hahaha... someone else said the same thing!

Flandre seems nice, and she's without a doubt highly sought after too...

but if I get her, then I have to get remilia too... and... maybe the entire touhou too

How collecting touhou works:

Get Flandre > Must get remilia-nee > must get maido Sakuya > must get Sakuya's buddy Marisa > Marisa without Reimu is unthinkable > you might as well get Sanae to complete the trio > BAKA BAKA BAKA Cirno get > ahhhh only two more left to complete the set WHY NOT

and suddenly you have 9 touhou nendos and you don't know how you got them.
Lets not start on the puchi sets.

Sequel of Please Teacher! and Please Twins!

nendoroid holo???

mediocre to me... i think i can skip this

that is office tiny puny monitor 
i actually using 24 inches monitor    i think already 3 years i guess

this is my monitor

bought quite long alraedy rm 700-800 something that time XD

lol kuma peaking

Cheerful Luka, Saber and Rin have been shipped!

..it seems that my Saber/Rin has tracking but the package hasn't actually been shipped yet - I'm not complaining, anything to avoid kastams

not sure if should order flandre or not.... scared of the urge of completion >"<

Well, you are not wrong - but I believe you assumed that all of us us EMS all the time? ;D If you use EMS all the time + ship unwisely, then yes, getting local is probably easier, for around the same price.
However if you use SAL all the time, you cut your shipping costs by around a third so it's still ultimately worth it in the long run.

A quick example for regular release items (I shipped 3 of them at once):
Wagnaria playset + EMS shipping on amiami = 2830 > RM113.20
Wagnaria playset + SAL shipping on amiami = 2526 > RM 101.04
Wagnaria playset on XL-shop = Rm120

**I'm just using *4 for the MYR>JPY exchange rate, since it's not very steady and again it depends on your bank/paypal/etc

Of course there are a lot of other factors in this, whether you get them on sale, how you ship them etc. Obviously if you ship them one by one with EMS you're going to rack up some impressive EMS costs lol.
Also in regards to kastams: they are in fact, completely avoidable as long as you know what you are doing.

***Oh and for exclusive items, I've always felt it's easier to go via international direct rather than going through local stores, because you cut out the proxy fees.
**** Ahhh and for "local excludes shipping" bit, you are assuming that all of us actually have access to the physical shop lol. If you don't..well, poslaju costs money too

TL;DR Local / International shops have pros and cons, just go for whichever you feel is best.

It really depends which shop you're looking at. XL-shop is not the cheapest local online store available, and their price are usually almost equal to that of you buying overseas via EMS if not more expensive.

most of the time when I calculate, XL-shop's price always exceeds ordering overseas even with the recent hike in japanese yen.

now if you take frozen figure store, kuroyukihime costs RM145, not including local shipping, (should be RM10 so RM155 I guess)

now that kuroyukihime costs 2820yen in amiami, with the current rate, and if shipping is 1380 yen, she'll cost around RM170.

as for SAL, I've no idea, since i never used SAL, EMS all the way!!

the benefit of ordering overseas is that:

1. you don't have to visit the local store and you get your product delivered to your doorstep.
2. you get the product days after official release, while local stores can take weeks to have it available.
3. lesser risk of damage; ordering locally means the product would have been on courier at least twice

I'm now switching to cheaper local stores due to the damn yen

oh and, I'm selling away erika, yozora and sena! PM me if you're interested!

some robot master PO price for nendo i see are quite cheap lo.. RM130++, RM140++

but their pvc is always expensive haha... robot master is the one with 1 scaled figures of saber, that no one wants to buy (TE, Distant avalon, golden caliburn)

SAL registered is also my preferred way of shipping if i buy from Amiami. They consistently arrive to me in about 2 weeks.

I only start finding local sources if my older figures that i wanted to collect out of stock or too expensive outside

My experience with SAL registered has been good. I highly discourage you to go for SAL unregistered. This is because there is no way checking on the status if Pos Malaysia never receive the pack

nope...

Triumphant Excalibur is still available in robot master, and so is Distant Avalon. checked like few days ago

I personally don't use SAL mainly because I want the items to arrive as fast as possible...

Ahhh when I said exclusive items, I was actually thinking of Goodsmile online shop hahahaha, forgot about the hobby japan stuff (and things like bandai exclusives lol)

I'm not really sure about those. From experience the stuff I got from GSC directly has always been cheaper..I don't have much experience in the other kinds of exclusives, sorry hahahaa 
..cough yes same here. I am remarkably paranoid about shipping things, so I'd like them to arrive as fast as possible thank you. 
..although EMS-ing everything is seriously starting to add up..I've been contemplating moving everything to SAL but I haven't been able to do it yet lol
Yup. Although there are cases where the figure is fragile and amiami themselves refuse to ship internationally.

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Added on May 30, 2012, 7:29 pm

Not cintiq ar? 

^^^ Buy all, aim for this:

somehow i prefer kotori-chan over poplar

You have no idea how much I love Kotori-chan...
I wish there were more episodes on that trap play 

I wish to see more of the relationship development between yachiyo and jun

moar traps pls :3.....Mariya-sama~~~

if only it was a full size nendoroid

Look who's stuff arrived
On the other hand, somehow this shipment managed to arrive without problem; total for this one is 19,500 yen

but always prepare a spare change in case you get taxed

same... i got charged 0.0407 recently.. now it's already 0.041....

HS is doing promotion tho, half price on shipping... get while u can haha

Yea u should...last time me and my bro didnt heck it and always pay paypal rates, don't know bank rates lower..... i guess paid extra few hundred bucks there d ~~~

Can wait for the sakura miku laaaa....why no news d 

seems like mikatan will be going to AFA this coming weekend

sigh i guess i just have to pray she'll come here next year