Greetings from J-List October 7, 2001

Hello and TGIF from Japan!

With all that's different between Japan and the West, you can bet that there are some toilet-related differences, too. When Japanese women use a public toilet, they're very nervous about others hearing the sound of their tinkling, so some Japanese public bathrooms have machines to make white noise that drowns out the sound. My four-year-old daughter went into one of these restrooms and was too afraid of the sound to do what she had gone in there to do. Similarly, Japanese women don't want others smelling the toilet after they've used it, so they often carry portable cans of air freshener to spray the area and make it fresh and clear. Conveniently, we happen to have gotten some of these in stock for you today...

The words for things are also different. In Japan, the place where you do your thing is called a "toire" (to-i-ray), and Japanese aren't comfortable with the English euphemism of "bathroom" since the toilet has nothing to do with the bath. In most Japanese houses, the toilet is a small room (about one tatami mat in size), and the bath is next door, completely separate. I've lived in Japan so long that I often embarrass myself while in the U.S. by using the wrong word in English. For example, asking a clerk in a store where the "toilet" was, rather than the restroom -- and getting a funny look from her. My wife is always happy to tease and mock me for slipping up.

Japan's various traditions of bathing are quite famous all over the world. Most Japanese take baths in the evening, although younger people replace this tradition with a shower in the morning. In Japanese homes, the actual bath-room is a bath and a separate tiled area outside the bath, with a drain for water to escape. You always wash your body thoroughly before getting into the bath, and never use soap or shampoo inside the bath itself, as the water will be reused by other family members, and saved for several days. All baths here have heaters to allow you to re-heat the old water, and ours has a one-touch computer that will fill the bath to the pre-set temperature and level. If you're a parent, you always take your kids in the bath with you and wash them. This warm concept of mother or father taking a bath with their children is known as "skinship" to the Japanese. Japanese are great fans of public baths (sento) and hot springs (onsens), too (e.g. Tokimeki Check in!). Since the water is "everyone's water," everyone must wash thoroughly before getting into the baths, although I've seen quite a few old men who skipped this step. As a foreigner living in Japan, I'm an "ambassador of goodwill" and what not, so I make sure I follow the rules. The Japanese are famous for bathing with men and women together (kon'yoku), but this is actually very rare.

For the before-weekend update, we've got a very update for you. The newly posted items include:

• First, we have some new magazines, including the new issues of Best Video and Video Boy, the excellent all-purpose Japanese adult video magazines, filled with the hottest all-pro stars
  
• For fans of our popular bargain adult magazines, we have a bunch of newly added magazines, starting from just $5 -- see magazine page 3 for the reduced items
  
• Also for bargain fans, it seems we received some damaged copies of Beppin School, with the back covers cut off, probably due to some damage the books received during printing. The magazines themselves are in perfect condition, so if you don't mind a mostly-missing back cover, feel free to pick up a copy of Beppin School for a dirt-cheap price
  
• For hentai manga lovers, we've got some excellent new manga volumes posted, as well as a major restock of popular volumes that had sold out
  
• Also of note to hentai and doujinshi fans, we've restocked the popular hentai doujinshi anthology from Fusion Product, Lunatic Party. This is a thick manga-style collection of excellent Sailor Moon erotic parody doujinshi that's just great!
  
• If you like doujinshi, we've got an excellent "doujin-soft" hentai work, a CD-ROM collection of erotic images from Sakura Wars -- and these are uncensored
  
• If you love the popular Maiko Yuki, one of the most popular AV idols at J-List over the years, she's got a great new anime cosplay DVD out -- the Bondage Costume Play
  
• Fans of Soft on Demand and "tekoki" (hand job) themes will love the new "coupling" DVD featuring two productions for the price of one
  
• If you like small-bodied Japanese idols with deep, brown eyes and pure, white skin, check out the 'debut video' of the lovely new Rinka Yaguchi
  
• For fans of our unique and wacky Japanese T-shirts, we're happy to announce our final two new shirts for you -- with the all-new "Watashi wa H" (I am a Hentai, e.g. I am a pervert) T-shirt, updated with a literary twist with a little help from 19th century Japanese author Soseki Natsume
  
• Also for wacky T-shirt fans, we're happy to announce the official CM-Watch T-shirt, for those who want to support CM-Watch's efforts to bring you funny Japanese TV commercials. The shirt sports the color logo of CM-Watch on the front, with a super spoof of Pocari Sweat on the back
  
• By request, we've got more wacky "traditional Japanese stuff," including various bowls for drinking miso soup. Made of simulated plastic but with the look and feel of expensive Japanese lacquerware, we think they're great
  
• We have a major restocking of our Japanese snacks and food page, with fresh stock of the super-tart Shige-Kix candy, Pocari Sweat powered drink mix, delicious Roasted Coffee candy, Peko-chan milk caramel (yum), Kaori's favorite Strawberry Milk candy, and more
  
• Finally, various odds and ends on our general Wacky Things from Japan page include a "Picky's Bear" cup to go with the bento boxes that have sold so well, more cute cutters to turn sausages into cute animal shapes, a nifty batch set so you can take a Japanese-style bath at home, the only Hello Kitty soy sauce dish you're likely to find, and the above-mentioned "My Handy Private Toilet Spray" for women (or men) who don't want to leave a toilet smelling bad.
  

Greetings from J-List January 5, 2001

Hello, and TGIF from your friend in Japan, J-List!

The other night, my wife and I found an interesting TV show where a panel of politicians and writers debated until dawn what Japan needed to do to survive and prosper in the 21st century. The panel included many Japanese-fluent foreigners from the U.S., Canada and several other countries, who offered their own interesting viewpoints. Japan is a country with a lot of problems, from an economy lacking energy and "genki" to growing social problems, and they think quite deeply about what can be done about it.

One of the biggest problems Japan faces is a total lack of inflation -- amazingly, a package of boil-in-bag curry costs only a little more today than it did 30 years ago! Aside from very moderate train fare increases, and one telephone rate increase, I can't think of a single product that costs more today than it did when i came to Japan in 1992. This lack of price growth is one of the key reasons why Japan's economy can't get any real forward motion and start growing again.

The Internet is a wonderful convenience for everyone, but even more when you're an expat living in Japan. While Japan has a lot of comforts of home, from Pringles to Kellogg's cereals to Ally McBiel (albeit in Japanese), I don't know what I'd do without Outpost.com and Amazon.com to supply me with books, U.S.-release DVDs and more. Saturday night is my designated DVD-watching night, since we have to set up the VCR to tape Kamen Rider Kuga and Ojamajo Doremi (my kids' favorite shows) on Sunday morning.

For this weekend's update, we've got some great items prepared for you. They include:

• First, a great big 2001 calendar update, with items that had been held on reserve now made available on the site -- there are over a dozen idol, anime and JPOP calendars newly posted to the calendars pages
  
• We have some great new magazine issues for you, including the dynamite new Beppin School, a cool issue of Namper (for fans of "nampa" or picking up Japanese girls and taking them to hotels), and another cool Idol Digging Magazine
  
• We've got several great new photobook items in, including the truly excellent Fukuda Miho 1st Photobook, one of the most beautiful glossy photobooks I've seen
  
• Also for photobook fans, fresh stock of several out of stock items, including Takamatsu Ai's very pretty "Cosmos"
  
• We've got a bunch of excellent new erotic manga posted, including the excellent From the Bucho with Love by artist Distance (see Manga -> New releases), as well as fresh stock of some very popular manga that had been out of stock (on Manga -> Classics)
  
• For fans of SOD's ever-cool erotic videos, we've got vol. 2 of the "Insert vibrator into the hole of panty" video series, featuring the patented Love Gun
  
• If you love Japanese AV DVD, check out AV 2000, an excellent 120 minute collection of super erotic themes and cosplay performances
  
• For those who join Tomo and myself in loving the beautiful and angelic Aoi Minori, see her excellent Best Collection DVD "Hidden Treasure" (on the Region code 2 DVD page)
  
• For anime fans, check out the latest issue of AX, a super character-centric anime magazine that comes with a great CD ROM for Mac or PC
  
• For fans of delicious Japanese snacks, see one of my favorite snacks, Choco Flake Bits on our snacks pages
  
• On our Wacky Headbands and Signs page, see several new items, including an authentic Japanese "emergency exit" sign, and another of our popular Japanese wooden signs with funny messages on them
  
• We've got a major restock of several sold out items on our Wacky Things from Japan page, including Japanese notebooks, traditional writing paper, and our handy J-E and E-J dictionaries (just $5)
  
• Finally, a cool item for anyone interested in learning or brushing up on hiragana and katakana -- children's workbooks, on the Wacky Things page!
  

Remember that J-List offers current newsstand issues of a wide variety of magazines from Japan, from anime magazines to JPOP to hentai. Check out these items on the "reserve subscription" pages!

Greetings from J-List October 3, 2001

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Greetings from J-List January 3, 2001

Hello, and "akemashite omedeto gozaimasu" (lit. "congratulations on opening the new year") from your friends in Japan at J-List.

