A few questions about buying and storing Japanese volumes...
I'm wanting to get some Japanese volumes of some of my favorite series. Seems like Honto and Amazon JP are suggested the most. I was planning on going with Amazon, but I was curious of how their shipping quality compares with Honto.
As for storage, it seems the the BCW media boxes would be a good choice? They seem good, are there any other storage methods that are usually suggested?
Thanks for any help!
Posted Jun 11, 2018, 7:57 PM UTC
61
Shipping quality is about the same. Honto is a little bit better with packing (just a bit), but I've never had problems with either one. I generally use Amazon.co.jp because the books show up using DHL, and not my awful post office.
The other reason I prefer Amazon is that I find out the shipping cost before I submit the order. Honto won't tell you the shipping cost until after the order ships, which I don't particularly like.
Honto is fine if you want to order via SAL and wait a month... I can't recall if you can get tracking with the SAL they offer. But generally, it's a month for SAL to show up. EMS is faster, and offers tracking, but costs about the same as Amazon. (Amazon is faster than EMS from my experience.) If you are patient, you can save money with Honto and SAL, though.
For storage, those boxes are too big for tanks (and they're storing the books wrong!) Tanks are smaller than western graphic novel sizes for the most part. Also, storing them like that will bend the books. I know, because I've bent books storing them like that. Not fun.
Now I prefer to lay them flat on the shelf and just stack them one on top of the other, to keep them flat. (And try to keep them out of the sun.)
If you really need dead space storage, then get some banker's boxes from your local office supply store. They're dirt cheap. The books won't fit the BCW boxes anyway, so you might as well get cheaper storage boxes.