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Just About Everywhere You Can Buy Visual Novels in English


NowItsAngeTime

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I made a new video noting just about every place you can buy officially localized or English original visual novels.

I noted perks, quirks, and flaws of each store to be fair as well as notable releases.

FanTLs not included. That'll be another video.

 

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The shop situation is just so much better in Japan. You can pretty much get everything from Getchu, both download and hard copy versions. And Amazon.jp is still neat to get things cheaper or older versions that might be out of stock at Getchu. In addition to that you can also get merchanising articles like tapestries or dakimakura there, which are pretty much non-existant in the west.

Here Steam kinda works for all ages stuff, even though there's still always a dice roll that they find an absurd reason to not allow it, but for adult stuff it's just a mess. It's really unfortunate that there's no agreement for an alternative to Steam. Everyone just sells his stuff on his own store front otherwise, even if MangaGamer occasionally also sells VN's from the others. You can get some stuff from Amazon, but it's pretty random.

Sadly, there's no equivalent to Getchu at all. itch.io seems to be getting more popular for OELVN's but is so far completely ignored for translated VN's. But considering that it seems to be the Epic Store's way to sell nerd stuff (the app can be downloaded from there), it might get more popular in the future.

Edited by ChaosRaven
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7 hours ago, ChaosRaven said:

The shop situation is just so much better in Japan. You can pretty much get everything from Getchu, both download and hard copy versions. And Amazon.jp is still neat to get things cheaper or older versions that might be out of stock at Getchu. In addition to that you can also get merchanising articles like tapestries or dakimakura there, which are pretty much non-existant in the west.

Here Steam kinda works for all ages stuff, even though there's still always a dice roll that they find an absurd reason to not allow it, but for adult stuff it's just a mess. It's really unfortunate that there's no agreement for an alternative to Steam. Everyone just sells his stuff on his own store front otherwise, even if MangaGamer occasionally also sells VN's from the others. You can get some stuff from Amazon, but it's pretty random.

Sadly, there's no equivalent to Getchu at all. itch.io seems to be getting more popular for OELVN's but is so far completely ignored for translated VN's. But considering that it seems to be the Epic Store's way to sell nerd stuff (the app can be downloaded from there), it might get more popular in the future.

As far as Japanese stores go, what's your opinion on stuff like DMM, DLSite, Gyutto, etc?

Also where else can you get physical copies online besides Getchu and Amazon.jp?

And what do you consider the... I can't remember the exact name, but the service where someone buys something in Japan since Japan doesnt ship internationally by default, but the someone does. Which of those types would you recommend most?

Edited by NowItsAngeTime
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3 hours ago, NowItsAngeTime said:

As far as Japanese stores go, what's your opinion on stuff like DMM, DLSite, Gyutto, etc?

Also where else can you get physical copies online besides Getchu and Amazon.jp?

And what do you consider the... I can't remember the exact name, but the service where someone buys something in Japan since Japan doesnt ship internationally by default, but the someone does. Which of those types would you recommend most?

Never used DMM, DLSite or Gyutto, so I can't really say anything about those. But you can probably find a dozen other online shops like Trader, AmiAmi or Akiba Sofmap in Japan that sell hard copies. Usually, you can get all hard copies from Amazon.jp, so you don't really need other shops. UNLESS you want a hard copy bundled with a certain wallscroll. Then it can get pretty difficult since VN developers have a tendency to make all kinds of exclusive deals with certain shops regarding those.

I use Tenso as proxy service and it was 100% reliable so far, so I can just recommend it, since it also has an English interface. You can also send several orders from different shops there and ship all of them in a big package from there. That's what I usually do, since you can keep deliveries there for 30 days.

I think some shops also ship directly internationally. Even Amazon.jp, although that applies only for all ages goods I think. Nevertheless, getting hard copies shouldn't really be a big problem. The stuff that's really hard to get are merchandising articles like wallscrolls and dakimakura. They are often only available for a limited time in certain stores or even worse - just on special cons. The only chance to get such stuff then is usually Amazaon.jp or auctions.yahoo.co.jp. And rare dakimakura of popular characters can go up to 50.000 ¥ that way.

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6 hours ago, ChaosRaven said:

Even Amazon.jp, although that applies only for all ages goods I think.

I bought some adult editions of VNs from amazon.jp as well - no problem there. It's just that for some reasons they refuse to ship some products - but that applies both to all-ages and adult versions, and seems pretty random.

As for online shops and digital versions - I have bought them from DLSite and getchu, but had no luck with DMM.

Edited by adamstan
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15 hours ago, NowItsAngeTime said:

As far as Japanese stores go, what's your opinion on stuff like DMM, DLSite, Gyutto, etc?

I use DMM and DLsite a lot. Probably too much tbh:notlikemiya:
Both are great. DLsite more so for doujin works, with DMM having a huge VN library, from new releases to old stuff. Recommend both sites.

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7 hours ago, adamstan said:

I bought some adult editions of VNs from amazon.jp as well - no problem there. It's just that for some reasons they refuse to ship some products - but that applies both to all-ages and adult versions, and seems pretty random.

Maybe it's the market place? Amazon.jp has that as well and then it's not Amazon itself shipping the goods, but some private persons instead. Probably the case for at least half of the stuff I buy from there...

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55 minutes ago, ChaosRaven said:

Maybe it's the market place? Amazon.jp has that as well and then it's not Amazon itself shipping the goods, but some private persons instead. Probably the case for at least half of the stuff I buy from there...

Yes, that wouldn't surprise me, because indeed lots of marketplace sellers don't ship overseas. But I also had the "We're unable to ship this item to your current address" error message on some items sold directly by amazon - and I couldn't find any connection between them.

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5 hours ago, Centurionzo said:

Sadly buying VN I places other than Steam is not really ideal for anyone that lives in place other USA and Europe, the lack of regional price pretty much make games cost almost 4  higher than it should

In the video, I noted JAST USA actually has does regional pricing similar to Steam.

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