"From around 2006 to 2012, I bought a total of 527 items with a total item price of 6.810 Euro (without shipping and customs clearance) from Hobby Link Japan. During this time, they messed up a few times, but ordering from them was easy and I thought the prices were competitive, so I continued buying.

After the introduced the "Personal Warehouse", things got much worse. What sounds like a good idea, is in reality terrible! HLJ may benefit from it in some way, but for the customers, I think it's a good reason for not buying there. Because of the logic (or lack thereof) of the Personal Warehouse, I ended up paying a horrendous shipping fee for a minor item. I politely asked HLJ not to ship it alone, but they declined with a nonchalant "that's our rules!", obviously not taking into consideration that I had been a loyal, problem free and probably not exactly their smallest customer for quite some years. Realizing that HLJ don't appreciate their customers and just want their money with a minimum of effort, I decided to stop buying there. I'm happy for that. I just wish I had stopped much sooner!

If you care about a company's moral, HLJ is in my humble opinion absolutely the wrong place to buy. As a part of the earthquake/tsunami relief in Japan, HLJ added a few % to their prices for a limited time. As such absolutely OK! However, once the collecting had been completed, HLJ presented the result, giving the impression that HLJ was donating the money and not the customers! Talk about resting on other persons' laurels!

Leaving HLJ wasn't a loss in any way. I've found multiple shops with better selection, lower prices and much better customer service.

So, despite having a shop that is relatively easy to navigate and fairly good English, there is no reason why anyone should buy from HLJ. I woldn't recommend HLJ to my worst enemy, and if there's a bit of justice in this world, HLJ will go bankrupt and disappear. The sooner the better."

"I went to HLJ for shopping after reading some of the reviews here. My personal experience is quite mixed. I am a aircraft model collector for 1/200 planes. And I ordered 5 Gulliver200 models and here is I got:

The interface is easy to use, no big problem selecting the item you want. Almost all of the items are either "out of stock" or "backordered" though.

The payment is one thing you need to pay attention to: I used manual payment via Paypal, to avoid getting charge extra and without notice, automatic billing is not recommended. Also, you can check everything before you pay for the item.

I recommend EMS for shipping, their packaging is not great, so you may want to pick a safer service, especially for fragile items like a 1/200 fighter model. Don't save money on this, it will cost a lot more to return or dispute over a damaged model. The EMS shipping cost for light items like 1/200 aircraft is also reasonable, more than SAL but you can keep track of the status of your package. Shipping speed is okay, it seems to take them a few days to prepare before actual shipping, item arrived 5 days after confirmation.

I backordered 5 planes, which only 4 arrived. The one that never arrived is labeled "discontinued" afterwards, understandable because this model (WA22073) is extremely unlikely to find now. The rest arrived in perfect condition. Yeah, I am as surprised as you are to find out the service works. Since then I backordered more aircraft models, which are yet to be ready for me to pay for them.

I would say the price is pretty good, compared to other online sellers; for the same aircraft you can buy here for 2560 yen, while in other place you might spend more than 10000 yen to get it. And another advantage is you won't need another company (like Tenso or Buyee) to buy from Japanese sellers then ship to you, which will cost you a fortune to buy even a cheap item. The downside is you need to wait for 4 to 6 weeks to get your backordered items, and there is no guarantee that they will be available. If you wait for more than a month and still receive no news about it, that's probably a bad sign that your items will never arrive. If you want the model in the next week, then HLJ is probably not for you.

In other reviews you might notice the customer service is pretty bad, personally I think they have improved at this field, notifications are clear and since my items arrived without any accidents or damage, I never used the customer service to be honest.

In conclusion, HLJ is a good place to get rare aircraft models like Gulliver 200/WAC models, they won't have everything, but you can try your luck here. And remember to use manual payment, even if you eventually out of luck and have your orders canceled, you will be charged for nothing. I give HLJ 4 stars, and yes, this is a legit review."

"I just got banned from "hobby link Japan" I was a loyal customer for years. I make one wrong mistake and boom it's over. If anyone is looking for an alternative try "Gundamplanet.com" they have better costumer service, and they even sell P-Bandai stuff."

"very poor service, i ordered the Arii 1/250 Battleship Yamato and placed it into Private Warehouse, but i am unable to pay for the postage because this Postage information is missing on my page, i've told them this 3 times yesterday and now they're ignoring my my latest emails.

they wont refund my Paypal, i keep trying to contact them but i get no reply.

