Japanese Who Don't Quite Fit In

One of the more unique aspects of Japan is its homogeneous society in which 98% of the people consider themselves to be of the same genetic stock, despite the reality that even "pure" Japanese carry varying amounts of Mongolian, Korean, Ainu and other blood in their veins. This "myth of Japanese uniformity" may seem strange, but in reality it's a social tool that the Japanese have used to create a happy society ostensibly free of discrimination, since almost everyone is "included" in the overall social group as an equal. (This is the theory, anyway.) No matter how far this happy social umbrella may be stretched, though, there are certain groups within Japan that it just can't cover, such as zainichi ("residing in Japan") Koreans and Chinese, born and raised in Japan yet not willing to take Japanese citizenship for cultural reasons; Okinawans, who have a unique culture separate from Japan; the Ainu, the original residents of northern Japan; gaijin like me, living and doing various jobs here; and, potentially, haafu, those who are half Japanese and half some other ethnicity and whose acculturation to Japan may vary depending on their situation. Another group that sticks out just a little are 帰国子女 kikoku shijo, "return-country children" who have lived abroad for some years then returned to Japan. A good example of this concept is Makuse Kurisu from the hardcore SF time-travel game Steins;Gate, a genius girl who lived for seven years in the U.S., and whose mannerisms give away how un-Japanese she's become. She prefers to eat her noodles with a fork instead of chopsticks, and her time in the U.S. has somehow managed to turn her eyes blue.

I'd love to hear how living in the U.S. for seven years can turn your eyes blue.

Nintendo's Former President Goes to Another Castle

I saw the sad news that Hiroshi Yamauchi, the former president of Nintendo, had died at the age of 85. An amazing man who headed the company from 1949 to 2002, he dropped out of Waseda University to take over the Kyoto-based maker of karuta playing cards when his grandfather got ill, guiding it through the awkward years as the company tried operating a taxi service and a love hotel and made an electronic "Love Tester" that tested the compatibility of couples using electric current, before finally settling on electronic games. Nintendo is more than just the company that made Donkey Kong and Mario a part of your childhood, if you're below the age of 45 or so: it's also one of the most striking business success stories ever. When the company brought its "Family Computer" game system to the world it also executed a plan for domination of the industry, for example by not allowing outside studios to make more than five games per year so that no single company could exert leverage on the platform. As a result of these smart policies, Nintendo's stock was more valuable than Japan's vaunted auto manufacturers at its height in the 90s, and the company achievements are still a source of pride to Japanese.

Nintendo's former president has gone to another castle.

Japanese Living in Unexpected Places

One theme I write a lot about is how the Japanese are interested in the outside world, and especially in how they fit into it. One TV show that captures this idea is called ナゼそこに？日本人 Naze Soko ni? Nihonjin ("Why are Japanese living in a place like this?"), which follows the lives of Japanese living in exotic parts of the world like Morocco, Kenya, and Siberia, even following the life of a woman running a Japanese-style onsen hot springs inn in New Zealand. Last week's episode focused on a Japanese woman who had married a man from Spain, and detailed how she had to get used to his family's custom of taking a siesta from 4-5 in the afternoon, being careful to make no sound while the family slept. The show then segued to Los Angeles, introducing a Japanese woman named Tomoko and her famous husband Billy Blanks, who enjoyed a brief career bringing his Tae Bo workouts to Japan after his popularity in the U.S. faded. The camera crew followed the couple's life together, including some of the linguistic and other challenges all international couples encounter.

Japanese living in unexpected places.

Steins;Gate is Up for Preorder!

Speaking of Steins;Gate, we've got some good news for you: we've posted the upcoming English game for preorder now! After we announced that the game was coming at the summer anime conventions, so many fans asked us to do a Japan-style limited edition release as we did with School Days, we couldn't help but say yes. The limited edition of Steins;Gate will be our best ever, with metal "lab member" pins and a plastic case to display them in, plus a gorgeous original artbook. Plus when you preorder, you'll get the download version of the game on day 1 when the game is released, with no delay, as a bonus. So order the Steins;Gate Limited Edition now, or preorder the Download Edition if you like. The game is scheduled for release in winter 2014.

