Matching Passion with Preordination, Examples from Gamers
The post came to mind after listening to the latest ANNCast, with guests Adam Sheehan and Lance Heiskell from Funimation.
I sort of knocked Funimation a bit last year when I compared their online streaming stuff with Crunchyroll, but that’s probably something I didn’t intended to do at first. The thought came to and it was kind of fun to run with it, you know? Partly because it’s true that their approach to “new media” (in quotes as the term of art) is along the lines of what we see from the more entrenched players of the publishing industry, no matter how much better Funi is compared to most of the others that we know. That particular subject matter deserves its own post, anyways. Like this.
The thing is, I think Funimation’s marketing team is doing a very good job overall at least on their web-facing arm of the department. I think guys like Adam, Lance and Rojas all are doing it right. At the same time, it’s no fun when Funimation may be the only US-based anime company that not only can benefit greatly from that sort of marketing, but also they’re the only ones who have the resources to hire people to do that full time among these anime publishers here.
After listening to ANNCast (I somewhat skipped the movie talk bits, since I don’t really care), it occurred to me that while the two ANN hosts are trying to entertain their audience in their own ways, they come off as unprofessional. This was because compared to the two Funimation guests, who are both professionals and as sufficiently genuine as a PR gig can be, Zac and Justin come off like clowns who hate their jobs and the shows they have to watch. I guess it is forgivable in the sense that Zac and Justin were trying to make it entertaining, but uh, I wouldn’t invite Lance to a podcast if I want it to be entertaining. That’s worse than inviting Holo to be your anime’s co-lead, to use an economics in-in-joke.
Well, I’m sure both Zac and Justin are working in a field in which they like. I mean who would otherwise put up with the things they put up with? At the same time, I look at Chris Beveridge’s twitter, and I’m like, man, that’s kind of a nice job. But then again he is the guy who can watch all of One Piece and enjoy it, and the next moment review the torrential outpouring of crappy hentai anime that he reviews out of some notion of journalistic and artistic integrity. In fact, because he’s seen so many crappy anime, I think he’s got it: He knows how to reconcile with Sturgeon’s Law.
Let it be known that if you do want to write reviews for a living, you will end up fighting Sturgeon’s Law, that’s for sure. For a good example of what not to do, just read ANN’s reviews! Joking aside, it’s also possible that some may wander into the deep end, so the editorial and review policies of a thing like the ANN is not easy to balance. I knock ANN, because they have this big bull’s eye on their backs, since they are ambitious enough to take up their crosses and nobody else has (or could). Not because they suck (which could be true) and should go away (hah). Well, it’s probably unfair to criticize the whole organization for the failing of a few, and the problem I am talking about in this post is universal (as I see it on Jtor all the time).
So what’s the best way to approach this problem?
What I want to share is what has already been said, many times, by the video game folks online. The video game “web 2.0 press” industry has had a much bigger head start on blogging and reviewing that they’re past this phase already. Instead of reinventing the wheel I’ll I quote from Penny Arcade’s less eloquent half. After all, if the gamer world is the Matrix, Gabe and Tycho are like The Oracle. Except instead of cookies they make charities, cons and comics:
I think the biggest complaint I saw [in Assassin’s Creed] was that the missions become repetitive and boring. I actually didn’t understand this complaint at all until just the other day. I had gotten an early copy of the game just like everyone else in the media but I was just playing it for fun. I’d cracked into it over the weekend and when I got into the office on Monday I started seeing these negative reviews. When I saw the low scores I was actually really upset and I wanted to talk about the game here on the site. I wanted to tell everyone that these guys were full of shit. However, since so many of the complaints were based on the ending I wanted to beat it first so I was sure I wasn’t missing anything. I attacked the game again but this time with the goal of beating it as fast as I could. I was determined to get a post up on Tuesday and I was pushing through the game as fast as I could. I went from finding every high perch in a district to only getting the ones I needed to advance the story. I stopped saving every citizen and avoided any unnecessary confrontations. The informer missions that I had really enjoyed before, I now avoided because I knew they took too long to complete. I did the bare minimum of missions to progress the story and anything that “hindered” my progress was frustrating. Monday night after skipping over another combat (something I used to really enjoy) I stopped myself. What the fuck was I doing? I wasn’t playing the game because I wanted to I was playing it because I had a deadline and I needed to beat it. I stopped immediately and decided I’d write about the game whenever I got around to beating it. I spent another day and a half with it and during that time I hunted for hidden flags and explored the cities again. I came in this morning and finally did beat it but I did it at my own pace and I enjoyed every part of it.
