Melonbooks – Doujinshi & Anime Goods Scraper

Extract titles, prices, stock status, maker/circle, and images from Melonbooks — one of Japan's largest retailers of doujinshi (self-published manga), doujin goods, and anime/character merchandise. Built for international fans, resellers, price researchers, and AI agents who need structured Japanese doujin-market data without writing a scraper or logging in. No coding required: enter a keyword, run, and get clean JSON.

A key feature is optional adult (R18) coverage — Melonbooks sells both all-ages and 18+ doujinshi/goods, and this Actor lets you include R18 listings on demand via a single flag.

What data can you extract?

Field	Description
productId	Melonbooks internal product ID (e.g. 3736438)
title	Product title (Japanese)
price	Current price in Japanese yen (JPY)
listPrice	Original list price when the item is on a time-sale; null otherwise
currency	Always "JPY"
stockLabel	Stock/availability label, e.g. 予約開始 (reserve open), 完売 (sold out); null when simply on regular sale
maker	Maker or doujin circle name
imageUrl	Product thumbnail image URL
url	Direct link to the product detail page
keyword	The search keyword used for this run
scrapedAt	ISO 8601 timestamp of when the item was scraped

Why scrape Melonbooks?

• Doujin & otaku merchandise sourcing — Melonbooks is a core destination for Japanese doujinshi, doujin goods, and limited anime/character event merchandise, much of which is never sold anywhere else.
• No direct overseas shipping — because Melonbooks does not ship internationally, fans abroad rely on proxy-shopping services (Buyee, FROM JAPAN, etc.), which makes reliable, structured price and stock data especially valuable for anyone sourcing these items from outside Japan.
• Restock & release monitoring — catch new pre-orders, restocks, and limited event goods early.
• Collector & pricing research — track pricing history for a series, circle, or character across time-sale discounts.
• AI agents / RAG — feed structured Japanese doujin-market data into an LLM workflow. This Actor is discoverable and callable through the Apify MCP server.

How to use it (no coding)

1. Click Try for free / Start.
2. Enter a Search keyword (Japanese works best, e.g. 初音ミク).
3. Optionally turn on Include adult (R18) items to also search 18+ doujinshi and goods.
4. Click Start and download the results as JSON, CSV, or Excel — or pull them via the API (below).

Input example

{
  "searchKeyword": "初音ミク",
  "includeAdult": false,
  "maxItems": 100
}

All fields are optional — running with no input uses sensible defaults (keyword 初音ミク, all-ages only, 100 items).

Output example

Each result is one product listing:

{
  "productId": "3772082",
  "title": "Vocalodia",
  "price": 2200,
  "listPrice": null,
  "currency": "JPY",
  "stockLabel": "予約開始",
  "maker": "prhythmatiq",
  "imageUrl": "https://melonbooks.akamaized.net/user_data/packages/resize_image.php?width=450&height=450&image=213001049193.jpg&c=0&aa=0",
  "url": "https://www.melonbooks.co.jp/detail/detail.php?product_id=3772082",
  "keyword": "初音ミク",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-08-04T00:22:25.021Z"
}

Field notes:

• listPrice — only populated when the item is on a time-sale (holds the pre-discount list price); null for regular-priced items.
• stockLabel — common values include 予約開始 (reserve open), 完売 (sold out), or empty/null when the item is simply on normal sale.

How much does it cost?

This Actor uses pay-per-event pricing: a small charge when a run starts, plus a per-result charge for each item returned. You only pay for the data you actually receive, so a 100-item run costs about the price of 100 results. Use maxItems to cap your spend.

Integrations: API, MCP, and AI agents

This Actor is read-only: it only reads publicly available product listings and performs no login, purchase, or write actions — safe for autonomous agents to call.

API (curl)

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/datalab-jp~melonbooks-scraper/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"searchKeyword": "初音ミク", "includeAdult": false, "maxItems": 50}'

Synchronous runs time out after 300 seconds. For large scrapes, use the standard run endpoint and fetch the dataset afterwards.

Python (apify-client)

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient("YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN")
run = client.actor("datalab-jp/melonbooks-scraper").call(run_input={
    "searchKeyword": "初音ミク",
    "includeAdult": False,
    "maxItems": 50,
})
items = client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).list_items().items
print(items)

JavaScript (apify-client)

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

const client = new ApifyClient({ token: 'YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN' });
const run = await client.actor('datalab-jp/melonbooks-scraper').call({
    searchKeyword: '初音ミク',
    includeAdult: false,
    maxItems: 50,
});
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
console.log(items);

MCP / AI agents

This Actor is available through the Apify MCP server. AI agents (Claude, and any MCP-compatible client) can discover it with search-actors, inspect its inputs with fetch-actor-details, and run it with call-actor — no manual setup on your side.

Related Actors

Part of a family of Japanese second-hand & collectibles market scrapers with consistent, structured output, so you can combine them for cross-marketplace research:

• Yahoo! Auctions Sold Scraper — sold-price history from Japan's largest auction site
• Japan Flea Market Scraper — Rakuma & Yahoo! Flea Market listings
• Mercari Japan Scraper — C2C marketplace listings and sold comps
• Suruga-ya Scraper — used hobby goods, figures, and collectibles
• CardRush TCG Price Scraper — trading card prices across 9 card games (Pokémon, One Piece, etc.)

FAQ

Is scraping Melonbooks legal? This Actor collects only publicly available product listing data by reading Melonbooks' own search result pages — the same pages any visitor sees in a browser. It does not bypass account logins or collect private personal data. You are responsible for using the data in accordance with applicable laws and Melonbooks' terms of service.

What does "Include adult (R18) items" / includeAdult actually do? Melonbooks gates its 18+ doujinshi and goods behind an age-verification step. Turning on includeAdult (or passing includeAdult: true via the API) sets the site's age-confirmation cookie for the run so R18 listings are included alongside all-ages ones. Leaving it off (the default) means the Actor only searches and returns all-ages items — no adult content is ever returned unless you explicitly opt in.

Can I call this Actor from my own app or API? Yes. Use the Apify API or the apify-client libraries shown above. Every run returns a dataset you can fetch as JSON, CSV, or Excel.

Can AI agents use this Actor? Yes. It is exposed through the Apify MCP server, so agents can find and run it automatically. It is read-only and safe to call.

Why does the Actor use a Japanese residential proxy by default? Melonbooks refuses Apify's datacenter IPs: in a test on 2026-10-11, five runs through the datacenter proxy returned 0 items (HTTP 403), while three runs through a Japan-based residential proxy returned the results every time. So proxyConfiguration defaults to the RESIDENTIAL group with country JP. A results page is about 560 KB (100 items), so the proxy traffic per run is small. If you set the datacenter proxy yourself and see 0 items, switch back to the default. When a run returns 0 items because of a refused request, the log says so and shows the setting to use.

Disclaimer

This Actor collects publicly available listing data only. It does not collect personal data. Adult (18+) results are opt-in via the includeAdult flag and off by default. Use responsibly and in accordance with applicable laws and Melonbooks' terms.