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A Gaijin's Guide to Doujin Shopping

For Touhou Project fans outside of Japan, it can be difficult to buy fan your favorite fan works. Most works are sold only in Japan, and most major doujin sales sites don't ship internationally. However, there are lots of resources available for international fans to purchase doujin works. I will try to collect them here.

Stores With International Shipping

Digital Download Stores

Forwarding/Shopping Services

Stores Without International Shipping

Stores With International Shipping

While most sites don't ship internationally, a few do. These avoid the fees and extra shipping costs associated with forwarding services.

Akiba-Hobby

Akiba-Hobby sells official Touhou works as well as a variety of fan works. The website is available in Japanese, English, Chinese, and German.

Mandarake

Mandarake sells official Touhou works as well as a variety of fan works. The website is available in Japanese and English.

AliceBooks

AliceBooks sells a variety of Touhou fan works. International shipping is not available for all products. The website is available in Japanese and English.

IOSYS Shop

IOSYS Shop sells music by IOSYS and some other circles. The website is in Japanese only.

Diverse Direct

Diverse Direct sells music by Diverse System and some other circles. The website is a mix of Japanese and English.

Digital Download Stores

Some sites sell doujin works as digital files. This avoids international shipping issues entirely.

DLsite

DLsite English is specifically targeted to international sales, though some products are only available on the Japanese DLsite.

Melonbooks DL

Melonbooks DL is a Japanese-language download site.

Forwarding/Shopping Services

Forwarding and shopping services allow you to order items from Japanese sites and have them sent overseas. A forwarding service gives you a Japanese address where you can receive packages. Once your package arrives at the forwarding service, they can ship it to you. If you are unable to purchase the item yourself, you can do so through a shopping service. A shopping service buys the items you want and forwards them to you.

Tenso

Tenso offers both forwarding and shopping services.

Noppin

Noppin offers a shopping service. Moomaria of The Poltergeist Mansion wrote a great article on using Noppin.

i-TM4U

i-TM4U offers a shopping service.

Stores Without International Shipping

These stores offers the greatest selection of items. Even though these stores don't ship internationally, you can buy from them using a forwarding or shopping service. Unless otherwised mentioned, these sites are in Japanese only.