Friday, November 22, 2002
Greetings from J-List November 22, 2002
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Wednesday, November 20, 2002
Greetings from J-List November 20, 2002
Greetings and salutations from Japan, where it's said that if your middle toe is longer than your big toe, you'll go farther in life than your parents did.
The social phenomenon known as "kogals" -- Japanese girls who wear outrageous fashions, with blonde-dyed hair and silly elevator shoes and over-tanned bodies -- was one of the keywords of the late 1990's in Japan. Kogals themselves owe their origins to the fashion-conscious teen movement of the mid 90s called "Amulers," when every high school girl wanted to dress up like JPOP singer Namie Amuro. But nothing is as constant as change, and the concept of the classic kogal slowly morphed into other versions: mago-gal (literally "grandchild-gal"), a label used for junior high school girls who wanted to dress up in ridiculous fashions too; "gals," a softer, less brash version of the original kogals; one-gals (oh-NAY-gals), basically ultra-fashionable girls in their low to mid 20s; and yamanba (literally "mountain hags"), girls who tan themselves totally black then wear bizarre makeup. As the sun set on the old Kogal boom, even the trademark of their movement, the "print club" digital photo stickers, called "puri-kura" in Japanese, has faded: game centers in Tokyo which stocked nothing but the print club machines are hard to find, and you no longer have to wait in line to get use them. Every once in a while you see a remnant of the old kogal phenomenon, the "gal mama" -- girls who got pregnant in their kogal days and are still dressing up in outrageous furs and false eyelashes, even though they're pushing baby carriages now. Seeing two "gals" exchanging child-rearing tips while they put on their thick make-up can be quite a sight, and is a uniquely Japanese experience.
It sometimes seems to outsiders living here that Japan is a very death-oriented society. Don't give gifts in multiples of four because the number four is read "shi" in Japanese, which also means death. Don't put you chopsticks straight up in your rice, since that's only done as part of a ceremony for the dead. Likewise, don't sleep with your head facing north, as bodies about to be cremated are laid facing this direction. Yes for all the customs that have to do with death, nearly all of which spring from Japan's various versions of Buddhism, the Japanese have almost no concept of estate planning. As far as I can tell, virtually all the things we do in the States to prepare for the event of one's death, from writing wills to making living trusts to investigating how to avoid death taxes are not practiced here in Japan at all. Since my parents have some land that will be transferred to my wife's name at the time of their death, I brought the topic up with them once, but it seem like something you just don't talk about. Likewise, I asked our accountant to recommend some options we might want to keep in mind, but he said no one really did anything to prepare for death estate-wise. Even the concept of drafting a will is not really practiced here. Because all Japanese have strong "common sense" built into them, a natural sense for the "way things should be," wills are not necessary here. If I were to die, common sense dictates that my wife and children would receive my property, and this logic is rarely contested here.
For the mid-week update, we've got a great lineup of products for you from Japan, including:
For our adult customers, we've got many new 18+ products. They include:
Remember that we're having a "free shipping sale" on the G-Collections games this month (half price for orders outside the U.S. and Canada), making it a great time to complete your collection of these great games. And a little bird has told us that the newest game from the company, Private Nurse, will be coming in any day now. Preorder it now and be one of the first to get this super new Japanese love-sim game!
J-List sells wacky T-shirts with message like "I'm looking for a Japanese girlfriend" (our most popular shirt ever), "Your mother has a protruding navel" and so on. They're funny and wacky, and make great gifts, too. Why not browse our selection of T-shirts today? Because your satisfaction is important to us, J-List goes the extra distance for you, stocking a wide range of sizes (from small to XXXL for most shirts), so everyone can enjoy our fun Japanese T-shirts. They're printed in the USA and all sizes are full American sizes.
The social phenomenon known as "kogals" -- Japanese girls who wear outrageous fashions, with blonde-dyed hair and silly elevator shoes and over-tanned bodies -- was one of the keywords of the late 1990's in Japan. Kogals themselves owe their origins to the fashion-conscious teen movement of the mid 90s called "Amulers," when every high school girl wanted to dress up like JPOP singer Namie Amuro. But nothing is as constant as change, and the concept of the classic kogal slowly morphed into other versions: mago-gal (literally "grandchild-gal"), a label used for junior high school girls who wanted to dress up in ridiculous fashions too; "gals," a softer, less brash version of the original kogals; one-gals (oh-NAY-gals), basically ultra-fashionable girls in their low to mid 20s; and yamanba (literally "mountain hags"), girls who tan themselves totally black then wear bizarre makeup. As the sun set on the old Kogal boom, even the trademark of their movement, the "print club" digital photo stickers, called "puri-kura" in Japanese, has faded: game centers in Tokyo which stocked nothing but the print club machines are hard to find, and you no longer have to wait in line to get use them. Every once in a while you see a remnant of the old kogal phenomenon, the "gal mama" -- girls who got pregnant in their kogal days and are still dressing up in outrageous furs and false eyelashes, even though they're pushing baby carriages now. Seeing two "gals" exchanging child-rearing tips while they put on their thick make-up can be quite a sight, and is a uniquely Japanese experience.
It sometimes seems to outsiders living here that Japan is a very death-oriented society. Don't give gifts in multiples of four because the number four is read "shi" in Japanese, which also means death. Don't put you chopsticks straight up in your rice, since that's only done as part of a ceremony for the dead. Likewise, don't sleep with your head facing north, as bodies about to be cremated are laid facing this direction. Yes for all the customs that have to do with death, nearly all of which spring from Japan's various versions of Buddhism, the Japanese have almost no concept of estate planning. As far as I can tell, virtually all the things we do in the States to prepare for the event of one's death, from writing wills to making living trusts to investigating how to avoid death taxes are not practiced here in Japan at all. Since my parents have some land that will be transferred to my wife's name at the time of their death, I brought the topic up with them once, but it seem like something you just don't talk about. Likewise, I asked our accountant to recommend some options we might want to keep in mind, but he said no one really did anything to prepare for death estate-wise. Even the concept of drafting a will is not really practiced here. Because all Japanese have strong "common sense" built into them, a natural sense for the "way things should be," wills are not necessary here. If I were to die, common sense dictates that my wife and children would receive my property, and this logic is rarely contested here.
For the mid-week update, we've got a great lineup of products for you from Japan, including:
- First, for fans of our Japanese snacks, we've got the delicious Melty Kiss, a limited edition chocolate fudge snack sold only in the winter in Japan -- it's great
- Also, fresh stock of a popular item, Candy Bubbles, bubbles you can blow like soap bubbles, but these can be eaten!