Imagine what an open ended sandbox title must look like to a reviewer especially right now. How many games do they have piling up on their desks? A game like Assassins [C]reed isn’t meant to be played under a deadline. You shouldn’t be trying to beat it as fast as you can so you can move on to Mass Effect or Mario Galaxy. As soon as I gave myself a deadline all of a sudden I understood all their complaints. It was like a fucking Escher painting. I had put myself in their shoes and suddenly the landscape flipped and I could see games from their perspective. In the end I wasn’t angry at them for their bad reviews. I actually just felt bad for them.
If you’re not sure what Gabe is saying, go hit up the link and read the whole story, hopefully it makes a lot more sense. And yeah, I do feel bad about some of the reviewers out there, having to cram down crap moe shows they hate because that’s what they’re paid to do. In the end it tortures themselves, their organization, and their readers, all just for some traffic spikes. And it isn’t that they can’t or shouldn’t review moe crap or whatever, but they are incapable of handling it.
It’s worse because I know how some of you out there “work.” I am too an infinitesimal part of this nefarious cloud of individuals who can actually write a review in the disguise of press, and this is not a labor to be done without joy. If you are doing this web journalism thing for real, as a career, as your calling in life, please do not discredit your and your colleagues’ reputation by putting out reviews of things that aren’t labor of love. Because in truth, the whole Web 2.0-way of reviews is to connect, not to arbitrate. We look at reviews as just a data point to make a purchase decision. It’s YOU be the judge, not our REVIEWS. To cite the more eloquent half of Penny Arcade:
If I had to state the difference between our approach and others, it’s that we seem to understand that we are simply expressing an opinion. The age of the psychic reviewer shaman is over. You should never allow a meaningless, arbitrary integer promulgated by an arbitrary voice who came to power arbitrarily make decisions for you. That’s essentially what Gabriel was trying to say, but he said it in a Gabriel way and it may be that the signal was lost.
You can also read what I think about a large portion of the “pro” reviews out there for anime, because Gabe sums it up. It’s a very relevant tangent, but I won’t go into it here.
The ability to overcome this hurdle is what makes a real pro, well, a pro. It’s what makes you credible. The cold, harsh economics of it all is something you want to deal with as a pro, and not something you can put off to your readers just because “no publicity is bad publicity.” It is not a good community-building approach. It doesn’t mean a reviewer can’t express his opinion, but any idiot online can express his opinion, what makes yours earn your pay? A professional critic’s opinion is valuable in of itself, and not just because he has a title that is a professional critic. It is not couched in personalized contexts but truths that connects with the audience. Heck, I’m not saying you shouldn’t do troll reviews–again, any idiot online can troll. If I’m going to pay a troll, that troll better be a good troll, if not an excellent one.
I suppose, thankfully, that anime reviews have not reach the levels of seriousness in business that game reviews have. This mixed blessing both curses us to a sea of mediocre reviews being created merely on the merit of traffic, with better reviews gaining no clout on them; and it blesses us with a “yukkuri” attitude that, in the end of the day, reviews are just yet another pile of pies in the sea of opinion in which we exist.
Aria Culture Mashup, Cookie Monster Style
I remember taking some kind of Japanese culture class as an undergrad (unsure why, probably out of obligation of graduation requirements) and the persistent narrative of that course comes in the form of an illustration. Undoubtedly, I know some of you have heard of the onion analogy in respect to the layers of Japanese culture as a foreign perspective. Long story short, Japan has this tendency to mimic and regurgitate foreign cultural elements to suit their internal needs and purposes. Some well-known examples include the Japanese modern tradition of Christmas and Valentine’s Day/White Day.
Aria becomes interesting in this regard because it is a story about a repackaged Venice. A good portion of the episodes are almost like a tourism promotional video in the sense that various “charm points” of Venice are preserved and translated to its Martian counterpart. Somehow, the science fictional excuse (well, Venice is sinking is no fiction I guess) made the translation from the old & real to the new & imaginary totally cool, sort of like Spike and smoking inside a spaceship.
Thankfully, Aria is not truly about Neo Venezia (or the real Venezia), because the space-time transplant seems a little bit hollow to me. Instead, it focuses on the cast of Undines, who are the space-time transplants of guild-certified gondola guides working the water ways of Venice. In Aria and Neo Venezia, Undines are female only, which is a drastic contrast with their 21st century counterparts in Venice, who are almost all male.