2001 arrived in Japan a few hours before the U.S., and everything was as it should be: the soft sound of Japanese bells and hope for the new year, people enduring the cold to do their new year's prayer right after midnight, the calming presence of NHK watching over the nation, keeping us safe. New Years' Day is a day to relax, spend time with family, put your feet in the kotatsu (a kind of low table with a heater inside, which has a blanket over it to keep your legs warm), and of course eat lots of mikans (mandarin oranges).

After the usual happy-new-year TV shows ended on Jan 1, my wife and I found an interesting TV show where a panel of politicians and writers debated what Japan needed to do to survive and prosper in the 21st century. The panel included many Japanese-fluent foreigners from the U.S., Canada and several other countries, who offered their viewpoints to the others. Japan is a country with a lot of problems, from an economy lacking energy and "genki" to growing social problems , and they think quite deeply about what can be done about it.

One of the biggest problems Japan faces is a total lack of inflation -- amazingly, a package of boil-in-bag curry costs only a little more today than it did 30 years ago! Aside from very moderate train fare increases, and one telephone rate increase, I can't think of a single product that costs more today than it did when i came to Japan in 1992. This lack of price growth is one of the key reasons why Japan's economy can't get any real forward motion and start growing again.

For our first update in the new year, we've got some really special items prepared for you, including:

• First, we're happy to announce that all our JAST USA and Milky House adult anime CD-ROM titles that cost $34.95 have been reduced in price to $24.95 -- a $10 savings for these great uncensored English language hentai games
  
• We have excellent new magazines, including new issues of Video Boy, Best Video, and the popular Cho Very Good (kogal sex magazine)
  
• We've got a bunch of excellent and all-new photobook items posted to the Photobooks page, including a truly breathtaking item: Sweet Trap, featuring the fantastic nude photography of Japan's five hottest AV actresses
  
• For our bondage and S&M photobook fans, see a new issue of the popular Slave Mania
  
• We've got even more popular past issues of the excellent Nowon from the early 1990's
  
• We've posted another half-dozen all-new adult manga volumes, including some really excellent works by Angel Comics and Do Comics and AV Comics -- many back-in-stock classic issues, too
  
• We've lowered prices on our stock of the excellent Viper series erotic parody manga, on the Parody Manga page
  
• For Yaoi fans, we've got some new manga for you as well -- see the new items posted now
  
• For fans of Japan's excellent adult videos, we've got great new offerings by Morino Izumi, as well as Nakanishi Sayaka's "Mejiri"
  
• Also, we've got even more greatly reduced priced adult videos posted to our Videos (discount) page
  
• We love Japan's dynamite code-free adult DVDs, so we've got two killer titles in -- Nagase Lum's wonderful "Sexual Excitement" and the slender, stylish Honjoh Sayuri's "Premium"
  
• For our newly christened Hentai DVD page, we've got two new items: Soft on Demand's Fragile Hearts (vol. 2) and Kakyusei vol. 2 (the *director's cut*)
  
• We've got several JPOP CD singles posted to the Anime & JPOP Magazines page (on the Anime master category)
  
• On the Anime & Toys page, an authentic Japanese kendama, and the perfect item for the Cutey Honey fan in you
  
• Even lower prices on our remaining stock of calendars
  
• For fans of Japanese tea, we've got a delicious new variety, healthy and delicious Genmai-cha, a green tea with toasted unpolished rice in it
  
• On the Wacky Things from Japan, another wacky dictionary for those who read or are studying Japanese: a "four character word" dictionary, filled with four-character compound Japanese words similar to our wacky T-shirt messages
  
• We've got new wacky Japanese stickers on the Stickers & Headbands page: "No Smorking" (sic) and "I'm Safety Driver"
  
• Other cool items on the Wacky Things from Japan page this time include more handy Japanese traditional cloth bags (for carrying just about anything), and an instant trash holder -- a nifty plastic arm that holds a trash bag for you just about anywhere!
  

We're looking for an experienced webmaster who can help us run and update a new site which will offer interviews with Japanese AV idols and more. Interested persons should submit examples of past or current work and let us know what kind of background they've got. Thanks!

Greetings from J-List December 27, 2000

Hello again from Japan, on this, the last Wednesday of the millennium. It sounds silly, but if you think about the fact that there were 52, 142 Wednesdays over the past millennium, and this happened to be the last one.

There are certain phrases in English that Japanese will always know. Some English phrases always find their way into kids' anime, with "foreign" characters who spout words like "Oh my God!" and "Unbelievable!" until Japanese kids learn these phrases. The most elementary sentence in English, according to the Japanese sense of things, is "This is a pen." This is the sentence that all Japanese start learning English from. Another favorite is "Boys, be ambitious, the parting words of Dr. Clark, an American professor who helped found Sapporo University. One way Japanese can be English-ized" is to keep Japanese words in place but replace the words "you" and "me" with English. This is how Jar Jar Bink's strange mode of speaking was communicated in the subtitles in Star Wars Episode One, in case you've ever wondered about it. Whenever a character in anime is supposed to be speaking English, this is usually how it's expressed in Japanese, too.

The Japanese do do some funny things with English. There was a rock band that called themselves the Piss Kids, which seems like a shocking and disgusting thing to call yourselves, until you realize that the name comes from the famous statue in Belgium of Cupid peeing into a fountain, which is called "shonben kozo" or "piss kid" in Japanese.

We've added a new section to our DVD category -- Hentai and Bishojo DVDs! On this page we'll add some of the wonderfully erotic adult anime DVDs from Japan, which are wonderful, and highly collectible. They're admittedly expensive, but their high quality makes them worth it. See the great new items on this new page -- your feedback on these new anime DVDs is appreciated!

In addition to our new Hentai DVD page, we've got a veritable cornucopia of cool things from Japan for you, including:

• First, we've got one final last-minute Japanese calendar for you -- a wonderful wall calendar from Uchu Kikaku featuring six of Japan's loveliest AV girls including Minori Aoi. The calendar is free, but if you get any of our remaining stock of calendars, we'll give you this excellent calendar FREE as our way of saying thanks for helping us reduce our stock of calendars
  
• Our video sale was so successful, we've decided to post another big volley of videos to the discount videos page! All of these videos are heavily discounted, and come with free SAL shipping (or half price on airmail). Among the videos posted are Aoi Minori, Kawashima Azumi, and Asaoka Kaori and more -- but our stock is limited, as we're closing these items out
  
• We have several excellent new magazines, including the excellent new issues of Penthouse Japan and Penthouse Special, featuring some very lovely models, as well as new issues of the excellent OK and Do-Up!
  
• We've got another volley of excellent magazine back-issues, including new issues of Boyes and some classic Gokuh's -- including books featuring Miura Aika, Aida Momo, and more
  
• We've got fresh stock of the excellent DVD & Video CD Soft Catalog, a magazine & dual-VCD combo that gives you up to 2 hours of AV footage for a fantastic price
  
• See new photobooks on our photobook pages, including the lovely and charming nude of Tanami Mari
  
• Leg fetish fans, see the hot new issue of Minisuka Deluxe, but stock of this issue is limited -- get it fast, if you want it
  
• We've got some "gouka-bon" format books posted to the high-end S&M page, including a new issue of Anal-ko Hip & Anal, and by customer request, the latest issue of New Half, for fans of pretty transsexuals
  
• If you love hentai, bag the latest issue of Fantasienne, a huge magazine filled with wonderful H game artwork and images from Japan's newest games
  
• On our newly created Hentai and Anime DVD page, see several all-new items, including the latest in the G-Taste erotic DVD series -- the Morimura Nana chapter -- as well as Soft on Demand's debut in hentai animation -- Otaky Sasaki's story of an erotic android maid, Fragile Hearts
  
• We have a great new update to our dojinshi page, with many wonderful erotic dojinshi -- see the Dojinshi and Yao pages for these items
  
• Also very cool -- master hentai illustrator "Linda" has released a fantastic erotic manga that has to be seen to be believed -- see "Sadist" on the manga (new releases) page
  
• For anime fans, see several classic issues of Animage from years gone by, featuring Gundam Wing, Rayearth, Evangelion and more
  
• We've got a nifty item, a Totoro deck of playing cards, posted to the anime & toys page as well
  
• On our signs and stickers page, we have some amusing new message stickers -- Japanese "push" and "pull" stickers, as well as an odd message asking your guests no to splash urine on the floor when they use your toilet
  
• Several useful new items on the Wacky Things from Japan homepage, including stylish wood and bamboo chopsticks that are extra-easy to eat with
  
• Finally, the national food of Japan isn't sushi or sashimi, it's really curry rice. Based on British versions of India's curries, curry rice arose as one of the most important Japanese foods in the 19th century, and now there are dozens of varieties on the market. Boil-in-bag curry is a favorite staple of Japanese, since it's incredibly easy to make -- just boil the curry bag and pour it over rice. Now one of the most popular brands of curry rice -- Bon Curry -- is available from J-List, for your eating pleasure -- see it on our Japanese snacks page!
  

