I see people requesting them or saying “please don’t”, I see some saying they are “unable to send Gotochi”. What is Gotochi? It sounds Japanese but maybe I’m incorrect.
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“Gotochi” means “local” in Japanese, so Gototchi postcards are special postcards (usually shaped like something famous to that prefecture/city). 
Examples here: Japan Gotochi Postcards – Happypostcrossingshop
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There’s an article here about them.
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sorry i cannot type much now but each gotochi costs around 200 yen in japan. quite costly. they are only sold in post offices but not always. my local post offices do not carry them probably because they are too busy with other things at their work. i have to go all the way to the downtown main post office if i need to buy them where i do not visit much. i use public transportation so you know i have to pay for it too, not just the cards. and downtown hustle too…
personally, gotochi cards are not for officials as they generally have to be sent in an envelope. and the postage for the bigger irregular sized ones are quite costly too. 220 - 300 yen for abroad. i keep gotochi cards for only special trades.
i hope this help you understand more about gotochi in Japan.
oh and i see why some people like them and some others do not at all.
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So you can find them in post offices, but my understanding some of them are only sold for a short period of time.
This one for example according to the gotochi site is only sold until August 31 of this year since it’s a summer edition.
Other gotochi is more related to their prefecture (E.g a picture of a crab for Hokkaido, Tokyo Tower for Tokyo, etc). I think you can buy them online but I rather just buy it at the post office since that is more convenient for me. My post office only has 2 Gotochi though and I imagine the supply changes differently
I think I can buy them on the JP post site but the shipping is too costly.
I had no idea this was something people really liked collecting, so maybe I’ll start looking up other post offices around Japan next time I get a chance to travel. I managed to send mine without an envelope (and the shape was too big anyway I didn’t think it would fit in a regular one)
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hmmm. can we buy gotochi now online? probably not, but i really have not looked at japan post website for a long time so i could be wrong. . .
one kind of a problematic thing, i think, about gotochi is that there are people who ask the cards to be sent stamped and written, although they actually have to be sent in an envelope when sent to abroad. it is official. it seems like many postal clerks do not know about it. when you send the gotochi cards stamped and written through a postbox, they may try to deliver them somehow, but it is quite risky.
also, personally i do not call the seasonal postbox shaped ones gotochi. gotochi for me are only the regional ones.
also @mina_wanderlust san
i have just noticed you are so new at Postcrossing. i highly recommend you to take it easy when it comes to gotochi. there are just so many people who want them that it could overwhelm you at some point. i have been a Postcrossing member for a long time so i am quite used to it, though. i hope this helps somehow.
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Did a quick search and some places overseas can buy it: http://thepostcardhouse.com/store/WsDefault.asp?Cat=JapanGotochiCard
It looks like for Japan though you can only get it at the post office. I thought I saw them on the Jp post website but it looks like I am mistaken.
I didn’t know you had to send it in an envelope! As I said, I managed to send one without an envelope and it arrived safely, but maybe I was really lucky. Or maybe it was because it wasn’t a regional one.
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actually i knew a bit about the overseas webshop where gotochi are sold. it is like people from overseas visit japan as tourists, buy gotochi at every prefecture they visit, bring some gotochi back home and start to re-sell them online, it is their business, not related to Japan Post.
in japan, you can get gotochi only at post offices but as i mentioned not always unless you go to the main post offices.
also actually all the shaped cards, gotochi or not, have to be sent in an envelope in japan to abroad, including the seasonal postbox shaped card you seem to have sent. but again many postal clerks do not seem to know it at all.
in japan domestically, it is possible to send shaped cards stamped and written. i think the postage for it was 120 yen.
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Thank you for clearing that up for me. They look like they could be expensive though, so I don’t think I would specifically request them. Also being a bit old school, I like my post cards in the standard 4.25x6 inches, but that’s just me.
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If you want an easier and cheaper way to receive and send gotochi, I recommend you turn on the feature “Check if you would like to also send and receive postcards to and from your own country.”. This way, you can draw addresses from Japan and receive cards from Japan.
I received a very cool gotochi from enabling this:
I can’t wait until I draw a local address to send one as well.
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The word Gotochi means “this area”. tha word emphasizes the peculiarities of the area. For example, Akita is an Akita dog🐕 Certainly post type cards may not fit in the Gotochi. The post type has a certain low shipping cost. Because it fits in a standard envelope. Large Gotochi rarely ships😭 But There are also small gotochi.
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the mini gotochi are the super collectors items. they are free in a way but really rare.
yes the postbox shaped ones and thin gotochi can fit in a regular envelopes and the postage is 90 - 130 yen, depending on which countries it goes to.
gotochi are popular but in reality people in japan who can afford to send them are very very very few all in all.
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Hi @clubpostcards, @go_akita, @birdsatemylunch
I recently heard that Post Nippon is discontinuing the gotochi series and that there won‘t be new issues. Is that true? Has it been mentioned elsewhere in the forum before?
Edit: At least that‘s what I heard from a postcrosser from Saitama.
hi @SamMax
hmm, i am not a gotochi collector myself and have not followed the news on them much, so i really do not know but the postcrosser in saitama may be right.
Thank you for your quick response! I still hope that it‘s not true 
Hello! Some products have been Out of printin March of this year. There is no information about the end of other products.
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Sometimes, some designs are discontinued. From what I heard, it was about being 3 designs for each prefecture instead of 4, so the 4th would be discontinued. I’ll try later to find a source for this.
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Thank you @birdsatemylunch
I‘d be happy if this was the case. 3 instead of 4 sounds ok for me. At least they don‘t discontinue all of them. 
Hello again! I was able to find this article from the official maker of Gotochi cards, but it’s a bit old already.
https://www.postacollect.com/news/ご当地フォルムカード「第10弾」・ご当地フォルム/
It basically says there will be an end to the limited edition “10th cards” and “special cards”. The regular cards won’t be affected.
I was not able to find more recent news regarding any sort of new terminations.
(The news about 3 designs instead of 4 is quite old as well, probably from a certain prefecture and not all of them, but I’ll edit this post once I find it.)
But so far, I wouldn’t be worried, as it seems there is no word in the official news about ending all the cards production.
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Hurray! Well that‘s good news! Thank you for searching all the information. I‘ll forward it to my pan pal in Saitama. She‘ll be happy too, I guess.
