kind of expensive though. Yesasia is good too but it focuses on Jpop/Oricon stuff.

Great, thanks for that. I think I'll give cdjapan a go first as it looks like it's got what I'm after. Yesasia's looks good too from a brief rummage, bookmarked for the future. Is it likely I'll be hit for lots of import tax?

fieldy said:
I think Amazon do some Japanese imports, I got my melt banana stuff from there

They do indeed, but it's pretty limited and variable on which artists they actually import domestic-only releases for i.e. artists that don't have international distributors.

fieldy · 16 Feb 2007 at 10:43

Play-aisa do a lot of music stuff, I managed to get a lot of unrealesed (outside of japan) MCM stuff from there

jklc · 16 Feb 2007 at 15:44

Augmented said:
Is it likely I'll be hit for lots of import tax?

Nope, Yesasia do some kind of bulk delivery service to Europe first before delivering to you so no tax on their free/cheaper shipping option. It can take a bit longer to get your stuff though.

Augmented · 16 Feb 2007 at 16:54

fieldy said:
Play-aisa do a lot of music stuff, I managed to get a lot of unrealesed (outside of japan) MCM stuff from there

Nice, thanks, I'll check it out.

jklc said:
Nope, Yesasia do some kind of bulk delivery service to Europe first before delivering to you so no tax on their free/cheaper shipping option. It can take a bit longer to get your stuff though.

Great, yes, I saw that after posting - the VAT being paid on deliveries part. I'm not particularly bothered about the wait, I usually have a steady stream of things coming in to tide me over

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Still after some specific records that none of them stock - going to keep searching (boomkat.com's actually been fairly good on this).