Be very careful of HobbyLink Japan, dont buy from them. "

"I've been using Hobby Link for over a year now, mainly to buy art books, various types of bishoujo figures, and general anime merchandise like keychains and the like. I used it in a pinch to find a couple of art books that I couldn't find anywhere else, and not only was i pleased to see that they were in stock, but they were also fairly priced! That's when I began using their Private Warehouse. I group as many items as possible in order to save on their FedEx shipping, which compared to sites like AmiAmi, makes it reasonable and affordable. I've used their EMS service once when buying a scale figure and the only drawback was that it was held at JFK in NY for about two days, but otherwise, the package arrived on time. I paid the shipping for a product friday the 19th and it's already arriving today, which based on shipping rates and all, is pretty great. Recommendable site overall. And always use the Private Warehouse!"

"Good online store for Gundam, Ma.k, etc... no problems ever."

"they keep banning people for some item that limited to 1 order. Even there is enough stock after the item was release they are still banning people without warning.

Was big fan of HLJ. I was ordering like $600 worth of toys every 6 months

Now probably not anymore."

"Hobbylink Japan routinely accepts way more preorders than the stock it receives, then picks and chooses which orders to fill. The best part is that if you aren't getting your order, they often won't even bother to inform you, waiting for you to write to them and ask them what the deal is.

Terrible, terrible company. "

"Never ordering there again. The first time I order from this site is for 4 Sega preorders I was really looking forward to getting and all of them get cancelled because they are out of stock? I ordered them just days after the preorder became available! Not only that and because they were cancelled it's now too late for me to preorder them anywhere else. Thanks a lot HLJ that's the first and last time I will do business with you"

"I read these very reviews before ordering from Hobby Link Japan. Some Good, Alot really bad. Mostly because people didn't know how their arcane shipping and Private warehouse work. I will admit I didn't order anything fancy 9 1980s Gundams, and Mr. Ral's R35 Gouf. I even paid the extra 1000 yen for the EMS 2-7 day Shipping.

Well I am a very happy Customer everything came in pristine condition, and within a week. I got a few items in the Private Warehouse currently, and waiting for the Gyagyan to come out, and Zaku Amazing restock. So we will see how that goes. But all in all i am pretty happy. They have one of the best sites far as searching for items, and a huge selection. And some of my 1980s Gundam backorders have come in making Private Warehouse even more attractive.

So all i can say is don't set your orders to AutoBill, apparently they can and will take whatever they need according to other reviewers. It might be less convenient but do everything manually, their prices are some of the best and for they deliever what they say so a little more work at the checkout is a small price to pay. Don't be scared. They did everything right by me.

And yes I am a real person, some of the positive reviews seem a little fake. As do some of the negative."

"I ordered a tie from HobbyLink Japan and it was the only place that had it!! It took forever to get here, but it's not like they didn't tell me in advance. I ordered 08/12/2014 and I got it 09/02/2014. But take into consideration that it was labor day weekend. I am glad I ordered in advance because this will be the best Christmas present ever for my boyfriend.
I would recommend that if you want to buy from this store you make sure of three things:
1) Know if the item is available for shipping
2) Know where you placed your item. Private Warehouse or shipping
3) Your shipping option and how long it takes. SAL should take around a month.

"

" Their website states they can take up to 2 weeks to process an order and prepare the items, then another few days for the package to be in transit, depending on your shipping method. The shipping method selected for me was FedEx, which is an estimated 3-5 days.

Accounting for ALL of this, I purchased my items nearly 50 days ago. Supposedly, you can choose to have your items held in "Private Warehouse" after you remit payment, which I did promptly that many weeks ago, giving them ample time to prepare the items.

When I requested the shipment of my orders in on August 3rd, and paid that day for the shipping, it was nearing 50 days AFTER I originally made the purchases and payment. This was supposed to just be a release of shipment of items being held for me. I received a confirmation of receipt of my payment for shipping charges, but got no other correspondence nor shipping notice thereafter. A week passes and I finally email them requesting a status update on when the shipment would be made.

They took 48 hours to respond, with an email stating that they were "accidentally out of stock" on some of the items I had ordered and PAID FOR, WEEKS AGO. They stated also they would refund for the missing items. Again, I asked for an update on a ship date. This was August 10th now.