Okay, that's all for now!

Greetings from J-List December 25, 2000

The warmest Merry Christmas and holiday wishes from all of us at J-List!

Christmas in Japan is very different from in the U.S.. First of all, it's a normal day like any other -- kids go to school, people to go work, and if there're Christian, they attend mass in the evening. Far more important in Japan is Christmas Eve. This is the the day that the family gets together to have a special dinner, and eat their Christmas cake, which they must reserve in advance. It's easily Kentucky Fried Chicken's busiest night, but we discovered last night that sushi shops are also do very good business, when we tried to order sushi without reservations -- so we ended up with supermarket sushi instead. Bandai and Toys R Us (which recently opened it's 100th store in Japan) are slowly building American-style commercialism when it comes to kids wanting toys for Christmas, and by now

Christmas Eve also has a special meaning to couples as an important "date night, second only to Valentine's Day. Fine restaurants and love hotels are jammed with couples enjoying private time together, and Christmas Eve is the most popular night for a girl to throw away her virginity" (to borrow a Japanese term). It's also a good night for married couples to put the kids to bed early and enjoy some time together, maybe a bottle of Champaign.

For this evening's holiday, we've got a bunch of very special products, including:

• First, several new magazines, including not one but *two* issues of the excellent Mecha-E, a great hardcore magazine with lots of excellent "bukkake" themes
  
• We've got some extremely rare back-issues of Japan's best adult magazines, including Gokuh, Boyes and Beppin, featuring some really cool AV models who are long-retired -- see these items on magazine page 2
  
• Speaking of rare, we managed to score some extremely limited stock of NoWon vol. 13, a fantastic issue of this most excellent glossy "special photograph magazine, featuring a host of extremely rare AV and nude idols -- including Ikegami Misa and Tohno Natsuko!! (see the photobooks page 1)
  
• We've got several excellent new hardcover photobooks, including swimsuit idol Otsuka Ryoko's Fragile"and the sexy idol pair "Puni Puni, and more,
  
• For our leg fetish fans, fresh stock of "Day and Night of Rich Girl OL" and "Costume & Lingerie, on the leg photobooks page
  
• Two new in-stock adult videos for breast fans -- The Paradise of Huge Boobs" (amateur) and the latest sexy performance of the F-Cup Kawai Azusa
  
• We've got another big volley of new and back-in-stock manga, including some very popular items
  
• The latest issue of Zettai Reido, the "Slave & Master comic for girls" (according to the cover) on the yaoi page
  
• Finally, just when you're sure you won't see any new Japanese calendars from J-list, we've got not one, but three excellent AV CD desktop calendars, featuring some J-List's most popular AV idols (including Anna!) -- see these on the Adult calendars pages
  
• If you dig Zeta Gundam or NHK's oddly shaped "Domo-kun, check out the Anime Toys page for some newly added items
  
• On our snack pages, we've got more dried, shreded ika (shrimp) -- mm, it's so good
  
• More stock of our sold-out Looking for Beautiful Women" florescent sticker
  
• We've got fresh stock of many items on our Wacky Things from Japan pages, including the surprisingly popular extra-long Japanese cooking chopsticks, fashionable black Buddhist beads that you can wear as jewelry to show your spiritual side to others, Hello Kitty wooden chopsticks, vocabulary study cards, and Japanese-style ear cleaners with tiny lights inside (so you can learn the joy of eat-cleaning fetishism, Japanese style)
  
• Newly added to our Wacky Things pages are several new items, including two new handy varieties of Japanese "kairo" heating pads, which really do keep you warm for hours, indoors or out -- I depend on these handy thing to get through the Japanese winters and recommend them to anyone who doesn't like cold
  
• Finally, a totally new item for J-List: dictionaries. We've got two handy dictionaries (J-E and E-J) on the Wacky Things page, which are quite useful for finding Japanese meanings. Our dictionaries are cheap, too, at only $5 each!
  

We'll be taking our stock of calendars down soon and posting them on some auction sites, but we'll hold off a little longer to let J-List customers have first grabs at them. As another Christmas present to you, we've hacked down prices on our stock of calendars yet again, $2-8 per calendar. Please check out these excellent items!

Greetings from J-List December 20, 2000

Greetings from Japan, a country where, in the words of a wise friend of mine, You know no one is horcking in your food."

Well, the Japanese recession is officially over, with the third quarter of growth reported by the Japanese government. It wasn't much growth -- 0.2% -- but it's something. Still, a new report stating that Japan could lose its position as the world's third largest economy by the year 2015 to China is causing consternation here. Japan has great pride in being the #3 economy, after the U.S. and European Union, and is concerned about future competition from the rapidly growing China and India. Still, after doing business in Japan for four years and seeing the inefficient, black underbelly of Japan's distribution system, and how quickly it withers at the slightest outside competition (e.g. Toys R Us), I can say that Japan has a lot to be afraid of. A lot has changed over the past few years

Thursday, the J-List crew is taking the afternoon off and heading for Ikaho, a nearby city that's known for its onsen (hot springs). We try to take our annual onsen trip in the autumn, but got around to it later than usual this year. At the onsen, we'll take long baths, eat Japanese style food while wearing yukata (cotton kimonos) and sitting on tatami, take more baths, drink, and eat Haagen Daaz ice cream from a vending machine late at night, then wake up in the morning with hangovers and curse the hotel for only serving green tea

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

• First, new magazines, including the new Dela Beppin (alert fans of Kawai Azusa and the delicious Kumano Pooh-ko) and Peach Water (great bikini and swimsuit sexual fetish)
  
• We have several excellent new photobooks, including Aoki Eri's Progression and Sakurai Fuka's Missing -- both excellent for fans of Japanese high school uniforms
  
• For leg fetish fans, a new item -- volume 3 of the excellent Rich Daughter's Legs series
  
• We've got some excellent new adult manga posted to the manga
  
• For our manga and dojinshi fans, we've got several new items added to the "Bargain Basement" page -- over-stocked and close-out manga and dojinshi, starting from just $5
  
• The hottest Japanese AV idol of 2000 is shaping up to be the dynamite Ohura Anna, the incredibly gorgeous and busty AV queen -- see her latest AV video offering on the New releases page!
  
• Soft on Demand has turned five years old, and to commemorate their stellar rise -- they've achieved sales of $55 million in that short time -- they've released a fantastic 2-video (and 2-DVD, for the DVD version) with 240 minutes (!) of the best performances in their history. A fantastic selection of AV idol (Miura Aika, many more), theme videos (tekoki, cosplay, and more), this is a wonderful item for Japan AV fans!
  
• For anime fans, we've got the new issue of Megami Magazine, an incredible anime and game-girl focused magazine that gives you tons of great stuff, including two large posters, 14 pin-up posters, and more
  
• We've got more wacky shining stickers with Japanese messages on them, on the Japanese signs and stickers page
  
• We have fresh stock of our popular Japanese T-shirts, including more of the popular "Looking for a Japanese girlfriend" (red circle) version
  
• For our Japanese snack fans, we've got fresh stock of many popular items, including Mouse Pocky (delicious!), Kuro-Ame traditional candy, sake candy (with real sake in it!), and Lotte's "Green Gum" and "Black Black"
  
• Speaking of Lotte, we've also posted an all-new flavor -- Lotte's "La France" (pear) flavored fruit gum
  
• For those (like me) who hate the cold of winter, we've got a new version of Japanese hot pocket (kairo), specially designed to go in your shoes and warm your feet for hours
  
• Finally, a super cool item -- Japanese sushi erasers! These delicious erasers closely resemble Japanese sushi, with individually molded rubber pieces for extra realism. So good, we could eat them -- see these wacky items on the Wacky Things from Japan page.
  

Remember that J-List has the world's only Wacky Japanese T-shirts, funny T-shirts with bizarre messages in Japanese on them. The #1 selling T-shirt we offer is far and away the red circle version of "Looking for a Japanese girlfriend, followed closely by Hen na gaijin" ("I'm a strange foreigner"). "Philosophy of Hentai" and the basic "Watashi wa H" ("I'm H" or "I'm a pervert"). Guaranteed to get strange looks and laughs from Japanese, and in the experience of at least one J-List customer, even more!

Greetings from J-List December 18, 2000

Greetings from Japan, the country where cars have curtains.

One concept related to Japanese politeness is "enryo, which means hesitation." Basically, if a group of Japanese is eating a pizza, it will take some time for one of the members to get around to taking the last slice, because of the tendency for each individual to defer to the others in the group -- until everyone is deferring to everyone else, and the pizza is getting cold. If you watch a group of Japanese people, it's interesting to see how this comes into play. The concept of enryo rears its head when trying to make a decision among a group, too. Say a large group of people is trying to decide on a restaurant to go to. Each member of the group will put out some feelers, trying to nudge the collective opinion of the group in one direction or another. If even one person in the group is inconvenienced by the collective decision, you can be another decision will be made.

