A number of people have brought up concerns about Samurai Buyer as a company. We were not aware of any issues with them before making this video. I encourage you to do some research on them and see if they're worth your time and money. As always this video and all of our others are not paid advertisements or brand deals. We were simply sent a package and reviewed what was sent in it. This video is NOT an endorsement of their services. We received a GBA with a scratched screen and at the end of the video I called the whole process a risk. I'll talk about our review process further on our community section: ruclips.net/user/RerezTVcommunity
Sergio Quinteros Those were made before more things came out about the company. He royally screwed over someone who moved to Japan to work for the company.
This is why you should not make videos of random stuff a random company sends you. I know almost all RUclipsrs do it, due to the love of free stuff, easy views, and possible sponsors; but in the end you lose credibility.
With the screen in that condition, that GBA was probably purchased for the equivalent of around $1 in a Japanese second-hand shop like Book-Off or Hard-Off. The games, too, were likely sold at ridiculous markdowns for being incomplete. Japanese collectors basically pay bottom dollar (or bottom yen, anyway) for anything that's damaged even the slightest bit or missing ANYTHING AT ALL that it originally came with, and not a single one of those games is in any way rare enough to offset that. What I'm saying, basically, is that Samurai Buyer most likely paid less than the equivalent of $10 total for that GBA and all 10 of those games. I have no idea what the asking price is for this box, but if you know someone in Japan, you can likely just have them visit their local Book-Off (as Book-Offs are literally EVERYWHERE) and buy you a lightly damaged GBA and a stack of loose 50-yen games for a tiny fraction of whatever's being charged here.
Japanese people also typically treat their stuff really well. I imported tons of games, Audio-CDs, books etc. And almost all of it looked like brand new. I even bought a used Okamiden Limited Edition and several contents were still in shrink wrap. They deserve my full respect for that. In the western world people even pay for incomplete damaged goods way too much and the amount of used Blu-rays, that are scratched, is insane. I have no idea how people even manage to do this. I also bought books in "very good condition" and they looked like crap. That's why I prefer buying new from Europe + US and if I buy used, I always need actual photos of the item.
Yeah, same. Used item shopping is definitely a lot more satisfying in Japan, where the worst you can typically expect is for your game's pristine-ass instruction manual to reek of cigarette smoke. ;)
I'm sure it'd be relatively easy, yeah. But collectors in Japan tend to fall into the perfectionist category. It's expected that if you're going to do something like repair a screen, you'll do so before you sell the item back. If you sell the item back with the damaged screen (or, more likely, donate the item with the damaged screen, since most used game shops in Japan will either not take a damaged item, or will pay an insultingly small amount of money for it), you're basically just giving up on the item -- it's more or less the equivalent of throwing it out. Items like this usually end up in Hard-Off, the hardware-oriented cousin of Book-Off (with the snicker-worthy name), and are marked as "junk."
Hell, I live in America and I can go to my local Book-Off and buy a lightly damaged GBA and a stack of loose 50-cent games for a tiny fraction of whatever's being charged here. And pick up some manga while I'm at it.
Please don't support samurai buyer and misaki. They are super shady and kind of ruined an employee's life after they took advantage of him after he left his old job and moved to another country for them.
I'm pretty sure the one I owned back in the day was a backlight, but recently a friend of mine got an SP and his looked like it was a frontlight older model.
I really like the idea of buying a cheap selection of random carts but this isn't cheap at all. With $50 and a bit of patience I could get five games I actually want.
All those games can be obtained for a fraction of the cost and they aren't particularly rare or anything. The only rare GBA games I do have are Polarium Advance & Medarot NAVI. The former sucked but NAVI was fun!
RJ Nash There were aligations a while back that Misaki's whole personality and social media presence was made up by someone who worked for him, and he then mistreated said person and fired them. You should find it if you look up Merryweatherey
Can't ... do ... research ... myself ... must ... demand ... everyone ... backsup ... every ... small ... claim ... they ... make ... never ... heard ... of ... google ... aaaaand I'm dead.
