Last week, yours truly was speaking with Fredrik about the recurring discussion of whether Anime Festival Asia will be coming into the country or not — I remember the last time when I said the rule on this* — but then again, we have this discussion at hand once more. So this time, I might as well ask our readers to chime in the discussion with this question: “Are you willing to buy legit Anime goods straight from Japan?”
To summarize, you told us “Yes, we will” but there has been a lot of mentions of “if not for Customs.” The Bureau of Customs might be the most richest (and probably the most corrupt) part of the government due to how much import tax people had to pay — we’ve seen the news about a kid crying because he can’t get his toy because of the hefty tax to be paid, and this goes to all of the people who have suffered the same fate as that kid right there.
I’ve done a series of personal discussions with people online and offline, and one of them told me that the tax is four to five times the exact price of the product. When I asked “Do you think that making amendments in tax laws will welcome distribution of more Otaku-related goods?,” the response I get is that “Even with the tax amendments made, mostly people would find a way to screw it over.” Moving back, some shared their tip on lessening the burden on their wallets, such as combining all of the packages at once for shipping.
Moving back to the topic, our readers are willing to pay for legit stuff as long as they have the means to do so. In developing countries like the Philippines, you don’t pick a thousand pesos in the street all of a sudden.
We will be providing our questions to our readers sporadically for our followers on Facebook — if you haven’t liked our page, then please do so.
* (1) Pull out your wallet. (2) Ask the wallet if it has disposable income. (3) Ask others to do these as well.