I’ve made two separate purchases from Hobby Link Japan – both were reasonably priced, the first order was for two statues which unfortunately tipped the value of the order over for import duties but the second order came in just under.
The site is quite busy (www.hlj.com) as they have a LOT of goods on offer. You can just search for Bishoujo though in the search bar and instant list of statues you might be interested in.
They use a variety of stock statuses:
In Stock (good to go!).
Order Stop (usually see this on pre-orders and they’ve filled their allocation, you’ll have to wait for future availability).
Out of Stock/Backordered (means what it means but they may be getting more in).
Discontinued (the worst! No longer available, you’ll be lucky to get one here now and should probably look elsewhere).
Future Releases (tends to be pre-orders but if you’re too late, it’ll be flagged as Order Stop).
HLJ have a good notification system, anything you can’t get there and then, you can click “notify me” and they’ll send you an email as soon as it’s in stock. This was in fact how I came to make my second order as Draculaura came back in stock.
HLJ support is excellent – I had a response to a query within 7hrs of raising a request.
From order to delivery it took only 15 days. Ironically it was the UK end where it got held up because Parcel Force were having problems with the custom fees payment system and I had to wait for a card to arrive in the post with a reference number that I could then use to pay.
Ordered 6th January and delivered on the 21st January. But it arrived in the UK on the 12th! Good old UK snail mail…
The 2nd order, placed on the 30th January, arrived 4th Feb – shows you how much faster things are when they don’t get held up in customs.
Don’t let that stop you though, I’d have no hestitancy in recommending Hobby Link Japan as an excellent Japanese retailer to purchase from.