Seems like a cool idea but you can get a gba/sp on eBay for half the price (it's $88) and know what condition you're getting it in. It's not like it was a rare console, now if it was something like the wonder swan color that would be cool.
I know you're essentially reviewing the service for people so that's why you focused on the screen but for your own purposes you could replace that screen for like 10 bucks and 10 minutes of unskilled work so you have a mint spice gba
To be fair to anyone who is thinking about this... All exterior parts for a gba are VERY easy to replace.. VERY cheap... And easy to find... The screen that is scratched in his model is THE easiest thing to replace.. It's just peel off the old.. And stick on the new
It should also be noted a used gba sells ~$28... This is basically the price you'd pay if you walked into a store and bought from a reseller.. It's not a deal, it's just what you'd pay at a store.. I reccomend going on ebay or Craigslist, but if you like the surprise... This can work
Yeah ... I don't see the appeal. At $10 per game, and $38 for the console, it's not exactly a deal. In fact, the only appeal to it is the free shipping. But when you consider the risk you take getting games worth less than $10, getting a console worth less than $38, and then not being able to even choose what you're getting, I'd say you're getting ripped off. Yeah, maybe, just maybe, you'll get some ultra rare and cool GBA game that values in over $50, but that's unlikely. If you want to do that, just buy it for $50 and call it a day. Or maybe you're just a sucker for loot crates, idk.
Pro tips: try learn hiragana and, especially, katakana. Most of texts in katakana are the japanese sound of English word. Learning those kanas don't take long and pretty easy.
Burak Crystal well, i use the word "try" here. Katakana doesn't really sound near as much as english and hiragana surely not but kanji? It doesn't sound anything to englisb and it is hard as hell.
Just wanted to say first live your videos . Your my fav Canadian you tuber !. Had a question for you . I’m looking for a hand held copy of bad dudes. It was by remco I think and it was a mini arcade . I checked all my local game stores , kijiji, eBay etc . Any Ideas on where else to look?.
When I was young I beat starfox 64 and parasite eve in japanese cuz I was desperate to play them, parasite eve wasnt that bad even tho I didnt kno wtf was going on, the fmv was enough
Twho cares about these games unless you are fan of these games. I would suggest to grab a scratch remover abd remove that scratch on the gba to make it just look like new. Also i remember i saw this orange gba in a magazine with mario kart in 2001 before it was actually released !!!!
I'll pass, +$80 dollars for a used gba with some games is not worth it for me, here in mexico that model of gba costs anywhere from $5 to $10 (if it's complete and without any scratches), a supercard costs like $15, so the novelty of it coming from japan... thanks, but no thanks.
If you can understand Japanese your not using a service like Samurai buyer in the first place. If you know the language you would use sites like yahoo auctions, amazon japan, Surugaya, rakuten, amiami etc. To get your fix of old school GBA Japanese games at a much lower price and without the risk of a scuffed up GBA.
While this sounds good and tempting for me because I like Japanese games, I hear bad stuff about Samurai Buyer, especially coming from Akidearest's channel.
I found it a bit weird how you assumed nobody watching this video could speak or read any Japanese. It's not like you can't learn the entire hiragana and katakana chart pretty well in a spare afternoon, and most games on the GBA don't use anything more than that...
One game I know of has nothing but Kanji and it sucks anyway. It was an early title called Samurai Evolution Oukoku Geist. It's Pokemon meets Final Fantasy pretty much.
Sure, but if you spend like two hours learning the katakana chart, you can read everything in the menu of games like Mario Kart and F-Zero. Yet he acted almost like it's almost impossible for any viewers to know what any of those options are.
So all the drama has been done, and Samurai buyer now is more honest with everybody? Right? Because if you didn't know, earlier this year Japan-guy ruined one of his employees right after he got to Japan to work for him, so if you don't know I will be glad that this things was already resolved : /
A number of people have brought up concerns about Samurai Buyer as a company. We were not aware of any issues with them before making this video. I encourage you to do some research on them and see if they're worth your time and money.
