#nyacoask

I AM SO GLAD YOU ASKED, DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW LONG I'VE WAITED TO BOMB SOMEBODY WITH HOW I BUY MY MERCH?

So first of all, I just need to explain some things. Merchandise can get EXPENSIVE, so please please please be very prepared especially depending on your country, there are things like tax and tariffs you need to take note of. BUT, that is also just means you need to do your research before you start getting into it. For example, for my country, I just need to deal with GST, which is 9% as well as shipping from Japan to Singapore (which is thankfully not super costly, especially depending on the items I purchased which are pretty light weight).

Secondly, choose your sources wisely. Each source has their different service fees and different services they can provide. Not all services can cover for everything so make sure you also research what merch you are looking into buying.

Anyways, these are main two things you just need to take note of, the highest priority to all hunt for merchandise is to make sure you even have the money for it. Don't get into it if you are a broke mf (says the broke mf). I have seen many people who get into merchandise only to lose love for their merchandise, I'd say, there is a lot of risk getting into it especially if you are not into collecting. (Though of course, there is always the option to resell for new fans, so please take care of your merch to maintain resale value!)

Now onto the main part of buying merch! I generally prefer to order my merch through Amiami Global. But I also use Buyee Proxy to purchase merchandise on Mercari. However there are also limits in purchasing on this two platforms, so I sometimes order through Japan Rabbit Proxy for more specific items. But all these can get extremely costly and not all platform provide preorder for the merchandise I want, so I order through Taobao. Unfortunately Taobao option is limited to Chinese, they do have english platform but... If you are not familiar with chinese, I would not recommend Taobao. I will get into reasons why later.

Amiami Global: Generally a good beginners platform to order merchandise, they do not require any upfront payment for pre-orders, making it easy to order and you just need to make sure to check the release date of the merchandise and prepare money for it. Since it is a big store, the shipment cost are generally not as high as domestic shipping.

However, in the case of Re:Zero merchandise, they do not stock up on all the Re:Zero merchandise. Usually they open pre-order for Kadokawa released merchandise, but its really hard to predict if they would put open pre-order listings on Amiami Global. So this site can get really unreliable if you are hunting for merchandise for example released by Tapioca (the fluffy little ball plushies). The merchandise is indeed being sold in Amiami JP, however they did not open preorder for Amiami Global. Heresy I say, so I ended up preordering it on Taobao...

Buyee (Mercari): Now this is a pretty reliable site, basically how this website functions is that you go to listings on Mercari and you purchase the listing through Buyee, you just need to take note that there are some listings on Mercari that you cannot purchase through Buyee.

Mercari JP is basically a website for people to sell second-hand merchandise. So the cost of the merch is completely up to the person who listed the merchandise. SO DO YOUR RESEARCH ON THE MERCHANDISE, because the merchandise are often priced by 3 factors, Character Popularity, Market Price, Market Demand.

So characters like Subaru (who is getting very popular these days), Emilia (generally always popular), Reinhard and Julius (dont underestimate the fujos) tend to be really expensive </3. But don't worry! Sometimes their merch are not super costly because of Sheer Quantity in the market, making the merchandise drop in value. This happens more often than you think, but only for crane game prizes (Like the recent Chopi Nui Plush) I'll get into the nitty gritty details in a separate document...

The downside to Buyee however... Is that they obviously would charge you for their service. So despite you finding a 1500 yen cheap listing of all the merch you want, you need to add 300 yen buyee service fee and suddenly its a lil bit more expensive than you expected for the merch you are buying. Some listings also might charge you extra once you consolidate the merchandise for shipment because the seller will charge buyee for the local shipping fee. So make sure you double check your listing before you make any purchases.

Also because this is a second hand store, you may not always find the merch you want at the price you can pay, so please be very prepared for the hell called CHECKING EVERYDAY (I do it all the time its basically a dumbo habit at this point). Its a battlefield everyday...

Japan Rabbit: Very expensive proxy service, don't do it if you are the faint of heart. I mainly buy through this website because of certain events like Animate store will have offers that will give you free postcards of the merchandise you buy if you purchase a certain amount. I... Do it for the love of the game.

However, as I mention previously, sometimes some merchandise are very LIMITED to specific sites, and sometimes the second hand sale is very little (like the darn snow mountain collab) and EXPENSIVE so buying market price and paying just a little bit more for proxy might just be more worth it than purchasing through the above options.

I also use this site to purchase from Melonbooks and Gamers for Re:Zero Novels special goods. These items are limited to this two stores so this was the only easy way to purchase the goods. Japan Rabbit service is very professional and they don't charge you extra for consolidating shipment. The way they pack the goods is really good as well, they are friendly! I constantly e-mail them to beg for mercy (coz I always use their service for netprints.)

Taobao: Its a chinese site, so theres a lot of fake listings, if you don't know chinese and use auto translate, you are about to fall for scams. Sometimes even like 'trusted' anime merch stores just randomly gets bombed by Taobao itself and you just lose all contact the store. Then you can't get refunded for the listings you purchase. So, don't do it. Unless you have someone like me who can read chinese and know who are the trusted stores, don't do it. ITS REALLY NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART.

But I use it often because purchasing some goods on the above platforms gets VERY EXPENSIVE and Taobao is just, simply cheaper for me. Especially since the shipment from China to Singapore is not very expensive. They also don't charge a whole lot for the merchandise (compared to when you purchase locally where they basically charge you twice the market price of the merch WTFFF).