The Japanese sometimes take an English word and change its meaning. One example is the word "corner, which means area" in Japanese usage. A smoking area in a train station is known as a "smoking corner." Similarly, a room for breast-feeding babies is called "junyu (giving of milk) corner." But the one I like best is the Japanese word for ATM, or automated teller machine: "cash corner." Words are alive, of course, and their meaning are changing constantly. I do love the spin the Japanese give to English.

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

• First, excellent new magazines, including the super Gal's Dee (featuring Yamasaki Akari!), and the great new issues of Video Boy and Best Video -- superb magazines that offer snapshots of the entire Japanese AV world in one great issue
  
• We've also got some of our popular single shot magazines, as well as more $5 magazines on our discount magazine page (magazine page 3)
  
• Photobook fans should check out the excellent new additions, including Inoue Harumi's dynamite "Foxy" photobook, and a hardcover offering from swimsuit idol Katsumura Mika
  
• If you love Japan's AV world, check out the new in-stock videos, on Videos (new releases) -- Mitsumoto Ami's "Heart Throb of Woman" and Takemoto Rio's "Wet & Messy"
  
• We have more great AV DVDs than anyone else in the world, and we've updated our selection: Yuki Hitomi's Gallery offering from Video Bank, and a super DVD featuring a woman near to my heart, the dynamite Ms. Aida Momo (!)
  
• We've got a bunch of fresh adult manga posted, with many previously sold out and popular manga volumes by Hit, Mujin, and more
  
• By request, we've added stock of the latest excellent "Crystal Card" collectible AV trading card series --see it on the photobooks page
  
• For our yaoi fans, there are two excellent new yaoi manga posted to the yaoi page, including the latest issue of the popular B-Boy Zips
  
• We've got a classic for Noripii fans -- Sakai Noriko's "Lovely Times" photobook, photographed in London, on the Idol DVDs and More page
  
• For fans of the lovely idol group Morning Musume, we have a lovely item, a "photograph card" that shows the lovely members of Morning Musume in great poses -- and each photo card is only 50 cents!
  
• We've got fresh stock of our wacky wooden signs with funny Japanese messages on them
  
• On our Wacky Things from Japan page, we've got fresh stock of the extremely handy and useful Japanese Hot Pockets (Kairo), hideously useful little pouches that warm you for up to 24 hours; and fresh stock of our patented Japanese origami paper
  
• Finally, a really esoteric New Year's decoration from Japan, Shinto "Kadomatsu" or "gate pine" decorations, little bamboo and straw assemblies that bring a fresh, new feeling of renewal around New Years. A wonderful item -- see it on the Wacky Things page!
  

Just another plug for calendars! We still have many excellent JPOP, anime, idol and nude calendars in stock, and we'd like your assistance in getting rid of them. L'Arc~en~Ciel, lovely Race Queen Suzuki Fumika, computer generated sexy idol Terai Yuki, Evangelion, the very sexy Asakura Megumi. We've knocked prices down yet again, as we try to get our stock moved out. We thank you for helping us by checking out our excellent oversize, glossy Japanese calendars!

Greetings from J-List December 15, 2000

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Greetings from J-List December 13, 2000

Hello from J-List, now officially banned in all Santa Cruz city facilities and Saudi Arabia!

One interesting aspect of the Japanese people is their developed sense of humility. If you've ever complimented a Japanese person and had them deny the compliment (most likely with an accompanying gesture of waving their hand back and forth in front of their face, meaning "no"), you've run into the Japanese habit of "kenson" or humility. It shows itself in many forms, but one of the most odd and interesting is when a Japanese person gives someone else a gift. They'll often say "This is an uninteresting gift, or if it's food, they'll say, I'm not sure if this is delicious or not." I remember the first time I was complimented on my Japanese. I was happy, and thanked the person, but I should have disagreed with them.

If you've ever been to Japan and used a toilet here -- either a Western one or a Japanese-style "no seat" toilet (which is a shock to use for the first time), you may have noticed the Chinese characters for "small and "big" which are and respectively. The toilet handle moves two ways: if you've done just a little "number one, turn the handle towards small" and hold it for a few seconds while the water flows. If you've done the other thing, push the handle towards "big" for a full flush. It took me a few months of living in Japan to figure out that these characters stood for the words for "number one" (shoben, or "little toilet") and "number two" (daiben, or "big toilet"). Another mystery solved.

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

• First, to help you help us move our remaining stock of excellent 2001 Japanese calendars, we've done two things: one, made one final round of price cuts, dropping the prices on all remaining in-stock calendars; and two, we've taken digital shots of the insides of all remaining calendars, so you can see a little better how good the inside photos are -- so please check out our dwindling stock of calendars, as they are going fast!
  
• We have many excellent new magazines on the J-List site, including the excellent new Sennin Giri (kogal erotica) and "Go! Go! Delivery Busty Girls" (love that English)
  
• For hentai lovers, we've got several items for you, including the new Bug Bug (very nice!) and the excellent current issue of Kairakuten, the wonderful erotic manga magazine
  
• For our photobook customers, we've got several new items, as well as fresh stock of several of the "Bishojo Nude Photo Gallery" series photobooks that have such high quality photos inside
  
• For our leg fetish customers, the Day and Night Lives of the Rich Girl OLs (gotta love that)
  
• Speaking of manga, we've got a wonderful new volume in by the highly talented and stylized artist Doman Seiman, by our favorite adult manga publisher, Hit Comics
  
• Yaoi fans should check out Dear Plus, a super 500+ page yaoi manga anthology for fans of "boy's secret love"
  
• For Japan's erotic adult video fans, we've got the Distinguished Private Girls' School of Adult Video, a super offering with nine lovely cosplay lovelies playing out an erotic fantasy -- on the videos (new releases) page
  
• Also new, we've got a super new "tekoki" (hand job) video in from Soft on Demand, featuring seven lovely nurses in the "Tekoki Clinic"
  oFor Japan's erotic DVD fans, a super item -- a 110 minute anthology of the best moments in the "Give Up Human Being" erotic series, featuring Kano Mizuho, Miura Aika, Yazawa Yoko, Komuro Yuri and Wakana Sena! On the DVD Main page
  
• For those looking for beautiful Japanese girls, make your message seen with our latest wacky Japanese sticker -- on our Stickers & Signs page
  
• We've got several new items on our Wacky Things from Japan page, including a super new version of our popular Buddhist Beads, which are useful as cool jewelry, too!
  
• Finally, a super cool new item -- Lotte's delicious Japanese "umeboshi" flavored gum, with the tart and tasty zest of pickled plum. It's a delicious and uniquely Japanese taste, available now on J-List's snacks and gum pages!
  

Kaori is taking the day off to go to "Nezumi Land" tomorrow. This is a joke in Japanese -- "nezumi" means "mouse" or "rat, and Disneyland is home to the most famous mouse in the world, ergo the nickname for Tokyo Disneyland. We hope she has a fun date with her boyfriend.

Greetings from J-List December 9, 2000

Hello again from Japan, the country where a car's turn signal is known as a "winker."

There are many things that Japan has that I'm sure would be a big hit if introduced outside the U.S. One are little faucets at the top of toilets, which allow you to wash your hands with the clean water flowing back into the tank after flushing. Then there are these spring-loaded toilet paper holders, which allow you to remove them by just lifting up when the roll is spent. But one business model I'm sure would be a hit are "daisha" or "replacement cars." Basically a taxi with a second driver, daisha are the people you call when you've had a little too much to drink, but don't want to leave your car. One call to a daisha company, and the taxi with the spare driver will come and get you. You ride hope in the taxi, while the second driver drives your own car home. it's a great way to improve road safety, and might be a workable business model outside of Japan, too.

Japanese anime is famous throughout the world, but there are many shows which don't make it out of Japan, or which are shown in some parts of the world, but not the U.S., perhaps because they didn't seem "right" for the U.S. market according to someone. While the anime they make today is very good, sometimes it seems that something wholesome has been lost as anime has gotten as popular as it has. Nearly all Japanese in their 30's watched and cried during the sad and moving ending of Flanders no Inu (The Dog of Flanders), when Nello and Patrasche ascend into heaven amid the angels. (Note: Amazon.com has this on DVD if you want to check it out.) Then there was Haha wo Tazunete 3000-ri (3000 Leagues in search of Mother), a touching story of an Italian boy March who travels to Argentina to find his mother. There's a touching scene when March finds a dying old woman who thinks he is her son; to comfort the woman, he lets her believe this. But of course the most popular anime from this period has to be the anime version of Heidi, which won the hearts of girls all over Japan.

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

• First, lower prices on our great stock of 2001 calendars, and to help you help us get rid of our stock in time for 2001, a new offer -- buy any two or more calendars, and get your mailing tube free!
  
