Dakimakuras anyone?

A question:
Would any of you hapen to know the best way to reduce shipping costs? I want to buy an Evening Call cover (the Shimakaze one, specifically), but I'm not sure how much higher it'll be due to shipping. It's 12000 yen, so roughly 120 dollars, and last time I ordered a cover via SMJ (albeit, it was an auction for a cover I got at 12000 yen), it was a little over 50 dollars for shipping.
I've heard that I can order from Evening Call directly, somehow. How would I go about that, and is it cheaper to do so that way?

Looking at my last Evening Call invoice, two covers shipped for about 2800 JPY, so I can imagine one cover shipping for roughly 2000 JPY. As for registration, I remember a tutorial being posted several dozen pages back that I'll try to find later. You can only pay with Paypal, so there's a conversion fee involved, but it doesn't seem too much more than the listing prices on their site. For instance those two covers I mentioned came out to 23000 JPY for the covers + 2800 JPY shipping + 1200 JPY Paypal fee.

Edit:
How to register, three post down courtesy of Shashin:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Dakimakuras/comments/sqc7b/aozoki_aoko/

I was already registered to that site, but I didn't know how to order from there. Thankfully, a tutorial was on that link as well, lol.
So, cool. I can indeed order directly from Evening Call and Shipping already seems cheaper.

So I need Paypal, and need to account for a conversion fee... According to your example, shipping's roughly 2000-3000 yen, and a 1200 paypal fee.
So around 15200-16200 in the end? Geez, still quite a bit after the daki's original price...

In any case, thanks a bunch. This helped a lot. Thanks to Shashin, as well, for that link.

I actually have an invoice for a single cover and it came out to 11000+1680(EMS 600g)+ 535 JPY = 13,215 JPY. Keep in mind my earlier example was two covers, which is why the fee was 1200 JPY. This shipment in particular is shipment cost to the US however, so I don't find it too bad at all.

Thanks. I'm about 99% certain that this is the same Syroh cover from C83 that I really wanted, so I'm happy to have finally got it. And while the ErectTouch cover is super tame, I'm a big fan of his work. :3
Did you already make a post with that Syroh cover?



Haha! Sounds like you had a mini adventure, Sash'.
Hope you guys had fun yesterday.
Man, I really wish we could have all been out there at the same time, and that C85 wasn't so watered down this year.

Oh, that's awesome. So it may even be cheaper, that's good news.

Yeah, it's a shame you weren't here, man. I was a dick and decided not to accompany willowywicca to the airport this morning. Still haven't decided what I'm going to do with my day today, but after all the walking yesterday, I think I'm going to take it relatively easy today. We hit up toranoana where I bought about 40 doujinshi and some super heavy books. Then we proceeded to shop for another several hours. My shoulders and feet are quite some today. Luckily I had the foresight not to buy an A&J pillow at literally the first store we stopped at in Akihabara.

There is definitely a noticeable change to the doujinshi, sadly. Some books still tried to get away with light censoring, but the Clesta book for example had absolutely massive censor bars, probably close to an inch wide in soon some pages.

Regrettably, I noticed the change in C85 books too.An inch wide censoring...
May I ask, How much doujin circle's Dakimakura were affected this time. Maybe I should put this into a consideration for the next trip.

Ps. Carrying a pillow while shopping in Akihabara might make you unable to even get of the bed in the next day. I have done it twice lol

Not a whole lot as far as I know. Most comiket dakimakura covers are usually pretty tame, with a few exceptions. And anko was already doing tamer covers.

Holy shit though. Was walking around today and I saw a rented cube with 4 anko covers in it. One was the kongou cover I own, and the interesting thing was that the tag on it said adult version, so I'm wondering if she has started doing two versions for the tamer covers we've seen recently. I find it pretty unlikely though. But more importantly it also had the girls und panzer cover. It was 42k, but I am honestly tempted to buy it since it's so incredibly rare.

Oh and willowywicca, I gambled some more today. 4 tickets total, with 2 of them for the TLR game. I got the A Momo.

Hah no worries man, would be a waste of your time and money to go to the airport really :) I am super jelly you got that Momo though lol, it looked great in the pic. Just as nice in reality too? If you don't want it I'll take it and forgive you for not accompanying me to the airport!1

wow the girls und panzer one is rare, but 42k is so crazy :P Were the other 2 both Mikus? Might be the same box I had seen, but with him adding the other 2 covers since last I saw it..

@Millo, regarding dakimakura, only a small number of circles ever did anything very explicit (marks, anko etc..) and they already seemed to have been toning it back since even before comiket. For the (tamer) kind of covers I often go for, there was no notable changes.. though there was a lot more I was interested in than normal which maybe is because of the new rules though I doubt it.

I haven't opened her, but she does look pretty decent for a prize figure. There is a smudge on her face though, so that's kinda bad. :/ I was in a different store today and saw her going for 3k but right next to her was a color variant for 9k. It had the katakana lasuto getto, so I'm assuming whoever buys the last ticket gets it? I remember seeing some other posters with the same offering, so I might have to go back and see if there are any close to the end (assuming I'm right about it.) The one Fate poster though was completely sold out when I went the next time say, and I remember it being fairly empty, so I guess someone bought up the rest of the entries.

Was going to go to a ramen place today that I looked up online. But the didn't open until 11,so I went to Akihabara to kill some time. Ended up finding Melonbooks, where I proceeded to buy the Fatalpulse cover, and the to Azone where I bought some doll stuff. I then ate sushi, which killed my ramen lunch plans. Had planned on going to a bar for dinner, but maybe I'll just have the ramen instead.

