Dakimakuras anyone?

Ah, I see, was a bit confused when you were talking about domestic shipping. Anyhow, the typically dakimakura is about 500g; EMS shipping for 1 cover typically ranges from 1500-2000 yen, depending on packaging. With EMS, you'll get the item in 3-5 days. If you can't wait, EMS is the way to go, but if you're trying to save money, go with R/SAL. I typically go EMS, but I think SAL will probably run you 500-1200ish for one cover, but I'm not the person to ask on that.

Yes, bootlegs are terrible in comparison to legit goods. A lot of people start out with bootlegs, since it's easier to come across them and they're a lot cheaper. But the vast majority of the people that I've spoken with who started that way, and then made the switch to legit covers, refuse to go back to bootlegs.

I've posted about bootlegs extensively in this thread and in other places, but basically there are three main differences between bootlegs and legit covers:

1. Image quality

This one typically has the most variation, since I've seen bootlegs that are pretty similar to the actual product, and then bootlegs that completely and utterly butcher the source material. As a rule of thumb, mass market company covers (Cospa, Movic, etc) bootlegs seem to be the closest to the source material, while circle covers have the greatest variation. But every single cover is different.

2. Material quality

This is where choice comes in. Peach skin is typically only offered by bootleggers and is the cheapest option, but I've never found a person who preferred it to 2WT. So you can essentially forget about it when comparing the two; 2WT is all that matters here. And the simple fact of that matter is that bootleg 2WT is not as good as a quality 2WT. It's more cheaply made, won't be durable, typically doesn't look as good, and depending on the specific comparison, may not feel as good. Once again, however, this largely depends on how you directly compare two materials. Comparing some random bootleg material to a circle that prints with a shitty printer may not yield any noticeable difference, but if you compare a bootlegger's 2WT to A&J 2WT, you're going to notice a vast difference in quality.

3. Your personal view

This really depends on you. Bootleggers are stealing the work of artists, plain and simple. Whether it bothers you that they're profiting off other's work is entirely your choice. Personally, it angers me greatly, which is why I refuse to even do business with bootleggers regarding things other than bootlegs.

http://ekizo.mandarake.co.jp/shop/en/item_s-1240923.html

Just curious, is this a regular daki but only one side? It's cheap and I might buy one.

As an owner of several Rabbit-Net covers myself I'm pretty sure that's the clearfile, somewhat like a bookmark, included with covers.

Yeah, it doesn't actually have dakimakura in the item's description, instead it's a 梱枝りこ硬質カード.

And pen is now listed as the official artist as the one KanColle cover, SuperNaturalFLCL. However, it just seems as if he's splitting his attention, since he's now doing two covers for EC that he wasn't doing when the circle's future was up in the air. I actually like it a lot, and it seems like it might be a tad more explicit than the typical pen cover, with the way the legs are raised in the air. Probably not, but I'm still considering it. It would have been a definite purchase for me, had the front side been nude, there weren't so many good covers out right now, and the price weren't so high.

I actually saw that on Toranoana yesterday, although the pose is different, I feel as if both the front and back still are poses Pen quite can't break away from. It's hard justifying this particular cover considering it's 15000JPY price tag, and when I look at Evening Call's covers like: http://www.eveningcall.net/information/image/danganronpa/enojima-ab.jpg I figure it's similar enough so it just comes down to whether I have any attachment to the character at all.

Oh absolutely, pen's art is fantastic but he never changes his poses. I actually pass on his stuff a lot of the time because of it, even though I like practically every piece he's done. They're just too similar to justify unless you really like the character or the variation put on the pose.

Just got my invoice for the two Evening Call event covers, and it came out to $261. The breakdown was 21780Â¥ + 2800Â¥ shipment + 1000Â¥ for the paypal fee (which Paypal actually tells you now in the request for payment). Which leads me to believe they're using a rate closer to the exchange rate, which makes their other new covers suddenly even more appealing.

Yeah, looks good. Mine was a bit lower, but I used all the points I had available.

New kyounetsu cover of Suiseiseki looks quite nice from the preview. http://kyounetsu.blog110.fc2.com/blog-entry-145.html

I also like this style of preview for fighting bootleggers, it gives a good impression of the overall cover while obviously missing half of it still. Looks like it's an event exclusive for now, would be nice to see a web order too.

Woah man, haven't seen you in awhile. Was starting to thing you had disappeared on us. :D

Yeah, it looks pretty good, and while it's unfortunate they have to go to such lengths for bootleggers, it's understandable and should hopefully be quite effective. You can see a sketch on the artist's Twitter page, though:

http://t.co/C1iq8bM4VN

On the plus side, Kyounetus has been in the habit of doing event exclusives and then releasing them via a weborder a month or two later. It was the case with Reimu and a few of their other covers, if I recall correctly.

Yeah I've been lurking but not really had anything to post, and it stopped auto-logging me in which I never noticed, so never got any notification of that message from you til today when I went to post and was like "oh, I'm not logged in...".

That's good if they do a web order frequently, I shall wait and hope for that I think, really liking the cover (and very happy with their Haganai one so I guess that makes me more interested in this one too).

It's kinda funny, I saw the sketch the other day and was like "Yeah, I'll probably buy that." Then it went up on the blog, and I've had about 5 different people shoot me a PM here or there asking about it/telling me about it. Seems to be a really popular cover, I guess.

I've been following the artist since I got into the hobby; her Mio cover was one of the first 3 items I purchased all these years ago, and I've loved her work since.

Also, I have to ask: Your Twitter account was hacked, right?

Nah not hacked, just playing a iOS social card game that likes to spam it a bit.

Ah, that's pretty crazy. Could understand the posts, but it actually sent me a DM at some point, which seemed a bit unusual. That and it seemed out of place on an account previously used mostly for dakimakura messages. :p Combined with your inactivity here, a hacked account seemed the most likely thing.

Hmm, didn't know about a DM to you, and I can't see any DMs to you logging into my account now either. Odd, maybe I was hacked too :3

Yeah, I deleted it on my end. But it was basically a shady link with some typo-ridden text. Don't think it was mentioning the game you were mentioning in your normal messages, but it could have been.

Just got my first Dakimakura. It's a 2-way Tricut Pearl Roica.

Holy shit it is soft. What a nice material.

New picture post: http://www.figure.fm/en/post/51012/Dakimakura+Collection+67.html

Edit: and another! http://www.figure.fm/en/post/51054/Dakimakura+Collection+68.html

I bought an item of clothing I will never wear in public.. cos I am smart!1

It has been a long time. I got swayed a little to the world of figurine. Still need to make a use of this opportunity while I'm here.
I happen to did some arrangement for my cover a bit and I found that one of my favorite cover did not made of 2WT as usual , instead It is ライクラウォータリング (Lycra waterling?).
For me, I can hardly feel any different between this and 2WT but I notice that this lycra is much more durable than my yuyuko AJ2WT.
So did anyone have an experience about this material before? is it like 2WT in term of compound or something?
It just bugging me that I never notice it by touching. (I did not read the information paper attached with)

And one friend of mine told me that there are 4 WAY TRICOT cover existing. It sound interesting.

Lycra Water Ring is one of the many slight variations of the 2way tricot material ( for the first cover here http://blog.埋もれる抱き枕er.jp/archives/9777 you can see it's even listed as being 2 way tricot lycra water ring ). It's really hard to say without knowing which manufacturer made it too, since the same name of material is often used for slightly different variations depending on manufacturer too. Good that you're happy with it!

4 way tricot used to be used by BWStore long ago I think but they've swapped to other stuff now. I don't have any 4way tricots myself and haven't seen any with that material lately.