Big In Japan Reviews 24

They are generally the cheapest option for me in terms of figure price + undervalueing, but not always shipping. If anything, their way of handling shipping seems extremely inconsistent. Sometimes they would put the figure in a really tiny thin box that gets damaged easily. Other times, their boxes seem solid, perfect size, with no problems. There are other times where they asked me a crazy amount of additional money to ship a fairly small figure. When I ask them how that is possible, and even provided comparisons to other sites, they would still tell me that I'm wrong. So I would pay it anyway, and the small figure would arrive in an extremely oversized box with lots of additional space, which makes me feel extremely scammed.

Basically the same as other reviews. Sarcastic customer care, any problems with shipping costs they indirectly call you cheap or make out you're some sort of idiot.

They've massively gone downhill now. Shove your items into tiny boxes that get absolutely destroyed. Also under value all your items which is fraud.

Was using them for shipping for a while but had to switch to another service. They really became less and less easy to deal with and the customer service became careless, curt and lazy. There are better options.

Their forwarding service is top-notch
I have been using their forwarding service regularly for years and I have never had issues. Its the cheapest out there at a flat 500yen fee + shipping, and just works and they are very fast about it. They normally invoice the same day they receive the item and ship the same day they receive payment.

The first negative thing that happened was when I received a damaged figure and sent it back. I had to pay for the return shipping cost and even though they agreed to send me a replacement, I never got it. After waiting for 3 months and sending several messages I had to open a PayPal case in time to get my money back .

Second negative thing was with my last preorder, for which I paid more than a year ago since they demanded immediate payment. I necer received the figure and they never responded to my messages again. So they stole 38350 Yen from me.

Avoid at all cost!!!!

worst customer service. Who cares if your supplier deadline has passed? You have a lot of customers willing to take over the order who looks at availability daily.

Prices are okay. However I tried to cancel my order within like an hour of ordering it and they still proceeded with the order. It's an okay figure but then they shipped my figure in a very thin box you could have imagined. I received my figure box damaged and even if they packed it with paper padding and bubble wrap it's still damaged. Next time please use a sturdy box to ship items coz it's not cheap.

Big in Japan has proven trustworthy and reliable. Recommended.

BIJ has never been my first choice to order from, but overall they were OK. Despite some annoyance I kept ordering with them for more than 10 years.

It always annoyed me that they undervalue all orders (which I never requested). I was OK with them doing that for action figures, but I was always worried about scale figures.
I asked them not to undervalue my packages, but they ignored my inquiries. Unfortunately some time ago one of my orders arrived badly damaged and all they did was redirect me to their terms and conditions. Their policy says that in case of damage they won't compensate the actual value of the order, but only what they wrote on the shipping label- usually around 2000 yen.
In my opinion this is just a scam. They decide on their own to heavily undervalue your order, but if you receive a damaged figure they will put the blame on you as if you'd asked them to do that.

Recently I got banned for canceling an order.
As I mentioned I was their customer for over 10 years. Up til now I always paid all my orders the same day I received the invoice.
A few months ago I asked them to cancel an order. Because of some issues I knew I wouldn't be able to pay for it. I wrote them a very polite mail and tried to explain my situation as well as possible. It was my first cancellation ever so I hoped they would make an exception. Of course they didn't. They sent me a standart short message claiming it was too late, although the release date was 2 months away.
Now they banned my IP.

This shows that they don't have any respect for their customers. As long as you pay on time and don't contact their customer service on any matter they're good.
If you try to contact them you're likely to be ignored.
No matter how much money you spend with them, how fair you were to them and for how long, you'll be banned immediately if you don't pay.

Placed my order on the 07/03/2022, my item just arrived on the 07/02/2023. Item arrived safe and well packaged.
Even had to message the support about an address change inbetween, quick answer & kind support.
Would order again, thanks

Just got ban for... literally nothing ;') I just write to them about shipping via surface, because not long ago it was possible on their side, but now not...
Really bad and and loughtable company ;') I was perfect client, I was always pay at the beggining at the month... looks that was bad for them.
oh welp, gonna made preorders somewhere else, lucky one the soonest I got on april so lose nothing from what i want :D

Been ordering here since the beginning of my figure collecting hobby in 2017 and their service has always been great except for the same issues as almost everyone here. Customer service is terrible and will ban you for cancelations. Absolutely garbage considering they have a lot of customers anyway to take over the slot. Joke company.

I have done 99% of my anime figure preorders with bij, hundreds of nendoroids etc over the past 4-5 years. Been a very loyal customer. With the Russia/Ukraine delays to postage bij at the time was only accepting surface mail to the UK, so months ahead I asked to cancel a single nendoroid I really didn't want anymore to save me waiting 2-6 months just to sell it when it arrived, they told me it might have calmed down by the time it releases. Months later my own fault I forget and ask to cancel again but they say no its too late I need to pay..So yeah I take the risk and don't pay. I've been soooo loyal and loved their service for years.. I get IP banned and the website no longer loads for me on any devices. ONE SINGLE ORDER I refuse to pay for when I asked 3 months ahead of time to cancel considering the circumstances????? Wild. You're better off using amiami.

