How to buy from Suruga-ya from overseas

Suruga-ya (駿河屋) is the chain Japanese collectors check first: an enormous used-goods retailer covering retro games, manga, anime figures, CDs and DVDs, trading cards and doujin works, usually at some of the lowest prices in Japan. The good news most guides skip: Suruga-ya now runs an official English global store that ships to most of the world — so for many orders you don't need a proxy at all. Here's how the direct route works, what it can't do, and when a proxy service is still the answer. We don't run a proxy ourselves, so this guide has no horse in that race.

What Suruga-ya is, and why prices are so low

Suruga-ya started as a used-media chain and grew into one of Japan's biggest second-hand hobby retailers, with physical stores across the country (including duty-free stores listed on its global site) and a vast online catalogue. Its global store organises that catalogue into Movies/TV, Music, Toy & Hobby, Merch & Fashion, Video Games, PC, Electric Appliances, Books, and Doujin — with special sections for things like Pokémon goods, Ghibli and Sailor Moon.

Because most stock is used and bought from Japanese customers, prices routinely undercut what the same item fetches on eBay or on export shops. A real example from the global store at the time of writing: a TV-drama DVD box with a list price of ¥16,500 selling used for ¥8,512 (about US$53). That price gap — often 40–70% under new or overseas prices — is why collectors bother importing from Suruga-ya at all.

Route 1: the official global store (suruga-ya.com)

Suruga-ya's own international store at suruga-ya.com/en is the simplest route, and the one we'd try first:

1. Browse in English. Listings are machine-translated (the site says so openly), and each product page also shows the original Japanese title — useful when the English rendering looks odd.
2. Prices are in yen, with a reference conversion into about 20 currencies (USD, EUR, AUD, SGD, THB and so on) shown next to the price.
3. Pay by credit card (Visa, Mastercard, JCB, AMEX, Diners — with 3D Secure 2.0), PayPal, or Alipay.
4. Shipping goes to a long list of countries — the US, Canada, the UK and EU, Australia and New Zealand, and most of Asia, the Middle East and Latin America. The full list is on the official delivery area page.
5. Shipping discount: for every ¥10,000 in a single purchase, ¥500 comes off the shipping cost — so consolidating one bigger order beats several small ones.

One important caveat for US buyers: Suruga-ya announced that from July 8, 2026, due to US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) regulatory changes, certain items can no longer be shipped to the United States and such orders may be cancelled (official notice). This is a US-regulation issue, not a Suruga-ya policy — proxy services posted similar restrictions for US-bound parcels at the same time.

Route 2: when you still need a proxy

The global store doesn't cover every situation. A proxy buying service — a company in Japan that buys on your behalf and forwards the parcel — still earns its fee in three cases:

• The item is on the Japanese site but not orderable on the global store. Suruga-ya's domestic site (suruga-ya.jp) is a separate storefront in Japanese. If the item you want only shows up there, a proxy can buy it for you.
• Your country isn't on the delivery list, or the item is excluded from international shipping.
• You're consolidating. If you're already collecting a box at a proxy warehouse from Mercari or Yahoo! Auctions purchases, adding a Suruga-ya item to the same shipment can beat paying separate international postage.

Buyee — the proxy integrated with Mercari and Yahoo! Auctions that we cover in our proxy service comparison — takes requests for items from Japanese shops through the URL purchase request feature in its My Page (you paste the product URL and Buyee quotes the purchase). Whether a specific item qualifies is confirmed when you submit the request, and fees are itemised before you commit.

Direct vs proxy at a glance

The Buyee links on this page are referral links — we may receive service credit at no extra cost to you, and it doesn't change what we recommend. We have no affiliate relationship with Suruga-ya.

Read this before you order

• It's used stock, one copy each. Most listings are single second-hand items; if it sells, it's gone. Condition notes matter — the global store marks items as Used against the original list price.
• Search with Japanese titles when English fails. Listings are machine-translated, and the Japanese title shown on each product page is the reliable search key for obscure items.
• Budget the full total. Item price + international shipping (direct) or item + service fee + domestic + international shipping (proxy) + any import duties your country charges. The US ended its de minimis exemption in 2025, so US-bound parcels can owe duties regardless of value.
• US buyers: check the CPSC situation for toys. Since July 2026, some toy and hobby items can't be shipped to the US by either route (see the notice linked above).

How we choose: we describe both routes honestly and recommend the official store first when it fits. Some links are referral links — we may receive service credit at no extra cost to you, and it never changes what we recommend or the price you pay.