Since this is our buy/sell corner, I wanted to share the sourcing trick that has quietly become my favorite for growing the collection without the usual overseas markup - buying Japanese fashion dolls and 1/6 doll fashion straight from Japan.

If you have not fallen down the AZONE rabbit hole yet: AZONE International makes the Pure Neemo / EX-Cute line - gorgeous 1/6 (roughly 21-27cm) fashion dolls with the most beautiful little outfits, wigs and shoes. The SAHRA'S line and the collab dolls (anime tie-ins, designer outfits) are stunning in person, and the separates fit a lot of our girls and Obitsu bodies too. The problem is the same one we all hit with Japanese goods: the good prices are on the Japanese market (Mercari Japan, Yahoo! Auctions Japan, Surugaya), and those shops reject foreign cards and will not ship abroad - so we end up paying 2-3x buying the leftovers from Western resellers.

Here is the workflow that finally got me AZONE dolls, spare Pure Neemo bodies and loose outfits at Japanese prices:

- Mercari Japan and Yahoo! Auctions Japan for used/loose dolls and single outfits - collectors there offload duplicates constantly, often for a few hundred to a couple thousand yen.
- Surugaya and the doll-lot listings for sealed dolls and bulk outfit sets.
- To actually pay and ship, I use a Japan-based proxy: they buy with a local card + address, receive everything at their warehouse, and forward it all in one consolidated box. That clears both the "no foreign cards" and "no overseas shipping" walls at once.

I have been using OneMall because its universal buy works with basically any Japanese shop (Mercari, Yahoo Auctions, Surugaya, Amazon JP, Rakuten), fees start around 200 yen per order with no markup on the item price, and they hold your wins in free storage so you can combine several auctions into one shipment. This is the AZONE search I keep bookmarked: AZONE dolls & outfits on OneMall.

A few things I learned the hard way:
- Consolidate. Never ship one doll alone - let a few wins pile up and forward them together; the per-box international shipping is where the real savings are.
- Watch the outfit-only and "junk body" lots - that is how you kit out spare Obitsu/Pure Neemo bodies cheaply.
- The exact same route works for BJD gear, Licca, Blythe outfits and sofubi, so it pays for itself fast across the whole hobby.

If anyone wants the longer walkthrough I put together (which lines to watch, fee math, shipping tips), it is here: my full guide to buying AZONE / Japanese dolls from Japan.

Is anyone else here collecting AZONE or Pure Neemo? I am still hunting a reasonably priced EX-Cute Aika that will not cost me a fortune.