Big in Japan is good, until you have to contact their customer service.
Problems go to a few years back, but only recently they crossed the line.
I asked them to extend the deadline for payment, and they did that, no problem. But after few days from my message something came out, the yen skyrocketed, Japan suspended most shipment options to my country, I got personal problems and generally things were going to be really difficult this month, so the only option for me was to cancel the preorder. I felt REALLY bad and believe me, I apologized enough in my really long message to them.
And oh boy, writing to them about it was a mistake. Never ever write to them about cancellation if you don't want them to make you feel like a human garbage.
And I'm not overreacting. First they said how mad and dissapointed they were and how I "used their generosity" by "giving them that treatment", after they went "up and above" to extent my payment deadline, saying other shops don't do that. Yeah, because they do much more! After that they said I should have told them at the beginning instead of asking for extension of deadline(like I knew something would happen??) And at the end, they said if I won't pay for this order, combining it with 2 previous cancellations will make them take action.
But more about cancelling. Let's go back a few years back.
So I had a nendoroid ordered. 6 months before the release I asked them to cancel it. They said it was too late/too close to the release date. Like what? It ended up being forcerfully cancelled, as I couldn't pay for it. I don't remember if I bothered to ask them about the second one, but I knew they would say the same thing.
Okay, that's two in like few years.
But how many paid and shipped orders I have with them?
19+
So I'm not even a new client.
I ordered and cancelled with many shops, and they're literally the only store that have such problems with cancelling items.
And the way they phrased the email to me was outrageous. Absolutely unprofessional. Instead of writing "it's not possible", they would treat you like a piece of hot garbage. Thanks for triggering my anxiety, I guess.
Never ordering anything from them again.

I have really given many possibilities to this service but above all to these people, but now it seems right to tell my recent experience with them.

I always paid in advance, and they always shipped everything to me quickly (which is why I always choose to buy from them)
But the service in this two years has started to deteriorate more and more.
The customer service has no regard, just half a thing and they close your account (even if you have a lot of things already paid for that still have to be sent) short answers and without any criterious.
The damage came especially with this situation born in October 2021 on the absence of cheap and fast options to ship (being Italian I can only use DHL and Surface at the moment)
Some time ago, before all this, I had pre-ordered and paid for a not cheap figure (that of Inuyasha from Hobby Max) and unfortunately this figure has been postponed many times (almost a year and a half) which is why my customer protection had expired on Paypal. The figure is released just a month after the hustle and bustle about shipping, and they send me the request for almost 200 euros SHIPPING ONLY to ship it with DHL (I had already paid 150 euros just for the figure, the shipping exceeded the cost of the figure) so since it hadn't been sent yet, I asked them to kindly send me the money back because the other option (ie Surface) didn't make me calm and I was afraid it might be lost. Guess what they did? They didn't give a damn, didn't answer me and decided for me to ship with Surface against my will (as the shipping paid previously when Airmail was available covered the costs of the Surface). They went against my will by sending the figure and deciding for me despite explaining the situation to them (which was not my fault as it was a global problem)

3 months later, guess what? The figure of Inuyasha has been lost, nothing is known and obviously to be repaid without even talking about it.
Reason why I asked on paypal for the reimbursement of another expensive amount that I had always bought before this situation (and on which fortunately there was still the protection of the customer) to avoid the same situation as Inuyasha.
And what did they do? He gave me back the money for this second figure not yet released (thanks to paypal, otherwise I would have dreamed of them) but they blocked my account where I still have an order already paid and which must go out shortly (and being a nendoroid I can also pay the DHL compared to a figure of scale the shipment does not cost too much and it is feasible)

I find it absurd the way they do it, when you pay if there is a problem they don't care in the least and it doesn't exist. Money does not come from heaven, I have to sweat a lot, and these people do not exist, I pay for a service and it is right that as a customer who has always paid them by allowing them to go on with their business, I should be treated with respect and that just take my money and leave me to my problems, or even close my account with orders still active and already paid.
Seriously, think again your way because it's not okay.

(I apologize in advance for my English but I think for better or for worse the message is clear enough)

They don’t allow you to cancel any orders or they will ban you. Meanwhile, they have canceled a total of 5 of my pre-orders now.

They are very unprofessional. I asked them if the payment deadline could be extended by a few days and they agreed to it. So I paid by the new deadline date and not long after I received a message saying, and I’m quoting:

“We are sorry but his figure is now out of stock.”

They probably sold my pre-order to someone else as I did see the figure being available again after the release date.

I've never had a single problem with them in many years and after many orders. The prices are good, even a bit lower than other action figures sites, and their packages have never been stopped by customs. I've place an order even during Covid and the item arrived safely in time, just as planned.
I'd recommend this site to anyone.

I was using Big in Japan from 2013 until 2015, they were my go to store for figures that you could only purchase if you live in Japan and since I live in the USA I needed to purchase them from Big in Japan or a proxy which was more expensive. I never had any problems with them until I decided to use their proxy service, I had paid for their proxy service to "repackage" several different order of doujinshi together into one shipment, the total costs of the doujinshis that I had ordered was over ¥20,000+ ($200 USD+) and Big in Japan decided to just throw all the books in an oversized box to charge me more money for shipping without using bubble wrap to wrap all the books together so that they wouldnt get tossed around inside of the box during shipping and without using any void fillers, there was at least 10 inches from the pile of books inside of the box to the top of the box that didnt have any void fillers and allowed the books to roll around inside of the shipping box on their way from Japan to the USA. When I opened the shipping box all the books inside which I had spent over $200 USD on were all damaged with torn pages, torn footer covers, bent pages, scuffs all over the books, and the books generally looked like garbage because of Big in Japan's poor packaging skills. I contacted Big in Japan to complain about the condition that the items arrived in and they said that there was nothing that they could do, at the time I didnt think about doing a Paypal chargeback for the damaged items because I figured that I would have to mail back the items to Japan at my own expense and I had already paid over $150 USD for shipping since Big in Japan used a box that was twice the size of what was needed. After that horrible experience with Big in Japan's proxy service I never used their website ever agian.

Overall a good site. They are accommodating for undervaluing packages. Package products well for shipment (though sometime it feels like they over package, making you pay extra in fees when you don't need to). All products received are brand new and in great condition. Though they don't allow for order cancellations (tried once and email got ignored). Never had an issue with forcing early payment or delay in shipping out product. Overall happy with this website