It's the main reason why I'm holding off purchases from Y!A. Three years ago, 5000 yen was equivalent to about $42, but now it's equivalent to about $58. I hate recessions

EDIT: Haha, you're right. I meant the U.S. dollar is weak.

That would mean that the yen is strong, actually... 

Yen worth more means it needs more dollars to buy

Yen worth less means it needs fewer dollars to buy

I'm kind of pissed at the exchange rate since when I moved back from Japan with three years' worth of savings I converted it from yen to dollars at a rate of about 118 to 1.  Now it's like 88.  If I'd left it in a bank account or something there (not that that was really an option), it would've ended up worth several thousand dollars more if I'd taken it out a year or so later.  Oh well... such is gambling with exchange rates...

I know how y'all feel.

I remember back in the day, when I could get 1-2 disc albums, BRAND NEW from commercial retailers, for about $22-25 USD.

Now they're over about $30 USD each.

I burnt $120 USD just getting the 3 Ar-Tonelico 3 albums, recently (back in April). Worth it, yes, but that's a lot less money I would've had to pay if it weren't for the horrible exchange rates...

Weird monetary rate fluctuation is pretty much why I buy used from sellers more local.

You should feel even sorrier for our UK brethren.  While the dollar has been getting weaker against the yen, it has been getting stronger against most other currencies.

Three years ago, 1 GBP = 249.37 JPY.  Today, 1 GBP = 132.78 JPY.  In other words, Japanese imports are nearly twice as expensive in the UK than they were three years ago.

I recently won an auction on YJA, and the exchange rate that the service used was 82.5 yen to the dollar.  If this item wasn't so rare, I would have stayed far away, but those are the breaks.

I think it's awesome.

Importing stuff from the US is a LOT cheaper now

Yeah, it's pretty frustrating. For years I was accustomed to my little mental "math" of dropping the two zeros and subtracting a small amount. Even without checking the actual conversion, I could always roughly predict a price in US dollars. I only discovered a few weeks ago that I would now have to ADD to the amount, which totally screws with my brain. Unless I come across amazing deals, I'm avoiding importing from Japan until the conversion rate at least somewhat gets back to what I'm used to.

I think this contributes to at least 5 percent of why I can't get a job yet.

People be aware Japan has 800 trillion debt and its financial state is as bad as PIGS  ->  Yen depreciation  ->  Export Increase  -> Stronger Economy  -> My new job!

I have to admit, the USD-EUR exchange rate makes me happy. Still, I miss the old 1 USD = 120 JPY rate. I'd settle for 1:100, too.

Is there any chance that someone here from Japan can score me some Japanese iTunes cards without gouging me for them? The prices on eBay are beyond ridiculous. I can understand a little markup, but one guy is charging as much as $57 for a 3000 yen card >_<

From what I've seen, Play Asia has kept their prices sane. Anyplace relying on dollar to yen conversions is kinda off the radar right now because of the prices.

Sad thing is, I'm in the reverse position of two years ago (trying to ADD both old and new stuff to my collection...part of it is financial improvement, part of it is loyalty to certain albums, part of it is my inner Flac monster is tortured by the mp3 copies I have and craves the raw Wav files contained within so they can be Wavgained and converted to Flac to tame the beast), but the yen price is keeping a lot of stuff in the international shopping window.