• We've got a great magazine that's new to J-List -- Do Pink!, a wonderful "sperm and soap girl" fetish magazine with dozens of lovely gals
  
• Also very cool, the new issue of Multi Boy, which features a full color magazine and Video CD filled with all-pro Japanese AV footage and more
  
• Hentai fans will want to see the new issue of Colorful Pure Girl, the Digital Cute Girl Magazine, on the Magazines (hentai) page
  
• For our photobook fans, we've got several back-in-stock items, including more stock of the "Wonderful" series, Toyama Maiko's popular "Fairy Girl" hardcover nude photobook, and more
  
• We have a bunch of great erotic manga volumes posted to the manga pages, with new and recently added items on the Manga (new releases) page and back-in-stock classics on the Manga (bestsellers) page
  
• For fans of Soft on Demand's fantastic approach to eros, we've got two new videos in the "Stark Nakedness Sports Series, including the very cool 64 all-naked girls in rock-paper-scissors contest" -- see who will be the last one wearing clothes!
  
• For DVD & cosplay lovers, we've got a new Costume Play Perfection series DVD, this one featuring erotic anime cosplay featuring Yamato, Captain Harlock, Gundam Wing, Galaxy Express, and more!
  
• For JPOP fans, in-stock issues of Zappy, the super JPOP and J-Rock magazine with photos, music and messages from Japan's hottest stars (on the included CD
  
• On our Anime Toys page, several new trinkets, including fresh stock of the Alien "face hugger" keychain, and a hopelessly cute "rolling eraser" that picks up eraser chunks after you use the eraser -- nice and neat!
  
• On our Japanese snacks page, we've got fresh stock of a favorite of mine, dried, shredded ika (squid)
  
• On our Wacky Things from Japan pages, we've got more of the cute "Hello Kitty mayonnaise cups" (but you can put anything in them you like), and fresh stock of the traditional Japanese oil-removing paper
  
• Finally, another really special item from Japan I've loved for years, and am now happy to be able to bring to everyone: Japanese hot pockets. A truly magnificent invention from Japan, this is a wonderful little cloth bag that gets hot when you open the plastic wrapping. It gets hot, and stays hot, for up to 18 hours, actually, and is a wonderful way to warm up if you're cold. Being from San Diego, I find the Tokyo winters uncomfortably cold, and use these great heating pads to warm myself during the day. Great for skiers
  

The J-list shopping cart was experiencing some difficulties on Thursday evening, California time, but everything is fixed now. If you ever have any problems with the shopping cart and your browser, remember that you can submit orders via the secure email link on the J-List site, too. Thanks!

Greetings from J-List December 6, 2000

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Greetings from J-List December 4, 2000

Hello and Happy Monday from Japan, where screwdrivers come in "plus" and "minus."

Whenever I go to the U.S., I stock up on all the comforts of home: Pop Tarts, Cocoa Puffs, exotic herbal teas, salsa, you name it. Japan is a great place, but nothing ever supplants your home. I think that living away from your home country is a wonderful way to appreciate the little things that everyone else at home takes for granted, and whenever possible, I advise young people to experience life abroad for a year or more in their teens or twenties. When you visit a country for a week or two, you see a lot of the people and places

When learning any language, it's fun to compare what's similar and what's different compared with your native language. In Japanese, the names of the fingers are cute. They are, the pointing-at-people finger (hitosashi-yubi, the forefinger), the middle finger (naka-yubi), the medicine finger (kusuru-yubi or ring finger), the little finger (ko-yubi), the the parent finger (oya-yubi, or the thumb). In case any of these comes up in Trivial Pursuit.

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

• First, the excellent new issue of Urecco, the wonderful magazine filled with lovely Japanese women
  
• For photobook fans, we've got several all-new titles in, including limited stock of Tani Risa's beautiful My First Heart
  
• J-List has the best selection of Japan's unique leg, mini-skirt and "panty stocking" fetish photobooks, and we've got fresh stock of several new items, including "Legend of Stairs - Peeping Inside of Mini-Skirt"
  
• For more refined fetish tastes, we've got a nice color photobook for fans of "medical fetish" images, entitled "Medical Accident File"
  
• Manga fans will enjoy the all-new titles posted today, including books by Tsukasa Comics, Mujin Comics and our #1 favorite, Hit Comics
  
• We've got another excellent "sperm fetish" video from the fine folks at Soft on Demand, the new Sperm Angel, featuring the lovely Wakabayashi Juri
  
• Also very cool, a super DVD featuring the erotic performance of the lovely and busty Japanese AV idol, Yamasaki Akari
  
• For fans of "dojin-soft, the fan-created CG images and more, we've got a volley of new items on the dojinshi page
  
• One of the least known but coolest robot anime shows of the 80's was Aura Battler Dunbine, a show that's enjoying quite a comeback in Japan today. We've got two very rare robots from this cool show on the Anime Toys page
  
• One of the most popular categories in our Wacky things from Japan" pages are our wooden signs with wacky Japanese messages on them. We've got several more posted!
  
• Also on the Wacky Things from Japan pages, several cool new items, including stylish bamboo forks (great for when you have guests over and want to impress them with your Japanese stuff) and a new non-stick rice scoop, with matching holder (just stick it on the side of your rice cooker)!
  

Well, I'm off to Tokyo now for another night in a Japanese capsule hotel. Arrrgh!!

Greetings from J-List December 1, 2000

Hello again from Japan, home of such baseball teams as the Daei Hawks and the Hiroshima Carp.

Japanese is an interesting language, filled with interesting features and quirks. One of the reasons why Japanese seem to have such thick accents when they speak English is that Japanese is a syllabic language with a limited range of sounds that are used. There are only five vowels in Japanese (A I U E O, the same as in Spanish), versus up to 11 in English, and because sounds always come in syllables -- ka, ki, ku, ke or ko, for example, never k by itself)

Words that are difficult for Japanese to pronounce correctly include words like jewelry, which have a lot of phonetic twists and turns. The words "curb" and "curve" are both used in Japanese as English loan words, but the difference between the two words becomes very vague in Japanese. Ear and year, and east and yeast become quite difficult for Japanese to catch or pronounce. The other day I was tormenting poor Tomo with the words crash, clash, and crush, which all become exactly the same in Japanese.

In Japan, whenever you go somewhere, you're required to bring back a souvenir of your trip, called an "omiyage." I brought an espresso machine for the office, and now the J-List staff members have caught the coffee bug in a big way. At least six times a day the sound of milk steaming can be heard. Starbucks is all the rage in Tokyo these days, but in rural Gunma Prefecture, where we are, there's no good coffee to be had for love or money. So we've got a little piece of Starbucks at work.

For the weekend's update, we've got some really great items, including:

• First, fresh stock of calendars! We've posted fresh stock of many of our most popular calendar items, from World of Sushi to Japanese Gardens to the nudes of the lovely Hazuki Riona to the excellent Japanese imagery of Morita Haruyo
  
• For magazine fans, find back-in-stock items on the discount magazines page
  
• We have excellent new photobooks, including the lovely *first* photobook of Minori Aoi, the lovely good girl of the Japanese AV world
  
• Also for photobook fans, we've got a super new issue of the popular Photoshot, filled with lovely glossy photos of your favorite AV idols and models (including Kawashima Azumi)
  
• We've got limited stock of Bug Bug, the premier hentai news magazine
  
• For leg fetish lovers, we've got a super issue of Mini-Suka Max, featuring the dynamite Izumi Maki (also known as Matsukawa Ayumi) -- Mmmm
  
• For fans of Japan's erotic DVDs, we've got two excellent items: Hirosue Nao's dynamite "Mermaid" erotic DVD offering, and Lesbian Girls' School, a wonderful lesbian DVD title
  
• We've got back-in-stock items on the dojinshi and manga pages, too
  
• Also very cool, we've got the first DVD release of the G-Taste anime (!), featuring the wonderful artwork of Yagami Hiroki -- it's a region 2 DVD, so it's on the region 2 DVD page
  
• For Japan adult video fans, we've got two killer new videos in: Akina Riko's "Lovely Poem of Riko" and the extremely erotic debut video of busty Oura Anna
  
• For anime fans, we've got a rare item -- a sample "Dolby Demo LD" for Tenchi In Love (rare)
  
• By request, we've got more stock of what is far and away our most popular "Wacky" item, our authentic Japanese loose socks
  
• And finally, a cute twist on the popular T-Cat/T-Dog robot pet toys we've carried -- T-Zaurus, a robotic toy dinosaur that move around your room, turns when he hits a wall or other object, and more!
  

Okay, that's all for now...

Greetings from J-List November 29, 2000

Hello from J-List, safely back in Japan this time. It was a pretty routine hop across the Pacific, this time taking Malaysian Airlines, instead of Korean (no more spoons for my KAL silverware collection).

