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Moving to a different country can be fun and exciting, but it can also be tough. Most expats go through a period of culture shock where they realize that some of the stereotypes they were led to believe about a certain country may not be true, and that the way things work in their new home may not always be an improvement on the way things were done back in their old one.

We’ve presented some things Japan doesn’t get right from a Westerner’s point of view in the past, but this time we’d like to show you a comic drawn by a Japanese illustrator living overseas, detailing some of the not-so-pleasant points of living in the UK and how some in particular made her quit shopping at Amazon.

Mariko Umeda, a designer and illustrator, quit her job at a Japanese video game company to move to England and attend the National Film and Television School. When she’s not busy with classwork, she draws and uploads her own comics about living abroad as a Japanese expat.

“My Break-up with Amazon” is the first comic she penned about negative things she’s experienced over the past two years she’s been living in England, and details how Amazon UK and the British postal service didn’t quite meet her expectations.

We wouldn’t want to leave you hanging, so here’s a translation:

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I’ll have to let our readers in the UK judge whether Mariko’s frustrations were warranted or not, but I agree with her that the delivery service offered by Amazon Japan is truly top-notch. Nine times out of ten if I place an order before noon and the item is in stock, it ships free and arrives on my doorstep the very next day. For customers that aren’t home during regular delivery hours, they even offer to deliver orders to your nearest Lawson convenience store. Because Amazon Japan’s service is almost completely  hassle-free, it’s not uncommon for many Japanese, like Mariko, to place multiple orders with them in a month.

I suppose it’s understandable that shipping might cost more and take longer for larger countries that offer online shopping with Amazon, but considering the UK is smaller than Japan and only has about half the population, it does make you wonder.

If you’re curious to see what other kind of things she’s encountered as a Japanese expat, both good and bad, be sure to check out some of the other comics she’s posted on Tumblr.

Source: Kinisoku, Twitter/@umedama
Feature/top image: Twitter/@umedama (edited by RocketNews24)

Insert images: Twitter/@umedama (edited by RocketNews24)