# How to buy retro games from Japan

A cartridge is small and battery-free. A console brings the 100 V note.

Estimates only. Not a quote, not a customs ruling, and not an offer to sell or ship. Confirm fees, prohibitions, and duty with the proxy and with destination customs. Figures can change after the last-verified date.

JapanLanded may later earn a commission when someone uses a referral link. Affiliate enrollments are not in place, so outbound links are public pages, not tracked referrals. We do not sell the goods. Names of proxies and products are used to describe them and are their owners' trademarks.

Data as of 2026-10-15. Dataset 2026-10-15.3.

## Games versus hardware

r/Buyee mentions retro and rare games alongside cards and figures. This dataset has no Surugaya overseas-shipping policy. Use the shelf price in yen and a proxy; do not assume the shop ships abroad.

If you are buying a handheld, rerun the estimate with lithium set to installed or none. The default for retro games does not assume a battery, and it warns you that a handheld might have one.

- [r/Buyee: what do you buy on proxies](https://www.reddit.com/r/Buyee/comments/129d32z/what_do_you_buy_on_buyeeother_proxies/)
- [Japan Post lithium battery restriction notice](https://www.post.japanpost.jp/service/send/oversea/attention/restriction/restriction02_en.pdf)

## Worked example

3500 yen, 150 g, United States. Export check: nothing in this dataset blocks export to United States. This is not a customs clearance.

| Proxy | Pay now, known | EMS reference |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Buyee | ¥4,150 – ¥5,500 | ¥3,900 |
| ZenMarket | ¥4,000 | ¥3,900 |
| Neokyo | ¥4,350 | ¥3,900 |
| Tenso | ¥3,780 | ¥3,900 |
| FROM JAPAN | ¥3,500 | ¥3,900 |
| White Rabbit Express | ¥3,500 | ¥3,900 |

These partial sums are not a landed total. No cheapest and no fastest proxy. Domestic postage, payment fees, and the proxies' own international rates are missing or ranged, and no transit times are stored. Naming a winner would invent a number.

## Steps

1. **Copy the yen price.** Read the price on the listing yourself. JapanLanded does not fetch the page.
2. **Weigh it, or say you didn't.** Enter grams. If you leave weight blank, the tool uses an unsourced placeholder and labels it.
3. **Read pay-now separately from arrival.** The partial sum is not a landed total. Duty amounts are not calculated.
4. **Check whether it can leave Japan.** Lithium batteries, alcohol, and 100 V gear each have their own note. The result is not a customs clearance.
5. **Order on the proxy's own site.** Outbound links are public pages until affiliate programs are enrolled. We never take payment.

## Questions

### Will a Japanese game work on my console?

Region locks are not in this dataset. This page only covers money and whether the parcel can be posted.

- [Japan Post EMS rate list](https://www.post.japanpost.jp/send/oversea/charge/list-ems/all_en.html)

HTML: https://japanlanded.com/buy/retro-games