Part of it is that the yen is worth way less than it used to so just a few dollars USD can go a really long way over there but in that case it's even scummier that resalers scalp the prices so much. My Rody merch alone is in excess of $1500 now and 90% of that is from shipping and price scalping

Oh yeah, for a not as popular character, it's insane. (Sorry Rody, I do love you!) And yeah, yen's dropped a ton so it's nice to buy stuff now but shipping is even higher so it evens back out to a lot lol one of my favorite doujin writers left the fandom and her old stuff is 500+ if you can find it