It was Kongou, the Idol Master cover, Girls und panzer, and one other I can't remember off the top of my head. Not Miku though.

Regarding the girls und panzer cover, it's definitely very expensive but understandably so. The original YJA entries were in the 25k range, but then yahoo removed all 10-20 listings. Mandarake had sold one for 40k shortly after, and it hasn't been seen since. If I had the spare cash, I'd probably buy it, but the shop doesn't take cards, sadly.

Hmm, having a prize for the last ticket does make sense. Since if like all the A-C prizes got won really early by lucky people, other people might lack motivation to buy tickets for all the crapper D+ prizes if there wasn't some guaranteed rare item at the end that can't be randomly gotten early with luck. And the vendors who buy the full lottery set would make a loss if the majority of tickets don't sell due to lucky winners.

[size=12]That's just it. I WISH I had the courage and time to actually have a dakimakura only because it would be a new thing for me.[/h]

Well shit, I was going to order the rerelease of the one Hisasi dakimakura, but the only place selling it is Hobby Search and now they are out of reservations.

I was thinking about getting the new Lilith cover with Beatrice, but I'm not really feeling it.

You could still order the hisasi cover from https://www.will-order.com/Detail.aspx?Pid=836 but you'd have to use a proxy service which will make it even more expensive... it is one of the best Hisasi covers (imo) but whether it's worth that extra cost or not is up to you...


@Aznyuki well, if you lack courage, you can always keep it hidden from others so nobody but you has to know.. so really the main issue is just the money to afford one.

Regarding the question of covers being more censored or not at Comiket this year.. Shashin said to me that comiket 83's Baseson Sousou cover was censored with a mosaic, so this at least is an example of where things became less censored this comiket then, with both of the 2 new baseson covers being as you see here this time round:


Batai Cover:




Sousou's masochistic sex toy (whose name I never learned..):

This is kinda old, but~
I stumbled across a few covers from artists on Pixiv weeks ago and some of which linked Taobao to purchase. Most of the ones I was looking at were male covers so I'll spare you guys. However, this one interested me:
Pixiv account
sold on Taobao

So yeah, I mean, you just have to be careful. I buy from Taobao all the time, yet I've only ordered one cover on there (from A.C.G. Arts). I do have two more I might just go ahead and buy since they are "cheap" and I haven't seen anywhere else. I wouldn't know much about the quality since I don't actually sleep with my covers or have many to compare one to. But yeah, buy at your own risk.



Aha, I used to think that way.

That's good to hear willowywicca, though it was only the ass up side of the SouSou cover that had censoring.

So yesterday started out as a failed attempt to check out Kyoto, but ended up working rather well. Decided to take the shinkansen there on a whim, but didn't have a plans. Walked around for about two hours and did really see anything. Plan on going back with a plan maybe, especially if I can find a net cafe where I cab look up stuff not on my phone. But I said screw it and decided to go to Osaka for Mandarake Grandchaos. So, it's definitely my favorite store so far. It's similar to Akihabara in floor size, maybe a bit bigger, but there are only 4 floors. 4th floor is where the doujin goods and porn are, as well as cosplay and a little cafe. It's also where they'll be holding ore no yome. Anyhow they have maybe 4 display cases for covers, one of which was dedicated to anko and Marks, mostly. They also had bins located all over the floor that had covers in them too, and not just the cheap magazine packins/bedsheets.

So anyhow, guess what I found in the anko case? The Girls und Panzer cover for 25k. You can bet I snapped that up quick. Though it is fairly interesting, because it implies that it has been sitting there for about a year. It isn't on their website anymore, so I guess Bandai or whatever just forced them to remove it but they still had it in store. Either that, or they had more than one copy, which is probable given all the YJA copies disappeared. I'll be sure to check the case when I go back for the event and see if another has been posted.

Any mosaic censoring is too much though.. totally ruins a cover ;( I'd even prefer barbie doll anatomy to it. I was a bit worried about the current batch of baseson covers when you mentioned it, then quite relieved upon opening them.

Sounds like Grand Chaos is pretty nice then, I'll have to try and make a trip there one day in a future japan trip... how many floors will Ore no Yome occupy there? If it's only slightly larger than the floorspace of the Akihabara Complex then that's not a lot of room for vendors at all per floor (or is it only one floor?). If they allow pics of the event do take some and share!

I'd also love to see pics of the girls und panzer anko cover when you're able to too :)

What are your plans for the rest of the trip before Ore no Yome? Main things to do in Kyoto is go temple visiting I guess http://www.kyoto.travel/shrines_temples/

I haven't really set any plans. I basically just wake up and go "I'm going to do this today." My nights are actually ending pretty early at this point, and next time I come, I definitely need to plan things a bit better. But I'm still doing a good amount, I guess. Today I'm going to go check out Shinjuku... What I do after that, I havent decided yet.

Ok, I just need a little help.
So I had on my eye on this item here on amiami


Buuut I checked today and it sold out and I was like


When I first saw it, I decided to wait and save some money think It would'nt sell out. It had a late Feb release date, looks like it was changed to April. I was thinking I got time, I'll save some money. Well it is obvious it is my fault, Don't add salt to my wounds.

I looked at other places and it looks like amiami has it cheaper compared to other places, maybe not sure.
So my question is that what are the chances of it restocking? I'm thinking probably close to zero.
So another question is, is it possible I can this at a convention? Is it like a complete random chance?