- Cosplay is a national past time in Japan, and we've got a special two-volume cosplay photobook set that's extremely cool
- For fans of high-quality anime statues, we've got a superb cold cast statue of Maetel, from Galaxy Express 999, an incredible item from Epoch
- For fans of Japan's charming swimsuit idols, go to Rome, Italy with the lovely Yumiko Shaku in her new photobook with DVD (region 2)
- See a great photobook by former child idol (now grown into a "sexy idol") Yumi Adachi, a rare and special item
- For bento fans, we've got a new deluxe bento set (everything you need in one package), as well as fresh stock of some other popular bento box items
- If you love Doraemon, the most popular anime character ever according to a recent Japanese poll, we've got a great alarm clock
- For fans of our Totoro music boxes, we've got another one for you, this one based on a picture from the ending credits of the famous film
- We've got a dynamite Hello Kitty mug that's beautiful, as well as fresh stock of some cool Hello Kitty products available only from Japan
- Finally see many other nifty items from Japan, including a wood tissue holder, a funny pencil case,
For our adult customers, we've got many new 18+ products. They include:
- For fans of beautiful Japanese women with large breasts, we've got the new Gal's Dee, featuring many fabulous women, D cup and larger
- Other popular magazine items include love hotel and amateur magazines featuring authentic Japanese amateur kogals and "hitozuma" (married women)
- For fans of our discount magazines, we've added several new items to our "Under $7" page -- check out these reduced price items
- For fans that want AV samples with their magazines, enjoy the new issue of MPEG Indies, which features a full color magazine and two Video CDs (playable on computer or in most DVD players), a great bargain
- For photobook fans, some great items, including fresh stock of Anna Ohura's best-selling iNude, and Maiko Yuki's super hardcover photobook "Maiko"
- For hentai manga fans we have another great selection of new works for you, including beautiful large breast fetish, female teacher, tentacle sex, bukkake and other fetish themes
- It's a great day for Mai Hagiwara fans, because we have not one but two killer new DVD releases by her -- the first is Front Mirukuru, and allows you to go on a virtual date with Mai to the beautiful island of Saipan (region free)
- Then enjoy Back Mirukuru, another fantastic soft porn erotic release featuring Mai at her all-time sexiest, an incredible sight to behold (region free)
- We've got the final installment of Blue, the beautiful underwater fetish, featuring Takako Nagashima giving you a "sweet kiss in the water" (region free)
- For Ami Ayukawa lovers, enjoy a staggering 4 hours of her best performances in a new Max File presentation (region free)
- Ryo Aihara and Chika Kobayashi battle it out to see who has the most beautiful breasts in a super "coupling" by Soft on Demand (region free)
- Enjoy the mature eroticism of Miyuki Hourai in a great offering from SOD in which she shows her extreme experience for you (region free)
- Finally, a great restock of DVDs, including Ai Kurosawa and Hitomi Hayasaka Re-MIX (3 hours each), the popular Temptation Lesbian 2, and more!
Remember that we're having a "free shipping sale" on the G-Collections games this month (half price for orders outside the U.S. and Canada), making it a great time to complete your collection of these great games. And a little bird has told us that the newest game from the company, Private Nurse, will be coming in any day now. Preorder it now and be one of the first to get this super new Japanese love-sim game!
J-List sells wacky T-shirts with message like "I'm looking for a Japanese girlfriend" (our most popular shirt ever), "Your mother has a protruding navel" and so on. They're funny and wacky, and make great gifts, too. Why not browse our selection of T-shirts today? Because your satisfaction is important to us, J-List goes the extra distance for you, stocking a wide range of sizes (from small to XXXL for most shirts), so everyone can enjoy our fun Japanese T-shirts. They're printed in the USA and all sizes are full American sizes.
Monday, November 18, 2002
Greetings from J-List November 18, 2002
Hello from Japan, where the word for violence is "rambo."
Some customers have told us of problems loading some pages of the site, including some or all of the "Wacky things from Japan" pages. We're looking into the problem, but if you experience problems viewing the site, please let us know. Meanwhile, the "three days" link and product searching should work at any time, so you can use this method to view products.
Each language is unique, with its own set of interesting features. Romance languages, for example, have nouns that come in male and female genders, which is very different from English, and potentially confusing for English learners of those languages. In Japanese, there are other interesting features unique to that language. For example, the subject and object are often left off of sentences if the speakers know what is meant. Thus a girl might say to her friend "Iku?" which literally means "Go?" Who is going, and where are they going, and when are they going, are all implied. Also, there's a highly developed system of "keigo" or polite Japanese used in formal and business settings. Often, you choose extra-polite verbs and nouns (called sonkeigo or "honorific language") when talking with, say, a company you do business with, to raise them up to a higher level than you. At the same time, you choose other words when referring either to yourself or your own company to push yourself a lower level (called kenjogo or "humble language"). Many basic verbs such as to eat, to go and so on come in three versions, a normal version, an honorific version and a humble version.
Simple concepts like "you" and "I" can get quite complicated in Japanese, too. The basic word for "I" is "watashi," and this is what is used in formal settings (also pronounced "watakushi"). Girls get a cute version of this word -- "atashi" -- and good boys are supposed to use a boy's word for referring to one's self. "boku." Rough and tough boys, as well as men who want to project their manliness, will use the men's word "ore" (oh-rey) for "I." Kenshiro, of Fist of the North Star, uses this term. For "you," the formal word is "anata," but "kimi" (a familiar word for use among friends) and another rough man's word, "omae" (oh-MAH-eh), are used depending on the situation. A person's choice of what words he uses for "I" and "you" reveals much about his personality and self-image. A cute little girl will use the term "atashi" or "watashi" and play with Licca-chan dolls; a girl who is a rebellious tomboy might use the boy's word "boku" to the disdain of her parents; and young boys, such as my son, will experiment with acting tough by using the word "ore" (think of young Simba from The Lion King, bragging about his nonexistent mane).
Have you ever spoken to a Japanese person and wondered why they make noises of agreement while you're talking? This is aspect of Japanese speech called "aizuchi," basically "agreeing sounds" that speakers make when having a conversation. In Japanese, I could be explaining something that happened to me, and the person I'm speaking to would say things like "ee" (yes), "so" (that's true), and "ne" (a general word of agreement) constantly as I spoke. It may sound funny in English, but in Japanese it's necessary to show that you're listening attentively to the other person -- not making these noises shows you're not paying attention, and the person you're talking with is likely to stop talking and ask what's wrong. The trouble is when you carry aizuchi into English, and butt into what the other person is saying with "that's right" and "yes." It's sounds very strange when done in English.
Our price reductions over the weekend on nearly all our 2003 calendars have has a good effect, and we saw more than 100 of them go out the door today. We've still got many hundreds of super Japanese calendars for fans of famous anime shows, beautiful Japanese idols, cute characters and more, and we've added detailed digital pictures of several more dozens of calendars so you can choose the ones you want. (Of course, please keep in mind the pictures are being taken quickly, sometimes with poor lighting, and that the real calendars are much nicer in real life.) The prices are great, and the calendars are beautiful, printed on large sheets of high-gloss paper right here in Japan. Check out what we've got for you before the calendars you want are gone!
For the new update to the J-List website, we've got a bunch of great items for you, including:
For our adult customers, we've got many new 18+ products. They include:
Remember that J-List carries authentic Japanese "loose socks" in two different sizes, and also carries "socks glue" which you can use to glue your socks to your legs to hold them up. Worn by virtually all Japanese high school girls (except those who go to strict schools where they are forbidden), they are similar to the leg warmers worn in the 1980s in the U.S., and look great when bunched up just so. Enjoy a little slice of Japanese fashion culture courtesy of J-List -- they also go great with the authentic high school uniforms we sell, too! Great for cosplay at anime cons.
Some customers have told us of problems loading some pages of the site, including some or all of the "Wacky things from Japan" pages. We're looking into the problem, but if you experience problems viewing the site, please let us know. Meanwhile, the "three days" link and product searching should work at any time, so you can use this method to view products.
Each language is unique, with its own set of interesting features. Romance languages, for example, have nouns that come in male and female genders, which is very different from English, and potentially confusing for English learners of those languages. In Japanese, there are other interesting features unique to that language. For example, the subject and object are often left off of sentences if the speakers know what is meant. Thus a girl might say to her friend "Iku?" which literally means "Go?" Who is going, and where are they going, and when are they going, are all implied. Also, there's a highly developed system of "keigo" or polite Japanese used in formal and business settings. Often, you choose extra-polite verbs and nouns (called sonkeigo or "honorific language") when talking with, say, a company you do business with, to raise them up to a higher level than you. At the same time, you choose other words when referring either to yourself or your own company to push yourself a lower level (called kenjogo or "humble language"). Many basic verbs such as to eat, to go and so on come in three versions, a normal version, an honorific version and a humble version.
Simple concepts like "you" and "I" can get quite complicated in Japanese, too. The basic word for "I" is "watashi," and this is what is used in formal settings (also pronounced "watakushi"). Girls get a cute version of this word -- "atashi" -- and good boys are supposed to use a boy's word for referring to one's self. "boku." Rough and tough boys, as well as men who want to project their manliness, will use the men's word "ore" (oh-rey) for "I." Kenshiro, of Fist of the North Star, uses this term. For "you," the formal word is "anata," but "kimi" (a familiar word for use among friends) and another rough man's word, "omae" (oh-MAH-eh), are used depending on the situation. A person's choice of what words he uses for "I" and "you" reveals much about his personality and self-image. A cute little girl will use the term "atashi" or "watashi" and play with Licca-chan dolls; a girl who is a rebellious tomboy might use the boy's word "boku" to the disdain of her parents; and young boys, such as my son, will experiment with acting tough by using the word "ore" (think of young Simba from The Lion King, bragging about his nonexistent mane).
