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wednesday_10_00) wrote2014-09-09 10:58 am
wednesday_10_00) wrote2014-09-09 10:58 am
Entry tags:
The Comi Comi Experiment
So, a few weeks ago, Sakyou Aya posted on her blog that Kuroneko Kareshi no Aishikata (1 and 2) would be sold with a bunch of different store-exclusive extras. Normally, this just makes me frustrated, but I decided to check out Comi Comi Studio because that's a name I've seen floating around for a while. It is, apparently, a physical store in Hiroshima, but they also do a good online business, and it's kind of awesome because it's a BL-only store, and they seem to get a lot of exclusive extras with books they sell. And, as it turns out, they actually ship overseas. So I decided to try placing an order there (for science!) because it never hurts to have more options for manga buying. Plus, they sell doujinshi, and skipping deputy fees is a definite bonus. So...let's go through the positives and negatives of my experience:
Problems with Site
1. The first thing I did was to register an account, which required putting in my address. However, as Japanese addresses are in the opposite order of US ones, my address came out like this:
Town, STATE
123 Street
No ZIP code. No country. This was slightly concerning, and I waited a few days after making an account to see if I would trigger some sort of customer service email asking me for a proper address (that's just plain wishful thinking). What I ended up doing was creating a separate shipping address, ignoring what was supposed to go in each field in order to get my address to come out in the correct order. (I switched my name around for this, too.) This did the trick, and my package arrived just fine. Now, it's possible a store employee might have done this for me if I left my address as I had entered it the first time (would they have emailed me to ask what country I'm in?), but I'm not going to go that far for science. I'm more interested in getting my books.
2. Maybe this is only a problem for me, but: items don't stay in your cart past your current site visit, and there's no wishlist function that I can find. I find this annoying because I like to plan my order over long periods of time, adding books as I find them. There are a lot of books advertised on the front page, and I'd like to be able to browse these and add them to my cart if I find anything I like, but instead I have to make a note of it elsewhere.
Shipping
Overseas shipping is EMS only, as far as I can tell. My order was two books and one doujinshi (charge: ¥1800), and I got a confirmation email with tracking number when they shipped. (Minor annoyance: just the tracking number, not a clickable link. I...might be spoiled.) The books were well-packed in a padded envelope and arrived in perfect condition.
Extras
The papers and clear file I got with my books were lovingly tucked into a cardboard folder to prevent bending or folding. The papers are probably the nicest quality I've ever seen...I had always assumed the publisher prints these, but I guess maybe the store is in charge for some of them? Or is this just a Comi Comi thing? (Now that I'm paying attention, I notice the two papers I got from Mangaoh this month were of varying quality.) Anyway...now I'm reluctant to fold the papers, and two of them are too big to store inside the manga. I may use my shiny new Kuroneko clear file as paper storage. (Edit: this sounds hilarious now that I'm rereading it. What a plan! I'm going to store paper in my folder! Genius! Can't we have a better term for these SPECIAL papers?)
Doujinshi
1. According to the site FAQ, certain doujinshi can't be shipped overseas...but there's no clarification on which those might be. I ordered this one by Murakami Sachi, which is an 18&up item, but had no issues. (I had wondered if the adult ones were the ones they wouldn't ship overseas.) I can only guess that there might be some authors leery of scanlator groups getting a hold of their doujinshi who might stop overseas orders...? Or, possibly, they don't send adult doujinshi to certain countries? At any rate, I'll just hope that anything I want to order won't ever be a problem. Still, it's a little disconcerting to always wonder if I'll be allowed to buy the doujinshi I want.
2. Of all the summer Comiket doujinshi (I believe I ordered 8 total), there were only two I was interested in at Comi Comi (one that I actually bought, and the Hidoku Shinaide one by Nekota Yonezou, which I opted to get via Noppin because I wanted to be sure I got the free paper passed out at Comiket, since it usually has a comic on it). So...even though it's MUCH cheaper to get doujinshi via Comi Comi, it doesn't do much good when they don't stock the stuff I want. Now, Comi Comi did also have doujinshi by Narazaki Souta and Tennnouji Mio (I just wasn't interested in anything they were doing this time), so there's potential for the percentage I get from Comi Comi to go up, but I guess they're not replacing Noppin as my primary source for doujinshi anytime soon.