Part of my "Unified Theory of Japan" is that anything that can be different between the West and Japan, will be different. Take companies, for example. For the most part, companies in America do one thing, and don't stray too far from their core business. Apple sells computers, but they don't sell consumer electronics. Goodyear makes tires, but they don't sell auto insurance. In Japan, this is not the case at all, and companies can be found in a wide variety of businesses. Japan Tobacco, the huge tobacco company that was directly operated by the Japanese government before it was privatized a decade ago

We seem to be having a streak of bad luck here at J-List. In July, Kaori's Nissan Cube was hit by an elderly man, causing $4000 worth of damage. Two weeks ago a man rear-ended my wife in our Saturn, causing minor whiplash and doing some damage to the car bumper. And last night, Tomo's Honda Civic was also rear-ended (the color term for this in Japanese is "Okama-horu" which means "screwed in the ass by a homosexual" by the way). Poor Tomo took the day off today to see a doctor and talk to his insurance company. Since this is my wife's "yaku-doshi" (unlucky year) according to the Chinese sexagenary system, we think maybe her bad lucky is making its way through the company.

For our first post-vacation update, we've got some nice items for you, including:

• First, the new issue of the very popular Aishite ageru ("I'll love you"), the magazine that features "pheromone onesan gals who hunt for male virgins" (and other stuff)
  
• Several excellent photobooks, including more copies of the previously sold-out "Bishojo Photo Gallery" series books "Light Value" "Daydream" and "Honeydew"
  
• Also for photobook fans, fresh stock of several popular leg and mini-skirt fetish books
  
• On the high-end S&M photobook and MPEG & CD ROM pages (under the DVD category), a new "medical fetish" item. You can be a gynecologist, too (features video CD)
  
• Also on the MPEG & CD ROM page, two very cool past issues of the highly cool MPEG Soft Catalog, which gives you two full VCDs of great sampler AV and a color magazine for a very low price
  
• We have several excellent new erotic manga volumes from Japan, including the excellent three-volume Victory Wave manga by Ataka Atsushi, and several other great manga for you
  
• We've got fresh stock of the excellent erotic game art book, Hiyoko Voice, filled with excellent erotic imagery
  
• For dojinshi fans, fresh stock of the popular English dojinshi Under the Influence (Gunsmith Cats, Gunbuster, and more)
  
• For DVD fans, we have fresh stock of some of our most popular "gallery" and compilation DVD titles including Kano Mizuho and Yoshino Sally
  
• For anime fans, we've got several cool items, including a great "anime strap" for your keys, camera or portible phone, featuring Sailor Moon, Mars and Mercury
  
• Robot pets seem to be all the rage this Christmas, and we've got some cool ones from Japan, with fresh stock of our best-selling T-Cat 2000, on the Anime Toys page
  
• On our Wacky Things from Japan page, we've got fresh stock of Japanese Calgary supplies, including solid and liquid ink
  
• Also on our Wacky Things page, the ultimate aloe bath powder to give your bath the classical scent of Japanese aloe, more Q-tips with cotton rings around them (for extra comfort), and more
  
• Finally, on our Japanese Snacks pages, fresh stock of several popular gum and snack items, as well as fresh stock of the sold-out Japanese "persimmon seed" spicy rice crackers -- mm, mm, good.
  

That's all, see you on the web!

Greetings from J-List November 26, 2000

Merry Christmas! Christmas isn't for another month, but today was our "uso no kurisumasu" (fake Christmas), since this was the last day we could have Christmas with all of us here. Kazuki and Rina loved Christmas, American-style, and now are quite willing to live in the U.S. forever.

It's funny that California can feel so "close" to us -- actually, San Diego feels much closer to my wife than Tokyo, since she can relax and shop to her hearts content while here, without stressing about the crowds and people in Tokyo. We're extremely lucky to live on either end of the LAX-NRT flight corridor, a huge market that dozens of airlines serve. Because the Los Angeles-Narita corridor has so much competition, we can generally fly round trip for around $400 per person, which is often less than it costs to fly domestic.

While we've been in the States, life in Japan has continued. The biggest news is the announcement of the "dekichatta kekkon" (a marriage that's the result of an accidental pregnancy) of singer and "talent" Kimura Takuya (the Brad Pitt of Japan, known universally as "Kimtaku") and singer Kudo Shizuka (one of the "big four" idol singers of the 1980's). Kimtaku has been dating the older woman, much to the consternation of millions of young Japanese women, who would love to be dating the most handsome man in Japan. It's very "Amuro" of them (singer Amuro Namie married TRF member Sam when she got pregnant, putting her career on hold to have the child).

For today's update, we've got a nice update of new items to the J-List site, including:

• First, new magazines, including a new item for J-List fans, TV Pic, a magazine filled with great color photos of Japan's most popular idols, singers and talents
  
• Some great new photobooks, both hardcover and softcover, including Eichi Bauko's excellent "H" photobook and Endo Akiko's excellent "Shining" erotic photobook
  
• As always, fresh stock of some of our best photobook items -- including the lovely Hoshino Aki's "Tomorrow" offering
  
• For leg fetish fans, some positively incredible new items, including the dynamite Fetish Hip Club, a wonderful tribute to the female ass, and more
  
• Two great past issues of the excellent MPEG Soft Catalog , which offer great video on two VCDs with an all color magazine
  
• For fans of Soft on Demand's great new DVD offerings, we've got several great ones, including the Best of Tekoki, Hand Job Play vol. 1 and 2, and the best hits of the highly erotic 30 year old AV actress Makihara Reiko
  
• Some great new erotic manga, including a super new volume by the extremely popular Azuki Kurenai, creator of the excellent "It's a wonderful feeling" (one of the best-selling erotic manga works we've ever had).
  

By the time you're reading this, we'll be hopping over the Pacific on our Malysian Airlines flight. We'll wave to you as we fly by!

Greetings from J-List November 24, 2000

Happy Day-After-Thanksgiving from J-List!

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving here in San Diego, and ate ourselves sick on turkey, cranberry sauce, bread, and mashed potatoes, as dictated by two centuries of American tradition. We had some friends from Russia and France join us, so with our Japanese children, we had a very international Thanksgiving. Now that my wife has experienced her first family Thanksgiving, we're giving her a taste of the after-Thanksgiving shopping malls, crammed with people eager to get out and shop. San Diego is a great city

It's always interesting to see the differences between the U.S. and Japan. We went to buy a TV from Circuit City, to replace the aging set in our living room. In Japan, LCD TVs are quite common, and most electronics stores have dedicated about 25% of their floors to displaying the various sizes of thin, small size TVs. Also, flat TVs are so common in Japan, you really have to look hard to find one that isn't flat, yet here, there were only a few models from Sony on display. When people go to Japan's electronics Mecca, Akihabara

For today's update, our trusted staff in Japan has posted some great new items for you, including:

• First, some great new magazines, including "I'll Satisfy You" (amateur zamen fun), and the great new issue of Milkiss, the magazine from Million Publishing dedicated to "violence play"
  
• For photobook fans, some excellent new items, including fresh stock of the incredibly popular photobooks by Kawashima Azumi, and an incredibly rare item, busty angel Ariga Miho;s rare photobook Hommage
  
• For leg fetish fans, some great leg items, including the excellent Bottom Up, which had been sold out before, and fresh issues of Cho Mini-Skirt Deluxe
  
• We have new issues of the popular Photoshot, the beautiful photobook-style magazine from Eichi Publishing
  
• Also very cool, the new issue of Slave Mania, the popular erotic bondage photobook, on the "gouka-bon" page
  
• For DVD lovers, we've got the excellent Mejiri Climax, a great DVD featuring the best performances from the Mejiri ("ass of woman") series -- 120 great minuntes
  
• A great item for fans of Japanese AV, the new issue of the DVD & Video CD Soft Catalog, which includes two full VCDs and nearly 2 hours of great footage with a color magazine (a great bargain)
  
• On our popular "Wacky Things from Japan" pages, we've got several nice items, including a traditional bamboo fan, some incredibly cute Japanese "joy & gift" stickers for putting on presents, and traditional Japanese paper for making beautiful origami, and more!
  
• New anime and snack items, in stock!
  

We hope you are having a great start-of-the-Holiday season, and a great weekend, too!

Greetings from J-List November 17, 2000

Greetings from J-list, the country that invented curtains for cars.

Every languages has its interesting idioms, which are fun and challenging when you're learning them. In English we've got phrases like, it's raining cats and dogs, and in Japanese they have a similar set of interesting phrases and idioms. If you love some food, you "don't have eyes" for it (~ ni me ga nai). If you really want something badly, a hand may come out of your throat (nodo kara te ga deru). If you're trying to hide your true form from someone, your "tail might pop out" (shippo ga deru) -- imagine a wolf dressed in sheep's clothing, trying to keep his tail from giving him away. And if you have a really adorable child or puppy, it wouldn't hurt, even if you put it in your eye (me ni iretemo itaku nai), implying how cute and lovable it is.