Have you ever spoken to a Japanese person and wondered why they make noises of agreement while you're talking? This is aspect of Japanese speech called "aizuchi," basically "agreeing sounds" that speakers make when having a conversation. In Japanese, I could be explaining something that happened to me, and the person I'm speaking to would say things like "ee" (yes), "so" (that's true), and "ne" (a general word of agreement) constantly as I spoke. It may sound funny in English, but in Japanese it's necessary to show that you're listening attentively to the other person -- not making these noises shows you're not paying attention, and the person you're talking with is likely to stop talking and ask what's wrong. The trouble is when you carry aizuchi into English, and butt into what the other person is saying with "that's right" and "yes." It's sounds very strange when done in English.
Our price reductions over the weekend on nearly all our 2003 calendars have has a good effect, and we saw more than 100 of them go out the door today. We've still got many hundreds of super Japanese calendars for fans of famous anime shows, beautiful Japanese idols, cute characters and more, and we've added detailed digital pictures of several more dozens of calendars so you can choose the ones you want. (Of course, please keep in mind the pictures are being taken quickly, sometimes with poor lighting, and that the real calendars are much nicer in real life.) The prices are great, and the calendars are beautiful, printed on large sheets of high-gloss paper right here in Japan. Check out what we've got for you before the calendars you want are gone!
For the new update to the J-List website, we've got a bunch of great items for you, including:
- First, we've got another volley of new calendars in stock, including some of the popular anime calendars that had not come in yet including the Akira and Chobits calendar items -- check them out!
- For Star Wars fans, a very cool item, a sold-in-Japan-only pre-painted soft vinyl model of Mace Windu and Yoda in full fighting mode from Star Wars: Attack of the Clones, made by Kotobukiya for the Japanese market only
- For fans of rare Hello Kitty good only sold in Japan, we've got a super tea cup, a nifty holographic sticker set, and deluxe hair dryer set for girls and more
- Japan's sexy Race Queens are famous all over the world, and we've got a great photobook of the beautiful Yasuko Akiba in stock for you
- For fans of the aesthetic beauty of Japan's high school uniforms, we've got a great manga/illustration book featuring the actual high school uniforms of famous schools around Tokyo, great for costumers
- For fans of delicious and bizarre Japanese snack foods, we've got the tasty Crispy Pizza Pretz in stock, and it really is like eating a delicious pizza!
- Also, a super favorite snack item from Japan, Morinaga's Choco Ball, in strawberry and peanut flavor, as well as other unique Japanese foods
- We were happy with the response to our Japanese "Bub" dissolving bath tablets, so we've posted two new types to the site now
- For fans of Studio Ghibli's anime films we have a positively fantastic Soot Sprite, from Spirited Away (and also seen in My Neighbor Totoro, sans feet and arms) -- a very cool item!
- Also, we love the ceramic music boxes from Hayao Miyazaki's anime movies, and have a super new Totoro music box in stock for you today
- For your kitchen, we've got a cute way to peel oranges, fresh stock of a cute deluxe bento set, and more
- For dieters, some Chinese "slim tea" to help you lose weight -- a delicious jasmine tea
- For fans of our bizarre Japanese erasers, a super item: Japanese sweets erasers, featuring classic Japanese "wagashi" sweets like dango, dorayaki, mochi rice cakes and more
- Finally, find inflatable versions of the American Space Shuttle and Japan's H-II rocket, a keychain that catches the light of the sun and changes color, wacky Japanese pins, and more!
For our adult customers, we've got many new 18+ products. They include:
- For fans of Japanese magazines for adults, we've got several nice amateur and love hotel magazines
- For fans of Japan's hardcover nude photobooks, always a popular item at J-List, we've got some new items, including the first nude photobook of Hana Kojima, a lovely "nud-ol" (nude idol), age 20
- Also, the steamy idol photobook of the lovely Kazuki Chiharu, sexy idol and kogal from Japan
- For fans of hentai manga, we have an especially great line-up for you today, with new works from Chosuke Nagashima, a super devil tentacle sex offering, and a beautiful manga about first love
- For erotic DVD fans, we've got even more fabulous Japanese DVDs, starting with a new "The Idol" series from Kuki, this time featuring the youthful and lovely Riho Kazami in three complete video releases, collected on one DVD for you over 180 minutes (region free)
- We have another Blue, underwater fetish DVD from Pepper Shop, featuring the lovely Yuri Harada (region free)
- Enjoy the beautiful Nao Oikawa in a large-breast fetish special with lots of fun breast activities for you (region free)
- Soft on Demand has made a fabulous new "darkness fetish" DVD featuring AV idols and men who grope through the darkness to find the women and have sex wit them, all while special night camera film the scene (region free)
- Also from SOD, enjoy Yuka Harajima as she goes to "semen paradise" for you (region free)
- Then, enjoy a superb lesbian kissing and "tongue fetish" offering from Aroma Planning, the super Japanese indies AV studio (region 2)
- Finally, Tomo has posted some fresh stock of popular adult DVDs and reduced prices on some other, overstocked items -- please see our DVD pages for all of these items (to conveniently view all DVDs, you can see the "view all DVD" page if you like).
Remember that J-List carries authentic Japanese "loose socks" in two different sizes, and also carries "socks glue" which you can use to glue your socks to your legs to hold them up. Worn by virtually all Japanese high school girls (except those who go to strict schools where they are forbidden), they are similar to the leg warmers worn in the 1980s in the U.S., and look great when bunched up just so. Enjoy a little slice of Japanese fashion culture courtesy of J-List -- they also go great with the authentic high school uniforms we sell, too! Great for cosplay at anime cons.
Friday, November 15, 2002
Greetings from J-List November 15, 2002
Hello again from all of us in Japan!
The cold weather has begun in Japan, and we can feel real winter right
around the corner. Because Japanese homes lack central heating found in
most American homes, it can be hard to keep warm, especially for a San
Diego boy like me. In general, rooms are heated one at a time in Japan --
which is good, since you don't spend energy heating rooms you're not using.
We have a kotatsu at our house, which is a low table with a blanket over
it, and a heater inside; put your legs inside the kotatsu and you'll be
toasty in no time. (My daughter and our cats love to go to sleep inside the
kotatsu, which is not healthy, however.) Since electricity is expensive in
Japan, most people use kerosene heaters, either stand-alone heaters called
"stoves" (sutoobu) in Japanese, or electric-kerosene heaters that blow
heated air (called "fan heaters"). These are economical, but smell bad (the
kerosene fumes give you a headache after a few hours, and you must open a
window to ventilate), and whenever the tank inside the heater runs out of
fuel, someone has to go outside and freeze while they refill the tank from
the kerosene jugs kept outside. Heating pads, called "kairo" (which we
happen to have in stock), are also ways of keeping warm when you're cold.
In Japanese, the English word "convenience" refers to convenience stores,
also called "conbini." Japan is very big on convenience stores, and several
chains -- 7-11, Lawson, Sun Every, Thanks, Yamazaki Daily Store -- compete
to bring the best products to their customers. Japanese convenience stores
always offer a large selection of bento (Japanese boxed lunch), onigiri
(rice balls wrapped in nori seaweed), bread (which includes things like
sweetened chocolate bread, bean paste bread, and so on), as well as other
items you might expect, such as drinks (Coke, Pepsi, oolong tea and Calpis
Soda). You can send packages from any convenience store, and if you're
going to fly out of Narita Airport, you can send your suitcases ahead for
about $20 per suitcase -- very handy when you want to travel but don't want
to lug suitcases. Japan is a completely check-less society, with no concept
of personal checks. To pay your phone or electric bills, you can just them
down to the local conbini and pay them in cash (the bills have bar codes on
them so the girl can process them quickly). They say imitation is a form of
flattery, and it must be true. Two convenience store chains in Gunma sport
names "borrowed" from American chains -- Save-On and K-Mart. Alas, the
Golden Age of the Conbini might be over for good, though. In the early and
mid-1990's, it was unheard of for a convenience store to close its doors,
but now with the economy bad for so many years, convenience stores closing
and turning into laundromats, used book stores or even used car dealerships
are very common.
