Cultural Mistake with Japan

No matter how careful we might be, cultural misunderstandings are going to happen, like a Japanese homestay student I knew of who assumed it was acceptable to wash her body outside the bathtub before getting in to bathe in the U.S. just like they do in Japan, or one Japanese I knew who assumed that since my eyes were blue, I perceived the world through a blue tint every moment of my life. Once my wife saw a Japanese newlywed couple on their honeymoon at Niagara Falls. The man had been asked to sign his credit card slip, but not being very worldly he pulled out his kanji name stamp and asked for some red stamp ink so he could stamp the bill, not exactly something we do in the U.S. Of course, gaijin in Japan make our share of cultural screw-ups, too, like a friend of mine who slept a year in his toko-no-ma (a kind of recessed space in traditional Japanese rooms for displaying art or ikebana flowers) because he thought that's what it was for. I once surprised my wife with flowers, and she started laughing. It turns out I'd bought chrysanthemums, which are are reserved for putting on graves of deceased family members. Oops!

The right half of the far wall is the Toko-no-ma. Please don't try to sleep there.

Moe Anime Update: Da Capo III

A new anime season is upon is, so I decided to start watching the new Da Capo III anime based on the popular visual novel. It's the continuing story of an island with a very special sakura tree that blooms all year round thanks to the power of moe, or something like that. The Da Capo series is a classic example of a popular "harem" anime about a humble male character who happens to be surrounded by a circle of incredibly cute females, all of whom are conveniently in love with him. Of course, you might think of harem anime stories as silly escapism for guys -- though girls have their own version -- but in fact you could argue that harem stories have an extensive pedigree with over a thousand years of history. The classic Genji Monogatari (The Tale of Genji) is the story of Hikaru Genji, the playboy son of a fictional Japanese emperor who has many legendary loves as the story unfolds, which is all structurd very much like a harem anime series. (Incidentally, if you want to play the first two Da Capo visual novels in English and uncensored, we have them in stock.)

A new chapter in the Da Capo series. Are you going to watch?

Famous Foreigners in Japan

Hello again from J-List! It's time for another slice of life from the land of strawberry and whipped cream sandwiches. No, seriously.

As gaijin, it can be interesting to study Japan by looking at the foreigners who interacted with the country before us, and who were likely confused by the same things, like how to use chopsticks or how to wear a yukata so that it won't have slid off your body by morning. Interesting people like John Kendrick, an American who participated in the Boston Tea Party and fought in the Revolutionary War then went on to be the first American to visit Japan. Or the amazing William Adams, an Englishman who changed the course of Japanese history when he arrived in Japan in 1600 and became the friend and personal advisor of Ieyasu Tokugawa, as well as the first-ever foreign daimyo feudal lord. Albert Einstein also had a special relationship with Japan, spending several months here in 1922-1923, even visiting Nara and feeding the deer there.

Then there's a man with the unlikely name of Ranald MacDonald (no relation, I'm sure), who has the distinction of being the first English teacher in Japan. A half-Chinook, half-Scottish bank employee, Ranald happened to encounter three Japanese fishermen who had washed ashore in Washington State but were unable to return home because of their country's policy of enforced isolation from the outside world. Touched by their plight, he decided he would go to Japan, despite the fact that it was death for foreigners to enter the country, and in 1848 he booked passage on a whaling vessel that would take him close to Hokkaido. Pretending to be a survivor from a shipwreck, he allowed himself to be rescued by the aboriginal Ainu and was handed over to the local Samurai lord, who shipped him off to Nagasaki. Although many Japanese could speak Dutch, not a soul knew English, so Shogun officials decided to send several bright students to learn English from Mr. MacDonald while he awaited a ship to take him home. The studies paid off, and when Admiral Perry showed up in 1853, students trained by MacDonald were able to communicate with him. If Mr. MacDonald had thought to write a book about his exploits in Japan he'd have become famous all over the world, but instead he was completely unknown until 30 years after his death. Today there's a commemorative statue in Nagasaki thanking Mr. MacDonald for his contribution, and if I know Japan, I'm pretty sure they sell little cakes or rice crackers with his face on them, too.

The first English teacher in Japan was...Ranald McDonald?

2013 Japanese Calendar Update

While we love to carry popular Japanese calendars like Evangelion, Hatsune Miku, IdolMaster, and the large Studio Ghibli Wall Calendar that's published every year, we go to the distance for our customers and stock photo, art and other calendars that are awesome, even if they're not the top sellers. We love to stock calendars that capture the spirit of Japan, like this beautiful photo calendar showing Japan during the various seasons of the year, our popular Mt. Fuji and Night View of Japan calendars, or this gorgeous calendar showing example of traditional Japanese rooms. Browse all 2013 Japanese calendars now!

Microsoft Windows 8 + Eroge

J-List has been involved in licensing and publishing Japanese visual novels -- also known as eroge or "hentai" games, though many titles are all-ages -- since 1998, and we're thankful to our wonderful customers for helping us create a market for these unique games outside of Japan. We think visual novels are a great medium for telling a story, and games like Yume Miru Kusuri or Shuffle! or Deus Machina Demonbane or Go! Go! Nippon! have outstanding stories that you really get involved in while you play, not to mention incredible characters to interact with and (mosaic-free) graphics to enjoy. Whenever a new version of Windows comes out, we go through a long process of testing our games to make sure they're compatible, and we've spent a couple weeks checking all our currently shipping titles. We're happy to report that, except for a very few hiccups, all our English-language visual novels work great with either 64- or 32-bit editions of Windows 8. (For detailed on a few games that have issues, see this post.) I was nervous about the changes in Windows 8 at first, but I've found that with a few minor modifications it was quite an enjoyable OS to use, and it even managed to run some ancient games that Windows 7 wouldn't touch. View the most popular English-translated visual novels on J-List now, or browse games available by convenient Internet download.

(By the way, while Windows 8 is a solid OS, we'd like to point out that Windows RT, Microsoft's locked-down platform for ARM processors, is a closed system that only allows "approved" software to be installed. This means that ecchi titles like the games we license and sell will never be available for this platform, so we naturally recommend customers interested in these games choose Windows 8 over Windows RT.)

J-List's visual novels are ready for Windows 8.

New Taiga Drama for 2013: Yae no Sakura

A new year means certain things in Japan, like exchanging formal greetings with everyone you know the first time you see them in January. It also means the start of a new "Taiga Drama," the big-budget historical drama broadcast by NHK, Japan's clone of the BBC, every year. Japan has always had an excellent tradition of remembering its history through jidai geki (period dramas; this is where we get the word "Jedi" from). It's basically as if a show as awesome as Downton Abbey was on every Sunday night, all year long, and when the year ended a new show would start up. The Taiga Drama for 2012 is called Yae no Sakura, the story of a Yae Niijima (Neesima), a female samurai who fought in the Boshin War in 1868-1869, dressing as a boy since girls weren't allowed to fight. This was an uprising of Tokugawa Shogun-affiliated samurai lords in Northern Japan who fought against the new Meiji Government being formed around the Japanese Emperor. The story takes place in Aizu-Wakamatsu, Fukushima Prefecture, and the drama is very much intended to help encourage the economic recovery of that region, still struggling after the March 2011 earthquake and Fukushima Daiichi. Whenever a new drama starts up there's always a "history boom" as viewers take an interest in the new subject material, and I'm sure many fans will be making visits to this historic region of Japan.

A new samurai period drama set in Fukushima.

Japan's Falling Population, Part II

Last time I talked about some of the challenges Japan is facing as its population falls due to a combination of the normal aging that most industrialized nations face combined with sudden changes in Japan's society, zero net immigration and, uh, these things. Japan isn't the only place with a falling population -- countries like Ireland, Germany, Italy and Russia also have populations that are declining, but the effects aren't noticed as much there due to immigration (8% of people in Germany are foreigners, compared with under 1.5% for Japan). Finding a way to get foreigners to move here permanently has proven a challenge for the government so far. A pilot program to bring nurses over from Indonesia met with some success, but since Japanese law currently requires foreign nurses to have nearly perfect linguistic and kanji skills, most of the nurses ended up returning home. Japan has been doing a few things right, however, removing some of the frustrations gaijin here face, like the unpopular alien registration card and the "reentry stamp," a $70 official passport stamp that had to be obtained if you wanted to leave Japan then return. It's quite easy to get Japanese citizenship, and sumo wrestlers from Hawaii or Mongolia who want to run their own sumo stable one day usually become naturalized citizens, as do gaijin tarento (foreign TV stars) like Bobby Ologun from Nigeria. I'm often asked by J-List customers if I've gotten my Japanese citizenship yet, and I tell them no, I'm quite happy with the 永住権 eijuu-ken (permanent residence status) I've got now.

Bulgarian sumo wrestler Koto-oshu also took Japanese citizenship.

Valentine's Day is Coming

February 14th isn't far off, and now is a great time to start thinking of Valentine's Day. Whether you're a girl who wants to give chocolate to express your feelings of love, friendship or gratitude to that special boyfriend/husband/son/father/coworker (as they do in Japan) or are doing it other way around, J-List is loaded with awesome chocolates that will win the heart of that someone special. From awesome Japanese Kit Kat varieties to amazing chocolate molds to other really surprising chocolate products, we've got lots for you to see.

Japan's Population Falls Again

Japan got some bad news when it was revealed that the population of the country dropped at a faster rate than expected in 2012. Japan's population peaked at 128 million in 2008 then started declining as deaths outpaced births, dropping by a staggering 212,000 last year. The reasons for Japan's falling population are many -- I honestly could probably list 100 if I tried -- but the big ones include men and women getting married later and having one or maybe two children rather than 4-5 like their parents did, concern over the rising costs of raising a child to adulthood, social issues like the "herbivorification" of males which causes them to have less ambition and be less interested in sex, and so on. Europe has issues with low birthrates, too, but the slack is picked up by immigration. Unfortunately this is more difficult for Japan, as there's no convenient pool of people willing to come live here, and there are many language and cultural barriers to overcome, too.

Japan's population is falling at a faster rate than expected.

My Vacation to Malaysia

Selamat pagi! That's 'good morning' in Malay and Indonesian, and a Nichijou reference, in case you didn't catch that series. My family and I have just gotten back from an enjoyable vacation in Malaysia, on the island of Penang, an up-and-coming tourist destination in Asia that has a lot of fun activities to offer. We had a great time, doing all the usual things like snorkeling through exotic reefs, eating various Asian foods at open-air stalls, and shopping. I'm tired and sunburned, but I got some real relaxing done, so the trip was a success.

In a lot of ways Malaysia strikes me as the opposite of my adopted home country of Japan. Over the course of its history, Japan has had relatively little influence from the outside world, successfully fighting off Mongol invaders twice with the help of conveniently-timed typhoons that wrecked the invading fleets (this was the famous 'divine wind') and completely closing the country to Westerners from 1633 to 1868 when the influence of European powers started to become a threat to the stability of the country. This helped to create a homogenized nation in which 98% of people believe themselves to be of the same genetic stock. (Actually this is a form of national self-hypnotism, since there's plenty of Korean, Chinese, Mongolian, Russian and other DNA sloshing around Japan's gene pool…including some of mine.) Malaysia has had a very different history, with massive cultural and linguistic influences from many different sources resulting in a fascinating country of many languages and cultures including Chinese, Malay, Indian and European.

When we arrived at the hotel, we went to the tour desk to look at various day trips they had to offer, which included tours of beautiful temples, hikes through the jungle to see orangutans and so on. I wasn't surprised to see a Japanese-language tour being offered for potential "long-stay retirees" who wanted to visit supermarkets, shopping malls and hospitals in preparation for a possible extended period of retirement. Countries like Malaysia, Thailand and Australia are all the rage in Japan these days as enjoyable destinations for retirees who want to walk on the beach and play golf while enjoying a cost-of-living that's often well below Japan's. Malaysia is especially popular in part due to the lower costs: while a "mansion" (what they call a condominium here) can easily cost $2000 or more in a Japanese city, units can be rented for much less in Penang, and retirees can enjoy sunshine and golf all year-round.

I had a fun vacation in Malaysia; thousands of Japanese are moving to Malaysia for their silver years.

Make 2013 a Year for Bento

A new year is a good time to make some bold changes in your life, and one suggestion we have is to consider switching to healthy Japanese-style bento for your lunch. Bento is fun to make and delicious to eat, and you can make some pretty gorgeous "decoration bento" creations with a little practice. Bento is great because it offers automatic calorie control, so it's easier to avoid eating more than your allotment for that meal. Why not browse our selection of bento boxes, or check out our bento and kitchen accessories?