Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Short rant on dakimakura prices



Want a dakimakura? Sure, pay up 9,000円! You know, everything in Japan is so expensive, but do they really have to milk otaku for that much cash? There's no reason for printed pieces of fabric to have such a hefty price tag. The manufacturing costs of these things are at most $20, and that's if you're just making one and not mass producing. Yes, the material is soft (and differs, so it's hard to give an exact breakdown of this), but they're not weaving gold into your case. Really, the official ones are really similar in feel to the Chinese bootlegs you find on E-bay and such. Those I find priced fairly. If only they stopped picking such crappy artwork for their bootlegs. I assume it's because they're essentially made from the same crap. Really, it's just 2 strips of fabric with images printed on them, sewn together, and a zipper added. This isn't something that should cost more than my jeans.

You can make your own dakimakura for fraction of the price it'd take to buy an official one, but that assumes you want to walk into a silkscreen shop and ask them to print out a loli on a pillowcase. But they're able to sell them at that price because people are buying them at that price. So they'll be staying at an unreasonable level for quite some time. 

~ Kirari ミ★

21 posts:

RostranTargo said...

The same could be said for many things marketed to otaku.

But yeah, it sucks. Especially with how exchange rates are right now. If only we were rich men...

Hip-Hop Hikikomori said...

>The same could be said for many things marketed to otaku.

>If only we were rich men...

Said everything I had to say.

Prinny said...

I am happy with the quality of the first one I got off of ebay. Even got a second one from the same vendor.

The Last Sparna said...

going to go the ebay route..my waifu was released with a magazine and I wasn't able to preorder.

Jerry said...

They know we're gonna keep buying because there's no way we can stop buying things.

Tohno said...

The prices official dakimakura really is bull crap, $100 is such a joke, and on top of that, you have the pillow that can be $50 alone.

It's true those bootlegs usefully do use crappy images for the pillows, but it's not hard to find the same one as a $100 cover you might have thought about buying, and even if you can't find one, you could always grab an image scan of the cover you want and have one of those guys print that out for you onto a cover, which many do.
The quality of bootlegs is hardly nay different either, it's not as noticeable as with dvds or figs or other such stuff.

But they'll charge that much and keep charging that much just because they know otaku will pay that much.

link said...

They are indeed way too expensive. I have a "real" dakimakura cover and one of those Chinese knock-offs from ebay. They are quite similar, but the quality of the bootleg actually seems too be a bit better.

Now I only need a pillow. ;_;

Cpt.Awesome said...

I'll probably go with Ebay bootlegs in this case also. I can't exactly have one while living with my parents though.

Anonymous said...

Those prices make me weep. That won't stop me from buying one though.

RostranTargo said...

>I can't exactly have one while living with my parents though.

This too.

Kirari Star said...

>Now I only need a pillow. ;_;

Get one from Bed Bath and Beyond. They're like $10 there.

Beatrice said...

I'm holding off on my dakimakura purchase until I move out of my parents. I'm happy enough with my $10 body pillow, the $100 cover will come later.

dopdavid said...

oh wow thats a lot of money
they doing that everywhere
capitalism baby

Anonymous said...

Damn, harsh prices. I've been eager to get a dakimakura for a while. I was considering just scoping one out on ebay or something..

SugoiSugoi said...

I'll admit that if an official Koromo pillow came out, I'd buy it in an instant no matter what the price. Good thing there are only custom prints for her so far.

jkjj said...

I Ken-Sama have an answer for such prices. When a Japanese merchant wishes to make money to feed his family he goes through his loins and sews a thousand times to give life to a cover and with this cover you have life in form of the one you wish to be with always. You can say this Japanese man has given you the one who wishes to own this precious item, happiness. Not only are you getting a strong Japanese product but the Japanese man feeds his family once more.


Ken-Sama~

Anonymous said...

yep, they are silly prices. It's just easy printing!
I don't have one yet, may think about it in the future. Probably go with cheap chinese bootleg.
Can't decide who I want on one though.

LoneIslander said...

Creepy

Anonymous said...

I'd definitely have already bought one if they weren't so pricey, though there's a good chance I'll buy one eventually despite the price.

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Buck Nakkid said...

neat

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