That cute irony aside (and of course we would not have Aria in any way without its present and “iyashi” cast of Undines), there are a lot of little things like this in Aria, some less cute than others. Unfortunately, I am no Venetian, and I am probably equally ill-equipped to talk about Japanese culture in light of Venice’s characterization (as a city and people), or what seems comfortable to the average Aria viewer, rather than what a Japanese tourist might read from a travel brochure or see with their own eyes. I do know, however, that Aria is ultimately a prime example of iyashikei anime, and it intends to bring forth that pleasantry as both a selling point but also as a substance of its story.
If we consider Aria’s story as an onion about coming of age, as a story that instills hope for humankind in general and one that paints a reasonably rosy picture about people coming to terms about their future fears and aspirations, of successes and failures, then Neo Venezia is just an outer layer of that onion. It is, in a literal sense, a gateway to a fantasy world. The construction of that setting is both key to unlock what comes after it, and something more.
And as you can guess, I think the whole Venice/Neo Venezia thing is also a disguise. If we keep peeling back the Aria onion, past its characters and stories, I think we might find just what makes Neo Venezia different than Venice. Sort of like what keeps that cigarette on Spike’s lips in an oxygen-poor place to live.
For one, Venice, like much of the notable and historic cities in Europe, is covered in artifacts and churches. It goes without saying that one of the most prosperous cities in historic Europe (ie., it used to be) is like a gold mine for lore, made up or for real. However, we didn’t really get a lot of that from Aria and Neo Venezia. Instead, we got the “feeling” that there’s something new to discover everywhere you look, if you love the place enough and take the time to walk on shadows, or something. For the most part, we were treated about 40% sci-fi stuff (eg., moles) and 60% Venice notables (eg. the Bridge of Sighs).
Really? Is this why people flock to Venice as a tourist spot? Instead of, say, the beautiful wilderness of the Gobi Desert? Or some dimly-lit stretches of Tokyo’s urban crawl? I doubt it. At any rate, it leaves out one of those key things that can undermine its “everything is beautiful” premise, which is that if you live in a historic place like Venice, well, duh, you’re in rowing distance from some world-famous landmarks and architecture. But can you say the same thing about living in the middle of Antarctica, to use an extreme example? Woo you are actually near the physical South Pole! There are penguins! You are snowed in half of the year! Of course, if we are to see Neo Venezia through Akari’s eyes, it wouldn’t be the same as if we were to see Antarctica from the eyes of a penguin, but you can’t deny that there’s just a lot more to see in Venice or Neo Venezia than a lot of other places your Aria watchers people live. It is an exotic European getaway!
Another way to put it is that, say, if I live and work in Paris, and I spend a lot of time working, I might not have the time to treasure all that cultural richness as designated as landmarks or what have you. It is a good point that Parisians should stop and enjoy themselves and re-discover the cultural richness that surrounds them. But if I was working as a personal tour guide, maybe I should think twice about the everyday sights that passes by me. You know, part of the job and all. If I am neither a professional tour guide nor I live near any notable place on Earth, then it’s not so pretty out there.
Here is the TL;DR–if Venice (let alone Neo Venezia, which is a SF version of the same) is already the sort of touristy destination that your average Japanese-TV-viewing person would find otherworldly, why not use that as the getaway element? Why reconstruct this outer layer (as far as reasons in respect to the story)? And more importantly, what does this comfortably distant future serve for a story that could be told in today’s world?
In trying to find answers to those questions, the only revelation I’ve stumbled upon is that it’s a way to tune into its audience’s mind. It suspends beliefs and speak in a language that disarms the audience from the mental baggage that one might have if it was a real Italian location. Or a South Korean one. Instead of hard-hitting cynicism or political parody, we get some wishy-washy feel-good story about people rowing boats with gloves on. Or off. It’s as if we are tsunderes, or just too childish to take the bitter medicine so it’s coated with caramelized onion skin. OM NOM NOM NOM.
This Just In: The Internet Schemes to Let Everyone Know about K-ON Season 2
The second season of K-ON, a hot Japanese television series about a music club, has been confirmed on December, 30th during a live event at Yokohama, Japan. Little did the attendees of that concert know, it was just the beginning of a massive conspiracy being revealed.
The news of the second season of K-ON spread by word-of-mouth and using Japan’s extensive electronic and internet communication network as concert goers go online to affirmed of what they saw and heard on the show. TBS Japan’s website for the animated sit-com updated its graphic and reaffirmed the news. However, that was a trigger of something worse.
