When it comes to alternative Japanese Idol music, getting the associated merchandise for foreigners is quite difficult. And even if you can acquire some it’s usually a CD of a popular group who sold it through Amazon Japan. Or you spent a ton of money getting it through a proxy service. So your originally $10 CD now costs upwards of $40.

It can be difficult for overseas fans to support the groups and girls of their favorite Idols. But that’s where clever-thinking Derek Vasconi stepped in. Vasconi is an American living in Japan, who previously worked with NECRONOMIDOL, among other things, and has been living the Idol lifestyle for quite some time. He had the genius idea of being the proxy service, but at a much lower price.

Vasconi opened Idol Underworld last year and started with just NECRONOMIDOL. Which wasn’t exactly the hardest merch to get, because it was readily available for sale through their Bandcamp. However as time went on, IU started acquiring new artists and the site grew to now containing twenty four groups, with loft goals of having over a hundred artists on the site by the end of 2020.

Vasconi runs IU out of his apartment in Tokyo, and is essentially a one man operation. He occasionally gets help when he gets swamped with larger orders, however, his operation isn’t exactly largest currently. Due to this, one can expect their order to sent out as quickly as possible, but most orders don’t arrive until at least a month after ordering on average (if you live in US). The whole process might take a while, but Vasconi takes extreme care with each package to ensure proper order fulfillment and that they arrive safely.

The greatest thing about IU is the fact that you can purchase random chekis (or for the less daring, you can order specific ones too). Chekis are business sized photos of a Idols (in IU’s case all their chekis currently are only of one girl in a group). Ordering a bunch of them and garnering a collection is a fun exercise. You’ll likely get ones from groups you don’t recognize, but that’s all apart of the fun. Chekis are a rather extreme thing in the Idol world, to the point that there would be no other way for overseas fans to obtain them. Thanks to IU you can get as many chekis as you want.

Idol Underworld is just in the beginning stages. There is still a lot more work to be done, and a lot more Idols to put on to the site. Vasconi is working very hard to bring in as many people on the site he can, and he is constantly updating his site with new merch and new groups. Vasconi is also an incredibly nice person who loves talking to people. If you have any groups in mind or just want to chat with him about groups on the site, he is always available for an email.

You can check out Idol Underworld at their site idolunderworld.com or you can follow Derek Vasconi on Twitter for more updates regarding the site and his personal life. An incredibly fact about him is that he used to be the guitarist of From A Second Story Window! (author’s note: this is a big deal to me, because I’ve seen him perform in my youth a couple of times, and it was just a strange coincidence).