So yep, that is about everything I can cram into this thread without fainting. I am gonna create a separate new document to detail more about the process of purchasing merch as well as things to look out for and what to research beforehand. IT IS WAR OUT HERE. But I jest, its not that serious. As long as you have the money, and love the merchandise dearly and want to squeeze in your hands. BUY IT, I SUPPORT RETAIL THERAPY.

Disclaimer alert: I KNOW I WROTE IQ FIC BUT I DID NOT WATCH MAJORITY OF THE TITLES IM SORRY

As someone who barely watched all of the above series, I think Tanya is probably the most interesting to see while Kazuma is the least I'd wanna see.

Starting from Kazuma, he is pretty much just WN Subaru lmao. Being a scummy pervert, he is unlikely to gain respect from Rem and Ram and would even choose to be freeloader. I doubt he would even choose to become Emilia's knight, since he is only there to live a comfortable life.

If we don't consider Return by Death as a factor, Kazuma is probably going to request for tons of money off Roswaal and just goes off to Kararagi to live a comfortable chill life by making use of his japanese ideas similar to what he did in Konosuba. If he meets Halibel, they are likely going to be really good drinking buddies lmao. But overall, Kazuma is likely to choose to avoid staying in contact with people who are in dangerous situations and even if Emilia is a beautiful girl, he doesn't have any reason to support her. This guy doesn't really fall in love that easily, he might get horny sure, but he would rather ensure his own comfortable life more than trying to support Emilia in the royal election.

But if Return by Death is a factor, Kazuma is likely similar to Subaru but he would probably complain a whole lot about how he is forced to save Emilia camp and maybe a little less likely to really go out his way to save ordinary folks. He would try if he could and with his intelligence, he is likely to be able to come up with better plans than Subaru did in preventing deaths. But it's all up in the air, Kazuma is definitely not that kind that would push himself so far for people, but Roswaal requires him in his plan so Kazuma had no choice but follow the script up to Arc 4. Honestly... He is probably going to whine a lot about how unlucky he is and might even actually take up Echidna's deal but he is also too smart to fall for Echidna's tricks. I'd say, as a huge Subaru simp, he is just a less appealing version of Subaru hahaha.

Ainz? I mean, if some overpowered skeleton guy just ends up in Re:zero, he is probably going to get hunted down by Reinhard immediately. But if he ends up there as a human, he is probably also going to die a lot too and I don't know how he is as a human to comment much about what he would've done. He is a really paranoid guy so he would probably do tons of mental gymnastic to get out of his situation but even then, I am not actually sure he would be like without being Ainz the king of nazarick hah. He is probably going to be very cringe trying to use game skills only to obviously fail.

Tanya though, assuming she gets summoned there as a little girl, is likely going to end up being taken into an orphanage and probably just figure out her way around there. Depending on how Rezero orphanage works, she would probably study her way up and might even consider supporting a camp in the royal election. She is prob the type to support Crusch or Priscilla... Maybe Anastasia a close third... But this is just my own assumption (I really don't know Tanya enough to say much LMAO, wiki said she is Libertarian but guess who lives under a rock when it comes to politics...)

I feel like if Priscilla had met her, she would deem her interesting enough to keep around. But Tanya might attempt to manipulate Priscilla and Priscilla would just force her into submission and remind her who is the person in power. Tanya will play as a fool for some time and try to act innocent but over time I do think Tanya will find it frustrating being stuck under Priscilla's control but eventually sees how effective Priscilla's methods are and would consider supporting Priscilla. Well, again, I didn't watch nor read Tanya to really know much about what Tanya would choose. But I feel like out of every rezero character, Priscilla can totally fix Tanya amirite (delusional blind yapping)

If it mind games, it probably stuck between Roswaal, Ram and Otto don't ya think? Otto might even play dirty by acting like he is losing only to snipe a win at the end, bro's a crazy manipulator like that right? :') But Roswaal and Ram might see through this guy, so Otto would lose if they catches him. Its... a really close fight I feel... I can't decide who would win so I will just dice roll it and act irresponsible to this ask.

But hey at least if it strength game surely Garfiel would win right? There is just no shot unless Ram summons her full Oni strength on him. But I doubt a full strength Oni Ram could last long against Garfiel. Emilia might have been able to put up a good fight but prob loses anyways.

I can barely imagine Subaru ever attempting to win any games, he is too average bahaha. Like if he had no memories, he takes one look at Emilia and instantly turns into a simp, he might even keep trying to pull everyone else he could down with him so he can purposely ensure Emilia would win. Emilia is much too kind to win a game unfairly and would request Subaru to not play dirty just for her to win and he would get all touched by her and stop. But he would still try anyways thinking Emilia is too naive to win against the 3 people who is doing mental gymnastic with each other.

Like I can definitely imagine maybe Rem or Ram trying to scare Subaru away from supporting Emilia that they have no idea what happens if they loses the game and try to use death as a fear factor. (Tower of the dead chapter makes a come back surely, funny if real)

Honestly it anyone's game, who knows, the top three contenders might be so stuck fighting each other they forgot about the others who is also fighting to win and this concludes my ted talk and why I think Emilia can still win the game and leave woohoo!!

I BELIEVE IN EMILIA SWEEP -starts throwing confetti-

sincerely, your dear alphareader

UHHH UHHMMM UHMMMMMMM ALPHA???? ALPHA ASKING ME TO WRITE MY SUBARU ANALYSIS????

Hiii, so sorry for the really late reply. I have a large amount of backlog rn so unfortunately I am not able to write much recently!!

Now this is targeted violence

My hero