Well, if you fangirl several groups I’d say mags, but honestly, if you are a one group fan, like I am, tearouts is definitely the best option. Unfortunately in Spain there’s no bookshop where you can buy JE-related magazines, so if I wanted to buy, say, the latest issue of Myojo, I’d have to buy it online, for example from Amazon. Amazon has the possibility of subscribing for a year (12 issues) for $134.00 ($11.17/issue), which is not exactly cheap if you’re only interested in 4 pages of each issue.
Also, if you’re a collector, like I am, getting every magazine Ya-Ya-yah have been featured in would leave you broke. Most times Kindai features only stuff related to the Ya3 show, and Ya3 have only started being featured in Popolo recently, so let’s just count the 4 main magazines — Duet, Myojo, Potato, and Wink Up. Ya-Ya-yah have been regulars on those magazines since 2002. They are monthly mags, so each mag has 12 issues. In a year that makes a total of 48 issues, and from 2002 to 2007 that would be 288 issues. 288 issues at $11 would be more than $3000. @___@
So until a few months ago I never dreamed of buying even a single magazine, because I thought it would be wasting the money I have to work so hard to earn. Then I learned that some people sold tearouts on Yahoo!Japan auctions and I thought I’d give it a try. Problem is Japanese people are reluctant to sell to buyers from other countries (mostly because of communication issues), so you have to do it through a deputy auction service. You may remember my first disastrous experience with Rinkya. Never never bid through them. My package with over 300 tearouts got lost and they ignored my repeated claims to find out what had happened to it or at least give me my money back. Also their service and handling fees are way too high. >=(
Because I’m rather stubborn and some people had told me to try Crescent Shop I decided to try again. And I’m so happy I did. ^___^ They reply promptly to any questions you may have, the service fees are acceptable, and the packing is really professional.
Yesterday I received a package from 2 different auctions, and it was the second time I bid through Crescent Shop. Bidding on the first auction was a bit of a whim, as it was very few pages, but they are rarities — pages from two issues from 2005 and 2006 of a magazine called Nicola. The other was 250 pages (plus a few posters) of Ya3 articles from 2002 to 2004. 67 issues of different magazines in total. ^__^
I can’t say it was exactly cheap, but it was cheaper than if I had bought the 67 issues —that would have been more than $700. The handful of Nicola pages was —service fees included— 1780 yens ($16), but hey, they are rarities and one has one of my favourite Shoon pics! =p (the one up there, on the left) The 250 pages batch of articles from 2002-2004 was 6025 yens ($54), but totally worth every yen I paid. Damn, it was even woth the 5400 yens ($49) I had to pay for the shipping. Yeah, I know: “$49 ... ouch!”, but most of those articles are very hard to find. However, the most awesome thing is that the seller of the 250 pages auction sent them perfectly organized with the name and date of each issue in 4 clear display folders!! *____* Japanese people are amazing.
I’m a very organized person, so I had bought clear display folders for the tearouts I’d won the first time, but I would never have expected to get those 250 tearouts organized so neatly. ^o^*
I don’t have a digital camera, so I can’t take pics of the folders for you to see, but I can show you the pics the seller put on the auction page. The first is just a pic of a clear display folder in case you don’t know what they are. They are really handy —before now I used them for keeping my drawings. =]
Obviously those are just a sample; not the 250 tearouts. ^^ As I said on a previous entry I plan on scanning all of my tearouts —little by little, of course XD— and I thought today I’d share the 2 pages from the 2005 Nicola issue. =] I’d only seen a blurry scan of them before, and really, Shoon looks gorgeous in the group pic, so it was a shame there was no nice, big scan of it around. Shoon has such a beautiful physique —and he was just 16 back then! Staring at pics of him like that one makes me itch to grab a pencil and make drawings of him. I’ve tried to draw portraits of him, but being the obsessive perfectionist I am, I’m not happy with the results I’ve achieved so far. ^^;;; So anyway... the scans. Comments are very much appreciated if you take them, even if it’s only a ^___^ or ♥♥♥
PS: Do you believe in true love? ^o^ Are you a Yamabu (ShoonxYabu/YabuxShoon) shipper? Then you have to join Slave of Love, the Yamabu LiveJournal community created by mknsen08, janel_23, and wordplay712. It was about time they had their own community! *wanders off thinking of posts she wants to make there*
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