As always this video and all of our others are not paid advertisements or brand deals. We were simply sent a package and reviewed what was sent in it. This video is NOT an endorsement of their services. We received a GBA with a scratched screen and at the end of the video I called the whole process a risk.
I'll talk about our review process further on our community section: ruclips.net/user/RerezTVcommunity
Rerez Yeah, I'm not blaming you. I just wanted to warn others before taking the risk.
He´s good friends with Idubzz. Just check his hilarious unboxing videos.
Sergio Quinteros Those were made before more things came out about the company. He royally screwed over someone who moved to Japan to work for the company.
Sergio Quinteros He was, like in past tense : /
This is why you should not make videos of random stuff a random company sends you. I know almost all RUclipsrs do it, due to the love of free stuff, easy views, and possible sponsors; but in the end you lose credibility.
With the screen in that condition, that GBA was probably purchased for the equivalent of around $1 in a Japanese second-hand shop like Book-Off or Hard-Off. The games, too, were likely sold at ridiculous markdowns for being incomplete. Japanese collectors basically pay bottom dollar (or bottom yen, anyway) for anything that's damaged even the slightest bit or missing ANYTHING AT ALL that it originally came with, and not a single one of those games is in any way rare enough to offset that.
What I'm saying, basically, is that Samurai Buyer most likely paid less than the equivalent of $10 total for that GBA and all 10 of those games. I have no idea what the asking price is for this box, but if you know someone in Japan, you can likely just have them visit their local Book-Off (as Book-Offs are literally EVERYWHERE) and buy you a lightly damaged GBA and a stack of loose 50-yen games for a tiny fraction of whatever's being charged here.
Japanese people also typically treat their stuff really well. I imported tons of games, Audio-CDs, books etc. And almost all of it looked like brand new. I even bought a used Okamiden Limited Edition and several contents were still in shrink wrap. They deserve my full respect for that. In the western world people even pay for incomplete damaged goods way too much and the amount of used Blu-rays, that are scratched, is insane. I have no idea how people even manage to do this. I also bought books in "very good condition" and they looked like crap. That's why I prefer buying new from Europe + US and if I buy used, I always need actual photos of the item.
Yeah, same. Used item shopping is definitely a lot more satisfying in Japan, where the worst you can typically expect is for your game's pristine-ass instruction manual to reek of cigarette smoke. ;)
Wouldn't it b easy to replace the screen? They'd b pretty cheap I'd imagine.
I'm sure it'd be relatively easy, yeah. But collectors in Japan tend to fall into the perfectionist category. It's expected that if you're going to do something like repair a screen, you'll do so before you sell the item back. If you sell the item back with the damaged screen (or, more likely, donate the item with the damaged screen, since most used game shops in Japan will either not take a damaged item, or will pay an insultingly small amount of money for it), you're basically just giving up on the item -- it's more or less the equivalent of throwing it out.
Items like this usually end up in Hard-Off, the hardware-oriented cousin of Book-Off (with the snicker-worthy name), and are marked as "junk."
Hell, I live in America and I can go to my local Book-Off and buy a lightly damaged GBA and a stack of loose 50-cent games for a tiny fraction of whatever's being charged here. And pick up some manga while I'm at it.
Please don't support samurai buyer and misaki. They are super shady and kind of ruined an employee's life after they took advantage of him after he left his old job and moved to another country for them.
nash3d potatoes idubbbz
I think Samurai Buyer was exposed for being a really shady company.
Yes, why are they alive? Everyone like angel's comment so rerez can see.
How Shady Are they?
Muffet they stole some credit cards. Enough said.
yea
Stolen credit card info? Yeah, I think this reason alone should make this top comment
I saw your pinned comment, but man... don't really associate with Samuarai Buyer...
ProtoMario but proto
JAIdenANimations anyone!?
But protogent
Coming back to the GBA after having a smart phone for years is quite the trip. Even the SP wasn’t as bright as I remembered it was.
Dylan Hmm... Depends did you own an SP with or without a backlight? They made a second SP with a brighter screen.