Raising Bilingual Kids is like Han Solo and Chewbacca

My wife and I naturally wanted to raise our two kids to be bilingual in English and Japanese. I always did my best to speak English to the kids and require them to ask me questions in English if they wanted something, but the results were often like Han Solo and Chewbacca. One policy I always maintained was that all movies would be watched only in English, so if they wanted to see Harry Potter or Toy Story, it'd be done without Japanese subtitles. This caused them to learn in a more "natural" way than Japanese children, who memorize grammar and vocabulary and translate sentences, but there were some disadvantages to this method. When you or I learn a foreign language as an adult, we build synaptic bridges in our brains, and when we go to translate a sentence, these bridges what enable us to know that "apple" in English is ringo in Japanese. My kids, however, essentially learned English and Japanese separately, with fewer synaptic links installed -- thus, my daughter loved eating "corn" but hated tomorokoshi (which is Japanese for corn). Sometimes we'd be in the bath together (parenthood in Japan involves taking many baths with your kids) and I'd test their ability to translate from one language to the other. Although they were largely functional in both languages, the act of translation was surprisingly difficult for them.

You learn a lot about the human brain when you raise bilingual kids.

Mino Monta Teaches Us About "Responsibility"

One concept you encounter quite a lot in Japan is 責任 sekinin, meaning responsibility or duty. Whether it's a clipboard in a restaurant bathroom an employee has signed signifying that he's checked and cleaned the bathroom each hour, or the time Kusanagi of the band SMAP was arrested for being naked in public (he'd had a bit too much to drink) and was banned from working for several months to atone for his error. Last week the famous TV announcer Mino Monta -- who's listed in the Guinness Book as the TV presenter with the most live TV appearance in a week, 22 hours -- appeared in a press conference with his head held low. It seems his son Yuto had happened upon a drunk civil servant sleeping in the street and thought it'd be a good idea to steal the guy's bank card and try to withdraw money. He was caught on camera and arrested, which caused a huge scandal for one of the most famous faces on Japanese TV, which brought on his heartfelt apology. Incidentally if you're wondering why the son's hands are mosaiced out in the picture above, it's illegal to show handcuffs on suspects as it creates an expectation of guilt in society that hasn't yet been proved by a court of law.

Mino Monta takes responsibility for his son.

Kantai Collection: the New King of Japanese Pop Culture?

You never know when the next boom in the anime subculture will show up. One year the hottest thing might be products related to the indies shooting game Touhou, and the next, everyone at Comiket will be clamoring for Hatsune Miku and her Vocaloid friends. The Next Big Thing for otaku culture seems to be 艦隊これくしょん Kantai Collection ("Fleet Girls Collection"), abbreviated as KanColle by fandom, a Japanese online game in which players fight battles and collect cards featuring "moe" versions of famous Japanese battleships, destroyers and aircraft carriers from World War II. That's right, the characters are cute anthropomorphized versions of the such famous ships as the destroyer Shimakaze, the carrier Akagi, and of course the great battleship Yamato. There's even a moe version of the carrier-battleship Ise, which my wife's uncle served on. The game is currently so popular it's nearly impossible to get an account, and fanart based on the game's characters have taken over Pixiv, Japan's online artist community -- I've been posting some to the J-List Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr feeds if you want to follow along. We're starting to see some great KanColle products showing up on the site including a 2014 calendar, and we can certainly hope to see an anime someday, preferably by the creators of Strike Witches.

Kantai Collection is the Next Big Thing in otaku culture.

A Ton of 2014 Calendars In Stock

The really big list of 2014 calendars finally came in, featuring more than 100 gorgeous anime, Japanese music and fashion idol, and even naughty JAV calendars, and we've posted a ton to the site. Japanese calendars are printed on huge glossy poster-sized pages and are a really excellent way to spend 2014 with your favorite obsession, whether it's Attack on Titan or Pokemon or something less famous but equally cool like Ultraman or beautiful gardens of Kyoto. Japanese calendars also make great Christmas gifts. Browse the newly posted 2014 Japanese calendars now!

