The Holy Land of Evangelion

I took a couple of days off this week to travel with an Italian friend of mine to Hakone, a pleasant mountain town famous for hot springs and onsen tamago, eggs boiled in natural hot spring water. Hakone is the setting of Evangelion, of course, and part of the fun of going there is doing 聖地巡礼 seichi junrei, "making a pilgrimage to the holy land," e.g. visiting the actual places seen in the anime series, which was super easy thanks to the official Evangelion Instrumentality Map app. The trend of setting anime series in real places isn't really new: many shows of the 1980s were set in the Tokyo's hip Shinjuku district, and the first thing I did after arriving in Japan in 1991 was visit the famous Studio Alta TV from Megazone 23. The trend got moving in earnest when series like Please Teacher/Please Twins and Lucky Star showed that rural regions of Japan could find significant economic benefit by promoting "otaku tourism," allowing their towns to be used as the settings for anime series then profiting from the increase in tourists. (In some cases, including Hanasaku Iroha and Lagrange: The Flower of Rin-ne, municipalities actually provided funding to the animation studios in the hopes that otaku tourism would prove a boon to the region later.) So the next time you come Japan, you can spend some time relaxing at the coffee shop visited 15,527 times during the Endless Eight arc in Haruhi, search for Menma while exploring the town from AnoHana, or have a picnic in the park where Kyosuke and Kuroneko went on their first date.

We were staying at a nice hotel with several traditional onsen baths, which is of course something gaijin love to experience when in Japan. When I asked my Japanese wife to find a good hotel for us, a funny thing happened: she kept suggesting modern hotels with sleek lines and steel-and-concrete construction to us, which looked more like art galleries than traditional ryokan inns. All we want, I told her, is a fantastic experience with tatami mats and yukata to wear and traditional sashimi to eat, but as a Japanese her idea of what would be a good hotel was different from ours. One of the attractions of the Hakone area is the beautiful views of Mt. Fuji you can discover as you drive around Lake Ashinoko, and it was great getting to see Japan's most famous mountain from so close. Though I love Mt. Fuji, I've never been able to interest my wife in a trip to this part of Japan. Part of it is that she's more fascinated with the U.S. and Europe than she is of her own country -- she'd rather visit Los Angeles or New York, while I'd prefer to go to Kyoto. Then there's a the Aokigahara Forest, called 樹海 jukai or "Sea of Trees" in Japanese, which sadly became a famous suicide spot after a novel published in 1960 featured the area as its setting. She doesn't want to go anywhere near the place, sure that she'll hear the spirits of the dead calling to her or something.

As we explored the area, we stopped at Hakone Shrine to pray for good luck and freedom from Angel attacks. Japan, of course, has two main cultural traditions: Shinto, the original religion of Japan, which sees 神 kami (spirits) in trees, rocks and mountains; and Buddhism, the religion of writing and culture, which entered through China and Korea in the 6th century A.D. and which now is largely associated with funerals and honoring the dead. Of the two, Shinto is definitely the more happy and upbeat tradition, and it's not surprising that 90% of the imagery brought to Westerners through Japanese popular culture is from Shinto, making it much more familiar to us -- an unintended gift from Rumiko Takahashi and the other creators of anime and manga. One happy tradition related to Shinto is writing wishes on a wooden "wish board" called an 絵馬 ema (which we happen to have in stock here), and we saw hundreds of these hanging up at the shrine, including many prayers to pass a university entrance exam. Reading through the messages, we saw many of them were written in English, Spanish, Portuguese, and even Thai, posted by foreigners who had visited the shrine. It occurred to me that Shinto is really a gateway for people all around the world to become closer to Japan, since we're often more familiar with its imagery than many other aspects of the country.

I had a relaxing couple of days at the "holy land" of NERV headquarters in Hakone.

The J-List Pre-Christmas Sale is Starting Early!!

Christmas is racing towards us, and as we do every year, J-List has prepared thousands of awesome items for our customers around the world. But there's a special problem this year: the traditional start of hardcore shopping season (Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving in the U.S.) is a week later than normal, meaning that our customers wouldn't be able to to take advantage of more affordable shipping options when purchasing, like First Class Airmail. We did the only thing we could: we're starting the sale a week early! Through November 29, you can take an awesome 12% off of all items on the site*, including all bento and kitchen items, plush toys, figures, snack items, apparel and cosplay products, as well as the naughty stuff. In addition, the J-List staff has gone through and discounted some special items by up to 50%, including Sailor Moon, My Little Pony, and more. (Note that the 12% off sale doesn't cover grab bags, iTunes and PSN cards, gift certificates, or the specially selected sale items, though 99.5% of products are covered by the sale.)