Went to play Megaman Battle Network 2 again. I concur!
I'm pretty sure the one I owned back in the day was a backlight, but recently a friend of mine got an SP and his looked like it was a frontlight older model.
Samurai Buyer? More like Samurai Scammer, a lot of people complain about misaki, he's one of the bad japanese importers of stuff, just saying.
don't you mean *scam*-urai Buyer?
yeah
Ain’t Samurai Buyer run by a really shady person called Misaki?
lol that's what i was thinking
he is TOTALLY shady, i watched a video detailing how shady it was but i forgot who made it
fhayed kulayan Slazo
For anyone with a RetroN5 you can download a translation for those games and play them on your RetroN5. Just a little tip.
A few of the Japanese only games have fan translations like that FMA one which was released a couple months back.
Samurai Buyer are super shady. You shouldn't be promoting them Rerez.
Code: Marla why?
Unseen Samurai ok. Thank you
why
Thank you for showing this off so I can live vicariously through you
i love rerez videos there so informative
Don't trust SAMURAI BUYER THEY WILL SCREW YOU OVER.
Love these videos Shane keep up the great content.
Good video my dude. Tremendously informative and confirms that baseball games on the GBA are the Dark Souls for baseball
Any chance we can see more Positives/Negatives videos?
Use one of those diy methods for removing scratches from a screen and tell us how it came out.
Wait.. Samurai buyer?... mmmh no thanks I'll pass given past history of that company
I had to look it up, but after doing as such I have to agree 100%.
I really like the idea of buying a cheap selection of random carts but this isn't cheap at all. With $50 and a bit of patience I could get five games I actually want.
All those games can be obtained for a fraction of the cost and they aren't particularly rare or anything. The only rare GBA games I do have are Polarium Advance & Medarot NAVI. The former sucked but NAVI was fun!
'Mario Kart uses so much Japanese' Nah, it's mainly English words. Just with a different alphabet.
Followed by "C'mon it's Mario Kart do you really need to understand what it says?" He did point out the Japanese won't be an issue.
Commander Rice Of course, I just thought I'd mention there is practically no Japanese to be an issue! ;p
Samurai Buyer has some shady stuff behind them so be careful with what business you do with them !! Although I loved the video~~!!
As in? Gotta back up comments like that dude... Kinda reasonable...
RJ Nash There were aligations a while back that Misaki's whole personality and social media presence was made up by someone who worked for him, and he then mistreated said person and fired them. You should find it if you look up Merryweatherey
Can't ... do ... research ... myself ... must ... demand ... everyone ... backsup ... every ... small ... claim ... they ... make ... never ... heard ... of ... google ...
aaaaand I'm dead.
Lucky. From looking at the boxes on the site a while back, they seen a little pricey.
Do you have any evidence of that?
Literally hundreds of videos right here on RUclips talking about how Samurai Buyer isn't legit.
Unseen Samurai thanks, I was a little confused on the situation.
Oh shit I didnt know that
I feel like... just because someone wants to send you something, it doesnt mean you have to accept it? Especially if its a scam like this.
True, but it's for free. I mean unless he's getting some emulator that connects to his computer, there really isn't much risk
Looks cool. Anyone use Samurai Buyer before?
AAWinnerMichaelCaine Scamurai Buyer? If you want to know about all the controversy just type "samurai buyer" to the youtube search bar.
There was a capsule machine in Japan I visited, and they had gba games for 100 yen. I ended up with mario tennis, and some shonen jump fighting game.
Can always get a new screen replacement
you can get the GBA modded with a backlight relatively easily and buy a much nicer glass screen cover while you're at it.
I have to admit though, that orange spice GBA looks sweet. Now all you need is an orange GC and controller
Seems like a cool idea but you can get a gba/sp on eBay for half the price (it's $88) and know what condition you're getting it in. It's not like it was a rare console, now if it was something like the wonder swan color that would be cool.
