Tokyo Otaku Mode

For Beginners

First time with us?
Learn how to shop & how to save!

Ways to Save

Free & Discounted International Shipping

International shipping isn’t cheap. In fact, it tends to get more expensive every year! But on the TOM Shop, we strive to offer opportunities for free or discount shipping fees —even when sending you packages all the way from Japan.

For example, most shipments over $150 are eligible for totally FREE surface mail, or half off EMS air mail. Want to make sure you clear this free shipping threshold? When searching the TOM Shop, simply use our Release Month and Warehouse Location filters to find more products that can ship together. (Items with the same release month & location can be bundled into a single shipment at the time of purchase.)

And for some extra peace of mind: if you’ve purchased a pre-order, and carriers hike their shipping rates before your item gets released, not to worry! We’ll still honor the shipping fees from back when you first placed your order. No surprise extra charges.

Go here to learn more about our shipping methods and shipping discounts!

Earn & Use TOM Points (Cash Back)

Purchasing from Tokyo Otaku Mode will earn you TOM Points, which are like an otaku currency you can use for future discounts on the TOM Shop. (Curious about your current point balance? Check here!)

From time to time, we host fun events where you can gain TOM Points without spending any money at all—like by entering giveaways or joining contests. It’s also possible to earn more points by inviting your friends to shop at TOM, too.

Be sure to keep an eye out for our periodic point promos, during which we massively boost the site-wide point rate. During normal times, purchases might grant you 1% cash back in TOM Points, but special promos could make that rate shoot up to 20% or even higher! After raking in all those points, you’ll definitely enjoy spending them to make future orders more affordable.

Save Even More With TOM Premium

Members of our TOM Premium subscription service automatically come out ahead. Why? First off, TOM Premium starts with a free trial. And if you do end up continuing, you’ll always be granted at least 110% cash back in TOM Points on your membership renewal fee. So you’re guaranteed to get back more in savings than you ever spend on the membership itself.

Speaking of TOM Points, Premium members’ TOM Points will never expire. Store them up for as long as you like! Premium members also earn more TOM Points (especially on new pre-order figures) and can use TOM Points for deeper discounts when ordering—up to 50% OFF your product subtotal.

Go here for more details about all our Premium benefits, including additional savings on both products and shipping fees.

Worry-Free Shopping

100% Officially Licensed: No Bootlegs, Ever!

We started the TOM Shop because we love otaku content. By selling merchandise, we hope to play a role in supporting artists & creators as they make more of what we love. That means we’re extremely careful to only ever carry officially licensed products, so that the original rights holders are properly compensated. No inferior fakes!

Experienced Warehouse Staff

We’ve learned so much over the years about the best way to store and handle delicate collectibles like scale figures.  Our warehouse staff are specially trained to ensure this expertise gets put into practice as part of our daily routines, from stocking to packaging. We take a ton of pride in maintaining a clean, organized, and (most importantly!) an impeccably safe workplace.

Top-Quality, Professional Packaging

Over a decade of experience has given us a wealth of knowledge about everything from optimal box sizes to the best types of bubble wrap. (We can really geek out about stuff like subtle differences in the thickness & sturdiness of various types of cardboard.)

Every choice involves some kind of trade-off. For example, larger outer boxes offer more protection, but can also lead to significantly higher shipping costs (and, if not packaged properly, can result in products sliding around wildly during transit). However, we’ve already successfully shipped hundreds of thousands of packages to 150+ countries. Because of that, you can trust us to provide just the right amount of protective packaging—without ever going overboard to the point of being downright wasteful.

How We Ship

International Sea Mail:
Slow, Cheap & Reliable

Sea mail (also known as surface mail) can sound a bit scary. But it's actually extremely safe and reliable! In fact, the vast majority of global trade is done by boat. If you head to a local store and look at any item not manufactured locally, it’s almost guaranteed to have arrived in your country via ocean freight.

