New to the Riderverse. Looking for suggestions on where to shop!

[SuperFireDagwon]

Hello everyone!

While I'm brand new here, I've been an anime fan for many, many years going all the way back to watching Star Blazers on my local UHF station back in the 1970's.

Recently a friend of mine suggested watching Samurari Sentai Shinkenger as it's a really interesting entry into the Sentai legacy and since it will (probably) never be brought over by Bandai USA I should check it out.

Well, I fell in love with the show in general, and Shinken-Oh especially as it's probably one of the great mecha designs I've ever seen!

When Kamen Rider Decade crossed over into Shinkenger, and did some research and eventually found myself falling in love with Decade as much as Shinkenger.

But like when I was collecting Dagwon or Yuusha toys in general I'm running into several issues with finding good online sites to get figures.

If it's not a bother I'd like to get anyone suggestions on what online stores outside CS Toys, HLJ and BBTS that I might try to find both Sentai and Rider merchandise-esp the S.H. Figuarts Kamen Rider Decade (normal) figure. I think it's a lot better than the FFR figure in terms of paint apps and details so I'd like to find a good deal on it.

My second request is that I've heard about the cards you can download for the Decadriver to represent most of the Henshin abilities of the various riders through the years. I'd really like any suggestions on where I might could find these card layouts that's safe to download them from. I've got a Decadriver coming from Black Gears in Japan, but I really don't want to buy the FFR Decade just for the card (unless someone here has the figure and wants to sell their card).

Anyway, thanks for any help in advance! While I'm much more knowledgable about Japanese Transformers, Brave, Digimon and..ahem..sailor moon... I hope I can learn from everyone about the wonderful worlds of Kamen Rider and Shinkenger!

Thanks!

SFD

 

[Mr. Yellow]

You are a wiseman to go for Figuarts, they are the best in terms of Kamen Rider figures. All you need right here: http://henshinjustice.net/forums/showthread.php?t=33240

EX_Japan of Yokatta Web. She can hook you up with anything you want from Japan. Her rates are the cheapest around too. :thumbs:

 

[Badonkadonk]

Outside of a middleman service (which I've never tried, but I've heard great things about EX_Japan) the best place to look for S.H. Figuarts is HLJ, with Angolz as disperate second (I had a problem with my first order with them). For things like weapons and henshin devices, I really like CS-Toys for their fantastic customer service. I know you were looking for suggestions outside of those sites but hey, there's a reason they're the most popular

 

[bc04]

I have never used it but I think AmiAmi has great prices.

 

[Baltan II]

Amiami seems to have the cheapest prices available to Western buyers like ourselves, but bear in mind that they only ship EMS or an overpriced SAL with tracking. They're still a deal even after that, but AmiAmi is also new to shipping outside Japan and have some kinks to work out (I think it's okay now though).

Next best deals around will be HLJ, basically. They carry all the major DX and collector-oriented lines from Bandai, and offer EMS as well as an affordable but untrackable SAL. They've been around for a long time and are considered reliable, but the ordering system is archaic and not in real time. Unless you're ordering sale items with a lot of competition, this will not be much of an isse.

After that? You're going to want to look at our in-forum deputy service. EX_Japan in particular comes highly recommended and she keeps in contact frequently. I personally use her almost exclusively for ordering Tamashii Web exclusives, but she is also awesome to use for online stores (Amazon.co.jp especially) and Yahoo! Auctions Japan.

The last place I'll recommend, since you mentioned Figuarts, is the eBay seller animeking_inc. Figuarts are very popular and sometimes sell out, but Anime King offers the best online rates for domestic Figuarts, ships lightning-fast, and often carries some of the rarer figures even when other online sources are overpriced or out of stock.

I like BBTS and all, but I would only recommend them to someone who can't or won't order from eBay or a Japanese seller for whatever reason. They carry very limited selections of Sentai items and only recently started on Figuarts - which are a bit on the expensive side.

You're not from TFW by any chance, are you? I notice a lot of guys from there migrating here, plus you mentioned TFs and Yuusha.

 

[SuperFireDagwon]

Amiami seems to have the cheapest prices available to Western buyers like ourselves, but bear in mind that they only ship EMS or an overpriced SAL with tracking. They're still a deal even after that, but AmiAmi is also new to shipping outside Japan and have some kinks to work out (I think it's okay now though).

Next best deals around will be HLJ, basically. They carry all the major DX and collector-oriented lines from Bandai, and offer EMS as well as an affordable but untrackable SAL. They've been around for a long time and are considered reliable, but the ordering system is archaic and not in real time. Unless you're ordering sale items with a lot of competition, this will not be much of an isse.

After that? You're going to want to look at our in-forum deputy service. EX_Japan in particular comes highly recommended and she keeps in contact frequently. I personally use her almost exclusively for ordering Tamashii Web exclusives, but she is also awesome to use for online stores (Amazon.co.jp especially) and Yahoo! Auctions Japan.

The last place I'll recommend, since you mentioned Figuarts, is the eBay seller animeking_inc. Figuarts are very popular and sometimes sell out, but Anime King offers the best online rates for domestic Figuarts, ships lightning-fast, and often carries some of the rarer figures even when other online sources are overpriced or out of stock.

I like BBTS and all, but I would only recommend them to someone who can't or won't order from eBay or a Japanese seller for whatever reason. They carry very limited selections of Sentai items and only recently started on Figuarts - which are a bit on the expensive side.

You're not from TFW by any chance, are you? I notice a lot of guys from there migrating here, plus you mentioned TFs and Yuusha.

Actually, I'm not on many TF boards other than the TCC boards, and occasionaly at Tformers. My old board of choice Transfandom, closed down about three years ago so I've just been bouncing around since then.

Thanks for all the help so far everyone! I really apprecaite it!

 

[Kamen_Sentai]

I'm new here as well. I probably have a week here

so I tried the middleman service (EX_japan) and she is great

great prices, easy and trustworthy

amiami is cheap but shipping is quite expensive, but you get your things fast

only use ebay for last resourse, but check weekly for items, I found Kiva at 12 dollars

 

[SuperFireDagwon]

I just wanted to say THANKS to everyone for the help and making me feel so welcome!

I've got a lot of new stores bookmarked and I really appreciate it!

One thing I'm still having trouble finding are the Decade Card blanks you can use in the Decadriver. Badonkadonk said he posted a link here a while back but I'm having trouble finding it.

Can anyone point me in the right direction? I got my Decadriver in the mail Thursday and it really needs some Final Attack Ride cards to be happy

Thanks again to all!

 

[Kazuma]

like these ones

 

[SuperFireDagwon]

Kazuma-

Not sure if that's them to be totally honest. I've only seen them on YouTube in black and white layouts and they were glued onto the back of a similiar sized card. The one video used YugiOh cards as they were the same size as the Decade cards.