Samurai buyer? Ooh, waiting I am for video from the idubbz
Geo Belmont Wrong spelling. It’s spelled, “iDubbbz”
Sean Cascone in the true spirit of his channel, I'll let you know when I give a shit. It may be a while
I have several Game Boy Advance games but I don't have a GBA anymore ! I may buy one of these packs !
It's too bad JewWario is no longer with us. He probably would've loved to have showcased this service on his show.
Monster Farm/Rancher!! Who else misses that series.
there might be fantranslations via roms.
I love FMA!!!
I know you're essentially reviewing the service for people so that's why you focused on the screen but for your own purposes you could replace that screen for like 10 bucks and 10 minutes of unskilled work so you have a mint spice gba
I think I played one of those Baseball games on PS2. Its art style and menus remind me of MLB Power Pros, a really good Baseball game.
Power pros was a pretty decent game. MLB MVP Baseball 2005 was my jam though.
He did the one he didn’t like the most last so much for saving the best for last haha
To be fair to anyone who is thinking about this... All exterior parts for a gba are VERY easy to replace.. VERY cheap... And easy to find... The screen that is scratched in his model is THE easiest thing to replace.. It's just peel off the old.. And stick on the new
It should also be noted a used gba sells ~$28... This is basically the price you'd pay if you walked into a store and bought from a reseller.. It's not a deal, it's just what you'd pay at a store.. I reccomend going on ebay or Craigslist, but if you like the surprise... This can work
Yeah ... I don't see the appeal. At $10 per game, and $38 for the console, it's not exactly a deal. In fact, the only appeal to it is the free shipping.
But when you consider the risk you take getting games worth less than $10, getting a console worth less than $38, and then not being able to even choose what you're getting, I'd say you're getting ripped off.
Yeah, maybe, just maybe, you'll get some ultra rare and cool GBA game that values in over $50, but that's unlikely. If you want to do that, just buy it for $50 and call it a day.
Or maybe you're just a sucker for loot crates, idk.
DrChadd990 wtf those are ridiculous prices. You're much better off doing what you said.
You can replace the plastic over the screen!
Take a shot of Jagermeister every time he says "Japanese".
It’s a nice idea regardless of the company responsible for it, though I think it would sell even more if there was a micro/sp option
Hopefully they put a few Famicom Mini series titles in there!
0:26 - Pauses video...... OMG! I spy a Konjiki no Gash Bell!! video game!
Samurai samurai samurai samurai buyerrrrrrr
Pro tips: try learn hiragana and, especially, katakana. Most of texts in katakana are the japanese sound of English word. Learning those kanas don't take long and pretty easy.
Fawzan Fawzi as someone who learned hiragana I disagree.
Katakana sounds the least like English language.
Only kanji does.
Burak Crystal well, i use the word "try" here. Katakana doesn't really sound near as much as english and hiragana surely not but kanji? It doesn't sound anything to englisb and it is hard as hell.
Fawzan Fawzi I found that many Kanji words sound English when pronounced by me.
Nice Vault 111 vest tough
I’m getting Sonic Advance 1 in a few days and seeing it in the video hyped me up for it
I've had it since launch, and all the Sonic Advance games afterwards, and Sonic Advance 1 is for sure the best in the series.
seems like a nice collectors item tbh
Just wanted to say first live your videos . Your my fav Canadian you tuber !.
Had a question for you . I’m looking for a hand held copy of bad dudes. It was by remco I think and it was a mini arcade . I checked all my local game stores , kijiji, eBay etc . Any Ideas on where else to look?.
I use 3M paint polish and buff the screens.
If you (well, anyone, about many things) care about the GBA, look into novus plastic polish. Good stuff.
You're better off going to eBay
Yay I’ve always wanted some kind of gameboy
Shane I miss your livestreams. Please do it again 😞
If you upload more often like this then I see a good future for sure
Gotta love that sweater.
Why have I consistently seen occasional bits of Japanese text in otherwise English user-generated content on English websites lately?
as long as they send me rhythm tengoku, I'm fine.
ive found the gbas are really cheap. i got mine for $10, i think it was on Ebay...
oh and the games are fairly cheap, maybe at most $40 for one of the more popular/rare games.