Well, we're off to the U.S. on Saturday, finally getting time to take our "summer vacation" in November. It'll be my first Thanksgiving home in eight years, and the kids are really looking forward to going. The kids are lucky that they get to enjoy the best of both Japan and America -- Time Ranger and Masked Rider Kuuga in Japan, big parks and trips to the beach in the winter in the U.S. I've sensed some nervousness on the part of Kazuki, who has forgotten -- or simply put away for later use -- all the English he picked up during his month in San Diego this summer. While we're in the U.S., the competent J-List staff of Kaori, Tomo and Harumi will make sure everything runs with clockwork smoothness.

Just in time for the weekend, we've got some excellent new items for you, including:

• First, we've lowered prices on nearly all our excellent stock of 2001 anime, JPOP, idol and nude calendars, so we can move them out in time for you to get them before the end of 2000. We have an excellent stock of excellent calendars, so please check out the great items!
  
• We have a host of excellent adult magazines, including the new Gal's Dee, as well as several single issues (see magazine pages 1 and 2)
  
• For photobook fans, we've got some more really excellent items, including more of the Bishojo Nude Gallery series
  
• We also have some interesting S&M and fetish photobooks on the gouka-bon page, including some hardcore books featuring some seriously sexy women
  
• For fans of the very nice MPEG DVD & Video CD Soft Catalog, we've got a new issue from 1998, with some cool AV idols that you can't find easily anymore -- on DVD -> MPEG & CD ROMs
  
• There are a half-dozen all-new manga posted to the manga pages, including great new offerings by Hit Comics, AV Comics, and DNA -- see the new releases, best-selling and parody manga pages
  
• If you like the unique art styles and themes of Japan's yaoi (homosexual) comics, see the new items on the yaoi page, including the new B-Boy Zips
  
• For dojinshi fans, we've got another volley of very nice books for you, so check the dojinshi pages soon if you're interested
  
• For DVD fans who can view region 2 DVDs on either a code-free player or their computers, we have a very special surprise: the debut of SOD's excellent productions on DVD! See the new tekoki, Fuckin' On and other titles on the DVD (region 2) page
  
• Also for DVD lovers, we've got fresh stock of our most popular DVD items, including Fubuki Akira's new title, Kano Mizuho/Shiina Mai's "Excellent Double Bomb, Kawashima Azumi's Memories, and more -- and all are 100% region-free
  
• We've got some new videos in stock, including Hitomi Ryo's excellent Lesbian Triangle" and a new video in the "Slut" series from SOD
  
• On the Stickers & Signs page, we've got two new version of our popular "Japanese wooden sign" line -- "Baby's Room" and "Secret Room"
  
• On the Wacky Things page, several new items: a great new foot roller (to gentle massage your feet after a tiring day), cute little Japanese tin cans with figures of rabbits and frogs on them (which Kaori recommends), and a cool new item, Zabu Zabu Ball, a set of three plastic balls which aid your washing machine's function.
  

The J-list site was down for several hours on Wednesday evening, due to a router problem in our ISP's backbone (sounds like a serious health problem). Sorry for the inconvenience, and thanks for your patience.

Greetings from J-List November 16, 2000

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Greetings from J-List November 13, 2000

Hello from Japan, on this Monday morning. I'm posting the update a few hours early today, as I'm off to Tokyo.

You've been in Japan too long when you get a 'nihongo ga jozu' and feel really insulted. It's an odd fact of life in Japan, but foreigners who are learning Japanese strive for that magic moment when Japanese will stop complimenting them on their Japanese. Being told "You're Japanese is very good" ("nihongo ga jozu") is a sign that your Japanese is good, but not "good enough" for the person to just shut up and talk to you as if you were Japanese.

Ichiro Suzuki is the next Japanese pro baseball player to go up to the "big leagues" in the U.S. The handsome centerfielder is the most famous baseball player in Japan, as measured by his CM appearances (everything from Mitsuya Cider to Tongari Corn to Nissan) -- far more famous the Nomo. In addition to making the Japanese people giddy with pleasure to see another famous son make it in the U.S., Ichiro is going to cash in something big: the Seattle Mariners have bid $13 million to talk to him and see if they want him for their team. Baseball players in Japan earn tiny salaries, compared with their American counterparts. Ichiro bat .387 this year, and has a career average of .353.

For today's update, we've got some very nice new items for you, including:

• First, new magazines, including two rare and very nice items, Cho Very Good!! (which shows the modern Japanese animal known as "kogal"), and our second issue of the very nice "Yanchex"
  
• For photobook fans, the excellent 4th "Tennyo" photobook is available, featuring the positively lovely nude photographs of Shiina Hikaru, as captured by Japanese photographer Miyazawa Masaaki
  
• Also for photobook fans, fresh stock of several sold out items, including Wonderful vol. 3 & vol. 4, Takamatsu Ai's lovely "Cosmos" photobook, and the excellent "Tropic of Maiden" nude photobook
  
• For leg fetish fans, a super new "Race Queen in Boots" fetish book, as well as fresh stock of "Legend of Stairs - Peeping Inside of Mini-Skirt"
  
• We've got another major volley of excellent adult manga on the manga pages, with six all-new titles, including works by Hit, Mujin and Hot Milk Comics.
  
• For yaoi lovers, we've got stock of Boy's Anima, the "boy's love saga comic, for you
  
• If you love busty Japanese AV queens, check out Oura Anna's excellent Remix Special" DVD, featuring 180 minutes of her excellent AV works (zoned for ALL countries)
  
• For region-2 DVD fans, an excellent compilation DVD featuring excellent works by the wonderfully erotic Yuki Maiko-chan
  
• We've got more of our extremely popular $5 magazines posted to magazine page 3
  
• For fans of J-List's unique Japanese candy products, check out the delicious Cola Lemon Candy, a treat from Japan that's been around since Kaori was a little girl
  
• For those with back or foot pain, we've got a great "bumpy roller" that stimulates your back, neck or feet with soft rubber spikes. Feels wonderful! See it on our patented Wacky Things from Japan page
  
• Also on our Wacky Things page, some cool new items, including a handy "bath net" that allows you to clean hair and gunk from your bath without touching it, and cute "Hello Kitty" tupperware containers, which you can keep anything you like in.
  

We hope you have a good Monday. See you on the web!

Greetings from J-List November 10, 2000

Happy Friday from Japan, where soy sauce really does taste better on eggs.

One of the realities of raising children in Japan is that you'll be called upon to go see special performances of whatever TV show has captured the hearts of children here -- Time Ranger, Kamen Rider Kuga, Ultraman, what have you. The shows are held at parks or events such as festivals, and the pattern is always the same: the "main" monster shows up to terrorize the children gathered around to watch, after which the heros (whoever they are for that show) show up and temporarily defeat the bad guys. The villains come out again, and spend about 30 minutes talking with kids and playing some games with them (three-kids-vs-one-monster sumo wrestling is the most common). The villain suddenly reveals his plans to kill or enslave everyone in the audience, after which time the heros (Ultraman Gaia, Dyna, whoever) will show up again

There's a really useful phrase in Japanese that can be used in a variety of situations: "okage-sama de" (oh-KA-gey-sama-deh, with a hard 'g' on 'gey') which literally means "thanks to you." For some reason, the Japanese often respond to compliments by turning the thanks on the person doing the complimenting. For example, if someone were to compliment me on my being able to write a certain kanji character, I could say "Okage-sama de" to them -- "Yes, thanks to you." This seems to imply that I'm thanking that person for teaching me the kanji, even if I'd never met the person before, but that's the way the phrase is used. If you want to have fun with Japanese people, pull the phrase out suddenly and watch how they react.

For this weekend's update, we've got some extra special items, including:

• For classic anime fans, we've got limited copies of the Aura Battler Dunbine Nostalgia book, which is a must-have for collectors -- see it on the Anime art book page
  
• We've updated our Japanese snacks page with a fun new item, Hi-Chew Kids, a delicious soft "chewing candy" that comes in three flavors: cola, creme soda and banana shake
  
• We have additional copies of some of our popular calendars in stock, all ready to be shipped immediately
  
• We've updated our "Wacky things from Japan" page with fresh stock of several items, including Socks Glue, our authentic Japanese cooking chopsticks, Hello Kitty mayonnaise holders, Japanese calligraphy tools, our authentic Japanese abacus, and more.
  

Thanks for checking out our updates. We hope you have a great weekend.

Greetings from J-List November 8, 2000

Hello from Japan, on this windy Wednesday evening.

Well the U.S. elections are over. They were closely watched from Japan, with an American-style "election watch" board showing which states went to which candidate, and news and commentary from different corespondents -- it was just like a slice of home, except that everything was in Japanese. Just as I have trouble understanding the Japanese system of elections -- somehow they're allowed to dissolve the legislative body and call elections on a moment's notice -- the U.S. system of electors and "winner take all" can be confusing to Japanese. I was able to vote this year, too, thanks to the absentee ballot system.

