Dakimakuras anyone?

Rabbit-net is taking order on what looks like, from what I understand, to be the first of a few resales in a couple of days. Although the ordering window is annoying, hopefully this means I can pick up some Karory covers I missed in the past in the upcoming weeks.

http://www.rabbitnet-nipponbashi.com/shopping/event.php?serial=6

If you really want the full set, you probably need to try for rabbit.net's small ordering window. But I find if you only want the cover and not the other things, you can typically find them pretty cheap on YJA right after rabbit.net has opened up their sales. I've managed to get two of the covers there for I believe 9800 and 10500 in the past (when the full set goes for 12600).

Hmm yeah, and there are some nice ones in there. I've managed to get an order in for a few Rabbit covers in the past by contacted my proxy early with what I wanted to order. I explicitly said that the order would be from "x period to y period" and linked to the items I wanted specifically. Considering the order window was so short and they only had a certain amount of items, it worked surprisingly well for me both times I did it.

Oh, nice. Do they work well? Like, is the scent overbearing?



What's annoying is their inability to post a decent shot of the cover. ;P
But yeah, like Shashin said, that has also worked for me in the past. And Willow is right too: for some strange reason you can sometimes pick up the RabbitNet covers on the cheap on YJA. :)

Kobun: It's probably entirely because of the preorder benefits that come with ordering directly from Rabbit.net; it seems like a lot of people care more about the telecards/bookmarks/etc than they care about the actual cover. So they buy the set and then don't really care what they get in return when they're pawning it off to Mandarake; most probably would have paid a similar amount for just the bonuses, had that been the only option available.

On a completely unrelated note, it appears as if the time to sell the dat ass C.C. cover has passed. :( I've seen the last 3 or so (within the course of a few weeks) sell on YJA for between 17-24k. And all of them were the sealed Japanese version, with the authentication sticker (it being sealed and having that sticker is what accounted for about 75% of its value, based on open Japanese versions that would sell for ~<10k.)

Oh, nice. Do they work well? Like, is the scent overbearing?

They work well, there are times where you can see mold in the containers, which shows that it's doing it's job. Also the lime scented ones are very gentle. You won't be able to smell it unless you put your nose at point blank range.

I thought I had a pretty good grasp of materials when it came to dakimakura covers, but I may have just stumbled upon something the other day that could potentially explain a lot.

As we all know, 2WT/2WR can be very similar in feel, which makes sense given how close they are in material composition; they're both generally a 80-85/15-20 blend of Polyester/Polyurethane, which is generally known as spandex.

So I stumbled upon the Wikipedia page for spandex the other day, and Lycra and Roika are two brand names for spandex. I don't know what the composition for Smooth Knit is (I might see if I can pull out a cover later to check it out), but the way I understand it, 2WT/2WR is generally referring to the way a cover is knit together.

Taking this a step further, I often see A&J's material listed as A&J 2WT (Lycra), which seems to suggest that it's A&J's 2way knitting process, using the Lycra brand of spandex as a base.

It's an interesting thought, that could go further to explain the differences and material types, if accurate.

So happy!

I really wish more Steins;Gate covers, particularly of Kurisu were more abundant, pretty stuff though.

For whatever reason, all the covers on Rabbit-net dropped from from 12600JPY to 10500JPY. Either it's the price for the cover only, or something else is up. Yokatta refunded me 4200JPY for the two orders I placed, which I used to order Carnelian's new cover. I suppose in this case, it came out to the same as the occasional YJA price.

Yeah, I noticed that.
Sad that they sold out of this cushion cover. I would have bought two. :(

Unfortunately, Yokatta couldn't secure a preorder. Hopefully the other resales feature the same covers. Anyone have any recommendations for other proxies and have a simple explanation of how they work? I'd been looking out for the Karory maid and Karory uniform covers and those happen to be the few expensive Rabbit-Net covers...

If you're in the US, I always recommend Shopping Mall Japan.

They're a bit expensive for special orders (at least in comparison to Yokatta), but they have a lot of convenient features that more than make up for it, at least in my opinion. For YJA purchases, they have a competitive rate.

You basically sign up, and send in a deposit; a Paypal deposit will grant you 5x the spending power in yen ($20 will get you more than 10k in bidding limit.)

Buying stuff is pretty easy.

For auctions: You copy the link, paste it into their system, and enter your maximum bidding limit. They'll take care of the rest from there. This system works for some web purchases, like Amazon.jp.

For "special orders": I don't really recommend using SMJ for special orders, since their rates are higher, but I end up using them for 90% of special orders anyway, because of convenience. You just make a list of all the items you want, and fill out a form with links. They'll order the stuff for you. This is what I did with the one Rabbit.net order a few months back; I had submitted the form 2-3 days before the covers went on sale, and they got the order in without much difficulty.


The main benefit of SMJ, if you're in the US, is the batch shipping system. They ship orders to the US via EMS in big batches, and you pay a fraction of the cost to get it to their US facility; then you pay for domestic shipping when you're ready to ship stuff home (they'll store items in the US for 90 days, which is plenty of time to accumulate a lot of goodies.) You also have two weeks to pay off an invoice after the items have been ordered, which is probably the biggest one for me; I usually don't have the cash on hand when I'm ordering stuff.

From what I understand, you can also use your deposit as part of your payment for items as well? Also, do you know what the special order pricing is? I couldn't quite get it from their FAQs page.

Yeah, you can if you want to. My deposit is a credit card deposit though, so it's never charged unless I authorize them to pay that way (I usually use Paypal.)

Their special order fee is their auction rate + $10 for the first item and $2 for additional items. So it's definitely pretty expensive, but it isn't too bad if you're buying a few expensive items (it's pretty terrible for things like doujinshi. D:)


Edit: So for example, 3 dakimakura covers at 12k a piece would be broken down like this:

Standard service fee of $35 for 36k yen, plus $14 for three items.

Ooooh couple new covers up on BWStore. I am super happy they are bringing this one back:
NEW LISTING:
http://www.bwstore.com.tw/index.php?action=product&do=prd_detail&id=263
OLD LISTING:
http://www.bwstore.com.tw/index.php?action=product&do=prd_detail&id=53

Yeah, I already own a copy, but wouldn't mind picking up a second. It's actually funny they're bringing it back now, though. It was just yesterday on Mandarake (before it was added to BWStore) that I saw an instock copy for 16k, and I seriously though about picking it up. Check BWStore this morning, and it's up there.

A lot of the TINY WAVE LoL stuff is pretty tempting, too. I bought the Ahri cover not too long ago, but I'm considering the tapestries and the 3D pad.

One of my new covers from nanamin.com. Enjoy!


PRODUCT SHOT:

More shots after the spoiler. :)

Good stuff Kobun, thanks for the pics! (I don't really have much to say clearly, but I don't want people to feel discouraged from posting future pics due to a lack of replies!)

LOL that's all you needed to say, amigo. And thanks, it is appreciated.
But, yeah I feel ya'.

Yeah, glad to see someone got the Kan'u cover, Kobun. I still kinda wished I had been able to swing it, but I wouldn't have put it ahead of anything I ended up ordering.

I finally managed to order and get some pillows for Royalpillow. :3