About Dept 81

I've been going to Japan since the early 2000s, and I make Japan content full-time now. Snacks, drugstore finds, donki runs — the stuff people DM me about.

The other question people kept asking was where to actually buy the good stuff. The knives, the tin cups, the things you can't really get here without flying over. So I started Dept 81 to bring a little of it back.

Everything's made in Japan and ships to you from New York. It's made to order, so give it a few weeks. I handle the import so you're not dealing with customs or some sketchy overseas shipment — you just get the thing.

It's a short list. I'd rather have ten things I actually stand behind than a giant catalog.

— Steven