Saturday, November 13, 1999

Greetings from J-List November 13, 1999

Hello again from Japan. We got our first taste of really cold weather, so we knew it was time to break out the kerosene space heater (called a "stove" in Japanese). These stoves are smelly, especially when they're first turned on or off, but in a way, the musty smell of burning kerosene lets you know that the season is changing, in kind of a warm way (the word that describes how you feel when you reminisce about something in the past is "natsukashii").

This week there was a very special episode of "Nipponjin yo! Koko ha hen!" (People of Japan! This is Strange!), the show that puts 50 Japanese-bilingual foreigners in a room and lets them bat around issues about racism, sexual harassment and life in Japan. This episode featured three of Japan's famous AV actresses -- Wakana Sena, Honjoh Sayuri and Komuro Yuri -- fielding questions about the content and attitudes of the Japanese adult industry. It was great to see three of my favorite talking about why they got into the AV industry, and also interesting to hear what the foreigners in the room had to say. Since I figured J-List readers would be interested in this show too, I've posted a full report, complete with Quicktime excerpts, on my personal homepage (http://www.myjapan.net). (Please report any problems with the QT movies.)

Tonight's update is a good one. We've got lots of great new items, including a beautiful photobook of Wakana Sena, new issues of several popular adult magazines including Gal's Shower and Milky Dolls. There are 25+ new JPOP CD albums and singles posted on the JPOP page (remember, we've still got that JPOP sale!), all new items that have never been on the list before (including Moritaka, TRF, Puffy and more). The new DVD & Video CD Soft Catalog is posted, too. Finally, there are some more beautiful adult manga posted to the adult manga page (page 2), including a fabulously drawn and highly erotic work

Announcing -- the J-List Funny Japanese T-Shirt Page. Everyone knows how Japanese love to "get creative" with the English language on T-shirts. Since Japanese on T-shirts is fashionable all around Asia now, we've decided to get a little creative with Japanese ourselves. There are four different shirts on the page currently, each with a zany, nonsensical kanji slogan or vocabulary word. The shirts are 100% cotton Hanes Beefy-T's (the only shirts we'd buy, so we figure the same is true for you), and the feel and look is great, and available now.

There are new faces at J-List! And in the great J-List tradition, we've got wacky pictures of all of us posted on the "About J-List" page. Meet Tomo, our new full-time employee, along with the cute and lovely helpers Yoko and Shizu, who will lovingly wrap your orders with care.

Kaori thanks everyone who wrote to her with comments on the mixing of mayonnaise and soy sauce. She got over 100 replies (!), and apologizes for not being able to answer everyone in person. But she's printed them out as proof for her friend that mayonnaise and soy sauce is not strange at all.

Thursday, November 11, 1999

Greetings from J-List November 11, 1999

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Monday, November 08, 1999

Greetings from J-List November 8, 1999

It's a dark, quiet night in Japan as we finish up tonight's update. If you are in the States, you may not like setting your clock ahead and behind one hour when Daylight Savings Time rolls around, but it's better than having it get dark at 4:30 every day. I'm off to Tokyo tonight, to stay in my favorite capsule hotel in Shibuya, but first -- an update.

Last night's broadcast brought Chuuyan and Hitomi to Salt Lake City, where a kind Japanese American woman gave them a place to stay and made them onigiri (rice balls) for them to eat while they were hitchhiking -- kindness which brought tears to the eyes to the eyes of Chuyan. Then they were off again. Currently, they're in the New York area (the broadcast is about a week behind their actual position), looking for a way to get across the Atlantic for free. See their progress at http://www.ntv.co.jp/denpa/sekai/index.html (all in Japanese, click on the date links on the left of the screen to call up that day's broadcast). Email them at DENPA80@iridium.co.jp .

Yesterday was Sunday, so of course my family and I watched the longest running anime show (perhaps the longest running show in history?), Sazae-san. Sazae-san is a classic anime show about a normal Japanese family that has various educational adventures each week -- somehow reminiscent of a simpler Japan of the 1960's and 1970's. Running for more than 35 years, it's older than my wife and I. It's been on channel 8 at 6:30 since time out of mind, and Japanese children know that the weekend has come to an end when the theme song starts.

Tonight's update is a nice one. We've got lots of cool and rare magazines and photobooks and magazines that were out of print before -- including 20+ older issues of magazines that had sold out. There are several super-rare items, such as several copies of Fubuki Akira's photobooks, as well as several other cool items. Look for new magazines on magazine pages 2 and 3, and new photobooks on photobook page 1. Kaori's added another 6+ in-stock adult videos, including cool titles from Ozawa Madoka and the "Slave Secretary." There are 15+ JPOP CD singles and albums, including some cool ones by Amuro Namie, My Little Lover, Ribbon and more (remember that our buy-4-get-1-free sale is still on). And there are more Japan-CD ROM items on the CD ROM page.

Some people still had email problems with our list server. If you get multiple copies of this, or have funny line feeds, please let me know and we'll get it figured out... Thanks.

Well, I'm off to happy, bustling Tokyo -- until next time, see you on the web.

Sunday, November 07, 1999

Greetings from J-List November 7, 1999

It's a cool, silent Saturday night here in Japan, as I finish up the weekend update and prepare to send off the update emails before I steal home for some a quiet evening taped Ally McBiel and X-Files reruns from America. I usually go down to the liquor store for a beer and some kakipea (spicy rice crackers and peanuts that are shaped like persimmon seeds, since the name kakipea), although recently I've rediscovered the joy of dried, shredded ika (squid) with my beer. The longer you're in Japan, the stranger you become...

My wife has a new portible phone. Made by Kyocera, it's so light it feels like one of those samples they have in stores, with the electronics removed (so you won't steal the phones). Whereas the previous generation of phones let you program your own song for the ringer, this model lets you harmonize, allowing her to enter Pachelbel's Canon, which was impossible before. It receives and sends email, has a daily horoscope feature, and you can even speak the name of the person you want to call into the phone, and it will dial for you. Other phones on the cutting edge of technology feature color LCD displays, and even have tiny cameras

We've got a bunch of great items for you in tonight's update. Firstly, we've got a super volley of new adult manga on manga page 2, including some of the coolest new titles hot off the Japanese manga presses. There are new dojinshi, including Final Fantasy VIII and Street Fighter adult dojinshi from the "Kaiten" series that are excellent. Our new cards & puzzles homepage is off to a great start, so we added even more cool collectible cards -- cute Japanese idol cards, anime game cards, excellent Ah My Goddess metallic cards, and more. We've also heard the many requests to increase the number of Pokemon-related Japanese snacks, so there are some great new items on the Japanese snacks page, including collectible Pokemon key holders and "mascot pins." There are new Japanese adult videos posted to the Video Catalog pages

J-List takes pride in the products we sell, and in the high rate of return customers we have. So to make sure we're serving everyone as best we can, we've decided to start a price-matching policy. If you ever happen to find any of the in-Japan items (manga, photobooks, magazines) that J-List sells at another other Japan-based site for a lower price, please let us know, and we'll match or beat their price.

We hope you're having a great weekend. See you on the web!

P.S. We're still getting the kinks out of the new list-server software. If there are any problems with this message (funny characters, getting two copies), please let us know.