Although Japan adapted many parts of European society and government to itself during the Meiji Restoration and beyond, losing World War II and the subsequent occupation by U.S. forces left its mark on the Japanese's psyche, making the U.S. forever "cool" in the eyes of Japanese. While his is good for Harley Davidson's overseas sales division, I sometimes find myself groaning when Japan copies the U.S. yet again in some silly way or another. In addition to American-style election new reporting, the Japanese have just completed their regular nationwide census -- timed, it would seem, perfectly with the U.S. census. There's a Japanese version of the Oscar Awards, a near-perfect copy of the U.S. awards show, where Japanese actors and directors win awards and congratulate themselves -- of course, there aren't that many movies made here each year

For this evening's update, we've got a bunch of great new items, including, but not limited to:

• First, the newest issues of Penthouse Japan and Penthouse Special are in, and they are filled with lovely Japanese ladies for your enjoyment
  
• We've got several all-new photobooks in stock, including both nude and swimsuit/sexy idol photobooks -- please check them out
  
• Also for photobook collectors, more of the excellent Kanazawa Bunko 4th Photobook
  
• As a follow-up to our popular manga posting on Monday, we've got several all-new volumes, including a great new erotic manga by Chataro, as well as fresh stock of some of our popular manga works
  
• For DVD customers, a great new way to look at Kanazawa Bunko and Suzuki Minami -- as blondes! With outrageous wigs and hair tints, two new DVDs show fascinating new faces to these popular and lovely AV gals.
  
• If you've ever loved Enka, the wispy, dreamy music style that corresponds with country music in the U.S., check out the enka albums we've got on the Anime & JPOP Magazines page
  
• On our Anime Toys page, some cool items for Hello Kitty and Kamen Rider (Masked Rider)
  
• We've got fresh stock of our of our most popular "wacky" items -- authentic loose socks from Japan!
  
• Also on our Wacky Things page, several cool new items, including new origami paper (made of real Japanese "washi" paper), a scoop for your rice, and more!
  

If you loved the Japanese animation show Space Cruiser Yamato (aka Star Blazers, as it was known in English), check out http://www.starblazers.com, a pretty cool site where you can buy lots of Star Blazers stuff, and even watch episodes through the Internet.

Greetings from J-List November 6, 2000

Happy Monday, from Japan!

To an expat like me, living far from my home, the Internet is a wonderful thing. I can browse Amazon.com for books and DVDs, and get them sent to me from our house in San Diego. The situation's 180 degrees different from when I came to Japan, in 1992, when we'd take the train into Tokyo just to find Doritos -- I wouldn't have it any other way.

Amazon.com has discovered Japan, now, and has opened Amazon.co.jp, which will sell books and other products inside Japan. Jeff Bezos appeared on News Station 23, a leading evening news show, to discuss his company's plans for his new operation. There are some core problems with their business plan, however. For one thing, in Japan, books and CDs may not be sold at discounts, but only at their full list price

American companies like Amazon.com, Toys R Us and Costco represent a good chance for American brands to enter the Japanese marketplace. Battery maker Duracell is virtually unknown in Japan, but if you go to Toys R Us, all they carry are Duracell batteries, allowing Duracell to piggyback their product onto the Toys R Us retail model and gain share here. Through these beachheads in the Japanese marketplace, many American companies hope to increase their business success in Japan.

For this evening's update, we have a very special selection of new items for you, including:

• First, new magazines, with new issues of the excellent Dela Beppin and Gokuh, two of our most popular items each month
  
• Also for fans of Japanese adult magazines, a treat -- some extremely rare backissues of Urecco and other popular items, with issues going back to 1995 -- see the Magazines (backissues) page for these items
  
• Also back on the list, some back issues of Gal's Dee, featuring the wonderful Kusanagi Jun (see magazines page 2)
  
• For photobooks fans, we've got some excellent new items, including the new Wonderful, and the super playful nude photobook of Misusawa Nana, as well as fresh stock of Morishita Kurumi's "Tennyo" and more
  
• For our erotic manga fans, we've got a major update on both the new releases and classics pages, with dozens of new and limited stock items, many of which won't be available again once they're sold
  
• We've got in-stock issues of several anime and trendy magazines on the Anime & JPOP magazines page, including new copies of the newest Goods Press, featuring everything that's trendy in Japan right now
  
• For our SOD video fans, we've got three new videos in the popular "stark nakedness sports series, featuring lovely Japanese women in a variety of all-nude sports activities -- see them on the SOD main page
  
• We've got some other excellent videos on the New releases page, including Sexual Life of Wives and Yanagi Haruka's Bitch of Bitches"
  
• On our Anime Toys page, some more cool anime straps that you can use with your phone, keys, beeper or camera: a highly cool Macross Valkyrie robot strap, and the excellent Giant Robo anime version (both posable!)
  
• Also for anime fans, the really cool die-cast metal model of the Yamato from Mimco
  
• On the Stickers & Headbands page, new wacky Japanese stickers and signs, including our popular wooden signs, as well as a deluxe "No shoes allowed" signplate
  
• Finally, new items on our Wacky Things from Japan page -- Japanese shiatsu inserts for your shoes that give you a wonderful massage while you walk or stand; and a fun "Hello Kitty name card play set" that could only come from Japan
  

Remember that J-List has "reserve subscription" magazine available each month, allowing you to automatically receive your favorite anime, JPOP, hentai and other magazines as they come in Japanese newsstands (actually, about 2 weeks before they appear in newsstands). You can cancel your revolving subscription at any time. Please see our magazine subscriptions pages for more information.

Greetings from J-List November 4, 2000

Hello again from Japan, where people have a tendency to get Eric Clapton's last name confused with "plankton" for some reason.

You've been in Japan too long when you make a sharp distinction between English and English conversation. This is one of the amusing "You've been in Japan to long when..." jokes (which I maintain on my personal homepage, http://www.myjapan.net), and it's part of the reason why Japan's approach to language learning has been largely unsuccessful. To the Japanese, English is an important subject that is studied in high school in preparation to enter college, and is comprised of grammar, vocabulary, reading comprehension, and listening skills (as the Japanese always say, hearing) -- but it's never or used for communication, either written or spoken. English is always taught in Japanese by Japanese teachers. A completely different animal

The Japanese domestic auto industry is starting to look up. Nissan's new president, Mr. Gohsn (who is so cute he should be called "Gohsn-chan"), has announced a profit of $1.6 billion for the company, as his restructuring efforts begin to bear fruit. The first car designed as a result of the marriage of Nissan and Renault is the Bluebird Sylphy, and my mother-i- law liked it so much she bought one, replacing her aging Nissan Sunny. Other car makers are expecting sales to increase, among them GM, who is looking for ways to promote their popular cars (Saturn and Chevy Blazer) in Japan. Korea's Hyundai is also looking to get into the Japanese market, too, perhaps looking to capitalize on the cooperative atmosphere brought about by the co-hosting of the 2002 World Cup between the two countries

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

• First, calendars! Although preorders for calendars have closed, we've got some limited stock of our popular anime, JPOP and other 2001 calendars posted to the various calendar pages
  
• We have new magazines for our AV magazine fans, including new issues of the excellent Video Boy, Best Video, and Suppin Evolution
  
• We have some really excellent photobooks in stock, on the Japanese photobooks pages, including great items by Hayama Kohime and Kohda Hitomi
  
• Also sure to be of interest is the new Waffle Super Collection vol. 2, featuring 15 of Japan's most lovely ladies
  
• It seems we can't keep our popular leg fetish photobook items in stock, since they're so popular. Leg and stocking fetish fans will love the new Mini-Suka Deluxe, which is truly a super item for leg fans
  
• We've got a first for fans of Kawashima Azumi -- a DVD photobook, a collection of 250+ unreleased photos of the lovely Azumi-chan in a format you can enjoy through any DVD player
  
• Also very cool, the new "Masterpiece of Soft on Demand" which presents 120 minutes of samples from their excellent products -- over 50 video titles covered in this great video!
  
• For our erotic manga fans, a great new volley of items, both all-new manga items, as well as some very manga items that had sold out -- see both the new releases and the best-sellers manga pages
  
• For fans of dojin-soft, the excellent fan-created computer CG and games, we have yet another excellent bunch of items, on the dojinshi page
  
• We have fresh stock of our of our most popular shirts, the white circle version of our "Looking for a Japanese girlfriend" wacky Japanese T-shirt
  
• Gundam fans, check out the really cool "anime strap" items we've added to the Anime Toys page -- Char Aznable and Amuro Rei figurines with mechs that you can attach to your camera, keys or portable phone
  
• For all those times when you never have enough chopsticks, we've got fresh stock of several different sets, including the high-quality balsa sticks that are so enjoyable to eat with -- see the Wacky Things from Japan for these
  
• Also on our Wacky Things page, cute metal "character plates" which you can hang in your room to add a touch of silly Japanese "kawaii"
  
• Finally, after a huge delay, we've got fresh stock of our most popular Japanese headband (hachimaki), Watashi wa H which means "I'm a pervert!" Just the ticket for livening up that party or Anime convention!
  

Today is my mother-in-law's birthday, and that means a big plate of sushi from our favorite sushi chain, Flower House, where four adults can eat themselves into a sushi coma for around $40. Have a nice weekend!