Cyber-investigators world-wide have been studying a newly-discovered botnet, a network of computers that are hijacked by malware or worm. While traditionally botnets are used to send spam messages, this new botnet, named Kado.3, not only send spam messages, but also compose viral marketing news posts about whatever is deemed the latest fad.
“You know all that chatter about Kanye West’s ‘Imma gonna let you finish’? Kado.3 was responsible for about 5-10% of the talk you see out there, mostly in the form of Twitter messages and pointless Tumblr posts,” said internet security expert Dr. Brian Conflick. Dr. Conflick is one of the first researchers who discovered the new bug, and what they saw might mark a new age in internet attacks.
“Kado.3 is smart enough to act completely autonomously and meaningfully compared to older botnets. Rather than just indiscriminately target its victims when spamming by generating email addresses randomly, Kado.3’s new design allows it to target specific individuals and access a wide variety of network types.” Dr. Conflict showed a real-life example in which a particular Twitter account was suddenly gaining thousands of followers within the matter of several hours. The Twitter account, undisclosed here to protect the privacy of the individual, was a musician who was already on Twitter for many months prior to the attack, and had only a few hundred followers at the time of the attack.
According to experts, like most modern botnets, Kado.3 will dial into pre-determined internet addresses to get software updates and instructions for further activities. Many of these internet addresses, as researchers have determined through reverse-engineering the botnet worm, originates from Japan. Further reverse engineering have revealed even more shocking effects.
“What makes Kado.3 incredible is that it can behave via triggers on the web, and they don’t have to be tied to these pre-determined update sites.” Dr. Conflick said. “We’ve discovered that certain fragments of code that passes through the infected computers’ web browsers can trigger a new set of behavior in Kado.3. It could be used to orchestrate a cascading attack in which the internet in general picks up these stray triggers innocuously, spread them around, but computers infected that consequently downloads the trigger will execute a new set of instructions, further spreading these triggers along the same transmission method that the infected computer was first infected. These triggers could be images. The first one we’ve found was a curious logo of some club that called itself ‘SOS.’ Thankfully from what we can tell, it did not trigger Kado.3 to become anything different, as if it was a test of some sort.”
What does this have to do with a Japanese TV show? Internet researchers discovered that a combination of the words and images of K-ON and its protagonist, Yui Hirasawa, as used by TBS’s website to announce the new season of the television show, is the next trigger of the Kado.3 worm. As expected, upon the first hours of the news breaking online, researchers detected a burst of activity of the Kado.3 botnet, causing an undetermined numbers of suspect blogs to suddenly parrot the news. Investigators are currently working on determining as to who could be behind this latest attack, even if it seems relatively innocuous.
“This is the biggest break we’ve had since discovering Kado.3,” James Torpi, a federal investigator working with various internet security institutions, described the developing situation. “Traditionally botnets are controlled via IRC or in the later cases, Twitter and other social networking sites. This is the first botnet that could be controlled from any plain website. It is of utmost importance that we get to the root of it and put an end to this new threat.”
[The above is fabricated, if you didn’t know.]
Year In Review: N-Squared List
Just like last year, I guess some things have not changed. This could be a reference.
Year In Review: Stimulating the Economy
One thing that impacted nearly everybody this past year was the economy and how it has been struggling if not downright pathetic in some areas of the world. As a dutiful American, I might not drive a gas-guzzling SUV from GM but I spend a lot of time making sure that Yen stays strong, probably to the detriment of Japan. Nonetheless it is best that when I have money to spend on imports that I spend it; all those hobby export stores must be taking hits during a time like this. I wonder if the used goods market is thriving thanks to the economic climate, or are they being pushed down also via the aggressive discounting a lot of new goods stores are doing? (I think my sarcasm turned to curious honesty somewhere in this paragraph.)
This year I kind-of-sort-of opened my personal floodgates of figure importation. I also bought more figures than I ever did during a 12-month period. For the longest time I bought figures via US-based stores who would get their stocks from the fledgling oversea operations of Kotobukiya or Alter or whoever else that were branching into North America (well, their distributors more accurately, but w/e). Prices were easily 20% less than imports because we skip one middleman in the process and the shipping is much less (rarely it goes beyond $10). It is as if there was already a built-in discount on top of cheaper shipping (or free if I was there in person to buy it, or from RightStuf, etc).