Fuku-bukuro Grab Bags at J-List!

Remember that Fuku-bukuro Season has started at J-List, too. Every year J-List prepares traditional Japanese 福袋 fukubukuro grab bags filled with great products for you to discover, from random Japanese figures and plush toys to bento boxes and related products to some very ecchi items. This year we've got a great lineup, along with new San Diego-based grab bags posted today. Each grab bag contains a value of up to 2x its price, so why not grab some grab bags now and enjoy cool random stuff from Japan?

Japanese Girls Who Refer to Themselves in the Third Person

One of the cuter -- or possibly creepier -- things that Japanese girls do is refer to themselves in the third person, done by Fuko from Clannad After Story, Katyusha from Girls und Panzer and Misaka's clone sisters from A Certain Scientific Railgun. Usually, Japanese girls will use their own names in place of a first-person pronoun at a young age, then when they start school and begin interacting with other girls will switch to atashi, a feminine version of watashi, the most common word for "I" in Japanese. (Some will opt for the slightly masculine-sounding boku, and the Japanese word for "tomboy" is bokukko or "girl who uses boku to refer to herself.") My daughter is almost 17 and still refers to herself by her own name. When I asked her about this, she told me, "Well, I can't go around calling myself atashi [I]. It would sound too grown-up, and it wouldn't go with my personality at all." It's really amazing how the Japanese have been able to make a simple concept like "I" so incredibly complex.

Whatever you do, don't get this song stuck in your head for 10,000 hours.

Onsen Culture in Japan

Like many people in Japan, I am a 風呂人 furo-bito, or a person who likes taking baths in natural hot springs (onsen in Japanese, pronounced own-sen), and wherever I drive I've got a bath kit with towel, razor and toothbrush in the car with me. Just as saunas are important to people in Nordic countries in Europe, volcanic hot springs are almost a national treasure in Japan, and many existing onsen towns have a history that goes back 1000 years or more. Most hot spring baths have a official-looking sign posted somewhere describing the chemical make-up of the water and affirming that it is a true volcanic hot spring, since some establishments have gotten in trouble buy promoting boiler-heated baths as natural. It's also common to see signs boasting of all the ailments that will be cured by a sitting in a given bath, including rheumatism, chills, muscle or joint pain, skin problems, cramped shoulders, sleeping disorders, and even anemia. One famous image associated with Japan's culture of bathing is the "onsen mark," the official icon used to denote the presence of a public bath on maps.

I'm a big fan of Japan's bathing culture.

The Return of Sailor Moon

One of the more welcome developments in the anime world has been the return of Sailor Moon merchandise after an absence of more than a decade. Despite its huge impact on the world of anime, calling millions of new fans into the genre and introducing more than a few to the concept of "cousins with benefits," the franchise was allowed to die completely in Japan as Toei moved on to other shows like Ojamajo Doremi and Pretty Cure. Like fans of the original Star Trek series, which was snatched away unkindly in 1969, Sailor Moon's fans both in Japan and around the world kept the faith, expressing their love of the characters with fanart and, ahem, doujinshi. I might have helped the cause of Sailor Moon in some small way, when I visited an industry convention two years ago and happened to see a young employee from Toei. I buttonholed him, and explained about how there's a worldwide generation of fans in their 20s who want to have cool Sailor Moon products to buy and new Sailor Moon to watch on TV. Many of these fans have becomes mothers by now, I explained, and they want to share their love of Sailor Moon with their daughters, making costumes and memories together. (Nothing warms me more than the thought of mothers and daughters become closer thanks to Sailor Moon.) J-List's buyer for bento products and traditional Japanese products is Mai-chan, and she's in charge of stocking Sailor Moon products, too. It's a real joy for her because she grew up loving the show, and never dreamed there could be thousands of fans all over the world who feel the way she does.

We're very happy to see the return of Sailor Moon products!

A Great All-Ages Visual Novel!

We love visual novels in all their forms, and one game we like a lot is If My Heart Had Wings (Japanese title この空に翼を広げて Kono Sora ni Tsubasa o Hirogete), a great story about youth and love and dreams. The game is available in convenient download or shrinkwrapped package editions.

Fuku-bukuro Return to J-List!!

