Who we are
ARMOURBUY is a trading name of Simverse Sdn. Bhd., based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. We sell handcrafted reproductions of Japanese samurai armor to collectors, martial artists, photographers, reenactors and film productions worldwide.
We are not the workshop. We are the people who found the workshops, spent a long time working out which ones are actually good, and now handle everything in between — the English, the measurements, the customs paperwork, the courier, and the part where somebody answers your email honestly.
The workshops
Our armor comes from two long-established workshops that have specialised in historical reproduction for many years. Between them they produce full suits of Japanese armor, kabuto helmets, menpō masks, shields, and every individual component that makes up a set.
Their work is not limited to what we sell. Both have supplied armor and props to film and television productions in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, the United Kingdom and the United States.
That matters for a straightforward reason. When a production needs forty suits that will read correctly in close-up and survive six weeks of shooting, the standard is higher than for something that will sit in a display case. You are buying from a line that has to satisfy people whose job is noticing when something looks wrong.
How the work is done
Every piece is made to order. Nothing is stamped out of a press or cast in a mould. A suit of armor is assembled from hundreds of individual iron plates and scales, lacquered by hand, and bound together with braided cord — several hundred metres of it on a single cuirass.
This is why a suit weighs twenty-five kilograms and still moves with the body. It is also why no two sets age in exactly the same way, and why small variations in lacquer texture and lacing tension are evidence of hand work rather than defects.
What we will and will not tell you
Our armor is made in China, by craftsmen who have been building Japanese-pattern armor for decades. We say this plainly because you deserve to know what you are buying, and because the alternative — implying a Japanese origin we do not have — is both dishonest and illegal in most of the markets we ship to.
What that buys you is a suit at roughly ten percent below what a Japanese armory charges, delivered in about four weeks rather than the four to sixteen they quote, with shipping included and no surcharge for sizing outside the standard range.
These are reproductions, not antiques. They are made now, by living people, using traditional methods. If you are looking for a certified Edo-period suit, we are not the right shop and we will tell you so.
They are also not protective equipment. Our armor is built for display, ceremony, cosplay, photography and respectful non-contact wear. It is not made for contact sparring or combat, and we will not sell it to you on that basis.
Sizing
Our standard sets fit wearers between 170 cm and 184 cm. Outside that range we build to your measurements at no extra charge — worth knowing, because most Japanese armories cap standard sizing at around 175 cm and add up to twenty percent for anything larger.
Questions about fit are the ones we most like receiving. Nobody at this end benefits from selling you the wrong size.
Getting in touch
Write to us before you order if anything is unclear. We would rather spend twenty minutes talking you into the right piece — or out of the wrong one — than process an international return on a thirty-kilogram parcel.