Hi, I’m Ant.
I’ve lived in Japan for 24 years, and I grew up on anime. Battle series, slice-of-life, the long-running shows everyone watched after school and the late-night ones you stayed up for. Figures came along naturally after that.
Japan Figure Notes is where I write down what I’ve learned about buying anime figures from Japan when you live somewhere else. Living here, I see the release announcements, prices and shop shelves as they look on this side, and I know how confusing that can be from the outside: which store to trust, what shipping and customs will really cost, how to spot a bootleg, and whether a Nendoroid, a figma or a scale figure is the right fit for the character you love.
What you’ll find here
Buying Guides: practical advice on stores, shipping, preorders, bootlegs and figure types, written for collectors in the US, UK, Australia and Canada.
Series Guides: figure guides for specific anime, covering which makers and lines are worth your money and where to actually buy them.
How I write
I try to write the kind of guide I’d want to read myself: honest about trade-offs, clear about prices and risks, and never pushing you to buy more than you need. If something I’ve written turns out to be wrong or out of date, I fix it.
Some links on this site are affiliate links. You can read how that works on the Affiliate Disclosure page.
If you have a question or a figure you’d like me to cover, feel free to reach out through the Contact page.
Ant