The economy is definitely bearing down hard on the retail importers who aren’t channeling figures via cheaper routes. End of last year I bought a figure from a domestic retailer (who shall remain nameless for now) and I returned it for a refund, taking advantage of a guarantee return policy (one of the few advantages these kinds of stores have over their oversea competition). Guess what, I never heard a peep from them after getting the OK on the return and mailing it. Just means I will never shop there again as they owe me like, $60.
I’ve tried a few other stores this year. I think my very first Hobby Search order shipped in ‘09. Yes, I am late to the party, but like what the kids say, Hobby Search is pretty pro. Their prices are on the high side, factoring in shipping especially, but I know you can be doing a lot worse elsewhere.
Prior to ‘09 I used mainly Hobby Link Japan for imported figures. I still do, but I think they are slowly becoming a “worse elsewhere option” if you don’t take advantage of their sales. Like CD Japan, they might price higher than the competition but HLJ has coupons and what not, which could make a good deal in some cases along with their slightly-less shipping. If there is a real flaw to HLJ, it is that they don’t include images on their listings early on. I mean, if you ride the figure news cycle, that’s sort of important. It’s not a huge problem, just an inconvenience and barrier to impulse shopping.
As anyone who’ve actively collected this stuff knows, way too often the only way to get anything is to preorder the sucker. And even then preorders “sell out” pretty quickly for popular figures, way before release, and hopeful buyers late to the game have to exploit stock distribution inefficiencies and hunt out shops that wasn’t selling all their stuff on the first round (or auctions). As a lot of HLJ’s coupons do not apply for preorders, they’re much less relevant for the serious figure collector.
This just all goes back to Hobby Search. Despite their somewhat backwards order system that is questionably secure, they still take Visa and MasterCard, so you can’t really be too badly off buying from them. Their service is prompt (and unsurprising Japanese retailers are all really good at customer service) and EMS generally does a good job. That’s more than what I could say for most, and that explains why it is kind of the number one place for western import-happy figure otaku.
Sadly I can’t say the same for AmiAmi yet. When they opened their doors to the English-language web, I had to take a shot and order from them as they are one of the largest Japanese sites for figures. In some ways, AmiAmi itself is one of those shops that could have “popular” figures in stock that other places sold out, because there is a discrepancy (however small) between what western fans like and what Japanese fans like. Also, Amiami do have pretty good prices. They did slightly mess up the very first order I had with them, although it was resolved relatively cleanly. Their Paypal-only option was unfortunate but not insurmountable, as you can see. Certainly there is nothing stopping them from cleaning up their order process and improve everything (along with their more competitive prices). Heck, they actually have Verisign-signed certificates, if you know what that means. I dislike Paypal like anyone, but I trust Paypal with my bank and payment information over random Japanese shops, rationally speaking.
Oh, there’s also newcomer Otacute. They have a much more aggressive English-language presence with affiliation links and whatever, compared to other importers, and they ship from Japan. And I think advertising works, as they say. My personal experience with them is satisfactory, but I would rank them below AmiAmi and Hobby Search in terms of overall satisfaction. Part of the problem is their interface, but also in terms of prices. On the other hand, they do offer a variety of shipping methods. They also take orders for some retailer-limited special edition figures, which is something to take note of.
With all that said, my orders from the domestic stores didn’t stop either. Some figures were still better off purchased months (if not years?) later at a major discount. As with the economic climate there were some sales to take advantage of. I think the only memorable raid I did with a domestic shop was with ToysLogic. I mentioned RightStuf earlier, and it’s a good deal if you combine their already-low, free-shipping prices with their club discount. Too bad they aren’t so good with giving feed back stock/restock info, and what ought to be preordered.
Well, let me take that back–I’ve probably hit maybe one or more retailers that are from the US via eBay. I’ve hit “retailers” from Japan via eBay as well. Love it or hate it, eBay remains a legitimate source for figure buyers, especially the ones that missed their preorder deadlines (orz). You really could find all kinds of stuff there, both legit and misleading, of cheap sales and overpriced, sold-out goods. It’s definitely something reserved for the more well-versed shoppers, or those who don’t mind taking risks. Things like Bing Cash Back really makes it nice for Americans, too! But yeah, buyer beware definitely applies.