Thoughts on Korea and Discrimination

In a post I made to J-List's Facebook page about Tokyo winning the 2020 Olympics, one reader from South Korea posted a comment saying that he hoped Japan would not show discrimination to Koreans during the games. I was surprised at his comment -- while there's no such thing as a country totally free from discrimination, the Japan I see every day is certainly not that kind of country. The second largest ethnic group in Japan are zainichi ("residing in Japan") Koreans, who were born in Japan and often don't speak more than a few words of Korean but who for historical and cultural reasons choose to maintain South or North Korean citizenship and passports. The Japan I see is very sensitive to criticism about how this group is treated and has tackled issues important to them, such as removing the old rule that anyone taking Japanese citizenship also adopt a Japanese name (which would be unacceptable to Koreans) and removing fingerprints from the foreign registration cards all foreigners carry. Our prefecture of Gunma even provides funding to two North Korean private schools which display pictures of Kim Jong-un in classrooms and indoctrinate their students against Japan, though some other prefectures decline to extend this funding to similar schools. If there's a discrimination problem between Japan and Korea, maybe Koreans -- the ones in Korea, I mean, since zainichi living here are essentially Japanese with a heightened appreciation for kimchee -- should look in a mirror. They've created a culture of hatred for Japan that goes beyond what may have once been appropriate based on history, obsessing over every misdeed done to them in TV dramas and encouraging their children to create terrible anti-Japan art. (Amazingly, South Korea has convinced itself that it hates Japan more it hates North Korea, a country that randomly kidnaps and/or kills its citizens.) Maybe for the sake of peace and commerce, South Korea could lighten up a little, and realize that nothing good can come from poisioning future generations.

Hoping for Happier Times between Japan and Korea

The Use of "Hanko" Kanji Name Stamps in Japan

While Japan generally imitates the legal framework of the West, one big difference is the use of 判子 hanko, or name stamps, when indicating approval on a contract, filling out forms at the bank, and so on. A custom imported from China ages ago, virtually every Japanese carries one of these unique name stamps with them. When a couple decides to get married, they head to their city office and fill out a marriage form, then both get out their hanko stamps and, in an iconic gesture, stamp the document...and then they're married. One of the joys of being a gaijin in Japan is getting one of these name stamps made, which involves choosing official kanji for your name (though it's perfectly okay to have one made using katakana, too). There are various ways to go about assigning kanji characters to a foreigner's name, including basing it on the pronunciation or assigning your name as an unofficial reading for the kanji that represents your name, called ateji. Incidentally, J-List has a great custom name stamp service, which includes free assigning of a kanji name to you based on your preferences, and because our staff are native Japanese, you don't need to worry about the characters meaning something embarrassing. These hanko stamps are legal for use in Japan.

Japanese use hanko stamps in lieu of signatures.

Typhoon Season in Japan

Japan is certainly a country with plenty of potential for natural disasters -- my mother once visited us for two weeks, and managed to experience a huge typhoon, an earthquake and a volcanic eruption all during the time she was here. September in Japan is storm season, and every week we watch them form in the Pacific, hoping they won't hit Japan, Okinawa or some other populated area. Today a large tropical storm named Man-yi (or just good old "typhoon no. 18" in Japan, which doesn't have the tradition of naming storms) hit Japan's main island of Honshu dead-on, making landfall near Osaka and heading north to drench Tokyo and Northern Japan. The winds and rain caused 380 flights to be canceled, halted Japan's bullet train network and caused massive flooding around Tokyo and Kyoto. Happily J-List's home prefecture of Gunma is as far from the sea as you can get in Japan, so we're usually spared most of the damage from incoming typhoons.

September is typhoon season in Asia.

Amazing Anime Figures In Stock

J-List is loaded with thousands of fun products from Japan, including prepainted anime figured. We've got the super-deformed Nendoroid series and super detailed Figma and Revoltech figures. cute girls for fans of Sailor Moon or Sword Art Online, and even Tony Taka figures that can give you quite a nosebleed. Browse our anime figures now, ranked according to awesomeness courtesy of our customers.