This time, I got no response until August 18th, at which time they started over from the beginning, stating that my order was in processing. At the same time, the refund they promised on the August 9th correspondence had NOT been processed. This, they pointed out, would be processed as store credit- this is now going on more than two weeks after the fact. I point out that the items were required by Friday, August 22nd and they stated again it was in processing and they could get it out August 18th or 19th.

I have no idea why I still had any inkling of faith in these people, but I had all fingers crossed that the shipment could be made on the 18th. It did not. They shipped it on the 19th, with no option of weekend delivery- so now the items are to arrive on Monday, rendering them worthless to me because of a major convention I will be lacking these items at.

Upon my email stating the issue, and pointing out that they had known the shipment would NOT indeed make my Friday August 22nd delivery date, they stated they are willing to refund the rest of the existing, PAID FOR, orders in my Private Warehouse. Those are required for a different event, much later in the year.

Remember, if you will, I paid for the items almost 2 months ago at this point. I paid for shipping on August 3rd. I got nothing but what seemed like "Ho Hum" responses in email, with no correction for what they did except to refund my orders, which does not improve my situation.

I would not order from these people unless you do not have a deadline or any expectations.

The only reason they did not get a lower score on this site is because these review sites force you to select 1 star as the lowest rating instead of being able to give zero.

Before you order, please read my review and others, and proceed with wary."

"(Just so people don't think this is the WURST STORE EVER OMG....)

I place most of my anime merch and magazine orders from here. They have the best search functions of any anime merch store I've visited, including domestic ones. It's easy to browse by series, price, newly added and soon-to-be released items, and do sub-searches.

Some recommendations I have for a smooth buying experience:

- Use private warehouse for ALL orders. That way you can decide for yourself which is the most cost-effective way to ship. You can also use this to ship in-stock items with backordered items. Once you have paid for an item, you have 60 days to arrange its shipment.

- Do not set up automatic payment. You are generally not allowed to modify orders once they have your money, so if there are any problems and they've auto-billed you....you are out of luck. While manual payment may be annoying to take care of every time, since you will have to check your inbox often, it means that you can look things over and have time to contact them before paying if you notice problems.

- Their packaging indeed isn't necessarily the most secure. Things will be stacked together, shrinkwrapped into a bundle, and placed right in the box like that. So if you are ordering heavy items (like books) + delicate items, you might want to ship them separately.

- Another bad thing is that they will push back preorder dates for small items, even when other stores have apparently gotten the items and fulfilled the orders. (There's something that was going to be released in March that I really had my eye on - it's preorder date keeps getting pushed back two weeks at a time, and now it's the middle of July, and it says it will be released at the end of July.) Fortunately, you have the option to cancel orders you haven't paid for right from your account page, so if it gets too ridiculous, you can cancel it.

Overall, I like this site most, because it's the easiest in-Japan merch shop to use. I've ordered and tried ordering from various shops, but I've had the best overall experience from them. I recommend them for first-time import buyers."

"I have ordered from them on and off for a few years. To avoid SAL mail I have always paid for FedEx instead. So far really good.

So to my better judgement, I decided to try their warehouse and put together an order over $140 plus Over $64 in shipping to make sure that are ok.

Upon opening the box, I notice nearly half of my order of fragile figures were place on the bottom with heavy books and boxes on top. No cardboard or bubble wrap, a few air pouches in between. So alot were crushed, box corner ripped.

I for the first time contacted them and send photos they requested. According to them, when I choose FedEx I should know they are not a careful carrier. I find this wrong as I never had issue with the carrier and the outside box was fine and the box/packaging shown that the sender did not package well or ever a little protection was added.

So HLJ said, the box is just the box, they dont consider it damaged unless I opened up and the figure has and issue then they might consider doing something.

If you have seen the figure, you know the box has a clear plastic window all around so yo can keep them as collection item and see it without opening it.

I never seen such company rudely blaming the carrier when it's obviously their poor packing that cause so many issues. "

"I ordered a figure from Hbbby Link Japan choosing the SAL shipping (1737 yen) and they changed the shipping to EMS (10000 yen) without letting me know and processed the payment before I could even do anything.

Also their customer support is garbage, I have been waiting for 3 days for an email response from me enquiring as to why they changed the shipping without my consent.

Do not shop with these guys, they are a rip off and Amiami is such a better place to buy figures."