In our experience, the risk of package damage/loss is no greater for surface mail than for other international shipping methods (while the risk isn’t absolutely zero for any method, it’s overall extremely low across the board). You can also rest assured that packages sent via sea mail have no more exposure to the elements than packages sent by plane. They definitely won’t get wet! Anything sent by surface mail gets safely stashed in a sealed freight container—which functions as a kind of protective storage facility—before being loaded on a ship.

The primary disadvantage of surface mail is that it can take several months for packages to arrive at your doorstep. However, because we’re able to offer totally free surface shipping for shipments over $150, it’s a fantastic way to completely avoid shipping fees, even for extremely large or heavy items. Just so long as you don’t mind waiting a little extra!

Japan Post Surface Parcel

  • Ocean transport arranged by Japan Post
  • Domestic delivery performed by USPS
  • Available for all types of products
  • Package size limitations for select countries

TOM Surface Mail (US only)

  • Ocean transport arranged by TOM
  • Domestic delivery performed by UPS Ground
  • Available for books, figures, plastic models, and plushies
  • Available for packages of almost any size

International Air Mail:
Faster & Pricier

If you’ve ever considered buying something from Japan before, you’ve probably heard of EMS. It’s a widely used form of air mail that can accommodate all kinds of packages, including virtually every product we carry on the TOM Shop. Although EMS costs significantly more than surface mail, it’ll get your items to you in just a week or two after leaving our warehouse. Many fans do feel that this additional speed is well worth the cost (especially with TOM shipping discounts!). 

We also offer a few additional air mail shipping methods. These have different advantages of their own; you may find that you prefer them over EMS in some cases. More details below.

Japan Post EMS(Express Mail Service)

  • Our most popular air mail shipping method
  • Fast to arrive, and also more costly
  • Available for packages of almost any size

Japan Post Air SPR(Small Packet Registered)

  • Lower fees and longer delivery times than EMS
  • Can sometimes be even cheaper than surface mail
  • Available for smaller packages and to select countries

FedEx International Priority

  • Our quickest and most expensive shipping method
  • Most cost-effective for dense, heavy items like artbooks
  • Available for smaller packages and to select countries

All of the above information pertains to international shipments from our Japanese warehouse. However, we also ship plenty of items domestically from our US warehouse (using UPS Ground and USPS Priority). Most domestic US shipments get delivered within 1 to 4 days after being shipped out.

Head over here for a full list of all our shipping methods and their respective discounts!

How We Support You

In-House Customer Support

Our dedicated Customer Support team works directly for TOM (no outsourcing!). As a result, every single member is highly knowledgeable about our products, policies, and systems. Some of us live in Japan, while others live across the world, which enables us to follow up on your inquiries from a variety of time zones.

Though our personal backgrounds and tastes may differ, we’re all otaku. (In other words, we know exactly how it feels when, say, a manufacturer delays the release of a much-awaited pre-order.) Don’t hesitate to reach out to us if you have questions about shopping on TOM, international shipping, or anything else!

Product Labels: Follow Your Faves

It’s a big world out there for otaku—filled with anime series, manga, games, VTubers, model kits, music, incredible artwork, and so much more. Even TOM staff occasionally struggle to stay caught up with all our favorite characters and titles. But we’ve done our best to make it easier!

On the TOM Shop, you can follow specific product labels (tags) to get an email notification whenever we add relevant new items. There’s no upper limit on the number of labels you can follow. All new item alerts will be combined into a single convenient email summary, sent a maximum of once every twenty-four hours. So if you’re a Hatsune Miku fan, no worries about getting overwhelmed with notifications even if we add dozens of new Miku products in a single day.

Head over here to get started with finding & following your favorite labels!

TOM Exclusive Products

Otaku collectibles can be surprisingly difficult to purchase from outside Japan. Here at TOM, we’re very familiar with the frustration of running into regional licensing limitations. That’s why we work hard to obtain permission from manufacturers and rights holders to offer appealing merchandise to fans worldwide. Sometimes these items end up being TOM Shop exclusives. Sometimes we even produce our own high-quality original products, including figures!

Here’s where you can find all currently available TOM Exclusives collected in one convenient place.