Announcing lower prices on calendars! We've got loads of 2003 calendars in
stock for you, with many incredibly beautiful and rare items ready for you
to order -- no waiting! Because we want you to enjoy these great items,
we've lowered prices on almost all of our great calendars. You'll be
helping us, too -- the calendars have taken over the J-List kitchen, and no
one can get near the refrigerator until we sell the calendars. You will
love spending your year with the really cool character, idol, anime, JPOP
and other calendars available from J-List.
We're all hooked on a bizarre TV show in Japan, a "mannequin drama" OH!
Mikey, which is filmed with outrageous looking fashion mannequins in place
of actors. It's the story of the Fuccon family, father James, mother
Barbara and son Mikey, who came from America to start their new life in
Japan. In each episode of the show, the Fuccon family undergoes new trials
and tribulations as they learn about Japan. It's a kind of parody of
foreigners living in Japan, and the fact that expressions on the faces of
the mannequins never change adds to the bizarreness of the story. We're
happy to report that we have the box set of OH! Mikey in stock, and it
comes complete with English subtitles and many extras.
For the new update, we've an extra large selection of cool things from
Japan for you, including:
For our adult customers, we've got many new 18+ products. They include:
J-List carries three excellent region-free DVD players that allow you to
watch DVDs from around the world, regardless of their region code. We have
three in stock: the Sampo DVE612 and small sized Lasonic DVB090, both
priced as just $109; and the ultra-cool high-end Sampo DVE681P, which
features many pro features. Please note that Sampo has discontinued the
681P, so our currently stock is all we'll be able to carry. If you're
looking for a great region free DVD player that's got high-end features and
quality, hurry and grab one.
The cold weather has begun in Japan, and we can feel real winter right
around the corner. Because Japanese homes lack central heating found in
most American homes, it can be hard to keep warm, especially for a San
Diego boy like me. In general, rooms are heated one at a time in Japan --
which is good, since you don't spend energy heating rooms you're not using.
We have a kotatsu at our house, which is a low table with a blanket over
it, and a heater inside; put your legs inside the kotatsu and you'll be
toasty in no time. (My daughter and our cats love to go to sleep inside the
kotatsu, which is not healthy, however.) Since electricity is expensive in
Japan, most people use kerosene heaters, either stand-alone heaters called
"stoves" (sutoobu) in Japanese, or electric-kerosene heaters that blow
heated air (called "fan heaters"). These are economical, but smell bad (the
kerosene fumes give you a headache after a few hours, and you must open a
window to ventilate), and whenever the tank inside the heater runs out of
fuel, someone has to go outside and freeze while they refill the tank from
the kerosene jugs kept outside. Heating pads, called "kairo" (which we
happen to have in stock), are also ways of keeping warm when you're cold.
In Japanese, the English word "convenience" refers to convenience stores,
also called "conbini." Japan is very big on convenience stores, and several
chains -- 7-11, Lawson, Sun Every, Thanks, Yamazaki Daily Store -- compete
to bring the best products to their customers. Japanese convenience stores
always offer a large selection of bento (Japanese boxed lunch), onigiri
(rice balls wrapped in nori seaweed), bread (which includes things like
sweetened chocolate bread, bean paste bread, and so on), as well as other
items you might expect, such as drinks (Coke, Pepsi, oolong tea and Calpis
Soda). You can send packages from any convenience store, and if you're
going to fly out of Narita Airport, you can send your suitcases ahead for
about $20 per suitcase -- very handy when you want to travel but don't want
to lug suitcases. Japan is a completely check-less society, with no concept
of personal checks. To pay your phone or electric bills, you can just them
down to the local conbini and pay them in cash (the bills have bar codes on
them so the girl can process them quickly). They say imitation is a form of
flattery, and it must be true. Two convenience store chains in Gunma sport
names "borrowed" from American chains -- Save-On and K-Mart. Alas, the
Golden Age of the Conbini might be over for good, though. In the early and
mid-1990's, it was unheard of for a convenience store to close its doors,
but now with the economy bad for so many years, convenience stores closing
and turning into laundromats, used book stores or even used car dealerships
are very common.
Announcing lower prices on calendars! We've got loads of 2003 calendars in
stock for you, with many incredibly beautiful and rare items ready for you
to order -- no waiting! Because we want you to enjoy these great items,
we've lowered prices on almost all of our great calendars. You'll be
helping us, too -- the calendars have taken over the J-List kitchen, and no
one can get near the refrigerator until we sell the calendars. You will
love spending your year with the really cool character, idol, anime, JPOP
and other calendars available from J-List.
We're all hooked on a bizarre TV show in Japan, a "mannequin drama" OH!
Mikey, which is filmed with outrageous looking fashion mannequins in place
of actors. It's the story of the Fuccon family, father James, mother
Barbara and son Mikey, who came from America to start their new life in
Japan. In each episode of the show, the Fuccon family undergoes new trials
and tribulations as they learn about Japan. It's a kind of parody of
foreigners living in Japan, and the fact that expressions on the faces of
the mannequins never change adds to the bizarreness of the story. We're
happy to report that we have the box set of OH! Mikey in stock, and it
comes complete with English subtitles and many extras.
For the new update, we've an extra large selection of cool things from
Japan for you, including:
- First, we've got the fun and bizarre boxed sets of Oh Mikey! in
stock for you, containing all episodes of this bizarre and fun series --
and it's fully subtitled in English (region 2) - We love Japan's cute JPOP idols, and have restocked several
excellent photobooks of Morning Musume members, including Kaori Ida, Risa
Ishikawa and more! - For fans of delicious snacks from Japan, we've got a bunch of
new items, including Cafe Latte flavored "Crunky" (we just love that name),
Glico's delicious Chocolate Mousse Macadamia nuts, a cream and delicious
Almond Pocky, and a new flavor of Mill Make, a tasty milk flavoring that's
enjoyed by all Japanese kids - Also, fresh stock of various snack items, miso and other soups,
salmon furikake, and more - We carry all the excellent anime films of Studio Ghibli, and
we've restocked several popular titles, including Laputa, Princess
Mononoke, Kiki's Delivery Service and Spirited Away (all are region 2) - For Hello Kitty fans, we've got some nice new items, including
another Kitty and Daniel "Wedding Plush" that is the perfect gift for
soon-to-be-newlyweds - In time for winter, we've stocked up on Japan's amazing "Kairo"
heating pads, cloth pads which get very warm when exposed to air, great for
those who hate being cold (like me!) - Also, a fun item for your bath: Japanese "Bub" onsen tablets,
which turn an ordinary bath into a Japanese hot springs - We have a super cool plush "Neko Bus" (cat bus) mascot for your
car, who comes with suction cups on his feet, and is, ah, anatomically
correct - For Disney fans, two rare items sold only in Japan: soft vinyl
keychain figures of Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella, both very cool and
licensed only for the Japanese market - For fans of the super-cute Hamtaro, we've got a new deluxe
keychain set that's incredibly fun to collect - For Star Wars fans, we've got a positively incredibly "Marmit"
figure, a highly-poseable high-end figure that's great for real collectors - Finally, look for other great items, like a soft plush cover
for your folding-type cellular phone, a happy all-purpose "smile ball,"
more wacky Japanese signs you can stick anywhere, and more!
