Are toys and VN game expensive or cheap in Japan?

[LVUER]

For you who live in Japan, I have some questions here.

Now, with those expensive toys and game discs (a whopping 12.000 Yen for VN) after I converts it into my local currency, are those toys and discs prices considered expensive?

How much money usually a person spend to buy food in a day averagely? And how much income (salary) do an average Japan person (err.. a Japanese?) generates in a month?

My brother knows someone who have a sister who works part-time in Japan and manage to sent her brother some toys every month (her brother lives outside of Japan) and still have enough to eat and live. So are the toys cheap?

For your information, they are really expensive (for me). A single VN game could waste my entire monthly paycheck.

[Cybeat]

Yep. They're more expensive in Japan. A 12 dollar action figure toy in America would cost 2000-3000 yen in Japan. Games are also expensive, but the price depends on what console the game is for and how old it is.

I'm not a big eater, so I go to 7-11 stores sometimes or buy things at fast food restaurants, which aren't cheap either. I sometimes also check for food at 100 yen stores (instant ramen).

I don't work, so I don't know. They are getting paid pretty good, though, since they have enough to buy expensive food and think it's not expensive.

What kind of toys? If they're toys from the 100 yen store (good quality items in 100 stores), then yes. If it's those little anime figures you see on internets and stuff, nope. They cost like 7000 yen. Especially VN games! I wouldn't buy any.


The way I see it, if you don't have a Japanese job, then everything's pretty expensive. The reason my family came to America is because Japan is too expensive. But now, we can return (state side hired), without having to pay 70000 yen every month for a small room that's about the size of a garage.

[PyTom]

According to http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index ... 852AAdJGeh , the average Japanese man makes 302,000 yen (2,528 USD) a month. (This is from 2003.)

So your hypothetical game would be about 4% of the average man's income. Looking at getchu, though, your sample price seems a bit high. 2% of the monthly income seems more likely. If you figure a person spends 10% of their income on hobbies/entertainment, that's actually not too terrible, since you can probably get about a week's entertainment out of a largish VN, playing a couple of hours a day.

100 yen ($.94) for instant ramen seems like a lot to me. IIRC, around here you can get a pack for less than $.55.

[Cybeat]

Um......Japanese instant ramen taste better! No, I don't know. I guess they are expensive, but hey. Most times they're bigger than those American cup noodles (if that's what you're talking about).

[Jake]

I always got the impression that the cost of living in Japan was pretty high compared penny-for-penny with other countries, but that salaries tended to be higher as well. Which would explain the way there always seem to be Japanese tourists around wherever in the world you go, 'cause their monthly salary gets them more on holiday than most people's monthly salary, and might also go some way toward explaining the declining birth rate, as people are more preoccupied with financial matters. One would expect that such an economy would produce a pretty screwed jobless underclass, but I have no idea whether or not Japan has such a thing.

100 yen ($.94) for instant ramen seems like a lot to me. IIRC, around here you can get a pack for less than $.55.

I don't tend to buy the cup kind, but I get the microwave kind sometimes. At my local supermarket, for a single similarly-sized pack of noodles+flavouring, you can choose between packs selling for 8p (~$.16 US) or 40p (~ $. or £1.10 ($2.2). It just depends what brand you want to buy.

(As it goes, I think the main difference is in the flavouring sachet packed in with it.)

[Samu-kun]

Murrr... The 55 cent instant ramens that are sold out here in North America cannot be considered real ramen at all. Gross... Now this is real ramen. :3

[Cybeat]

Murrr... The 55 cent instant ramens that are sold out here in North America cannot be considered real ramen at all. Gross... Now this is real ramen. :3

I miss those ramen so much....and those Japanese drinks! The ones you buy at oriental stores are close to the ones you get in Japan, though...but are more expensive, since they were imported.

Edit: Wait, I see Korean letters on that package!

[Mikan]

damn.. I love shin ramyun.
I got this new ramen called "SEAFOOD PARTY" but it's just salty. I wish I bought a neoguri or an ansungtangmyun.

[LVUER]

Shin Ramyun? It's just yesterday when I watched NHK and the guys at the company claims "Japan may be the first to invent instant noodles, but we, Shim Ramyun is the best packaged instant noodles in the world". What a confident ^_^ I never taste one myself so no comment here.

I always got the impression that the cost of living in Japan was pretty high compared penny-for-penny with other countries, but that salaries tended to be higher as well.

BTW, it seems I didn't descriptive enough, sorry. Cost a lot and expensive is two different things, especially considering different habit, culture, average net income, etc. for each country.

Like I said before, toys (like Tokusatsu SIC, DX series, etc) cost a lot and expensive for me. Cost a lot since, well they cost a lot, about 4000-9000 yen a piece (could be more). A VN game is even more crazy, for a whopping 12.000 yen (and all VN have an average price over 10.000 yen).

They are expensive for me since 1. With that amount of money, I can eat good lunch/dinner for more than 50 times (for 12.000 yen, it could go over 100 times, it's true)! 2. It costs more than 70% of my monthly salary.
Do they cost a lot (internationally), most probably, yes.
Do they cost a lot for average Japanese person, probably, yes.

BUT...
Is it expensive for an average Japanese person? May be yes, may be no (THAT what I want to ask), since they have different salary rates (average net income) and different habit/culture than mine.

Even habit/culture things could be different just by city. I a city about 2 hours driving time from my city. The citizens there already have different perception about price than people in my city. For them, food in my city is cheap because it indeed has lower price and they are more willing to pay more for food (and they have higher salary rates).

BTW, The toys my brother's friend's sister are Godaikin series. I don't know what it is and the price is. It's tokusatsu line of toys. Anyone knows them (and the price)?

[DaFool]

A VN game is even more crazy, for a whopping 12.000 yen (and all VN have an average price over 10.000 yen).

I thought 9800 or something is the maximum MSRP for a high production release. Re-issues and fandisks are around 3600-6800 yen, and downloadable budget 'fap-titles' are 1800-2700 yen a piece. These are all VNs.

[LVUER]

I thought 9800 or something is the maximum MSRP for a high production release. Re-issues and fandisks are around 3600-6800 yen, and downloadable budget 'fap-titles' are 1800-2700 yen a piece. These are all VNs.

The price label/ad states 12.000 yen... (not including tax). Oh, it's DVD, not CD or downloadable game. Is it price tag for outside Japan or inside Japan? Since I saw some of them in imported Japan magz/sites.

[Ignosco]

Full-price games are usually 8800 yen pre-tax, 9240 yen with tax, and special editions are often 9800 pre-tax, 10290 with tax. It would be rare to find a single game being sold for a higher price then that, but fandisks, expansion packs and non-full length games will generally cost less than 9240 yen.

[LVUER]

Full-price games are usually 8800 yen pre-tax, 9240 yen with tax, and special editions are often 9800 pre-tax, 10290 with tax. It would be rare to find a single game being sold for a higher price then that, but fandisks, expansion packs and non-full length games will generally cost less than 9240 yen.

Even if it is less than 10.000 yen, it still very expensive.

I've seen an SRX model that sell for 35.000 yen (insane price tag). And found that models (Perfect Grade Gundam models, Perfect Grade EVA models, etc) that go over 20.000 yen is quite common. It seems models have different price standards huh?

BTW, back to topic, are they expensive or not? I wish this is answered by people who really live in Japan.