I'm not in the UK, but Japanese shipping seems hugely variable in my experience. Sometimes it's 2 weeks for a couple bucks, sometimes it's a month for a bit more. Sometimes faster. I don't get it.
I'm curious what prices you got for the pokemon games, I'm looking to get Japanese cib for them.
Hi NormalFish, sorry for the late reply.
My first boxed Japanese Pokemon game was Red, which I got years ago. I can't remember the price exactly but I know it was within the £12 range from France.
Blue I got for £15.76. Condition isn't ideal from the picture and I might have paid too much for it considering it wasn't the CoroCoro edition but retail re-release version (from what I can tell) but it was the cheapest I could find and had everything. I'll see how it is when I get it but the other ones weren't much cheaper and some were in even worse condition.
Yellow cost me around £18.97 but that came with everything and was in really good condition. It can vary from between £10-17 if you want to be reasonable.
Green will likely be the most expensive of the bunch for you. Even then I managed to find it for £12.70 (with Paypal credit). Shop around and make sure you know the condition as you're likely looking at around $30 if you're American. My one has two white (small) scratches on the side but I got it for "cheap" so I can't be picky. ¯\_(ツ
_/¯
The Gen 2 games were the cheapest in my opinion and for what I got it was a good deal. £9.72 for Gold and £9.12 for Silver which all came with the inserts and the cartridges. The boxes were damaged a little but not so much that it was a pain in the ass to deal with so I am happy. Crystal cost me £11.82 and along with Red is not in great condition but at the time I couldn't really spend big so it'll do. I might upgrade the boxes on both Crystal and Red sometime later in the year. It came with all the inserts.
The prices I listed have shipping added in and are what I got on eBay which was my only option.
Of all of my boxed sets, I'd say the ones that stung me the most were Yellow and Blue. Yellow however is the best one I have condition wise while its a tie between Crystal and Red for the worst. I still haven't gotten Blue yet and in general I am a bit worried but it seems OK when compared to Red and Crystal so I'll likely leave that without upgrading later down the line. For me these were cheap but I'd say you're looking at spending a minimum if you get lucky of $10 for Gold and Silver, and within the $12 - $30 ($36 for Green) for the rest. They're much cheaper (and nicer) than the boxed English copies and you usually get everything but you're still spending quite a bit.