Adam Eason got mine for 1 buck
What an odd and unnecessary package
that´s nice, just change the screen and you have a awesome spice gba.
Cool!
Get a drop in back light and new screen and you are good to go
woops, im on that weird part of the internet again lol
GBA is region free, so American games on Japanese GBA works.
Soooo it's a loot box/lucky bag?
im commenting too late i know but i have watched all your video and i want to tell u that ur videos are so amazing
How many games did you get??
Nice! Support for Scammers!
He probably didn't know
When I was young I beat starfox 64 and parasite eve in japanese cuz I was desperate to play them, parasite eve wasnt that bad even tho I didnt kno wtf was going on, the fmv was enough
Hey, wanna play a drinking game? Take a shot for every time somebody comments about samurai buyer being shady.
You got ninja council 2!? Aaaaaaaaa please gimme that crap!
other words is a gamble 8:00
I heard that Mega Man Battle Network 4 Blue Moon is not compatible with the DS!
Does it (the Japanese GBA) play North American releases?
Yup! :) The GBA is region free.
I enjoyed this episode.
Seriously there is a full metal alchemist game 😭😭😭 I want to play it on the GBA, can always use google camera auto translate
Theres one more GBA game that restricted to Japanese, Initial D Another Stage.
I got a gba sp but no charger for it ;-;
I wish they sent you Ace Attorney
Editing mistake at 34 seconds?
Tell Misaki from samari buyer that his biggest fan set hi
Twho cares about these games unless you are fan of these games.
I would suggest to grab a scratch remover abd remove that scratch on the gba to make it just look like new.
Also i remember i saw this orange gba in a magazine with mario kart in 2001 before it was actually released !!!!
CAN I BUY THIS WHERE CAN I BUY THIS
hi rerez
I'll pass, +$80 dollars for a used gba with some games is not worth it for me, here in mexico that model of gba costs anywhere from $5 to $10 (if it's complete and without any scratches), a supercard costs like $15, so the novelty of it coming from japan... thanks, but no thanks.
Scamuray Buyer
If you can understand Japanese your not using a service like Samurai buyer in the first place. If you know the language you would use sites like yahoo auctions, amazon japan, Surugaya, rakuten, amiami etc. To get your fix of old school GBA Japanese games at a much lower price and without the risk of a scuffed up GBA.
Boy that was interesting.
Motion controls on arms
Buy Japan-only Super Famicom and Switch game. It’s very nice game out there.
That’s pretty cool. 😏
Scamurai Buyer*
The way he said naruto
SAMURAI SAMURAI SAMURAI BUUUUUYYYEEEERRRR XD sorry had to do it
While this sounds good and tempting for me because I like Japanese games, I hear bad stuff about Samurai Buyer, especially coming from Akidearest's channel.
I found it a bit weird how you assumed nobody watching this video could speak or read any Japanese. It's not like you can't learn the entire hiragana and katakana chart pretty well in a spare afternoon, and most games on the GBA don't use anything more than that...
One game I know of has nothing but Kanji and it sucks anyway. It was an early title called Samurai Evolution Oukoku Geist. It's Pokemon meets Final Fantasy pretty much.
Sure, but if you spend like two hours learning the katakana chart, you can read everything in the menu of games like Mario Kart and F-Zero. Yet he acted almost like it's almost impossible for any viewers to know what any of those options are.
I agree. The vast majority of a lot of games I've played have that stuff in it and it isn't hard for me to navigate it at all.
You'd also have problems playing Megaman Battle Network 4 in English cause that game sucks.
Worst one in the series
Guillermo Cortes it had some of the best chips, though.
That's pretty much right. The story sucked, the game is too random with the tournament, and the thing is glitchy as shit too.
So all the drama has been done, and Samurai buyer now is more honest with everybody? Right?
Because if you didn't know, earlier this year Japan-guy ruined one of his employees right after he got to Japan to work for him, so if you don't know
I will be glad that this things was already resolved : /