BODY: If you've been refreshing Japanese retail pages hoping for a crack at the gold-accented Zelda Switch 2, Tuesday afternoon was your moment.
Rakuten Books resumed preorder intake for the Nintendo Switch 2 (Japanese language / domestic use only) The Legend of Zelda 40th Anniversary Edition at roughly 4:45 p.m. JST on October 21, according to GAME Watch. The listing is live but volatile: Rakuten warns that inventory fluctuates in real time and may sell through mid-checkout, and that customer-initiated cancellations will not be accepted once an order goes through.
The commemorative console launches October 29 at ¥62,980 including tax, announced during the Zelda 40th Anniversary Direct on September 8. Two matching accessories arrive the same day — a Switch 2 Pro Controller with a display stand at ¥12,980, and a themed carrying case at ¥3,980. One detail worth underlining before you commit: no game is included. The Switch 2 version of Ocarina of Time is a separate purchase, which has caught out more than a few buyers skimming the product page.
The "Japanese language / domestic use only" tag in the product name isn't boilerplate. Nintendo introduced this region-restricted SKU alongside the standard multi-language model at Switch 2's launch, pricing it well below the international version — the base Japanese-only unit sells for ¥49,980 — precisely because a historically weak yen made Japanese hardware a bargain for overseas resellers. The anniversary edition inherits that restriction, and its roughly ¥13,000 premium over the base unit buys you the finish, not the software.
The insider take
Watching Rakuten Books restock drops has become a genuine minor sport in Tokyo, and the mechanics here are instructive. Major Japanese retailers have largely abandoned first-come-first-served for hardware in favor of chūsen — purchase lotteries tied to verified accounts and purchase history — which is why a plain open preorder window, announced to nobody, generates this much chatter. The no-cancellation clause is the tell: it's aimed squarely at resellers who place speculative orders across a dozen storefronts and discard the losers. With Christmas demand building and a Zelda anniversary halo on the shell, expect this listing to blink out and reappear several more times before the 29th. Keep the tab open.
Originally reported by GAME Watch (Japanese).
Sources: GAME Watch, Nintendo Japan, 4Gamer, Famitsu