Obtaining VNs

[storyteller]

The times I've bought VN they've mostly been second hand.
I have bought 11 VNs at a total cost of roughly 45000 yen.
I plan on spending around 15000 more next week.

F my wallet.

[Josephl64]

(I mainly import VNs, tl'd VNs you just get from mangagamer or Jlist's website.)

 

I haven't purchased that many VNs asides from AliceSoft ones. The AliceSoft titles I got right from their online store(which you will need a forwarding service for: ec-order.com/alicesoft/shop/ )

 

Clannad 1st print I just saw a really good deal for on Ebay, G-Senjou no Maou first print I got off of Yahoo Auctions JP, and Angel Beats! I got off of Getchu. All the ones I have that aren't PC versions like WA2 and Sharin no Kuni I got from CDJapan(AmiAmi is good too if you don't cancel orders too often)

 

If pre-order benefits don't really matter to you I just suggest looking around the usual sites like the ones I listed as well as others like Sofmap for a decent deal. 

 

For most JP VNs I buy, sub 9000yen seems pretty fair to me. Eventually I'll have to move from what I consider S-tier titles to more run-of-the-mill ones so it should get cheaper for me down the line.

[Fred the Barber]

Since I've been meaning to put together a post on this for a while, given my own personal flailings in this direction, here's an attempt to answer the question. My post gives the benefit of the doubt and assumes you actually want to buy VNs, ideally supporting the developer that originally published it. Here's a list of all the options for that which I know of and have personally used:

- Many VNs are officially licensed by western publishers for release in the US, and often other English-speaking countries as well. MangaGamer, JAST USA, and SekaiProject (all ages)/DenpaSoft (18+) are the big-name publishers currently officially licensing and translating VNs. If you can find what you want in one of these places, this is the easiest, probably cheapest (short of pirating - see bottom paragraph), and certainly most legal way of obtaining a VN.

Assuming the VN you are interested in is not officially licensed for release outside Japan by one of the above, there are a variety of services for importing stuff from Japan. There are restrictions around exporting of 18+ materials from Japan, including most VNs, which is why importing is a bit sketchy, and why most VN materials are labeled "only for sale in Japan". However, there are still a variety of import services available:

- You can use a "re-shipper" like tenso (I have personally used their service a few times, no issues with them). A re-shipper gives you a Japanese address. Then can buy anything (including 18+ material that would otherwise only ship in-country) from retailers like amazon.co.jp, which very likely has whatever VN you're looking for, but won't ship it out-of-country. When your purchase arrives at the re-shipper address, they have you approve the package, charge you a fee, and ship it on to you. This combination is the cheapest importing option I know of, usually, because amazon.co.jp prices are pretty competitive. Naturally, you need to be careful of both the original seller and the re-shipper when using this strategy, so there's a little more risk associated than most other options.

- Mandarake, from what I understand, is a service that does online listing and sales of items which are for sale in a bunch of physical stores in Tokyo. I've ordered a couple things from them, never had any difficulties aside from problems using their search, and sometimes having trouble understanding what I was actually buying . This option is a mixed bag on cost, because sometimes you can get used items at a good deal, and sometimes you buy new items at a moderate or high price. It's a guarantee with this one that you will have to pay a pretty decent shipping price.

- J-List has a rather small catalog of importable games, notably including pretty much any all-ages release by Key (and also some others). Cost is very high, substantially more so than the above two, but in my opinion this is the lowest-risk purchase. Also, it has the easiest-to-use search for an English speaker.

A general tip for searching on any natively Japanese site, including both Mandarake and amazon.co.jp: you need to search on the Japanese title, or you won't find anything useful, and you should try various parts of the title if you're still having trouble. As an example, searching for "Comyu" on amazon.co.jp is going to yield nothing useful - if you instead search the Japanese sub-title, "黒い竜と優しい王国 -", you'll easily find what you're looking for. Rule of thumb: just look the game up on VNDB, copy the Japanese title below the English title, and paste that for searches on amazon.co.jp and Mandarake, or any other Japanese site you may find for purchasing VNs.

 

Finally: if you want to pirate a VN that you can somehow legally pay for, well, good luck, and it's probably going to turn out fine. But I won't help you, and I hope you get a virus along with your torrent 

[kingdomcome]

Bunch of translated VN's here (bought Steins;Gate)http://www.rightstufanime.com

Otherwise now I am getting many fan translated VN's that Sekai Project are re-releasing on kickstarter.

Others I will buy when in Akihabara Japan.