The Bandai Premium store has also chosen to affiliate themselves/recommend a few potential shops to be used as intermediaries for non-Japanese buyers: | | |
Buyee
From Japan (this From Japan link shows various items that they waive commission fees for.)
Samurai Buyer
DEJapan
You'll want to provide your chosen intermediary with the link to the item. Just copy paste the link to the product pages for what you want and send them a message about it and they'll take care of it after they discuss pricing and their policies with you. The links embedded in the news article for the products are exactly what you'll need to send them.
Some of the intermediaries have a full storefront and may have the item listed, so you may want to check that first.
I believe I should point this out but most if not all of those officially aligned special pages haven't been updated for a while.
For example, Samurai Buyer recently announced that they will cease operations at the end of the month.
Back when those storefronts were open, they only featured a limited offering of what Premium Bandai allowed to be sold through these middlemen sites.
If you're gonna use an intermediary then don't bother with those outdated "official" pages. You can make a special order through From Japan, Buyee, or DEJapan if you choose to. (I've used the special ordering page through From Japan in the past on items that never showed up on their Premium Bandai site)
.......
Speaking of importing.......
My main complaint is why do we not have information on how this may be sold outside of Japan? It feels very unprofessional not to habe this information this soon to preorders opening. It really hinders out of country fans as I'm unsure what to do, especially as somebody who has never imported from Japan in their life.
The fact that I'm seeing "this product may be sold outside of Japan" at all is a good thing, but I really need more details on what exactly that entails.
There might be a reason why they are only announcing a Japanese release as of now and why they haven't mentioned anything on the details of a possible overseas model.
Those that are thinking about importing this might wanna think twice since there may be issues with compatibility in your country or region.
I have questions regarding the Japanese-market Vital Bracelet and it's features.
1. Will the particular app for use with the APP LOG LINK function of the Japanese-market version of the Vital Bracelet be available worldwide or will it only be available in the Japanese region of the Apple and Google Appstores?
If an overseas version does come from this, will it only work with an app that's only for international users?
2. What NFC standards is the Japanese-market Vital Bracelet compatible with?
For those that don't know, Japan uses a specific contactless IC standard (FeliCa) that is different from the NFC standards used elsewhere.
FeliCa and Global NFC are not cross-compatible.
I wonder that if Bandai were to release a version overseas, would it have different internals and different NFC standard compatibility as opposed to the one sold in Japan?
Those are questions you should ask yourselves before you decide on buying a device originally meant for one specific market.
It would suck for those that would obtain one of these only to find out that one or more features may not work in their country/territory/region.
I might import one since I try to travel there at least once a year.