For our adult customers, we've got many new 18+ products. They include:
- First, for fans of Japan's excellent adult magazines, we have
the sassy new Urecco Gal, filled with beautiful fashionable kogals and some
of the best erotic photography found in Japan - We've got some excellent erotic photobooks, too, including new
hardcover works by Kaori Shimamura, Jun Kusanagi and many more (stock is
limited on some items) - Also for photobook fans, we have an exhausting restock of
popular items, including sexy and erotic photobooks by Suzuki Fumika, fresh
stock of Megumi Osawa's dynamite Last Dance photobook, and more - We love Japan's fetish for legs, stockings, mini-skirts and
panties, and have some nice items for leg fetish fans, as well - For hentai manga fans, we've got several all-new volumes of
great erotic comics, including a superb "virgin special" anthology manga,
and a DVD that comes with a hentai DVD inside! - Also, see fresh stock of some very popular hentai manga works,
including Irodori (one of the most popular hentai parody comics in J-List
history), Total Bio Chemical Laboratory, and more - For fans of the English-language Blue Eyes comics, we've
restocked the entire series in our San Diego office -- they're all in
stock, waiting for you to order - Remember that J-List stocks dozens of volumes of yaoi comics,
the very beautiful male/male love manga, and we've added stock today - Also recently restocked: Japanese condoms, which are great for
anyone who wants to try the thinner, slightly smaller Japanese products - For DVD lovers, we have some great new erotic products for you,
starting with another popular volume of "Blue," which features the beauty
and grace of Yukiko Misawa -- "You make me air bubble." (region free) - Then, enjoy the erotic and lusty "oneesan" (a word which means
older sister, but in this case implies an experienced, older woman) Ran
Asakawa, in a superb offering from Dogma (region free) - There's a new The Idol series with 150 minutes of prime AV,
starring Megu Anrai (region free) - For bukkake fans, see Reika Midou in Deep's great new offering
-- and it's dubbed over with a professional voice actress for an extra
bizarre feel (region free) - Yuna Akimoto tries her hand at lesbian sex and pretending to be
a man, with some great "lesbian fucking" with a fake male members (region
free) - Then, from Aroma Planning, enjoy the super indies presentation
of "Everyday life of Breast Fondling" as women have their breasts touched
while doing their normal daily activities (region 2) - Finally, see fresh stock of many new items, like Madoka Ozawa's
classic DVD works, fresh stock of "Japanese girls vs. Black men" DVDs by
Moodyz, more copies of the very detailed Russian Girls Manko 2002, the
best-selling Very Best of Million, and more!
J-List carries three excellent region-free DVD players that allow you to
watch DVDs from around the world, regardless of their region code. We have
three in stock: the Sampo DVE612 and small sized Lasonic DVB090, both
priced as just $109; and the ultra-cool high-end Sampo DVE681P, which
features many pro features. Please note that Sampo has discontinued the
681P, so our currently stock is all we'll be able to carry. If you're
looking for a great region free DVD player that's got high-end features and
quality, hurry and grab one.
Wednesday, November 13, 2002
Greetings from J-List November 13, 2002
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Monday, November 11, 2002
Greetings from J-List November 11, 2002
Hello again from Japan, where basic drip coffee served in coffee shops is known as "American coffee."
For a country that eats as much rice as Japan, they have some pretty interesting bread, too. I remember being happy to see how many kinds of delicious bread was sold in Japan, all very soft and usually baked in sold in small bakeries operated inside supermarkets rather than mass produced. You can buy bread sliced into eight, six or four slices, too, depending on how thick you like your bread to be -- the thick kind is great for making French Toast. There are many kinds of "bread" sold in Japan that would be called doughnuts by an American. Anpan is bread with Japanese sweet beans (anko) inside, which is something that foreigners usually can't stand. Melon Pan (melon bread) is a round, delicious sweetened bread that doesn't really taste like melon, no matter the name. Curry Pan is a delicious ball of bread with curry baked inside it. Japanese bread is so popular here, there's an anime show called Anpan Man, populated with characters that all happen to be Japanese bread products. Unfortunately, bagels are really difficult to find in Japan -- there's just no demand for them by consumers, so no one sells them. Mexican tortillas are similarly impossible to find in Japan.
Japanese companies are very good at coming up with special events to promote their products. The meat industry pushes February 9th as "meat day" because 2 and 9 ("ni" and "ku" in Japanese) make up the word for meat in Japanese ("niku"). On February 14th, women show their feelings for men by giving them chocolate. White Day, March 14, is the designated day for men to return the favor, giving white chocolate or other doilies back to women. Japan's optometrists designate October 10 as "Eye Day" (Me no Hi) because "10 10" looks like two eyes with eyebrows if you look sideways. Today is November 11, or 11.11, and the Glico Confectionery Company has proclaimed that this is "Pocky Day" because the numbers look like little Pocky sticks. In commemoration of Pocky Day, we've stocked lots of different flavors of Japan's delicious chocolate covered pretzels for you!
Time marches on and more and more calendars are selling out. We've gone through and added interior pictures from some more idol, anime, and other calendars, and we hope that you'll find something you like. We have over 250 calendars in stock for you, a huge selection, ready to go out to you with no waiting!
For the new update, we've got some great items for you, including:
For our adult customers, we've got many new 18+ products. They include:
One of our favorite magazines here at J-List is Giant Robot, a superbly put-together magazine of Asian pop culture, filled with interesting articles on just about anything you can think of. If you are interested in Japanese anime and Asian culture, why not support this great magazine by subscribing? Tell them J-List sent you. The URL to subscribe is here: http://secure.giantrobot.com/store.php?catid=G001 .
For a country that eats as much rice as Japan, they have some pretty interesting bread, too. I remember being happy to see how many kinds of delicious bread was sold in Japan, all very soft and usually baked in sold in small bakeries operated inside supermarkets rather than mass produced. You can buy bread sliced into eight, six or four slices, too, depending on how thick you like your bread to be -- the thick kind is great for making French Toast. There are many kinds of "bread" sold in Japan that would be called doughnuts by an American. Anpan is bread with Japanese sweet beans (anko) inside, which is something that foreigners usually can't stand. Melon Pan (melon bread) is a round, delicious sweetened bread that doesn't really taste like melon, no matter the name. Curry Pan is a delicious ball of bread with curry baked inside it. Japanese bread is so popular here, there's an anime show called Anpan Man, populated with characters that all happen to be Japanese bread products. Unfortunately, bagels are really difficult to find in Japan -- there's just no demand for them by consumers, so no one sells them. Mexican tortillas are similarly impossible to find in Japan.
Japanese companies are very good at coming up with special events to promote their products. The meat industry pushes February 9th as "meat day" because 2 and 9 ("ni" and "ku" in Japanese) make up the word for meat in Japanese ("niku"). On February 14th, women show their feelings for men by giving them chocolate. White Day, March 14, is the designated day for men to return the favor, giving white chocolate or other doilies back to women. Japan's optometrists designate October 10 as "Eye Day" (Me no Hi) because "10 10" looks like two eyes with eyebrows if you look sideways. Today is November 11, or 11.11, and the Glico Confectionery Company has proclaimed that this is "Pocky Day" because the numbers look like little Pocky sticks. In commemoration of Pocky Day, we've stocked lots of different flavors of Japan's delicious chocolate covered pretzels for you!
Time marches on and more and more calendars are selling out. We've gone through and added interior pictures from some more idol, anime, and other calendars, and we hope that you'll find something you like. We have over 250 calendars in stock for you, a huge selection, ready to go out to you with no waiting!
For the new update, we've got some great items for you, including:
- First, we have some great plush toy items, including a fantastic plush Catbus and Jiji the cat from Totoro and Kiki's Delivery Service -- they are fabulous!
- For Astro Boy collectors, we have a great soft pillow that will brighten any room -- trust us, it's cool
- The cold cast and model magazine All That Figure sold out in record time, but we've got fresh stock for you now
- For fans of Japanese Race Queens, we've got new items for you, including a super new issue of Cool Girls, loaded with beautiful gals including Toko Ushikawa!