Announcing the start of Fuku-bukuro Season! Every year J-List prepares Japanese "grab bags" filled with great products for you to discover, from random Japanese figures and plush toys to bento boxes and related products to some very ecchi items. This year we've got a great lineup, including Anime & Toy, Bento & Traditional, Doki Doki Random and the always popular 18+ Grab Bags. Each grab bag contains a value of up to 2x its price, so why not grab some grab bags now and enjoy cool random stuff from Japan?

Strange Things You Might Hear in Japan

There are some things you say when you live in Japan that you'd certainly never utter back home. For example, when you give someone a gift it's common to be self-effacing and say つまらない物ですが tsumaranai mono desu ga ("please accept this boring gift") as you hand it to them, something you'd never do in English. (If it's food you might say, "I'm not sure if you'll find this delicious or not, but please eat it anyway.") Asking a person's blood type then having a deep conversation the implications raised by them being a certain blood type is odd, as is hearing someone ask "Where is your domicile?" instead of "Where do you live?" since Japanese people sometimes think the most complex and difficult English word is the "best." When a member of the J-List staff goes home for the day, I'll usually tell them 気をつけて ki o tsukete, which means "please be careful [driving home]," but this farewell greeting might sound a bit strange if said in English. Then there's, "At what age did you stop bathing with your parents?" In Japan, parents will generally take baths with their kids up to a certain age, usually fourth grade a few years later. It's a wholesome time for parent-child communication which the Japanese call "skinship," and something I liked a lot back when my kids were small enough to do it. A common joke in anime is a character who's embarrassed when his friends find out that he was taking baths with his mother well into junior high school.

"Please accept this boring gift, you imouto-loving pervert."

All About Wasabi

There's a lot of food to love in Japan, from sushi and sashimi to large nabe (pot dishes) like sukiyaki to delicious tonkatsu (breaded and fried pork cutlet) topped with Kirino's sauce. While the Japanese aren't generally into eating food that's very spicy -- Indians and Koreans secretly laugh at them for being unable to eat really hot curry or kimchee -- they do love to flavor certain foods with wasabi, a spicy green paste that's often called Japanese horseradish. Wasabi is very good with sushi and sashimi, as well as cold noodle dishes like soba and udon, and nothing cleans out the old sinuses like using a little too much wasabi in your food. The wasabi root is cultivated in different parts of Japan, most notably Shizuoka Prefecture near Mt. Fuji, but it's very hard to grow as it requires perfectly clean water and a specific type of climate. As with most interesting things you encounter in Japan, wasabi has a long history, being first mentioned in official documents in the Nara Period, 1300 years ago. If you're curious, we've got some great wasabi-related products on the site today, along with cookbooks in English for you to get cooking ideas for Japanese foods.

I'm a big fan of spicy wasabi on sushi and sashimi.

Beyond Maid Cafes

Maid cafes have become one of the more famous images of modern Japan, and when foreigners visit Akihabara they'll often make a point of visiting one of these establishments and ordering omurice with a heart drawn on top in ketchup. But no industry can survive without evolving, and the basic maid cafe concept often shows up with interesting variations, such as Imouto Cafe Nagomi (the girls all pretend to be your younger sister, calling you oniichan as they serve you coffee and cake); a "role playing cafe" where customers and staff all pretend to be attending a school in a fantasy kingdom; St. Gracecourt, a "sister cafe" where the waitresses pretend to be nuns; at least one "trap" cafe based on this game; and various "butler's cafes" for girls, including one staffed by handsome gaijin men who say "yes, my princess" to female patrons. There are other fun "concept cafes" to explore, such as the now-famous cat cafes where you can play with friendly cats while enjoying some slow time for yourself, a "planetarium cafe" at Haneda Airport where you can drink coffee while looking at the stars, and Capcom Bar, an official bar celebrating the company's contributions to pop culture. The place I want to go to is the Thunderbirds Cafe, which is filled with classic memorabilia from the 1960s British sci-fi series by Gerry Anderson.

Some interesting "concept cafes" in Tokyo.

Fuku-bukuro Season has Started at J-List!

Announcing the start of Fuku-bukuro Season! Every year J-List prepares Japanese "grab bags" filled with great products for you to discover, from random Japanese figures and plush toys to bento boxes and related products to some very ecchi items. This year we've got a great lineup, including Anime & Toy, Bento & Traditional, Doki Doki Random and the always popular 18+ Grab Bags. Each grab bag contains a value of up to 2x its price, so why not grab some grab bags now and enjoy cool random stuff from Japan?