Glossary

Collector's glossary

Plain-language definitions for buying from Japan, pre-order culture, TCG and figure collecting. Tap a term to read the full explainer.

GLOSSARY

Buying from Japan

Proxy service（proxy shopping）: A middleman with a Japanese address that buys from Japan-only stores or auctions on your behalf, receives the parcel at its warehouse, and ships it to you. You pay the item, domestic shipping, a service fee, international shipping and payment processing.
Forwarding service: A lighter cousin of the proxy: it only provides a Japanese address and re-ships what arrives. You place the order yourself, so it works only with stores that accept your payment method.
Consolidation（combine shipping）: Having a proxy hold several purchases at its warehouse and pack them into one international parcel. Fewer parcels usually means less total shipping — with a package-size limit and storage window to watch.
Customs duty（import tax）: Tax your own country may charge on imports, separate from anything the store or proxy collects. Rules and thresholds are set by your customs authority, not by Japan.
Domestic shipping: The seller-to-warehouse leg inside Japan — actual cost passed through by the proxy, varying by seller and method. It exists on top of the international leg.
JP-exclusive（Japan-only）: Sold only through Japanese channels, at least for now. Some items later get international releases — treat 'exclusive' as 'currently', and check the source date on any claim.

Pre-order window: The period when a product can be reserved before manufacture. For scale figures it often decides how many units exist at all — missing it can mean the aftermarket or a long wait for a re-release.
Release date: The maker- or store-announced date an item ships or hits shelves. Dates shift; a trustworthy page states when the date was last verified (as-of) and links its source.
Re-release（rerun・reprint）: A second production run of a sold-out item. Common for popular figures and TCG products; announced runs are the structural reason aftermarket prices can fall as well as rise.
Restock: Existing stock returning to a store (not a new production run). Restocks are usually announced with little notice — the reason release calendars and store alerts exist.
MSRP（list price）: The maker's suggested retail price. Stores can sell above or below it; TANA prints prices only as strings with the date they were verified, because they change.

Booster box: A sealed retail box of booster packs (pack and box counts vary by game). The default unit collectors compare prices and pull rates against.
Pull rate: How often a given rarity appears per pack or box. Only maker-published ratios are facts; everything else is community sampling — treat numbers accordingly.
JP vs EN set: The Japanese and English versions of 'the same' TCG set can differ in card pool, rarities, release timing and price. Set-by-set comparison is the only reliable way to decide which to buy.
Sealed: An unopened product in its factory wrap. Collectors distinguish sealed from opened because condition and completeness stop being verifiable once the wrap comes off.
Singles: Individual cards bought alone rather than pulled from packs. The economical route when you want specific cards instead of the opening experience.

Scale figure: A figure sized as a fraction of the character's 'real' height, e.g. 1/7 — larger, painted, usually pre-order-driven and produced roughly to demand.
Prize figure: A figure made for Japanese arcade crane games, later sold through resellers. Simpler finish than scale figures, and priced accordingly.
Garage kit（GK）: An unassembled, unpainted model kit, often produced in small runs for events like Wonder Festival. Buying one means building it — and licensed recasts are a known counterfeit risk area.
Wonder Festival（WonFes）: Japan's twice-yearly (winter/summer) figure event where makers reveal prototypes and sell limited garage kits. The reveal calendar around it drives each season's pre-order wave.
Tankobon: The standard collected volume of a manga series, as opposed to serialized magazine chapters. What most people mean by 'volume 1'.
Limited edition（first press）: A print or production run with extras (box, booklet, bonus item) that isn't reprinted in that form. What 'limited' covers varies by publisher — the listing's fine print is the source of truth.