The Bottom Line
Will I order from Comi Comi again? Yes. (Well, even if I hated them, I still need to get my Kuroneko extras this month. But I will keep ordering after that, I mean.) Between the extras and possibility of getting doujinshi, they've passed Mangaoh in my manga shop preference list. (Thing I have not yet checked on: ease of canceling an order. Mangaoh is the worst for that.) I'm not yet ready to give up Amazon for Comi Comi, but I am probably going to make an effort to check Comi Comi for extras before placing orders with Amazon. (Or after, because canceling items at Amazon is super easy.)
Problems with Site
1. The first thing I did was to register an account, which required putting in my address. However, as Japanese addresses are in the opposite order of US ones, my address came out like this:
Town, STATE
123 Street
No ZIP code. No country. This was slightly concerning, and I waited a few days after making an account to see if I would trigger some sort of customer service email asking me for a proper address (that's just plain wishful thinking). What I ended up doing was creating a separate shipping address, ignoring what was supposed to go in each field in order to get my address to come out in the correct order. (I switched my name around for this, too.) This did the trick, and my package arrived just fine. Now, it's possible a store employee might have done this for me if I left my address as I had entered it the first time (would they have emailed me to ask what country I'm in?), but I'm not going to go that far for science. I'm more interested in getting my books.
2. Maybe this is only a problem for me, but: items don't stay in your cart past your current site visit, and there's no wishlist function that I can find. I find this annoying because I like to plan my order over long periods of time, adding books as I find them. There are a lot of books advertised on the front page, and I'd like to be able to browse these and add them to my cart if I find anything I like, but instead I have to make a note of it elsewhere.
Shipping
Overseas shipping is EMS only, as far as I can tell. My order was two books and one doujinshi (charge: ¥1800), and I got a confirmation email with tracking number when they shipped. (Minor annoyance: just the tracking number, not a clickable link. I...might be spoiled.) The books were well-packed in a padded envelope and arrived in perfect condition.
Extras
The papers and clear file I got with my books were lovingly tucked into a cardboard folder to prevent bending or folding. The papers are probably the nicest quality I've ever seen...I had always assumed the publisher prints these, but I guess maybe the store is in charge for some of them? Or is this just a Comi Comi thing? (Now that I'm paying attention, I notice the two papers I got from Mangaoh this month were of varying quality.) Anyway...now I'm reluctant to fold the papers, and two of them are too big to store inside the manga. I may use my shiny new Kuroneko clear file as paper storage. (Edit: this sounds hilarious now that I'm rereading it. What a plan! I'm going to store paper in my folder! Genius! Can't we have a better term for these SPECIAL papers?)
Doujinshi
1. According to the site FAQ, certain doujinshi can't be shipped overseas...but there's no clarification on which those might be. I ordered this one by Murakami Sachi, which is an 18&up item, but had no issues. (I had wondered if the adult ones were the ones they wouldn't ship overseas.) I can only guess that there might be some authors leery of scanlator groups getting a hold of their doujinshi who might stop overseas orders...? Or, possibly, they don't send adult doujinshi to certain countries? At any rate, I'll just hope that anything I want to order won't ever be a problem. Still, it's a little disconcerting to always wonder if I'll be allowed to buy the doujinshi I want.
2. Of all the summer Comiket doujinshi (I believe I ordered 8 total), there were only two I was interested in at Comi Comi (one that I actually bought, and the Hidoku Shinaide one by Nekota Yonezou, which I opted to get via Noppin because I wanted to be sure I got the free paper passed out at Comiket, since it usually has a comic on it). So...even though it's MUCH cheaper to get doujinshi via Comi Comi, it doesn't do much good when they don't stock the stuff I want. Now, Comi Comi did also have doujinshi by Narazaki Souta and Tennnouji Mio (I just wasn't interested in anything they were doing this time), so there's potential for the percentage I get from Comi Comi to go up, but I guess they're not replacing Noppin as my primary source for doujinshi anytime soon.
The Bottom Line
Will I order from Comi Comi again? Yes. (Well, even if I hated them, I still need to get my Kuroneko extras this month. But I will keep ordering after that, I mean.) Between the extras and possibility of getting doujinshi, they've passed Mangaoh in my manga shop preference list. (Thing I have not yet checked on: ease of canceling an order. Mangaoh is the worst for that.) I'm not yet ready to give up Amazon for Comi Comi, but I am probably going to make an effort to check Comi Comi for extras before placing orders with Amazon. (Or after, because canceling items at Amazon is super easy.)