As a Japanese anime and drama addict, I've longed for my very own Japanese high school bag that I could hang a kawaii keychain from and fill with a bento box, books – albeit for uni and work – and all sorts of randomness. Having searched far and wide over a long weekend recently, I finally found a way to fulfil my fantasy.

looks good and feels fairly sturdy, especially considering its price tag

Amazon.co.jp. Who knew it could be so easy? If you don't read Japanese, use the 'JP [Globe icon]' on the home page's top navigation menu around five from the right to select English or Mandarin Chinese. From there, copy the below and paste into the Amazon product search box at the top of the page:

スクールバッグ

or

Populated search

Blue anime nylon-like bags and faux leather live-action drama bags should appear in the results. If you use a translation website, you can read reviews by Japanese high school students and parents purchasing the bags for daily school use.

The one I chose is the unisex "Beverly Hills Polo Club" bag. It's black and looks like leather, but it's a thin, vinyl-like material, probably waterproof, smooth and semi-plastic-y. My 15” MacBook Pro fits easily within a case with loads of space left for notebooks, a textbook or two (I wouldn't carry too much with the laptop as it gets heavy) and daily essentials. It looks good and feels fairly sturdy, especially considering its price tag. (I covered the small polo club logo with an Anya Hindmarsh leather sticker.)

I bought a huge box of other stuff, so shipping came to around 5000 Yen (around USD45) to Australia, arriving within a week, so I expect the bag to come to significantly less depending on destination.

Amazon.co.jp also sells and internationally ships many randoseru (ランドセル) school bags, if a backpack is more your style.