- Also, a very special magazine featuring Taiwanese Race Queen and super model Yinling, not to be missed
- For lovely Japanese swimsuit idol fans, we've got Dream Goes On, a photobook featuring some of the top models and idols in Japan
- For fans of our super-wacky Japanese T-shirts, we've added a new color for our popular "I want to be Japanese" shirt, attractive pink -- great for girls or guys
- J-List carries Japanese film on DVD that are subtitled in English, for the enjoyment and appreciation of fans outside of Japan -- we've posted Turn, a new Japanese film featuring the lovely Riho Makise as a woman who must relive a bizarre day over and over again in a very thought-provoking performance
- For lovers of our Japanese snacks, we've got Mousse Caplico (delicious ice cream cones that contain chocolate instead of ice cream), more healthy miso soup, and of course, a big restocking of famous Pocky!
- We love cute Sanrio goods from Japan, and we've got some nice items for you including new Shinkansen (bullet train) character goods, Hello Kitty snacks and candy, cute Hello Kitty toy cars and more -- check out our items
- Also, we've stocked the popular and stylish Hello Kitty cappuccino and coffee cups, beautiful items that are great for serving drinks to guests
- If you dislike sitting on hard benches, we've got a handy portable seat cushion from Japan that allows you to sit in comfort anywhere, in your garden, in the park, at a baseball game
- We have a neat item, a handy wooden tray for displaying your treasures, or you can use it for serving sushi, we don't mind
- For Inu Yasha fans, we've got a dynamite character strap -- use it as a strap for your camera or phone, or as a keychain
- Another wacky item: cute "parody erasers" of Japanese snack foods, which must be seen to be believed
- Finally, enjoy useful items for your kitchen including bento related items, cool "rocket pencils" with individual pre-sharpened pencil "stages" that you can easily replace, a handy set of all-purpose pouches, fun Japanese play money, and more!
For our adult customers, we've got many new 18+ products. They include:
- We love the high-quality English-translated love-sim games from G-Collections, and since we're having a "free shipping sale" on them this month, they're selling very well. We've also posted their newest game, Private Nurse, for preorder on the site -- preorder it now for free shipping when it's ready!
- For magazine fans, some nice items in stock for you, including Oh! Pai (large breast fetish magazine), the new issue of Do-Up (featuring very, ah, detailed amateur couples in love hotels), and more
o Also for fans of Japanese amateur sex, we've got "I want you to Look at Me," a nice perfect bound magazine featuring some lovely kogals age 18-22
o We've got new "sampler" items too, magazines which feature video CDs or DVDs inside, a great bargain
o We've got some nice photobooks for you, including a beautiful hardcover offering featuring six lovely nudes from Korea, a fantastic item featuring Ami Ayukawa, and more
o If you love hentai manga, we've got some excellent items for you, including a super all-game girl hentai parody comic, great hardcore comics and fetish comics from Japan's top studios, and more, fresh stock of the popular Pururun Seminar and more - For DVD fans, we've got another volley of excellent products, starting with a great "three in one" value pack with hardcore performances from Ami Ayukawa, Mako Takeda and Eri Imai, 3 full hours! (region free)
- Enjoy a great indies "premium fuck" with Yuna Akimoto in a new offering from Janes Co. Ltd. (region free)
- We love the exciting and erotic "Adult Video Wrestling" DVD releases from Obtain Future because they're very authentic and enjoyable to watch -- and we've got another great men vs' women sex fest for you now (region free)
- For fans of lesbian kissing, a major Japanese fetish, enjoy more "obscene kisses of amateur girls" featuring close female friends who explore their first lesbian experience on camera (region free)
- From Soft on Demand, enjoy a great "cosplay jukujo" (mature woman) performance by Hitomi Yuki in which she tries on her old Gilgamesh Night costume -- so cool! (region free)
- Enjoy the lovely erotica of Moodyz Musume, the first adult video pop group, featuring excellent erotic sex and more (region 2)
- Finally, another restocking or reduced prices on some popular DVDs, including Mirai Hoshizaki's "Delivery Fuck," Madoka Ozawa's "Document Private Sex" and more!
One of our favorite magazines here at J-List is Giant Robot, a superbly put-together magazine of Asian pop culture, filled with interesting articles on just about anything you can think of. If you are interested in Japanese anime and Asian culture, why not support this great magazine by subscribing? Tell them J-List sent you. The URL to subscribe is here: http://secure.giantrobot.com/store.php?catid=G001 .
Friday, November 08, 2002
Greetings from J-List November 8, 2002
Hello again from all of us at J-List!
First of all, there was a slight problem with the site for a few hours after Wednesday's update was posted -- the J-List product pages and front page were not updating, although the "view products updated in the last three days" link and search worked. If you looked for newly added products but couldn't find them, we're very sorry. The problem was fixed a few hours after the update mails went out.
Being an expatriate American is always interesting, allowing me to observe events inside the U.S. through the eyes of an outsider. American politics is especially interesting to observe from the outside looking in, and I've had many discussions with Canadian, Australian and Japanese friends about the American political system and how silly it can be sometimes. It's also fun to observe the impressions Americans make on the Japanese, what stereotypes they come up with when they think of Americans. In Gunma, where we live, most gaijin ride mountain bikes, especially Mormon missionaries, so mountain bikes and foreigners go together in the minds of Japanese. Americans are famous for being optimistic in all things -- I once doodled a happy face on a piece of paper and was told "That's very American" by a Japanese friend. Americans are famous for being bad at math (something I am personally guilty of), and according to my wife, Americans are never on time, although she might be just talking about me. Most Japanese believe that American men are more endowed than Japanese, and Tomo told me he was curious about the size of Americans' members when he was a child. The Japanese know of the American fascination with firearms, and when I was teaching English conversation, the subject of whether or not I'd owned guns back home came up a lot. (My answer was always no.) Finally, it's sad to say to say, but a major impression of Americans is that they tend to be on the large side. Considering that most of the Japanese staff has to shop at Gap Kids when they go to the U.S. in order to find clothes that fit them (you think I'm kidding, don't you?), there may be something to this.
The hardworking J-List staff has added detailed digital pictures for another 30 or so of the Japanese calendars we currently stock, allowing you to see what the beautiful calendars look like on the inside. We hope the new pictures make it easy to see how nice these things are and make your buying decisions easier. Incidentally, we can still get calendars (as well as any items) to you in time for Christmas. Since the things J-List sells are so unique and interesting, we believe they'd make great gifts for your loved ones. If you have any questions on our calendars or anything else, please let us know!
For the new update, we've got a super lineup of cool things from Japan for you, starting with:
For our adult customers, we've got many new 18+ products. They include:
The top 5 lists for the past week have been update, so you can see what items are popular at J-List. Click the links to bring the items up in your web browser.
We've added a new link at the top of the J-List homepage, allowing you to translate it through Altavista's BabelFish links. The translation isn't always perfect (we amused ourselves viewing the site in Japanese), but we'll keep the links there in case they're of use to our international readers. Please note that you can't checkout using the BabelFish system (the cart file will come up empty), so switch back to English mode if you want to buy items through the site.
First of all, there was a slight problem with the site for a few hours after Wednesday's update was posted -- the J-List product pages and front page were not updating, although the "view products updated in the last three days" link and search worked. If you looked for newly added products but couldn't find them, we're very sorry. The problem was fixed a few hours after the update mails went out.
