Yep, thanks!
I did run into an issue where I couldn’t use PayPal with some art books in my cart, even though they showed up in search when R18 was set to “hide”. I’m reasonably sure there’s nothing risqué in them, so I’m guessing probably mismarked. Now, trying to figure out WHICH item(s) in my cart were flagging it was fun haha.
Glad to see this is still helping people get new reading material to study with. I’ve been tempted to put in a new order recently, even though I’ve still got a massive pile of manga I haven’t read yet…
DHL makes you pay fees according to the laws in your own country right? Not the senders country? Considering buying from here, but I’m cautious about DHL making me pay fees when there aren’t actually any (books being mva-free when imported to Norway).
Also, maybe a dumb question: when I’ve had to misfortune of things being sent with DHL before, they call you and make you meet them somewhere to pick up. Since I work full time now in a place where I can’t carry my phone around, this would be a deal-breaker for me. Can you make DHL send it to the closest post-office?
No import fees on books in Norway when ordering books from abroad. Sometimes stores like Amazon will take a deposit so that they can pay import taxes (if any) faster. But they will just refund you later. Mandarake doesn’t do it, you just pay for your books and the shipping cost.
They will send it to the nearest pick-up point (often a grocery store) if they can’t deliver to you personally. Or you can choose a pick-up point delivery on the dhl website (you’ll get a tracking link in an email).
Thank you for the info!
I will say to be cautious, as I HAVE heard of DHL taking a “customs brokerage fee” in non-US countries, even when there was no custom to be paid. This fee was not refunded.
Yeah, guess I should save some extra money for the order in case they make me pay. Won’t know until I try, I guess.
In Norway all packages should (in theory) be checked by the tolling-agency at the border and taxed for most types of products. There’s no set amount you can buy before it’s tax-worthy - though books are outside of this system. If the tolling-agency did it there would be no fees, though DHL might work differently. But yeah, it’ll probably still be cheaper than other sites, so probably worth trying out anyway.
This is what I’m used to with them too, but I’d rather not deal with setting up a place to meet etc. I work 3km away from where I live too (no car), so I can’t have them drop it off there. Though d-hermit said they’ll drop it off at a pick-up point (so pretty close to where I live), so that’s not an issue. I’ll just go there after work or during a free-day.
Thank you both for the answers! I’ll most likely give the site a try
I imported books into Norway and never had to pay any tax, including from Mandarake with DHL delivery. You should be good.
Bought a new batch of books. Loved 蜘蛛ですが、なにか？series, so got the next volumes.
An interesting thing is that all the books I got last time had promotional materials for the anime, while these ones don’t. My edition of vol 7 seems to have been printed in 2017. The vol 8 says 2018. So both of the books were printed far before the anime was even in the plans (it aired winter-spring 2021).
Other sites said the books were out of print, I could only find the series on Mandarake. But it seems that the books not only are unused but they are actually new and current.
Btw, last time they could fit 3 volumes in the smallest box. This time they used a larger box for 4 volumes. But it didn’t cost that much more and actually ended up being cheaper per volume. I’m speaking about DHL fees to Europe.
4 volumes: 2,690 yen (672 yen per volume)
3 volumes, smallest box: 2,280 yen (760 yen per volume)
Ooh, nice. I’ve been a big fan of that series for years now. I’m glad they didn’t completely botch the anime adaptation, though the CG was distractingly bad at times. Is that the manga or the light novel series? I’m guessing LN, since it looks pretty different from the couple volumes of the manga I have.
I think Yūki Aoi carries the whole show. The human segments were boring until the 2nd half of the season. And the action scenes were bad more often than they were decent.
So overall wasn’t a great adaptation but I’m thankful it exists because it introduced me to the original novels! The novels feel quite different, especially because the narrator switches every chapter. So you know what different characters think about the same events.
Yep, those are novels. As far as I know manga is again different from both the novels and the anime and focuses on Kumoko herself. In the novels each volume tells several stories from the perspectives of different characters. And they often have interludes narrated by some side characters. And the mystery of the world is quite prominent in the general story.
