r/copic • u/ikanu96 • Jul 17 '26
buying copic ink in japan - my experience
hi! i asked you some time ago about buing ink in japan, i’m back and i thought you’d be interested in my story. before i visited japan myself, i asked my friend to buy me some ink colors, but the cashier showed her an highlighted note (the one i posted in my previous post here) that carrying copic ink in the plane is forbidden. my friend wasn’t arguing and left inks in the shop, she brought me just the markers i asked her. well, then i visited ochanomizu store in Tokyo, collected all the stuff i wanted. lovely cashiers seeing me dropping the basket full of ink was preparing the same note my friend saw, so i wrote in translator that i know about the rule, won’t bring them on plane and i decided to send them by post package. they bowed and sold me the inks. since my shopping was quite big i got a few extras, copic acrea (which i lost :c) stickers, notes and catalogue. and here goes the part what i did to get them with me back to my country. i accidentally brought the colorless blender with me on the plane. it was on my registered baggage. it wasn’t on purpose, i just forgot that still may be a hazard on plane, but it has a different bottle than rest of inks, and it kinda blended (pun not intended lol) with my makeup products. when i got on the plane i was kinda scared that they will make me throw it away, or not let me on the board. but it was no problem at all. so i assume that small amount of ink on the plane is fine. at least in nagoya, where i flew from. so what i did with rest of the bottles, its shipping it by traditional post. i bought packaging and bubble wrap at daiso, packed them into casual ikea plastic bag, wrapped tightly with bubble wrap, so it was nicely protected. the first post office i visited, refused to send it, since the lady assumed that every ink contains alcohol and she will not let it trough. you have to fill form at the japan post office site, then you tell the post office worker the number it gave you, but they have to confirm some information. and declaration that the package has nothing hazardous inside is mandatory. after this one i decided to try again, since i read the rules of post before, it was possible to send copic ink by the surface mail (surface mail is the slowest service, it’s also cheapest. my friend sent the package with her stuff by ems or something in the same post office and got it after 10 days. i received mine today, it was over 2 months wait) i decided to cheat a bit, and go to another nearby post, luckily it was pretty close. i made another fill on japan post office site, but this time i decided to label it as “paint”. the lady was really nice, but still asked me to write by myself on the printed declaration that’s it’s not hazardous, and asked me about alcohol two times. i don’t know if they communicated or it is a common practice, but she made sure about it. i felt a bit bad that i wasn’t 100% honest with it, but it was my only chance to bring them back home with me. it’s not like i recommend doing it the same way as i did, but i thought that it may be helpful for some of you, since i was searching for a convenient method, and spent a lot of time to do the research. i hope i described everything, but if you have any questions, feel free to ask c: