Greetings from J-List January 18, 2000

Greetings, Programs, from J-List.

I'm typing this on my new Power Macintosh G4 right now, experiencing the thrill of being "edge" again, for however many months it will be...

January 17th marked the fifth anniversary of the terrible Great Hanshin Earthquake, which devastated the Kobe-Kyoto-Osaka area and claimed more than 5000 lives. I still remember getting beeped on my "pocketbell" (everyone had pocketbells back in 1995, no one had portable phones yet) and hearing Chiharu tell me about the terrible earthquake and fires that were destroying the city. It was very humbling to the Japanese, who openly consider their civil engineering to be the best in the world. I had visited Kobe myself just two months before the tragedy, to see the city and also to add another notch in my Old Spaghetti Factory belt -- whenever I travel to a city that has an Old Spaghetti Factory, I am compelled to visit the restaurant. It turned out that the manager of the Kobe branch had done a year of management training at the OSF in San Diego and we became friends, and he drove me around the city. I was happy to hear that the old restaurant (which was formerly a brick warehouse used to store torpedoes during World War II) suffered some damage, but none of the staff was hurt in the quake. We've got a bunch of great items for you tonight.

Greetings from J-List October 16, 2000

Hello from Japan, the country that invented "melon au lait" -- melon-flavored milk, which Tomo just loves.

Whenever you learn a language, one of the first things you generally learn are the "bad" words -- that's just plain human nature. What many students of Japanese are surprised to find are, there are almost no really bad words to learn -- if you define bad as in, words that kids aren't allowed to use. "Kuso" (shit) is used regularly on children's anime in Japan, and most kids use it normally while playing. "Baka" (stupid) is the catch-all insult, although my daughter takes it a step higher by saying "baka-jijii" (stupid old man), usually to strangers. The various applications of the "F" word don't translate into Japanese at all -- although virtually all Japanese know the English word, along with the English word "sekkusu." What defines "bad" language in Japan is often not the words themselves, but the tone and style of speech -- I forbade my kids to watch Gingaman (aka Power Ranger Galaxy) on TV in Japanese due to the rude yakuza-like tone of voices used by the villains. The only really "bad" words in Japanese is "manko" (referring to a woman's reproductive organ) -- a word as embarrassingly close to "mango" as election/erection for Japanese speakers of English. This word is so bad, it's usually written with a circle or "X" in place of the middle letter when written in manga.

There are many interesting gestures that the Japanese have come up with, some of which are quite famous all over the world. Instead of point to his chest when referring to himself, he'll point to his nose, which looks odd to some foreigners. An "okay" sign inverted means "money, and a pinkie held up with a questioning glance means Are you seeing your girlfriend tonight?" Waving your hand at someone looks to Americans to mean "get away from me, but it really means come here." Both forefingers put on your head to look like devil's horns means "anger, as in, If I go to a bar, my wife will get angry with me." And clashing your forefingers together like swords means "fighting, as in, My wife and I got into a big fight last night. I shouldn't have gone to that bar last night."

For this evening's update, we've got a lot of great items for you, including:

• First, new magazines, including the excellent new Beppin School and Gokuh issues -- these are great new issues filled with the most popular AV stars and models from Japan
  
• For photobook fans, we've got The Super Girls, a collection of *35* lovely AV and models from Japan
  
• On our high-end bondage and S&M photobook page, several new items, including new "hitozuma" (married women) books and more
  
• We have several excellent manga posted, including new erotic wide manga by Mujin Comics, MD Comics and Cult Comics (see Manga -> New releases)
  
• For fans of erotic game dojinshi, we've got not one but two new volumes of the popular Electric Love Princess adult dojinshi anthology mangas (on Manga -> Parody manga)
  
• For hentai anime fans, an interesting item, the "Active Memorial Series, a line of hentai video digital comics" adapted from popular hentai games -- see this on Adult videos -> New releases
  
• For code-free adult DVD fans, we have two great new titles -- Mejiri Climax vol. 1, which features 90 minutes of great footage from five of the Mejiri titles, and Non-Stop Fuck, a 120 min. compilation of "100+1" girl over the past ten years (great item for collectors)
  
• On our anime toys page, we've got a really cool item -- the Kubrick action figures based on the Planet of the Apes, with figures of Taylor and Statue of Liberty, Cornelius, Zira, Dr. Zaius, and more
  
• Also from the Kubrick line, a mech and armored figure based on Votoms
  
• We have another set of vintage Japanese pro-wrestling magazine, on the magazines "back-issues" page
  
• For those who don't have enough Hello Kitty in their lives, a nifty photograph frame -- display pictures of your loved ones on a desk or hanging on a wall, surrounded by Hello Kitty
  
• Finally, from the "things Peter has wanted to sell for years" category, we've got another handy item you just can't live without: Japanese mosquito incense, known as "katori senkoh" in Japanese. A spiral of long-burning incense which burns from the outside, towards the center, it emits a pleasant incense smoke that wards off mosquitos and other flying bugs. A great item for anyone who's bothered by mosquitoes!
  

As much as I've enjoyed working on CM-Watch, that site that aims to bring you interesting Japanese TV commercials and CM-culture, I've got to face the fact that I'm just too busy to continue with the updates. Rather than let this great site fold, I'm looking for a webmaster who will help with updates and conversion of commercials in iMovie format to Quicktime (including subtitles). Please email me if you're interested, as I've got a backlog of interesting CM's I'd like to post. Knowledge of Japanese CM culture and idols, and experience with Macs and iMovie/iMovie 2 are appreciated. Please email for more information!

Greetings from J-List January 15, 2000

Hello again, from the wild, woolly land of Japan, where you really can dry your body off of with one of those little towels after getting out of the hot springs.

My wife and I continue to enjoy "Ally, My Love" in Japanese on NHK on Sunday nights. It leads to some interesting discussions on the differences between Japan and America. In Japan, for example, there is no jury system at all -- if you're brought before a court, your fate is determined by either one or three judges, who sit in a triangle shape like Cylons. I shudder to think that potentially hardened, cynical judges would be judging my fate (it might account for the 99%+ conviction rate in Japanese courts), but Chiharu said she'd prefer being judged by experienced judges to the randomness of a jury of people who weren't experts in law at all.

As the new year progresses, various statistics about the 1999 are becoming available. The number of people who died in 1999 in car accidents was 9005, a very low number and partially the result of a program by the Japanese police to keep the number below 10, 000. Gunma Prefecture, where we live, has the highest per-capita number of automobiles, but we avoided the honor of having the highest number of traffic deaths last year. The winner was Hokkaido, where 532 people were killed in car crashes.

Tonight's update is filled with interesting, diverse items. First, we've got a volley of "one shot" magazines, posted at the top of magazine page 2. These are single issues we've gotten in at J-List, some dating back to 14 years ago! Next, for fans of our new high-end S&M/fetish photobook page, we've got several new items, including a very nice "Traditional Bondage in Japan" photobook item that looks very nice. There are new magazines as well, including the new issue of Milky Dolls, and many back-in-stock photobooks

J-List sells unique snack treats from Japan, including everything from the original Pocky to Wata-Pachi (cola-flavored cotton candy with pop rocks in them), Wata-Gum (a similar concept, cotton candy that turns to gum in your mouth), as well as some really unique Pokemon snack items, which of course come with collectible stickers, toys and other items inside them. We've lowered the prices on some of our cases, so check out what we've got.

Remember, if you try to access the J-List secure order page and get an error from your browser saying that the secure certificate has expired, it's just the Y2K Browser Bug. Upgrade to a newer version of Netscape or Internet Explorer to fix the error. (For Mac users, the IE fix is at http://www.microsoft.com/mac/download/en/other_EN.asp).

Greetings from J-List January 13, 2000

Good evening from Japan, where we've had our first snowfall of the season! Being from San Diego, I'm a big fan of snow, and can't see any other reason to have winter. Unfortunately, the Kanto Plain (where Tokyo is, and where we are) is not known for its snow, and already the fluffy, white flakes have started turning to rain.

Fans of the Japanese band Morning Musume are saddened to hear that Ishiguro Aya, one of the prettiest and most interesting members of the 7-member pop band, is leaving, possibly to marry her boyfriend, the drummer from from "visual rock" group Luna Sea. We're bummed, too -- she was one of the cutest.

The newest boom to hit Tokyo this year is called "Stick Board, and it's basically a lightweight skateboard with a retractable handle that you can use to cruise around town with, darting around pedestrians. Seen in places like Harajuku and Shibuya, where young people gather, they're very convenient. Unfortunately, when something gets popular in Japan, it gets *really* popular, and stores can't keep them in stock (so I can't find one for myself, rats).

We've got a really great update for you tonight, with many new items that should be really popular. First, we've got in a wonderful two-part chikan" (pervert on a train) CD ROM series, with over 600 megs per disc of interesting train hentai. Then, for fans of J-List's magazines, we've got the ever-popular new issue of Gal's Shower as well as some other nice new additions to our magazine pages. There are new additions to the S&M photobooks page, including an interesting dominatrix item and a gouka-bon format photobook featuring 58 of your favorite Japanese AV idols (including girls who have retired). On the manga front, there are two excellent new dojinshi anthologies on manga page 2 (but only 5 copies of each), as well as some other excellent adult wide manga. There are several nice new photobook items, including both all-new items as well as more copies of popular items that had sold out (Sawaguchi Rina's popular photobook "Incentive" for example). There's a large volley of all-new JPOP singles on the JPOP page, including some very cool recent CDs

We've also added more items to our popular Reserve Subscription pages, which allow you to get popular Japanese magazines sent you to automatically every month, when they're still on the newsstands here. Uta Bon is a wonderful magazine for JPOP fans, which gives you lyrics and sheet music for hundreds of popular songs in Japan, by the hottest bands. And for ladies, we've added the most popular "Lady Comic, Labien, an erotic comic read by housewives and married women in Japan. We're very happy with the response to our magazine service.

That's all. Enjoy the new update!

Greetings from J-List October 12, 2000

Good evening from your friends at J-List!

The Japanese are awfully good at memorizing facts and dates by making handy phrases. To memorize the months of the year that have less than 31 days in them, they use "nishi muku samurai" ("the west-facing samurai") -- ni = 2, shi = 4, mu = 6, ku = 9, and samurai is written with the Chinese numbers for 10 and 1, hence the 11th month. Want to remember the start of the Kamakura Era? Just memorize "ii kuni o tukuro" ("let's make a great nation"), which contains the year -- 1192. There's even a way way to memorize the periodic table of elements using a method like this, although it defeated me pretty quickly.

Japanese singer Kahala Tomomi is still trying to make a go of her "American debut, trying to find a band she can join as a singer. I hope she does well, but it's hard to see her getting a record contract without some backing. Meanwhile, another Japanese singer is trying to make it in the US. Kobayashi Yukie, a talented singer picked out of 4000 competitors to become the star-child of star producer Tetstuya Komuro, has released her first single in the U.S., using the stage name Nikki Monroe. Her career is followed each week on the hit TV show Asayan, the show that made Morning Musume what they are today. See her homepage at http://www.nikkimonroe.com (Flash-enabled).

For this evening's update, we've got some excellent new items for you, including:

• First, some excellent new magazines, including the new Urecco (Kusanagi Jun alert!), a new issue of Amateur Girl's Data, and more
  
• For photobook fans, Pure, a snapshot of the wonderful youthful idol Yagi Mika
  
• For let fetish fans, we've got more stock of several sold-out books, including Bizarre Legs, Slit Skirt, and The Nama-ashi (pictures of sexy women with bare legs)
  
• The new DVD & Video CD Soft Catalog is in. This is a magazine with two Video CDs, filled with quickie" sampler AV (including underwater fetish)
  
• If you love lovely Japan AV videos, we've got a bunch of new titles in stock, including Asato Yuka, Suginami Ami, and Tomosaki Rin in "My younger sister's panties" -- see Japan AV Videos -> New releases
  
• Also for video fans, a super 90-minute tekoki & lewdness video from Kanazawa Bunko and SOD -- see the SOD in-stock video page, or the special order page if our stock runs out
  
• For our adult manga customers, we have several back-in-stock classics, including I can't keep quiet ~ Koe ga dechau, stock of manga by the very popular Ranchiki, and more -- see the Manga new releases and best-sellers pages
  
• For our T-shirt fans, fresh stock of previously sold-out sizes of shirt F ("Beware perverts in the area") and shirt K (the popular black & white version of "Looking for a Japanese girlfriend")
  
• For idol video fans, a really special new items: the wonderful 50 minute idol video of the captivating Sakai Wakana -- see the Idols page
  
• If you've ever loved the excellent show Kamen Rider (Masked Rider), we've got several complete sets of the "Dash Rider" bike & figure toys
  
• We have several copies of Goods Press in stock, for those who love to follow what's popular in Japan -- see then on Anime -> Anime & JPOP magazines
  
• Finally, just when you thought J-List had run out of handy things to sell on our Wacky Things from Japan page, we've got -- cooking chopsticks. These extra-long bamboo chopsticks are extremely useful for a variety of cooking tasks, not just when preparing Asian food. Check them out now!
  

Friday is "Thai day" at J-List, as we celebrate our fourth anniversary with various Thai curries (not very Japanese of us, we know...).

Greetings from J-List January 10, 2000

Hello from Japan, a very cold and windy place right now. Today is a holiday in Japan, so I'm all alone in the J-List World Headquarters...

The Japanese economy continues to limp along, despite showing some signs of recovery. Ford, always the most successful U.S. automaker at selling cars in the Japanese market due to their partial ownership of Mazda, began offering $2000 back cash if you buy one of their cars -- a new concept for the Japanese car economy, which is very different from the U.S.

No car marker is in the news more than Nissan, as it tries to bounce back from years of poor management and red ink. Just as America tired to emulate Japan and Japanese business practices back in the 80's (think Saturn), not Nissan is trying to learn to adapt Western business and management in order to survive. After their merger with French car maker Renault, company president Carlos Gon (spelling?) has become sort of a "pop business idol, appearing on Japanese in interviews as well as Nissan's car commercials. To help improve car sales here, Nissan is renovating all of its showrooms, renaming them Nissan Red Stage" and "Nissan Blue Stage" (we have yet to figure out what the difference between them is). In Japan, car companies control the entire customer experience, including car showroom, and Nissan had allowed their showroom network to become run-down and uninteresting. They're fighting back now with the slogan "Nissan Renaissance."

For tonight's update, we've got some very nice new items for you. First of all, there is a slew of back-in-stock magazines and photobooks, including some items by the popular Miura Aika. There are some great new manga posted, including a rare and out of print Sailor Moon parody anthology, and others. We've updated the popular Gouka Book page with some new high-end fetish photobooks, too. We've taken another good whack at all prices of all calendars -- Slayers Try and Turn A Gundam are down to $16, Hello Kitty to $12 -- to help get our existing stock out the door. Finally, there's another dozen or so of the winter Comic Market's all-new dojinshi up, although they'll go fast as always. Please stop by and see the newly posted items!

The world was largely safe from Y2K disturbances, but not complete: there's a Y2K browser bug that makes some secure pages give an error when viewed with some Unix browsers and Internet Explorer 4.5 for Mac. The fix is to ignore the "certificate has expired" errors, or use Netscape until IE5 is out for Mac. We apologize for any confusion.

Greetings from J-List October 9, 2000

Greetings from Japan, the country where you pronounce the word "election" very carefully.

The Japanese love to compete internationally, since a lot of their validation as a nation comes from getting the respect of foreigners (this is arguably why the Shinkansen was built, so foreigners would oo and ah when they came for the 1968 Olympics in Tokyo). The interesting TV show TV Champion followed several Japanese "oo-gui" (big eaters) through some hairy and gross competitions in which they tried to eat more sushi, bananas, or Chinese dumplings than their rivals. The winner got to come to New York City, in an international big eating competition against some of the biggest eaters America could muster. In a surprise turnaround, the Japanese oo-gui competitor (who wasn't even fat) defeated his larger American rivals. It was all the more meaningful as the competition took place on the Fourth of July.

Calendar pre-orders are off to a great start this year, and it's always interesting to see which will be the top sellers. Anime calendars are leading the race this year, with Evangelion and Oh My Goddess in a tie for the top spot, followed by Gundam Wing, Totoro, Sailor Moon and Ruro ni Kenshin. The lovely ladies and nude calendars are also selling well, with Onsen Nudes (lovely women in Japanese hot springs) in first place, followed by Kanazawa Bunko, race queen Suzuki Fumika, the busty Satoh Eriko and the lovely Mini-Skirt Police idol Asakura Megumi. Other calendars that are selling well are the Morita Haruyo illustrations (simply beautiful)

Newly added to the site this evening, new T-shirts! Yes, we have three more of our excellent wacky Japanese T-shirts, with very cool slogans for people who want to show their love of Japan to everyone. We have both wacky slogans ("Hentai gaijin" would fit into this category) as well as cool kanji that look good ("daikoku-bashira, the great black pillar" that holds up the household, now on its very own T-shirt), and a Japanese version of the famous Vulcan slogan. Check them out on the T-shirt page.

In addition to the new shirts, we have a bunch of great products, including:

• We have several excellent new magazines, including the very nice Best Video, Video Boy, and Suppin Evolution
  
• For our those interested in our unique photobooks from Japan, we have fresh stock of the Miura Aika 1999 Photobook (the best-selling photobook in J-List's history), as well as both volumes of Miyazawa Nude (but they will go fast)
  
• For indies fans, we've got a new issue of MPEG Indies, a cool magazine and dual-VCD sampler magazine that's a great value
  
• We have more original Japanese bishojo games from JAST and Trush on Hentai game & CD ROM -> CD ROM & MPEG
  
• On Manga -> New releases, we've got some excellent new adult wide manga from Japan, from Hot Milk, Tsukasa and AV Comics
  
• For video fans, two nice new long-playing videos from Kuki and Big Mogal, including a new edition of the excellent "Tokimeki Invitation" series
  
• Also for video lovers, a brand new "study of men's penis with innocent girls" directed by Sugawara Chie (on the SOD Main Page, or the Special Order page if we run out of stock)
  
• For DVD lovers, the second edition of the "Image Club Super" series, a 120 minute DVD featuring excellent "image club" (costume play and acting out of sexual fantasies) on the DVD Galleries page
  
• On Wacky Things from Japan page has several items, too, including more stock of several of our remarkably popular wooden signs with messages on them, as well as more of our popular wooden and bamboo wind chimes. Very cool!
  

That all!

Greetings from J-List October 7, 2000

Good evening from a shook-up Japan. The big news this evening is the earthquake in Tottori Prefecture, in western Japan, an area usually known for very little Earthquake activity. The quake was 7.3 in magnitude, and shook up the prefecture good, knocking products off shelves and collapsing many buildings. The streets filled water from burst pipes, and many roads were blocked by landslides and fallen rocks. The quake was supposedly felt in Tokyo, but none of us noticed it at all in Gunma, right in the center of the main land of Honshu (and about 100 km from Tokyo). Tottori is incidentally the least populated prefecture, the Wyoming of Japan more or less, and it's home to Japan's only desert

Kaori has plans to lost her virginity -- her Yoshinoya virginity, that is. There's a category of traditional fast food in Japan called "gyu-don, or beef bowl, basically a bowl of rice with steamed beef on top (it's really good with raw egg, too). Yoshinoya is a popular chain of beef bowl restaurants -- they even have stores in the U.S. If you go to Yoshinoya you'll no doubt see lots of truck drivers and male freeters" (men who work part-time jobs) -- but no women. There's some unwritten social rule that says women can't go into beef bowl restaurants in Japan, and as a result, Kaori never tasted this great food. She's tired of the men at J-List talking about how good gyu-don is though, and is going to go eat it next week.

We've got some nice new items in time for the weekend, including:

• First, great new magazines, including the new issues of Dela Beppin and Bejeans -- these are super issues of these magazines for you this month
  
• On the Magazines -> Backissues, we have more "one shot" mags, including some older issues of Dela Beppin, Beppin School and the original Beppin
  
• For photobook fans, we've got some very special items in stock for you, including all three of the dynamite Tennyo nude photobooks, and Kusanagi Jun's extremely popular "Memorial Last Nude" (see the Photobooks pages)
  
• Also for photobook collectors, Nomoto Miho's excellent "Taboo" hardcover photobook
  
• We have several new manga items for you, including a dynamite new erotic work "Caressing" by Peace Comics (Manga -> New releases) and new issues of Comic Jumbo (Magazines -> Hentai)
  
• For our video fans, a treat: not one, but two lovely videos featuring Kano Mizuho/Kusanagi Jun videos, Fairy Meeting and St. Lady Molester. See Videos -> Classics for the ones we have in stock, or Special order videos -> Bestsellers if we sell out.
  
• Also for AV video fans, some cool items in stock on the "Theme Videos" page that could only come from Japan
  
• For fans of Indies videos, we've got stock of MPEG Indies, a great 2-Video CD + color magazine item that gives a great amount of bang for the buck -- see this on the CD ROMS & MPEG page
  
• For bondage fans, we've got the last copies of the "Best of Immoral Angel" series, a VCD compilation of bondage AV, on DVD -> Discount items
  
• If you like Japanese professional wrestling, we've got a treat for you -- eight past issues from Gong, a popular wrestling magazine from circa 1980
  
• Customers are buying the konnyaku fruit we posted during the week, so we've added a new flavor: lychee, the delicious fruit from Thailand
  
• The Japanese have a great custom of writing messages on beautifully printed paper-covered cardboard, called "shikishi." We now have lovely "Hello Kitty" shikishi, on the "Wacky Things from Japan page.
  
• Finally, also on the WTFJ page, more stock of some very popular items that had sold out before, including Japanese oil absorbing sheets, vocabulary study cards (use them to learn Japanese!) and the always popular Hello Kitty disposable chopsticks.
  

Remember that in addition to offering regular revolving subscriptions to a variety of Japan's really cool anime, JPOP, manga and hentai magazines, we carry stock of many of these magazines. You can find stock of anime and JPOP magazines under the "JPOP & Idols" sub-category, and hentai magazines like E-Login and PC Angel on Magazines -> Hentai.

Greetings from J-List January 7, 2000

Happy Friday, from Japan, where drivers practice "safety driving."

It's said that Japan is 25 years behind the U.S. in terms of social development and awareness. Looking at Japan's recent enactment of a law require that babies ride in infant carseats (or "baby-chairs" as they're called here), it's kind of true. Japan is one of the few countries that actively cares about the opinions of its foreign population, and much of the progress in Japan, from Bullet Trains to freeways to laws banning photography of minors and health warnings on cigarette packages is brought about directly because Japanese want to impress foreigners who come here, and avoid bad impressions from negative areas.

Another area Japan lags behind the U.S. are movies. The biggest hit movies with big stars in them are often released here at the same time as in the States, but most movies show up here 6-12 months later. The Blair Witch Project is currently playing in Japanese theaters, although I've already got the DVD from the States. By far the most powerful player in Japan's movie industry is Toda Natsuko, the #1 translator of movies. Having her name in credits at the end of a movie is a status symbol for film studios, and her schedule personally decides what and when Japan see at the movies. Audiences go out of their way to see films she's translated, although my gaijin friends and I were enjoying nit-picking through her translation for Star Wars: Episode 1 during the summer.

There's a nice update for J-List, just in time for the weekend. First and foremost, there's a big selection of collections of CG artwork on CD ROM, published by budding CG artists at the Comic Market -- see these on the dojinshi page. There are a half dozen or so new hentai manga on the manga page, including some nice new items for large-breast fans. We've also added several lovely new photobooks, both on our normal photobook page (new items go on page 1 as always), but also on the new fetish/S&M photobooks page. Fans of S&M and the various hard-to-find Japanese sexual fetishes should check out these new items. Finally, there's a big update of in-stock Japanese adult videos, courtesy of Kaori. Lovely new titles by Komuro Yuri, Shiina Mai

I've updated MyJapan.Net, my personal homepage, with an interview with Fubuki Akira, and more. Also, we've updated CM-Watch, where you can download Japan's best TV commercials. Feedback is always appreciated!

Well, that's our update. Have a great weekend, and see you on the web!

Greetings from J-List January 5, 2000

Hello from Japan, home of squid pizza, octopus balls and green tea flavored ice cream. The year 2000 is five days old, and rocket packs and flying cars haven't suddenly materialized, allowing us to jet to the moon and back. As a card-carrying fan of Arthur C. Clarke's SF stories, I have to admit that it's kind of disappointing to me...

One sign that my wife and I weren't in our 20's anymore is when we started getting most of our entertainment from NHK, the network of four channels run by the Japanese government. One day we realized that the most interesting shows to us weren't anime or young idols singing on Hey Hey Music Champ, but the excellent content of NHK. The other day we watched a very interesting documentary on "kikoku shijo, or Japanese kids who have lived abroad for many years, then returned to experience culture shock in their own home country. Ally McBiel (which I watch in Japanese) and Beverly Hills 90210 (which my wife watches in English) are shown on NHK, too. Foreigners living in Japan complain about the 2000 yen they have to pay the NHK man who comes collecting every month, but it's good to have something that's worth watching.

Unfortunately, Masako-sama, the princess expected to bear Japan's future Emperor, has suffered a miscarriage, making all the silly festivities about her pregnancy by the Japanese media somewhat empty. It's a sad way to start off the year. In happier news, however, the man who robbed our liquor store back in November was caught by the Japanese police, trying to break into another area house. It turns out he was a younger man than we'd thought, only 27 years old member of a street gang. My mother in law is especially glad to hear that the man was caught.

We've got some nice items for you this evening. First, there's a large update of manga, including some really nice new adult wide" manga items -- a half dozen or more. (The "Isane ~Break Out~" cover picture has also been corrected, thanks to those to let us know that we had the wrong picture posted.) We've added a large number of very nice new in-stock adult videos, including offerings from some of Japan's most popular AV gals. New videos have been added to the special order video page, as well. There are some gorgeous illustration books on the anime page, too. We're closing out our current stock of collectible cards, including both our Bejean & Crystal Card series as well as our anime and idol cards, so check out the cards & puzzles page.

Finally, we've slashed our remaining stock of 2000 calendars yet again, and to help them go, we've taken pictures of the insides of many of the calendars -- so please check out the 40+ calendars we've got left before the ones you want are gone.

Greetings from J-List October 4, 2000

Hello again from your friend in Japan, J-List.

Japanese love to take English words and play with them. In addition to such "wasei-eigo" (made-in-Japan English) words as "nighter" (a night game of baseball) and "skinship" (the loving touch of a mother and her baby), there are many fun words that are combined from English and Japanese. "Otome-tic" is made from "otome" (woman) and "tic" (the back syllable in "romantic, which turns a noun into an adjective), and describes a woman who is trying a little too hard to act demure and cute. When singer Amuro Namie became the shining star of Japan around 1995, causing a generation of young Japanese girls to imitate her, they were labeled Amulers." If you meet a person with oily skin, know that they are called "aburagish" in Japanese -- from "aburagi" (oil) and "ish" (meaning of or about). And the category of up-skirt fetish materials from Japan has been dubbed "chirarism, from chira" (a quick glimpse) and "ism."

Over the past few decades, many interesting and exotic foods have made their way from Japan to the rest of the world, including sushi and sashimi, sukiyaki, and more. There's something about the mystique surrounding Japan that makes it fun to eat. One food I've thought could become the next "exotic" food from Japan Japan is konnyaku. Called Devil's Tongue in English, konnyaku is a very firm food that feels at first like gelatin (Jello), but is much more tasty and satisfying to eat. (In block form, it's supposedly popular as a sexual aid, although I haven't figured out how this would work.) It's very low in calories, so it's popular for dieting here in Japan. Konnyaku is eaten in a variety of ways

• We have more copies of the wonderful hardcover photobook by Fubuki Akira "So Long" (on Photobooks -> page 1)
  
• For fans of amateur and married women themes, see the various single issues of Apple Shashinkan, on the back-issues and gouka-bon pages
  
• Leg fetish fans will like Romance Punch, a great leg-fetish cosplay (costume play) book, as well as more copies of the very cool "Bizarre Legs"
  
• We've got even more all-new adult manga releases, including new books by Hit Comics, AV and Izumi
  
• Also, for dojinshi fans, we've got another volley of very nice dojinshi, including some excellent Sentimental Graffiti
  
• Remember our "first and last" yaoi sale, which allows you to buy-2-get-1-free on any yaoi comic item. We've added several items to the list now -- boys make exciting drama
  
• For Gundam fans, a very cool new video on the "theme videos" page, featuring actual Gundam charters in costumes, in fun parody play
  
• Also in the cool parody department, we've got The Clitrix, a totally cool AV parody based on the Matrix, featuring lovely AV stars Izumi and Anna (this disc is a region-2 disc)
  
• For fans of Japan's unique adult anime RPGs, we've got limited stock of several popular Japanese games, and at great prices. See them on Hentai game -> CD ROMs
  
• We've got the popular soft vinyl girl figures from Sub-Zero back on the site -- including both versions of the popular Japanese high school girl, and the excellent "Santa Girl"! See them on the Wacky Things from Japan page
  
• Also wacky but useful, we've got these lovable Hello Kitty "mayonnaise cups, which you can use to store anything from make-up to vitamins to condiments for your lunch to contact lenses
  
• Finally, the above-mentioned delicious konnyaku fruit packets, in four tasty flavors. Find these items on the Japanese Snacks page.
  

The shopping cart was acting up for a few hours during Tuesday night, Japan time. The problem has been fixed -- sorry for any inconvenience. As always, if you ever have a problem with the cart (which we are working on replacing now), feel free to use the secure email form at https://rook.axnet.net/pages/virtual/jlist/orderjlist_secure.html to order (or click the secure email" link on the page).

Greetings from J-List October 2, 2000

Greetings from Japan!

It's looking like Saturn's foray into Japan hasn't been all that successful. After two years of effort, I still haven't seen more than a handful of Saturns driving around on Japanese roads. Saturn of Shinjuku Station has closed, and Saturn of Maebashi, the nearest dealer, has quietly been turned into a Mazda dealership (although they still handle repairs for Saturns). Saturn is a great car, and I love my SW2 (we bought the first Saturn in Gunma Prefecture), but the Japanese recession has been very tough on car makers, forcing them to really compete on price and value -- for the same price as a Saturn short wagon, you can get a really nice Nissan Liberty or even a Bongo Friendy (one of my favorite Japanese mini-vans, I just love the name so much). I hope things turn around for Saturn in Japan.

October has rolled around, and that means a birthday for J-List. It was four years ago Sunday that Kaori and I started out in our tiny home office, with our networked Macs and our fledgling database, which I was building as we went along. Our scanner was an old Microtek that required three passes to scan a magazine, which Kaori dutifully operated from her Power Mac 7500. We outgrew our tiny stockroom so fast, we had to literally walk on manga and magazines to fill orders. It's been a wild four years so far, and the best is still to come. As the Japanese say each new year to friends, Kore kara mo yoroshiku onegai shimasu, a phrase that's difficult to translate accurately, but it means something like "we thank you in advance for your future help and support." Thanks!

One note about playing region-2 DVDs on computer DVD drive in computers. It's true you can set the region code through software, but be aware that recent DVD ROM drives only allow you to change this setting 5 times -- after that, they're set permanently. If you want to view some of the region-2 discs from Japan but don't have a code-free player, you could do what I do: leave your computer permanently set to region 2, and view region-1 discs on your normal DVD player.

As usual, we've got another great slew of cool items from Japan for you this evening, including:

• First, we've got excellent new magazines, including the new Milkiss and Cho Very Good!! issues, for your beautiful magazine life
  
• We've got several premium and cool back-issues of Japanese magazines on the backissues page, including a nice issue of the extremely "natsukashii" Beppin (Magazines -> back issues)
  
• For leg fans, we've got a great new leg fetish books, Slit skirt, with excellent photos of sexy high-heeled women with skirts that go all the way up (Photobooks -> leg fetish)
  
• Also for photobook fans, more stock of Yamauchi Mihoko's "Brilliant, Hirai Rio's first photobook, and a new item, Asaoka Ayane's lovely Manual" busty photobook (Photobooks -> page 1)
  
• For SM fans, see Yoshii Miki's excellent "SM Photo Memories" photobook, on the S&M photobook page
  
• For our erotic manga fans, we've got another very nice volley of new books, including manga by IC Comics, Hit Comics and Fujimi -- also, several "back in stock" titles, on the manga "classics" page
  
• If you like adult dojinshi, find the dozen or so new items posted to the dojinshi page -- including several excellent new Ah My Goddess adult books
  
• To go with our yaoi sale (see below) there are 20+ new yaoi dojinshi posted to the yaoi page. See these excellent and compelling male/male works, now!
  
• For our SOD fans, we've got a great new item -- women raping men, a fantasy from the mind of female AV director Sugawara Chie
  
• For DVD fans, a very special item -- Costume Play Perfection, a super DVD (code-free) featuring erotic anime and game cosplay fun. Featured are Evangelion characters, Chun Li and Sakura from Street Fighter, Sakura from Sakura Wars, Gundam Wing uniforms, and more!
  
• On our Wacky Things from Japan page, we've got several cool items: a Japanese "sign pen" (specially made for signing things so they'll show up boldly on the paper) and a smaller size of our popular Japanese mugi-cha (barley) tea bags
  
• Finally -- we've got ika! You've heard me mention the dried, shredded ika (squid) that is popular in Japan, and now you can get it from J-List. The soft squid is enjoyed with sake or beer, and is a deliciously unique treat from Japan. Find this item on the snacks page!
  

Announcing the first and last J-List Yaoi sale! We've got a large number of excellent yaoi manga and dojinshi, and we'd like you to buy them from us. To help you, we're going to offer buy-2-get-1-free off of any yaoi dojinshi manga/dojinshi items.

Greetings from J-List January 2, 2000

Happy New Year from all of us at J-List! We crossed into the New Year with our old Japanese standbys, the Kouhaku TV show, eating soba noodles, and trying to keep the kids up. After the New Year, fireworks went off all around us, even out in the country as we are. We then enjoyed the countdown each hour, as each time zone was covered in-depth on Japanese TV. Paris and New York were two of the most spectacular.

The last minutes of 1999 also saw the return of Chuyan and Hitomi, from their around-the-world-in-80-days tour. Relying on an Iridium pager that allowed them to receive email from around the world, they managed to get from San Francisco back to Tokyo in just 80 days. Since we received a lot of feedback about their journey, we captured their glorious return in a Quicktime movie. See the movie, as well as a report on New Year's in Japan, at http://www.myjapan.net/peter/denpa80.html . Disclaimer: the movie is too small for the English subtitles to be readable -- sorry about that. Quicktime 4 is required to view the movie.

We're coming out swinging in the New Year with a very nice update for everyone. First and foremost, volley 2 of the Winter Comic Market's new dojinshi is posted, and they are very nice indeed. Unfortunately, there is only one copy of most of the books, so you should hurry and check out the dojinshi page ASAP. For fans of Japan's unequaled erotic manga, we've got Isane ~Break Out~ posted to the hentai manga page. There are new magazines posted, including the great new Gal's Dee, and not one but *two* issues of Photoshot on the photobooks page.

We've also got an entirely new page: high-end S&M and fetish books, known as gouka-bon in Japanese which cater fans of unique genres of eroticism. These fabulous & rare books represent a sub-category of highly specialized Japanese pornography for distinguished fans who desire extremely hard core S&M and other fetish themes. See our first offering on the Fetish/S&M Photobooks page, up now!
Because we currently lack a good distributor to allow us to get lot of great JPOP titles for the JPOP music page, we've decided to continue the buy-4-get-1-free special until further notice, as our way of thanking JPOP fans for their support and interested in our JPOP offerings. We'll get a better source of JPOP soon!

Finally, a slight change regarding our "reserve subscriptions" which make it possible for J-List readers to get current issues of Japanese magazines sent to them as they're available on the newsstands here. Previously, we'd asked that you use a credit card for these revolving subscriptions, so we can charge and send each issue easily when it comes in. We'd still appreciate it if you could use a credit card for the order; however, if it's inconvenient for you to pay with a credit card, check/money order is fine. We'll set aside your issues and send out an automatic email as the magazines come in.

Thanks for being on the list, and "Kotoshi mo yoroshiku!"

Greetings from J-List December 27, 1999

Hello, and belated Merry Christmas from J-List.

We hope you all had a pleasant, quiet day with family and friends this Christmas season. We had a fine Christmas, with our traditional giving-more-presents-than-necessary-to-kids. Hit presents this year included a baby for Rina's Rika-chan doll (which Kazuki promptly named Ida Kaori, which could be our Kaori, or the member of the Japanese unit Morning Musume who happens to have the same name), the Kimono version of Rika-chan and Kazuki's favorite, the train that transforms into a big robot, Grand Liner.

Christmas in Japan is a very different affair than in the States. In Japan Christmas Eve is actually the more important day, a special time to have a nice dinner with the family (if you're family oriented), or with your boyfriend/girlfriend. Actually, Christmas Eve is the most popular night of the year for girls to lose their innocence, and love hotels are always full on the 24th. Now that Christmas is behind us, preparations for New Year's are underway.

In many ways, the roles of Christmas and New Year's in Japan are reversed -- Christmas is a happy, fun time of Christmas parties, but New Year's is a solemn time of Buddhist and Shinto rites, on reflecting on what the past year has brought, and praying for happiness in the new year. You would never wear a paper hat and rattle a noisemaker on New Year's Eve or New Year's Day, although the sound of bells ringing 108 times at Buddhist temples (or on TV) is quite common.

Greetings from J-List December 23, 1999

Hello from Japan. Today is December 23rd, and the Emperor's Birthday -- so it's a holiday. Christmas in Japan, of course, is a normal work day.

Another terrible tragedy has struck a Japanese school, with the slaying of a seven year old boy in Kyoto. The killer, who may have been a junior high or high school student by some reports, left several copies of a bizarre note written in squarish Japanese characters, saying, The reason is because I have a grudge against the school. I will run away this time, but I am planning to reveal my name later...The code by which I can be identified is 'Terukuhanoru.' This is a meaningless word that has baffled police and experts alike ever since the terrible tragedy.

We've got a great pre-Christmas update for you today. First, we've added more fine-quality Japanese magazines to the J-List site, including two popular items for fans of Japanese women with long, silky legs -- Panst Dream and Panstopia. There are several nice new photobook items, including the first photobook release of virtual idol Terai Yuki. We've got even more excellent adult manga posted, including another dojinshi anthology based on popular anime characters, as well as a nice new manga item on the Yaoi page for fans of Yaoi themes. JPOP fans have yet another excellent JPOP monthly magazine available via J-List's "reserve subscription" page (page 1): Pachi Pachi, a wonderful magazine filled with lots of pictures and information about what's popular in JPOP and J-Rock now.

We've also got yet another slew of last-minute Year 2000 calendars added, including Glay, lovely swimsuit models Mashiko Rie, and Sakai Ayana, and several of the excellent Nadesico anime calendars, in stock and ready to go now. (As always, we're cutting prices daily to give you a reason to get a few extra.) Keep in mind when browsing the calendar page that the scans we've got posted on our website are actual thumbnails printed on a large poster, which we scan and blow up be large size. The calendars are actually far nicer than the sample picture you see on our site.

I've been having fun with my AirPort wireless base station and Lucent WaveLan Silver PC card, access the Internet from the parking lot outside from my Powerbook. It's great fun! It'll come in handy on nice Spring days when I want to get out of the office for a while, although it's much too cold out right now.

Some people reported trouble with the Quicktime movie featuring a Christmas-ready Kaori and myself at http://www.myjapan.net/christmas99.html . To view the movie, you need to have Quicktime 4.0 installed. Email me if you have problems with the page.

Once again, the warmest Christmas wishes from everyone at J-List!

Greetings from J-List December 21, 1999

Greetings from Japan, where a "shortcut" is a hairstyle.

On Sunday's episode of Denpa Shonen, Chuyan and Manaka arrived in India thanks to their ability to hitch a ride with the jewelry designer. Following messages they received on their Iridium pager, they hitchhiked to Calcutta and met up with a Japanese man who was working there. Knowing that Myanmar is a difficult country to get a visa for when traveling, they attempted to find a way to go by boat to Thailand, which is where they're headed now. They only have ten days to reach their goal, Tokyo!

I've always known that Japanese women seem to have problems with constipation, but now I know for sure. 47.7% of Japanese high school girls and 57% of career women report problems with constipation ("benpi" in Japanese, in case it ever comes up in Trivial Pursuit). Why Japanese rates of constipation are so high, no one knows, but it can cause various health problems, such as higher rates of some cancers -- in fact, 80% of women with breast cancer reported that they had problems with constipation.

The various females at J-List have had discussions about this over the years (Japanese are very open about discussing bodily functions openly). To solve her own problem, Kaori started drinking a herbal tea designed to ease constipation called "Last Chance." We've got a lot of really nice new items posted to the J-List site tonight since we missed one of our regular updates (we actually did our regular Saturday update -- the listserver decided not to work properly).

Greetings from J-List December 18, 1999

Hello again from Japan, home of the Dango Sankyoudai, or the three singing sweet dumplings on a stock.

On Dec 22nd, the Earth and the Moon will be at their closest point, and this will happen during a full moon, making this a rare astronomical event (so get out your telescopes of binoculars). The occurrances of earthquakes is higher during this time, as the Moon's movement stretches the Earth. Sure enough, we had three pretty scary medium-sized quakes all in one day, the other day, and it was enough to start me worrying about an end-of-the-century "Big One" hitting Japan. Kind of frightening.

The dancing baby that was made famous by its appearance in season one of Ally McBiel continues to show up in Japan, now appearing as the star in a Nissan car commercial (he ice-skates now). Soon, we'll be launching a site that will allow you to see Japan's best commercials in Quicktime format -- and there are so many here in Japan, everything from Meg Ryan speaking Japanese (shudder) to commercials for hopelessly cute Japanese household products with little chirping birds. Just one of the many improvements we'll be offering in 2000.

We've got a bunch of nice products for you today. First, there's another cache of new magazines, including "Ike Ike" "DD Toppers" and several others, as well as a healthy addition of popular hardcover photobooks that had sold out in the past. Fans of J-List excellent adult manga pages will enjoy the additions we've posted, including more copies of many items that had sold out in the past, as well as three excllent "how to draw in manga style" theme books (on the hentai manga page) that are very good. If you love JPOP, we've got some nice new "maxi-singles" posted to the JPOP page. There are a few more calendars posted to the calendars page, including the lovely Ayane Sayaka (swimsuit model) and more. And finally

Remember that J-List is closing out our stock of US-release adult anime videos. Our prices are great -- below our cost on most of the items -- so please check out our selection. All items on the US Anime Videos are in stock and ready to go out to you right away. And don't forget we've got great snacks like Poke-Pachi, a Pokemon lollypop combined with pop rocks.

Greetings from J-List December 16, 1999

It's another quiet evening here at the J-List World Headquarters. Kaori, who left early to get her eyebrows permed (don't ask), is staying late today helping me get the update finished on time.

In Japan, it's year-end gift giving season again. Companies give gifts to each other to show feelings of thanks for services rendered in the past, and to say "yoroshiku onegai shimasu" (a very hard phrase to translate -- it sort of means "please continue to be of service to me in the future") for the coming half year. The two gift-giving periods (called Chugen in the summer, and Oseibo in the winter) is a big part of the Japanese economy, and companies compete to make the most interesting gifts available. This year J-List sent a traditional Gunma gift -- a boxed set of Japanese-style sweets, chocolates, and rice crackers.

It's also time for planning bounenkai (year-end parties) and shin-nenkai (new-year parties). In Japan, you never have a New Year's party before the new year actually arrives, you have year-end parties (or more accurately forget the past year parties). Nearly everyone is busy in late December/early January, scheduling the various parties, and they're great fun. As you can imagine, bars and restaurants raise their prices during this time. This year's J-List year-end party will be at our favorite sushi restaurant.

We've got some nice new items for you today. First of all, several new magazines are in, including the new issues of Dela Beppin, Video Boy and Best Video, all featuring a great selection of some of Japan's most beautiful AV idols. Fans of the beautiful Kusanagi Jun (also known as Kano Mizuho) will enjoy the additional copies of her popular Kubire and Kubire 2 photobooks. We've gotten in a selection of other great photobooks that had sold out before, too, so check these pages. If you love J-List's unique anime page, check out the page, for more stock of the popular Santa Girl soft vinyl figure (a timeless classic), as well as the popular Pikachu ANA Airport set (an entire airport of Pikachu toys, all die cast metal). If you're looking for Pokemon, we've also got several new children's puzzles including a really cool Kitty-chan (Hello Kitty) that Kaori wanted for herself. There is a nice selection of new special-order videos on the special order video pages (as always, new items go on page 1), and more.

We've also gotten in one last shipment of calendars, which we've posted to the in-stock calendars page. Since the new year is nearly upon us, we're frankly eager to blow our stock of calendars out the door, so we've cut the prices on ALL our in-stock calendars. We've got two huge boxes left, with something for everyone: the four cute members of Speed, the great members of JPOP bands like Every Little Thing and Morning Musume, great anime calendars like Slayers and Trigun, and of course, the only authentic Japanese Pokemon calendars you're going to find anywhere. If you've got room left on your walls for some unique, special Japanese calendars, please check out the stock we have available for immediate shipment. Yoko and Kaori will thank you!

Greetings from J-List December 13, 1999

Good evening from Japan, the country with cars with names like "Sprinter" Soarer "Silvia" and "Super Saloon."

The Princess of Japan, Masako-sama, is "showing signs of being pregnant" with her first child, which has caused a frenzy of news reports and speculation, as well as documentaries on the life of Michiko, the current Empress, and how happy the nation greeted news of her children. It is funny to note that there is no confirmation that Masako-sama (who was educated at Harvard and spent years in the U.S. and U.K. -- although it's interesting to note that she only speaks Queen's English in public) is pregnant at all -- she is scheduled to see a doctor next week -- but this hasn't stopped the media from their reporting frenzy.

Chuyan and Manaka are doing well in their attempts to get around the world in 80 days. Hitchhiking to Brussels to meet a Japanese man who ran a restaurant ("Samurai") there, who offered to help them. He let Manaka work for a week to earn money. Meanwhile, they met up with Japanese man, a man who trades in jewelry, who made them a great offer: if Chuyan (who is quite a talented artist) would design some jewelry for him, he'd pay for them to accompany him to the next stop on his business trip, India. Now they're in India, much closer to their goal than they were before.

Greetings from J-List December 11, 1999

Greetings from J-List, which is officially banned in Saudi Arabia.

People in Japan in Japan have gotten used to getting special perks from the government as it tries to help kick-start the Japanese economy. First it was last year's special $400-per-child gift from the government to people with families, in the form of coupons that had to be used by a certain date. Now there's a special tax deduction arrangement for small companies, allowing them to deduct purchases for computers, office equipment, etc. this fiscal year, rather than breaking the deductions up over time. This is great news for me, since it allows me to get a new PowerMac G4 and take the deduction all at once.

America exports many things to Japan, but one I could have done without was the Infomercial. Now you can't watch late-night TV in Japan without bumping into one or two of them running on different channels. They usually have Japanese infomercials, but occasionally you see a really bad U.S. one with Japanese dubbed over. The other night, though, I saw that you could buy the entire run of the Ed Sullivan Show on videocasette. That would be kind of interesting to watch.

We've got some new toys at J-List -- a Tangerine iMac DV and a new Panasonic digital camera. After setting things up, we were literally making and editing movies of the kids in about ten minutes. See our first zany efforts (a film of our kids tearing the paper off our shoji paper doors) at: http://www.myjapan.net/ourmovie.html .

We've got some lovely new items for you today. First, there's a positively fabulous all-new Miura Aika photobook for fans of this lovely lady. An extremely high-class piece of work, it features some of the most shocking and erotic pictures of this lady I've seen. For fans of J-List's videos, we've updated both the in-stock videos pages (Mizuno Haruki, Yoshino Sally, and more!) as well as the special-order videos pages (Yoshikawa Minami, Asato Yuka, more!) for you. There is a nice new posting of JPOP albums and maxi singles (half-albums) to J-List's JPOP page, as well as reductions in the prices of our calendars as we get close to the end of the year -- pick up a great bargain on some of these items. For fans of the popular Video CD & DVD Soft Catalog, a dual-VCD sampler providing an all-color magazine and nearly two hours of footage for a great price

Greetings from J-List December 9, 1999

Hello again. The famous December "Kara-kaze" is blowing outside my window as I type this. I hope I won't get too chilled during the walk home tonight...

Daniel Keys is in Japan right now, and was interviewed for a Japanese news show on NHK last night. In the interview he discussed the recent tragedy in Japan, and his take on the Japanese view of education here. He compared Japanese young people who are expected to fill their minds with knowledge in order to move forward in life to his character Charlie Gordon, during his great rise in intelligence during the middle of Flowers for Angernon (my all-time favorite book, by the way). They try to squeeze in information and knowledge so they can pass a certain test and perform academically, but all the while they're moving farther from what's really important, family and the happiness that comes from having a strong family base.

Tonight we've got some great new items for you. First of all, the new issue of the best-selling Urecco is posted, and it's a lovely one, with many lovely "Fresh Nude" features by Misaki Ryoka, Minori Aoi, and many more. "Bed Rooms, the beautiful photobook of Honjoh Sayuri (who was one of the three girls who appeared on the talk show with gaijin from around the world), is in stock on the photobooks page, along with other new photobook items. There is yet another update to the Cards & Puzzles page -- a beautiful new illustration by Yoshitaka Amano, and for esoteric anime fans, a super rare Gatchaman puzzle (known as Battle of the Planets and G-Force in the U.S.). For fans of J-List's new Reserve Subscription" service, allowing you to subscribe to many Japanese magazines as they come out in Japan, we've got a G-Type, a nice new hentai magazine that features a CD ROM of cool demos with each issue. For fans of Pokemon

Remember that J-List has great wacky Japanese T-shirts, with bizarre slogans in Japanese. Imagine walking across campus with your "Super Hentai" shirt on, or your esoteric "Kisho Tenketsu" (which is a four-character compound word that describes the four parts of a classical Japanese essay) shirt. Amaze and impress your Japanese friends! See these items on the Funny Japanese T-Shirts page at J-List.

Greetings from J-List December 7, 1999

Hi again from Japan. I had forgotten that it was the 58th anniversary of Pearl Harbor until Tomo mentioned it in passing. Look how far the world has come since then.

In a terrible tragedy that has shocked Japan terribly, a two year old girl (Haruna-chan) was killed by the mother of another girl. The two children were competing to get into a prestigious preschool in Tokyo (much like the one my kids attend, although the scale is a lot smaller). Haruna-chan passed the test and was accepted into the school, but the other girl was not, which drove the mother of the girl not accepted mad. She strangled poor Haruna-chan with her scarf and hid the girl's body in Shizuoka Prefecture. Since we have kids in a hoikuen (preschool) not all that unlike this school, it was especially unsettling to us.

We've got a nice update for you tonight, with lot of great items. First and foremost, the long-anticipated "memorial last nude" of Kusanagi Jun, one of the most beautiful and enticing women in Japan. (Her AV name is Kano Mizuho.) There is a nice volley of adult videos on both the in-stock video pages (including some Hirosue Nao, one of my favorites) and all-new special order videos, so check out the great new items. For dojinshi fans, there's a wonderful new 98 page adult dojinshi by the fine folks at Okachimentaiko featuring parodies of popular game girls in Japan. And for fans our extensive "wide" manga, we've got another 6-8 all-new items, including some nice S&M manga anthologies and more. Finally, we just couldn't resist posting more beautiful and unique puzzles

Remember that J-List has the last available stock of the excellent Bakuretsu Hunter (known as Sorceress Hunter outside of Japan) cold-cast figures, the beautiful Tira Miss and Chocolate Miss. These beautiful figures are extremely well designed and beautifully painted, and stand on solid oak bases. See these excellent figures on the anime page.

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

Greetings from J-List December 4, 1999

Hello from Japan, where restaurant chain Coco's is known as "The California Restaurant."

Poor Kaori lost her wallet the other day, with her drivers' license and some money in. (Just like Kaori-chan, she was more upset by the loss of the wallet itself, which was her favorite character, Thunder Bunny.) Hopefully someone will find it and contact her. In Japan, I've had many instances of lost wallets being returned, with money in it in all cases, although when I stupidly left my favorite Zero Haliburton case on a train, I never saw it again. Once, when my wife managed to leave her purse with $800 in cash on top of her car as she drove away while in the U.S.

The economy is still limping along here in Japan. One segment that is in for a shake-up is education, especially the lower tier schools that historically provided a 2- or 4-year education for Japanese college-bound students who couldn't get into prestigious schools like Waseda or Keio University, and lower-quality preparatory schools (Yobiko). As the Japanese birth rate drops, there's literally a "famine" of students for these schools. In order to get enough students, higher-tier colleges will lower their academic standards, putting the pinch on "suberi-dome" ("stop the downward slide") schools which currently "catch" students who can't get into better schools. When anyone who wants to go to a four-year college can easily do so without studying, it will force changes in the Japanese perception of education as a social "equalizer" and the basis of the Japanese middle class. I wonder what will happen?

We've got some really cool new items on the J-List site tonight. First, there are some excellent new photobooks on the photobook pages, including a photobook of a Japanese pro-wrestling star, more copies of the popular "Dahlia" by Wakana Sena and Wet Heaven, and more. We've got a bunch of all-new adult manga the hentai manga page -- including two new parody dojinshi anthologies in the high-quality wide-manga format. The anime toys page has been updated again, and there are new calendars on the calendar page (more Glay, Kitty-chan, Speed and more). We've add another "reserve subscription" magazine for JPOP fans -- it's Zappi, a great monthly JPOP magazine that comes with a CD of music and messages from your favorite JPOP artists. Finally, we've scored more really nice puzzles for the card & puzzle page

Videos are selling well with the new December sale we've started. Remember that you can order videos from our special-order videos pages at the lower prices, too, so you can stock up with some cool Kawashima Azumi, Wakana Sena, or whoever your favorite happens to be...

Remember that J-List has a big stock of unique and fun candy and snacks from Japan, including a lot of cool Pokemon stuff, including the excellent Pokemon Choco (which comes with a Pokemon reflective card). Other cool snacks include Wata-pachi (cola-flavored cotton candy with pop rocks inside), Wata-gum (cola-flavored cotton candy that turns to gum in your mouth), Himo-Q (gummy string, I love it), Pocky, and more.

Well, I've got to get back and set up a Christmas tree. Have a nice weekend!

Greetings from J-List December 2, 1999

Greetings from Japan, where "that's true" means "no" and people bow while talking on the phone (I do it too...).

Japan is watching the Microsoft monopoly case unfolding with interest, and rumblings are starting to be heard about Japan's own monopoly -- NTT. A massive, sprawling company, NTT supplies local telephone service to nearly all of Japan, and nearly all Internet traffic moves through undersea cables that it leases for as much as it likes. To get a telephone in Japan, you must buy an $800 bond from NTT, a system which provides nearly limitless free capital for the company. Finally, while the U.S. and Asia are investing in high speed cable modem and DSL technology, NTT is strongly pushing ISDN, despite the fact that ISDN clearly plays no part in the future of the Internet at this point in human history. (For our from-Japan Internet access

Continuing our before-Christmas theme, we've got some more really special items for you. First, the excellent soft-vinyl "Santa Girl" was reissued by Sub-Zero, so we've got some of those excellent items for you on the anime page. For the Pokemon-lovers in your family, we've got -- Pokemon cards! They're cool, they come in full packs, and they're in stock on the Cards & Puzzles page. To go with the cards, we've got official Pokemon card holders, and the complete guide to Japanese Pokemon cards in stock, as well. Fans of the excellent Microman/Micronauts toys will see some new items on the anime page

Moving along to other items, we've got some excellent new and back-in-stock magazines and photobooks, including Wet Heaven, Memories in Palau, and more. If you like the super beautiful model Inoue Harumi, check out her dynamite photobook, which is great. There's a great volley of special order adult videos on the Video Catalog pages (page 1 has newer items), including some great new offerings by Wakana Sena, Aoi Minori, and more. Finally

Announcing the J-List December Video Sale! To help you choose that very special Christmas gift this December (maybe yourself), we've lowered the price of every over-18 video on J-List, both in-stock and special-order videos! Enjoy the new lower prices!

J-List lost its internet access for 24 hours on Monday and Tuesday. This didn't affect our site at all, only ability reply to email and process orders. Everything's running fine now though. Sorry for any inconvenience.

Last weekend, Kaori and I attended two weddings, one on Saturday and one on Sunday. It was a real "shutter chance" (i.e., an opportunity to take some nice pictures), so I brought my little Sony digital camera along and documented both days. See my "two weddings, no funeral" special report, including pictures of Kaori's Miffy the Rabbit doll, pictures of many lovely Japanese girls all dressed up, and observations on how to write "Live long, and prosper" in kanji

Greetings from J-List November 29, 1999

Greetings from Japan, where a "pace maker" is the soccer player who sets the pace for the rest of his team.

Well, Chuyan and Hitomi managed to get to Madrid, Spain, safely. They checked their Iridium email receiver and found an offer of friendship from a Japanese teacher of flamenco dancing. They stayed with this lady for four days, working during the day cleaning a flamenco bar, as they prepared to move towards their goal. They're in the Middle East now, so if you can help them in anyway, please email them at DENPA80@iridium.co.jp .

You don't value the little things until they're broken. My wife has broken one of her toes by bumping it against a table, and now she's got her whole foot in a huge cast, and has to walk around with crutches, where stairs are much steeper than in the States (due to less land). Poor Chiharu.

Recently the Toshiba corporation was sued for millions of dollars because the possibility that data could be lost through a defect in notebook floppy drives. The decision was viewed as quite unfair from this side of the Pacific, almost as Japan-bashing, as no data was reported lost by any customer. Japan is a much more down-to-earth place, where law suits are about as common in everyday life as meteor strikes. Perhaps the fact that Japan has only 17, 000 lawyers compared with America's 880, 000 has something to do with it.

We've got some very nice items on the J-List site for you. First of all, we've added more great items that are suitable for anyone looking for that special Christmas gift. There are some very unique genuine "from Japan" Sailor Moon items on the anime page, in addition to other great items that kids would like. The card and puzzles page has been updated with even more very nice puzzles for that special someone on your Christmas list (yourself?), including a cool Amano World puzzle featuring Vampire Hunter "D" and more. There are new items on the unique Japanese Snacks page, including "Mogi Mogi Fruits, a selection of gummi fuits that come with their own gummi fruit tree. We've also stocked up on the popular Pokemon Choco snacks, which each come with their own cool reflective card, written in real Japanese! We've add another half dozen excellent adult wide" manga to manga page 2, including some really beautiful new items, like "Mercy's File." Yaoi fans should check out the new wide manga posted there, too. There are also new photobooks on the photobook pages, and a slew of new in-stock adult videos posted (including Silence Memory

We had some technical difficulties over the weekend, including the shopping cart entering the wrong items for a few hours. All the problems should be fixed now. If you ever have difficulties with the J-List site, please let us know immediately.

Greetings from J-List November 28, 1999

Hello from Japan, land of wasabi, pickled eggplant and dried, shredded squid to go with your beer.

I remember, when I first came to Japan, I was amazed at the popularity of actress Aubrey Hepburn. An incredibly popular actress here, she stars in the movie that many Japanese girls claim as their all-time favorite, Roman Holiday. She's popular in Japan, I am told, because she was the first world actress to become famous despite having a slender (Japanese) body. Another person who is far more famous here than in the U.S. is Sydney Sheldon. A walk through tiny English section of any bookstore in Gunma is like a Sydney Sheldon special selection. (Incidentally, did you know that Sydney Sheldon is the creator of I Dream of Genie, that old TV show?)

In an effort to jump-start the economy, and also to commemorate the new century, Japan will be printing a 2000 yen bill next year. Currently, Japanese currency comes only in 1000, 5000 and 10, 000 yen denominations, making things quite simple. There used to be 100 and 500 yen paper money, but these have wisely been retired and turned into coins, something that I believe Americans should consider doing to the $1 soon -- paper money costs millions to print, but coins last for years. The new bill will cause some confusion

There are a lot of nice items in tonight's update. First of all, we've added a lot of cool items we consider to be great Christmas gifts. On the cards & puzzles page, for example, check out our beautiful only-available-from-Japan puzzles featuring cool Pokemon as well as beautiful traditional Japanese artwork puzzles. We've also got some smaller easy-to-display puzzles, and a great puzzle for Micronaut fans. On our anime & toys page, we've got cool Microman/Micronaut figures, a deluxe battle mech from Front Mission 3, and more. On the magazine front, there are several nice new additions, including the new Bejean

The calendars are selling well, as people pick up the extra calendars we ordered before the Year 2000 calendar pre-orders closed down. We've got plenty left, but the supply is limited, so please check out the in-stock calendar pages to see if there are any items you want. We can still get them to you by Christmas if you choose airmail as the shipping method. Among the great large-size Y2K calendar we have in are Anzai Hiroko, the lovely Matsuda Jun, the great pop groups Speed, Max and Every Little Thing, hot race queen Suzuki Fumika, only-from-Japan Pokemon and Evangelion calendars, the lovely Kusanagi Jun

Remember that our buy-4-get-1-free sale on dojinshi will end soon. This is a great chance to get some nice dojinshi for up to 20% off, and help us make room for more stock of cool dojinshi. Yoroshiku!

If you've got kids who like those fine wooden Brio trains, please check out Spruce Goose, a nice company that sells Brio-compatible track and trains at very reasonable prices. The URL is Plug https://www.addr.com/~spruceca/cgi-bin/ordpage.cgi?uwrhrfrst .

Greetings from J-List November 25, 1999

Happy Thanksgiving from J-List, if you're in the States. Thanksgiving is a nice day for Americans, a quiet time to stay home and have a nice dinner with the family, then perhaps go visit some friends. In Japan, there is no Thanksgiving, and certainly no turkey to, so this year, we'll be getting a bucket of chicken at good old KFC.

That reminds me of my first weeks in Japan. To my mind, Kentucky is a U.S. state, but to the Japanese, Let's go to Kentucky is an invitation to eat chicken. It just felt weird. Similarly, the Japanese pronunciation of some English words such as "micro" (they usually pronounce it "meecro") gave me the heebie-jeebies. I was also vaguely disturbed to see a series of map books with an apple on the cover, called "Mapple."

Sumo Grand Master Musashimaru, of Hawaii, has won the latest Sumo tournament. He's on a great winning streak, which is good for the new Grand Master. He's one of just two American wrestlers to achieve the highest ranking in Sumo, and is the only wrestler ever to look like a big Sicilian mafia guy.

We've got a lot of nice items for you tonight. First and foremost, we've got dozens of great Year 2000 Japanese calendars in stock, now that the preorders are processed and in the mail. There are many great calendars available, including anime, JPOP and more, and they're all in stock and ready to go out to you. There are new photobooks and magazines, including some single issues, and several really nice new hard- and softcover photobooks. JPOP fans will enjoy the 10+ new items posted to the JPOP page, and we've added some cool new items to the anime toys page last time, including some out of print Sakura Wars figures. (There are some slick new Yamato toys that had been posted

We've been upgrading everything around here, including our web server. J-List now has its own dedicated setup, so loading speed should be increased for everyone. The problem with the J-List secure order form not showing as secure in some browsers should also be fixed. If you notice anything strange over the next couple of days, please let us know immediately and we'll fix it. (The secure order form on the JAST USA hentai game site is still broken, so if you want to get any of the hentai games from that site, please order them from J-List instead, until we get it fixed.)

Greetings from J-List November 22, 1999

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Greetings from J-List November 20, 1999

Greetings from J-List November 18, 1999

It's a cold Thursday evening in Japan now, as I finish up today's update. I would have been finished hours ago, but I got the sudden urge to take the afternoon off and hit my favorite sauna for some relaxation, Japan-style.

The Leonid Meteor Shower, which peaked over Israel and Europe twelve or so hours ago, was watched quite closely by the evening Japanese news shows, who had teams of reporters all over the world. It was a great show, if you happened to live near the peak area and didn't have cloud cover to block your view. The footage taken by a special NASA plane, flying above the clouds, recorded hundreds of beautiful meteors falling like raindrops. Unfortunately, Japan completely missed the show. Cheers to everyone who caught some meteors.

There's no such thing as Thanksgiving in Japan, so Japan has started its Christmas Season officially. Everywhere you go, the music played in coffee shops and department stores has changed to bouncy Christmas songs -- every store seems to be selling the "Jitterbug" Santa, that moves his waist from side to side to music. Convenience stores such as Seven Eleven, Lawson and Sun Every have all started reservations for this year's "Christmas Cake" -- a unique (?) Japanese tradition that was likely created by retailers.

Tonight's update is a nice one. First of all, we've got a huge bunch of all-new adult "wide" manga posted to manga page 2. Some of the new books are truly excellent. There are some interesting "one-shot" magazines posted to magazine page 2, including some special and older magazines, for fans of girls who have retired. There are some interesting new items on the anime toys page, and some some new in-stock videos on the video page. Many of our dojinshi (both on the dojinshi and yaoi pages) have been reduced in price, too, so please check out the great bargains. We've got fresh stock of the very popular Bejean and Crystal Card AV idol cards, too (although they may go out of print soon).

Remember that J-List has a huge variety of monthly magazines available by subscription, including magazines for fans of anime, hobby modeling, JPOP, photography, Sony Playstation and Sega Dreamcast, yaoi comic art, and more. These magazines are valuable windows into contemporary Japanese life and culture, and are a great way to see a little piece of Japan every month. Each magazine has been chosen partially on the basis of its value to readers who can't read the Japanese text -- lots of color pictures and artwork, for example. Check out the great "reserve subscription" magazines

Greetings from J-List November 15, 1999

Hello again from Japan. Sorry for the pictures on the "about us" page all being dead -- the problem is fixed now. What a difference a search/replace can make...

And now for an update on Chuyan and Manaka, hitchhiking across the world in 80 days: they got a message on their pager that a friend in Des Moines had some Japanese friends and would help them. It turned out he was a pilot with a small plane, and he offered to fly them all the way to New York -- so they've crossed the rest of the U.S. in one fell swoop! At the end of the show, where they tell you what help they need now, they requested that anyone with helpful information on Europe (where they can go for food or shelter, etc.) send it to them at DENPA80@iridium.co.jp . (Since they're in Europe, they must have found a way across the Atlantic for free.) Remember, you can see their progress (in Japanese) at http://www.ntv.co.jp/denpa/sekai/index.html (although last night's broadcast isn't up yet).

Japan has a few new laws in the books. Starting next April (Japanese start everything in April, by the way), they're finally getting a child car-seat law. I can't help but thinking that this has come about partially from foreigners living here like me, who were horrified to see children jumping around unrestrained in a moving car. Also, starting this month, it's now illegal to use a portible phone in a moving vehicle, due to the high incidence of traffic accidents that result from this. (At a street near J-List, where a Mr. Doughnuts stood before it went out of business, there are several wreaths of flowers left in memory of a sixteen-year-old girl who was killed by a driver using his "keitai denwa" (portible phone).)

In a way, Japan is sensitive to criticism from both the foreign community living in Japan, and from other countries, since Japanese aways want to look good in the eyes of people of other nations as a matter of its national pride. issues such as the child seat law and occasional loopholes and poor

tell them about how the japanese are always lookingforaffirmation from overseas, hence they're rebuilding narita airport

We've got some nice items on the J-List site for you this evening. First, there is a big cache of both new and back-in-stock adult dojinshi, for fans of Japanese parody manga. Included on the list are some rare items, so check them out fast. (Remember that you can enter alternate items in the "extra order information" field of the order form.) We've got new magazines on the list, including the new Gal's Dee. Final Fantasy VIII fans will enjoy the excellent new action figures posted to the anime page -- we've also got several items available as special order on the anime page, including Sentimental Graffiti soft vinyl figures and a really cool Great Mazinger die-cast metal toy.

Christmas is right around the corner, and J-List has some unique items that would brighten the day of anyone on your Christmas list. If you've got Pokemon fans in your family, J-List has several interested in "authentic" (read: written in Japanese) Pokemon items, including some snacks that come with collectible cards and toys. If they love Japanese animation, we have some unique and special anime cards, puzzles and toys -- including new cool Gundam and FF8 items. For over-18 friends, why not give a 6 or 12 month subscription to Urecco, or a DVD they'd never expect, to go with their new DVD player? And while calendar pre-orders have closed, we've got quite a few Kusanagi Jun calendars coming in

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.

Greetings from J-List November 11, 1999

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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.

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.

Greetings from J-List November 3, 1999

Hello again, from that wacky place where they make cotton candy into gum, Japan.

Our big news around here is -- we were robbed! In the early hours of the morning on Monday night, a robber entered our house (the liquor store) through our unlocked front door, looking for cash to steal. In the end, he only got the cash register itself (which had no money in it), some coupons for free beer, and some sausages. You can see a picture I snapped of one of the policemen at http://www.myjapan.net/personalstuff/policeman2.jpg (they dusted all the doors for prints). The thief was nice enough to discard our cash register outside when he realized it was empty (they got some prints from it).

We've had two other instances of theft at the liquor store over the past three years -- the other two times by a thief who knew that my father in law had a habit of keeping most of the cash in a yellow bag under the register. Both times my parents lost about $3000, but fortunately, this time the thief got almost nothing. Still, it's very upsetting.

Thanks for all the comments on Chuyan and Hitomi, who are hitchhiking across the world in 80 days. You can see their progress at http://www.ntv.co.jp/denpa/sekai/index.html (in Japanese only, unfortunately). It would be really cool if a J-List reader could assist them in their quest (and get on Japanese TV, to boot). If you can give them a ride, a place to stay, or know some way they can get across the Atlantic for free (since they have no money with them; that's part of the challenge), email them at denpa80@iridium.co.jp (160 chrs max).

The first delivery of calendar has arrived, so people who ordered their Y2K calendars early will be hearing from us in 1-2 days as we get them processed and out the door. We really do have to close down orders on the calendars, so if you haven't chosen your Y2K calendars, please do so within the next two days. (We'll keep the calendar pages up through the 10th of November or so, but as November rolls along, the chances that we'll be able to get the calendars you want drops sharply.)

We've got some really nice new stuff for the J-List site. First, we've made a new page, Cards & Puzzles, where we'll showcase collectible cards from Japan, and our unique puzzles featuring classical views of Japan, beautiful artwork, and anime themes. To commemorate the new page, we've posted two beautiful sets of collectible nude AV cards -- the Bejean Generation series, and the new Crystal Card series (1999 vol. 2). Both sets are really wonderful, with great thick stock and excellent quality printing -- but demand for these cards has been high in the past

We've got lots of other items for you, though. For fans of Japanese magazines and photobooks, there are several nice new items posted to those pages -- . There are 30+ new JPOP CDs and albums posted to the JPOP page -- and yes, our Y2K "buy four, get one free" sale does apply to the new items. So check them out.

Finally -- we're using a new listserver to send these updates out. If anything goes wrong (you get two copies of this, etc.) please let me know right away.