BOOKOFF Ani-Lab Irvine — Local services in Irvine

I think the idea of having a BOOK-OFF designed only for anime figures and merch is a great idea. No books just figures, there were someone video games though. The store is much smaller than your regular BOOK-OFF. However despite only focusing on anime figures and merch, they still suffer from the fact that its a smaller location. There isn't much variety unfortunately which is something I can never say for other 6 BOOK-OFF stores I've been to. They lack scale figures, (and overall larger figures), lacking in action/doll figures such as S.H figures or nendoroids. I understand its a smaller location but its the location was designed to focus on only anime figures so the lack of variety is underwhelming. Still it is a BOOK-OFF, best place to find niche, rare, and old figures. I didn't see much problems with the pricing either. Overall I would give this BOOK-OFF location a 3 stars. That is if I didn't have a personal issue with them.

I went there yesterday for the first time because I've to other 6 BOOK-OFFs within my area and this was the last one I've never been to. (I should probably do a ranking of all 7 at some point). I went there decided to buy two Nendoroids both from the anime Bakuman (great anime btw), both nendoroids are rare to find nowadays. Takagi was $35 and Mashiro was $75, which was a great deal since I've seen them go for much more online. I just saw them and knew I had to get them. Took them both to the check and done. I got home and noticed I made a great mistake. The nendoroids for both were swapped with other hair and bodies. So basically the entire nendoroid were not characters they should be. Came with all the accessories and face plates expect Mashiro he was missing one faceplate. I wish I had noticed sooner, now I admit it was my fault for never checking them closer in the store. However it should be the stores due-diligence to make sure the figures are legit and not missing any pieces. The figures both did not have labels or stickers indicating that they were missing pieces or had been tampered with. Now they were ok with me returning the figures for a refund which I can absolutely appreciate, however I couldn't do it in the end because I lost the receipt. My fault there but in the end it was a mistake on the store's part. Both of us should have checked and confirmed the contents better. Whoever sold them the figures scammed BOOK-OFF, which then leads to BOOK-OFF selling me the tempered figures for $118. I hope this is the last time this happens. Again no hate to the staff, they were very nice on phone. I'll be more careful next time. This mistake however reflects my score but even with this incident I would still recommend coming here if you are a figure collector, I sure...

I’m a bit let down by my experience here, because while they had some cool stuff a lot of the items were obscure and from very specific licensing. I also think that the hole they have some cool stuff they have no actual organisation and fans are having to dive to the bottom of totes trying to find one thing. There were also some broken items, and then the thing I would think a lot of people would want, posters, were thrown in a corner rolled up and taped shut so you couldn’t actually see the posters. I understand it was a smaller store and they had so many items, but it doesn’t make it friendly for shoppers. One highlight is the staff seemed fairly nice even though there was only one employee when...

This was a nice shop, lots and lots of keychains, figurines, cards, old gameboy games, and plushie toys. Some folders and anime CDs too. You could spend a long time searching through everything. My kids got some Japanese pokemon cards, there's so many and they're only $1 each if they're not packaged.

There's no bathroom in the shop but there is nice clean ones nextdoor in an open food court with a lot of good food and...