Being an expatriate American is always interesting, allowing me to observe events inside the U.S. through the eyes of an outsider. American politics is especially interesting to observe from the outside looking in, and I've had many discussions with Canadian, Australian and Japanese friends about the American political system and how silly it can be sometimes. It's also fun to observe the impressions Americans make on the Japanese, what stereotypes they come up with when they think of Americans. In Gunma, where we live, most gaijin ride mountain bikes, especially Mormon missionaries, so mountain bikes and foreigners go together in the minds of Japanese. Americans are famous for being optimistic in all things -- I once doodled a happy face on a piece of paper and was told "That's very American" by a Japanese friend. Americans are famous for being bad at math (something I am personally guilty of), and according to my wife, Americans are never on time, although she might be just talking about me. Most Japanese believe that American men are more endowed than Japanese, and Tomo told me he was curious about the size of Americans' members when he was a child. The Japanese know of the American fascination with firearms, and when I was teaching English conversation, the subject of whether or not I'd owned guns back home came up a lot. (My answer was always no.) Finally, it's sad to say to say, but a major impression of Americans is that they tend to be on the large side. Considering that most of the Japanese staff has to shop at Gap Kids when they go to the U.S. in order to find clothes that fit them (you think I'm kidding, don't you?), there may be something to this.
The hardworking J-List staff has added detailed digital pictures for another 30 or so of the Japanese calendars we currently stock, allowing you to see what the beautiful calendars look like on the inside. We hope the new pictures make it easy to see how nice these things are and make your buying decisions easier. Incidentally, we can still get calendars (as well as any items) to you in time for Christmas. Since the things J-List sells are so unique and interesting, we believe they'd make great gifts for your loved ones. If you have any questions on our calendars or anything else, please let us know!
For the new update, we've got a super lineup of cool things from Japan for you, starting with:
- We were very pleased with the response we received from the soft acrylic blankets we posted to the site, so we've restocked these blankets and added several larger sizes and cute designs -- see them on the Wacky Things from Japan pages
- Also for Hello Kitty fans, an extremely cute Kitty + piggy bank combo items, and a fun pack of Hello Kitty bubble gum, new Kitty stamps, and in our San Diego office, a really cute Hello Kitty wall clock
- If you love Japan's Race Queens, we've got a super issue of RQ Press, with 100 beautiful girls including all the top stars
- Japan's swimsuit idols are popular, and we've got some nice photobook items for you, including fresh stock of Yuko Ogura's "Future Girl"
- J-List stocks authentic Japanese Loose Socks, the bulky, baggy socks that Japanese high school girls wear, and we've got fresh stock for you -- we also stock Socks Glue, to help keep our stocks up
- For anime fans, we've got some great toy items for you, including a super set of Tottoko Hamtaro soft vinyl figures that are extremely cute and fun to play with
- Also, for Lupin III fans, we've gotten in stock of the superb high-end poseable figures of Lupin, Jigen, Goemon and Zenigata, made by Medicom Toy
- For fans of cute anime girls and bishoujo games, we've got several sets of cute soft vinyl models, figures that you put together and display -- they're very cute
- For fans of traditional Japanese things, a super cool Japanese noodle set, double bento boxes, chopsticks, and other fun items for your kitchen or bento life
- For Japanese snack items, we've gotten several nice items in, including "chocolate tree stumps" (we're not kidding), cool Japanese gum and candy items, more miso soup and wasabi, and more
- Finally, find wacky stickers ("It is forbidden to urinate here"), a handy case that can hold anything from a phone to an Apple iPod, more Pocky, cute pro wrestling items, and more!
For our adult customers, we've got many new 18+ products. They include:
- For fans of Eichi Publishing's high quality adult magazines, we have the new Gokuh, an oversized magazine featuring all the top AV idols -- Hitomi Hayasaka, Hikari Kisugi, Misa Nishida, and more!
- Also enjoy amateur hardcore magazines like EX Gacha Ire featuring very erotic girls in love hotels, and a super double issue of Let's Do Good Things
- Enjoy some great hardcover Japanese photobooks including the lovely nude of Mai Asakura, back again after many years
- We have another volley of excellent hentai manga for you including the excellent Celamic (Ceramic) Garden by Fujimi Comics, a full set manga series, and more
- Also, a great update of restocked manga, including all volumes of the popular Paradise Lost and Lunatic Party parody comics, I Saw Her Standing There, and fresh stock of the long-selling anime parody Irodori!
- We've got some great new adult DVDs for fans, starting with the debut sex of the lovely Rei Itoh, in her very first on-camera performance (region free)
- The very erotic Rumiko Hasegawa, who looks suspiciously like Japanese actress Ryoko Hirosue, performs for you in an erotic new "Premium" hardcore offering (region free)
- We love the long-running Adult Video Wrestling series from Obtain Future, and we've got a new one for you -- very erotic and yet also a fantastic pro wrestling performance with authentic action (region free)
- Kokoro Amano is the "highest class of soap lady" and fulfills all your erotic dreams in a new offering from Soft on Demand (region free)
- A great new fetish offering from Deep's, enjoy "Lesbian Commando" with erotic "military lesbians" who have big guns and beautiful bodies (region free)
- From Moodyz, see the pure and innocent sex of three girls, aged 18 years old, filmed with classic Moodyz brash style
- Finally, see restocked erotic DVDs, including Obtain Future Memorial, superb 180 minute DVD offerings from Emily Yoshikawa and Hikari Kisugi, Mirai Hoshizaki's erotic Leg Fetish World, and more!
The top 5 lists for the past week have been update, so you can see what items are popular at J-List. Click the links to bring the items up in your web browser.
We've added a new link at the top of the J-List homepage, allowing you to translate it through Altavista's BabelFish links. The translation isn't always perfect (we amused ourselves viewing the site in Japanese), but we'll keep the links there in case they're of use to our international readers. Please note that you can't checkout using the BabelFish system (the cart file will come up empty), so switch back to English mode if you want to buy items through the site.
Wednesday, November 06, 2002
Greetings from J-List November 6, 2002
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Monday, November 04, 2002
Greetings from J-List November 4, 2002
Greetings from Japan, where a corndog is known as an "American dog."
I don't doubt that part of the reason I live in Japan today is all the Japanese TV and movies I enjoyed as a child -- Ultraman and Johnny Socko and his Flying Robot, Star Blazers, Kimba the White Lion, and so on. But while I was being influenced with a love of Japan, my wife was watching American TV shows that were being broadcast in Japan, shows like Charlie's Angels, Bewitched (brought over as "Okusama wa Majo" or My Wife is a Witch), I Dream of Genie, Knight Rider and so on. Just as I was first interested in Japan through monster movies and anime, she became intrested in America through American television. When we started dating, we knew we would end up married because we had so much in common, including a love of the 1980s show The Greatest American Hero. Fate can be very funny, can't it?
The Japanese are always pleased by foreigners taking an interest in their language and becoming fluent in Japanese, and many of the actors and comedians on Japanese TV are foreigners who have mastered Japanese enough to even be funny in the language. Dave Specter, an American who came to Japan as a TV producer, is universally despised by gaijin like me, usually because his Japanese is better than ours (but I hate him because he dyes his black hair blonde to appear more "American"). Daniel Carl is famous because he mastered Japan's Yamagata dialect, and it's funny to see an American speaking redneck Japanese. Thane Camus (prounced "Sane Kamyu" in Japanese) is a super-cute "gaijin talent" (and incidentally the grandson of famous French novelist Albert Camus) who does a show called World's Funniest English, in which Japanese who do not speak English are asked to tell stories in English while the exact translation of what they're saying appears on the TV. (If you want to see what he looks like, his homepage is here: http://www.thane.co.jp/thaneworld/info.html) And then there's Wickie-san, who came to Japan from Sri Lanka and passed the entrance exam to Tokyo University, Japan's top-ranked school. His primary goal is to get Japanese people to learn that Sri Lanka is not part of Africa.
Some customers have been reporting a problem with the J-List page, which causes individual categories to give a "page not found" error. If you should happen to experience problems with the J-List site, please let us know right away and we'll get on the problem.
We love the interactive love-simulation games from Japan, and work hard to bring these great games to you. This month, we're having a "free shipping sale" on some of our favorite games, the great English-language bishoujo releases from G-Collections! The four G-Collections games are I'm Gonna Nurse You (sexy goings-on in a school for nurses in training), Kana ~ Little Sister (heartfelt game about love between brother and sister with a story that will have you in tears), DOR (a classic bishoujo game from one of Japan's top game companies) and Chain ~ The Forgotten Footsteps, an excellent game loaded with sexual intrigue and more. Get free shipping on these games in the U.S. and Canada or half price shipping for international orders this month!