Overall, if you like the series, I’d recommend you to check out the novels. If you want to continue from where the anime wrapped up you can start with vol 6. Anime changed a few things and showed more of the battle at the Elf’s village than vol 5 but I don’t think you’ll miss much if you jump into the novels from vol 6.
I agree entirely. Honestly, I’d say that saying the human segments were only boring through the first half is generous. I, admittedly, fell off on the episode titled something like “I’m not even in this one, am I?”, because I didn’t want to slog through an episode without the half of the show I actually care about. That said, I had been reading the manga, not the light novels, and had no prior attachment to the human characters.
That said, maybe I’ll pick up the LNs at some point? How difficult would you say they are? I’d rank myself somewhere on the border between beginner and intermediate, in terms of the book clubs. Probably more towards intermediate at this point.
Have you read any novels yet? I’d guess that making your first novel an isekai light novel could be challenging.
I think the books are on the easy-ish side. I read Hyoka right before jumping into the Spider series and the Spider felt quite a bit easier. I remember trying to read DanMachi last year and I had to look up so much vocab that I just dropped it. In the Spider Series I’ve looked up around a 1000 items already (I’m reading a 3rd book now), so I definitely had to look up a few words per page. But in reality it was more like a dozen words per page in the beginning and then I won’t have to look up anything at all later on.
Grammar-wise it depends on the narrator. Kumoko uses a weird combination of slang and archaic expressions. But it’s rare that I can’t understand the general message. Some characters are written in a fairly standard Tokyo JK speech.
Overall, I’m enjoying the series and it never feels like studying. I can relax and read a chapter before bed. Sometimes I get lazy and and don’t look up unknown expressions and can still understand pretty much everything, except some minor details.
Yeah, like I said, I’ve read Kiki’s Delivery Service. It’s a full novel, albeit one aimed at children. Think along the lines of the first Harry Potter book, maybe a bit simpler. Full of flowery language, though.
I also read around 60-70% of the way through コンビニ人間, but eventually fell off due to time constraints. That one was a bit of a struggle, particularly later on in the book.
I also read it last year and I think the Spider series is a bit harder than コンビニ人間 (which is surprisingly easy for an adult novel), because of the variety of the grammar structures used. You’ll also have to learn a lot of the fantasy vocab but perhaps you’re familiar with it from manga/anime? To me it doesn’t seem like there’s too much obscure vocab on any given page.
Hm. Hard to say. I’ll have to see if I can find the first chapter online and give it a try for myself. Familiarity with the material might carry me through what would otherwise be a book somewhat above my level.
Just put an order of 18 items of LN and manga. Excited to report here when I get it! All in all surprisingly cheap totaling at about 4€ per item.
Thanks for the write-up, @Sharpevil. It inspired me to stop being a worrywart and just do a bulk order already! I started out looking at Mandarake, but I went down a different road in the end. I was specifically looking for a full set of the original Crayon Shinchan and I noticed there was were more listings and lower prices on Amazon JP. Unfortunately I had to use Tenso.com to forward it, as the Amazon JP seller didn’t ship internationally, so there was a processing fee on top of a hefty shipping fee (12kg of manga lol). Still came out to <4 euros a volume though 
Has anyone here ordered something from Mandarake to Canada? I’m interested in making an order, but I’m apprehensive about the surprise customs and/or duties fees that might pop up. Does anyone have any experience with what that might look like? And what shipping method would be best? Should I try to make a not so large order? I saw this on the Reddit guide posted in the original post:
- Canada residents don’t pay custom fees unless the package contains 60$ CAD worth of stuff.
Although, then again, I wouldn’t want to make too small an order either, so that the shipping wouldn’t be ridiculous.
I’ve tried looking online in general for Japan-to-Canada-purchasing tips, but I couldn’t fine very much information (a lot more for the USA).