With all that comparative shopping going on, ironically, it was a non-retailer that had the greatest impact on me this year in terms of spending. “MyFigureCollection.net” or formerly known as Tsuki-Board, provides a MAL-style figure collection (and expanding into toys, plastic kits, dolls, and toys) interface complete with all the expected web 2.0 trappings. The site is kind of wonky, but it is a wealth of information in an area that really never had a good, centralized source for information. It is also a pretty good resource and a gateway to a lot of different English-language figure vendors. Thanks to it (and its feed) I discovered a lot of kits that I want to get that would have otherwise faded into obscurity/OSS-ness before I even notice them. Of course, my wallet feels otherwise, but as they say, you cannot serve both God and money.
To go back a few more years, the figure market really opened up in the latter half of this decade, and in the past year or two there’s an explosion to sell to western fans. I’m happy about it, but at the same time some of the strains in this fan space are more apparent now. For example, a lot of people still don’t know what recasts are, both the woes and wonders related to it. There is still not a lot of great options for cheap displays (I want something “more” than this…). A lot of the figure blogs are just parrots of the same info, and I get the feeling that there’s a lack of horizontal growth in the fan base proportional to the number of people buying. It is as if those who are really into it live in the same online enclaves as others. Perhaps photography’s close ties with figure blogging, too, tend to discourage collectors who lacks the photography abilities/equipment from talking things up in a way that encourages readership growth? I don’t know.
What I do know is figure is not all that I spent money on this year. There are over nine thousand ways to spend your money even in the small space of anime-related goods. The usual media importing of books, CDs, DVDs, and Blu-Ray aside, there are the con parties, the touristy things, and used goods. None of that is particularly new, but shopping in Japan is pretty cool, I have to say. It’s one thing to buy new stuff there, but it’s another to shop used with the selection these places have. It is incredible if you know where to look. I don’t, really!
The other notable, non-figure thing I did this year that was different than previous was to use proxies. That True Tears BD box, for example, has hit its 2000 preorder quota long ago, or so it seems. To do that, I had to actually not just find any proxy (as many of them focus on Yahoo Japan Auction, a certified black hole of money all by itself) but a proxy that is willing to jump the hoop to do this preorder-possible-cancel thing. In this case, Celga was my weapon of choice. That said, I’ve never actually done business with them despite hearing about them years ago, so we’ll see how the entire process turns out in a couple months.
If you’ve done Yahoo Japan Auction, you would know they tend to be fairly low risk than eBay over here. Unfortunately it’s much more of a pain in the rear to buy from Yahoo Japan Auctions due to the nature of payment, let alone that just about nobody ships overseas. It makes proxies that are good at auctions a necessity, and fellow importer WAH showed me the hoops via Crescent Shop to see how it works. And it works pretty well I must say. At least when it comes to “normal” transactions. If there were any downsides to Crescent Shop, it was the horrible exchange rate and there was a little bit of a learning curve.
Most proxies as far as I know will take their cut in two ways. First, most of them will use their own exchange rates to bill you, which are some of the worse you will see. I mean, if banks shortchange you 2-3% from the market rate, then expect about 5+% for these third party proxies. For a 3000 yen item that is no big deal, but it is for a 30000 yen item. Second, they will all charge some kind of fee. For auctions, it’s usually some kind of % of the auction price. And it seems most proxies compete with each other on the price point, so expect anywhere from 5% to 20% on this, as the rates will vary on how much you are buying. Again, for a 30000 yen item, 10% is a lot (you’ll see why)! And some places charge over 20%! Thankfully they don’t take any fees beyond that–which is already including any transaction fees, domestic shipping from original seller to proxy, and of course international shipping (well, I imagine most don’t take a cut from this…they’ve got enough). At least, any fees that stings. And of course, the fees is always compounded by the crappy exchange rate. For non-auctions, most proxies operate also on a fee schedule, often priced similarly as auction items, using a crap exchange rate on top of a fee schedule. Well, this varies a lot from shop to shop. Same as with customer service, as the commission fees and quality of service being the only two distinctions for proxies.
I would be preaching to the choir if you’re rabid importer. You might not know, however, that buying scalped tickets is another layer of pain and suffering on top of that. I think we used ticket.co.jp through a proxy and uh, yeah, maybe not again. Maybe others can bestow upon us more magical powers on the ways to acquire cheaper tickets (or at least ones with better seating), I can only hope.
Hopefully those of you curious importers might be spared of the same mistakes I made this year. It might be towards the end of the holiday shopping season, but nonetheless godspeed, ladies and gentlemen.
Year in Review 2009:
- Introduction
- Otagei
- Streaming
- Figure Imports
- Retrospective
- #MALKeionbu
- N^2 List
