It’s more of a risk with English than it is with Japanese.
English print quality is extremely poor. Often riddled with whitening on corners/edges, print lines, pinhole dents etc.
Japanese you can have more luck with but it all depends on the era. Anything modern, I think its a safe bet to buy up a few of the same card and grade the best and sell the rest to recover your cost. I’d feel comfortable using this tactic for cards from XY, S&M era etc. Anything before then it starts to get a little bit more difficult but definitely still possible.