There is an advantage of collective bargaining -- at the Osaka fan meet I attended, because there was a group of looking to buy, Tiger Convoy and I managed to haggle with the manager at Hero Gangu and convinced him to give us 17% off everything that we purchased there!Plus the joys of just spending a day talking about Transformers.
Socialising with fellow fans is always the highlight of any meet that I go to (I don't often get to spend hours having in-depth discussions about Transformers in Japanese
). \(^_^)/
Ode to a Grasshopper is the one active member here who is in Osaka. The other Japanese fans who attended the meet were from Shiga/Kyoto & Nagoya, but we all decided to meet up in Osaka.
...but you're right about there being less "competition" when hunting for TFs on your own. I personally don't recall anyone vying for the same toy at the Osaka Meet, but I've been to other local meets where it's happened -- first come first serve and you often get pipped at the post by someone else who gets to the dealer table just a few minutes before you!Then again, I'm not big on collecting vintage toys... most of what I picked up from Japan was Transformers Prime First Edition & Dark of the Moon stuff; toys that are considered rare and highly sought after here, but was fairly common there. But still, it does happen to me sometimes... like when The_Damned strolled into Parramatta TRU just a few minutes before me and grabbed the last TF Prime Wheeljack toy!
(now he's pegwarming everywhere
But I was mightily jelly on that day
)