I only recently discovered sites like celga, and 
*dang* do I wish I had known about them 4 or 5 
months ago.
I actually signed up for Yahoo Japan when I was 
*in* japan, and attempted to do some transactions 
with only the help of my friend who was slightly 
better at Japanese than me.

BAD IDEA!!!!

You really need to be fluent in order to actually 
comunicate with the seller. Translation sites are 
really helpful for sorting out what the 
descriptions say, but they are useless if you 
want to talk to a Japanese person. I was using 
Japanese computers, and even typed my emails in 
hiragana and katakana instead of roman letters. 
The sellers /still/ couldn't figure out what I 
was asking.  

Quite frankly, it's really necessary to know 
kanji to communicate smoothly. My attempt turned 
into a big mess, and I had to cancel my account 
without suceeding at completeing any transactions 
(which I felt really bad about since I'm 
downright religious about my conduct on ebay).

The result: I missed a chance to get the nicest 
cel of Ken (from WK) I've ever seen for 3000 yen. 
Sob. (believe me, I angsted *a lot* over that).