For the new update, we have some excellent products for you, including:
For our adult customers, we've got many new 18+ products. They include:
The J-Mate site has been updated again, with new reviews of Aroma Planning's "International Lesbian" and also a review of the autobiographical movie based on Ai Iijima's life, "Platonic Sex." The URL for J-Mate is http://www.jmate.com/
Remember that J-List carries many cute items for your kitchen, including bento boxes and accessories, Japanese chopsticks (both basic ones for general use and cute chopsticks), sushi and onigiri molds, wacky Japanse kitchen containers, and more. Please check out the "Kitchen and Bento" section of the Wacky Things from Japan page!
I don't doubt that part of the reason I live in Japan today is all the Japanese TV and movies I enjoyed as a child -- Ultraman and Johnny Socko and his Flying Robot, Star Blazers, Kimba the White Lion, and so on. But while I was being influenced with a love of Japan, my wife was watching American TV shows that were being broadcast in Japan, shows like Charlie's Angels, Bewitched (brought over as "Okusama wa Majo" or My Wife is a Witch), I Dream of Genie, Knight Rider and so on. Just as I was first interested in Japan through monster movies and anime, she became intrested in America through American television. When we started dating, we knew we would end up married because we had so much in common, including a love of the 1980s show The Greatest American Hero. Fate can be very funny, can't it?
The Japanese are always pleased by foreigners taking an interest in their language and becoming fluent in Japanese, and many of the actors and comedians on Japanese TV are foreigners who have mastered Japanese enough to even be funny in the language. Dave Specter, an American who came to Japan as a TV producer, is universally despised by gaijin like me, usually because his Japanese is better than ours (but I hate him because he dyes his black hair blonde to appear more "American"). Daniel Carl is famous because he mastered Japan's Yamagata dialect, and it's funny to see an American speaking redneck Japanese. Thane Camus (prounced "Sane Kamyu" in Japanese) is a super-cute "gaijin talent" (and incidentally the grandson of famous French novelist Albert Camus) who does a show called World's Funniest English, in which Japanese who do not speak English are asked to tell stories in English while the exact translation of what they're saying appears on the TV. (If you want to see what he looks like, his homepage is here: http://www.thane.co.jp/thaneworld/info.html) And then there's Wickie-san, who came to Japan from Sri Lanka and passed the entrance exam to Tokyo University, Japan's top-ranked school. His primary goal is to get Japanese people to learn that Sri Lanka is not part of Africa.
Some customers have been reporting a problem with the J-List page, which causes individual categories to give a "page not found" error. If you should happen to experience problems with the J-List site, please let us know right away and we'll get on the problem.
We love the interactive love-simulation games from Japan, and work hard to bring these great games to you. This month, we're having a "free shipping sale" on some of our favorite games, the great English-language bishoujo releases from G-Collections! The four G-Collections games are I'm Gonna Nurse You (sexy goings-on in a school for nurses in training), Kana ~ Little Sister (heartfelt game about love between brother and sister with a story that will have you in tears), DOR (a classic bishoujo game from one of Japan's top game companies) and Chain ~ The Forgotten Footsteps, an excellent game loaded with sexual intrigue and more. Get free shipping on these games in the U.S. and Canada or half price shipping for international orders this month!
For the new update, we have some excellent products for you, including:
- For fans of beautiful anime art books, enjoy a great collection of Masahisa Suzuki artwork, loaded with color illustrations
- We've got reduced prices on the very nice bilingual comics we have, featuring Cardcaptor Sakura, Ah My Goddess and Love Hina with both English and Japanese, right in the book!
- For Japanese snack fans, we'v got some nice items for you, including tasty Cafe Chocolat Pretz, rare Babana Kit Kat from Nestle, and some delicious Hello Kitty "edible bubbles" that are fun to play with and eat
- Speaking of Hello Kitty, we've got some nice new items for you, including a great Hello Kitty USB hub (Kitty types on her keyboard when you do)
- For Gundam fans, see the great plush toy of Haro, the flying round robot from the first two Gundam series -- it's really just too cool!
- Also for anime and toys fans, enjoy fresh stock of many cool items, including the Japanese-only Hot Wheels, fresh stock of the Space Cruiser Yamato die-cast toy that is so cool, and more!
- We've got a killer item for Evangelion fans, too: a beautiful "master model production" of the third Angel Sachiel from Kaiyodo
- Also, for Star Wars fans, we've got fresh stock of the popular "Kiran Kiran" lighting necklaces, including Darth Vader and Yoda!
- Laputa fans will love the beautiful soft vinyl Laputian Robot keychain added to the site -- it's so cool!
- For fans of traditional items, we've got a beautiful set of "card wallets" that you can use as business card holders, or else carry anything from credit cards to cash in them -- they're made out of the same material as kimonos
- Finally, see a nifty train pass you can use, wacky Japanese stamps, a handy "pocket toilet" for times when you can't get to one, and more!
For our adult customers, we've got many new 18+ products. They include:
- For Japanese magazine fans, we've got the new Video Boy and Best Video, two excellent all-purpose adult video magazines that feature all pro AV idols from Japan's adult video world
- Also, we've got fresh stock of the popular backissues of magazines, stocked in our office in San Diego -- check them out on magazine page 3!
- For fans of Japan's hardcover glossy photobooks, we've got some nice new items, including Kyoko Ayana's beautiful nude photobook, and great items by Mihiro and Ayaka Bessho
- For adult manga fans, we've got some great new hentai comics, including Milk Lovers by Belle Comics, as well as other new works and restocked comic works including Huge Breast Mother and Daughter
- Also, we have the excellent vol. 5 of A-G, the English hentai magazine of "art, sex and CG culture"
- For DVD fans, we've got many nice items for you, starting with a 180 minute collection of the "first debut fuck" of sixteen famous AV idols (region free)
- From Soft on Demand comes a very special item: to commemorate their reaching $70 million in annual sales, they've released a special DVD of their best works over the past 7 years -- 4 hours! (region free)
- Also from SOD, a great new "Rubbing the Breasts for the First Time" offering (region free)
- Maria Yumino and four AV gals go into the Magic Mirror Box Car for some excellent "fan thanks" in beautiful Shonan Beach, Yokohama (region free)
- For fans of Japanese Indies, enjoy a very detailed "digital mosaic" release with the lovely Nao Oikawa (region 2)
- If you're interested in Japanese films, especially in the story of Ai Iijima, one of the most famous AV actresses of the 1990's, don't miss the excellent Platonic Sex, in stock now and with English subtitles! (region 2)
- Finally, we've got a major restock of DVDs, including Minori Aoi's great Cosplay Mania, Ryoko Mitake's Parfum, hard- and softcore titles from Hitomi Hayasaka, more Mai Hagiwara DVDs and more!
The J-Mate site has been updated again, with new reviews of Aroma Planning's "International Lesbian" and also a review of the autobiographical movie based on Ai Iijima's life, "Platonic Sex." The URL for J-Mate is http://www.jmate.com/
Remember that J-List carries many cute items for your kitchen, including bento boxes and accessories, Japanese chopsticks (both basic ones for general use and cute chopsticks), sushi and onigiri molds, wacky Japanse kitchen containers, and more. Please check out the "Kitchen and Bento" section of the Wacky Things from Japan page!
Saturday, September 28, 2002
Greetings from J-List September 28, 2002
Hello again from Japan, where the most common kind of coffee ordered in restaurants here is known as "American coffee."
One of my favorites from my YBIJTLW list, located on my personal homepage: "You've been in Japan too long when it takes you several seconds of deep thought to recall the first name of the President of the United States." It's true -- you'd be surprised what living in a foreign country can do to your ability to recall seldom-used information, or even remember some English vocabulary words. Try going years without ever hearing or uttering difficult words, like "gynecologist" or "irreplacable" -- they can be quite difficult to dredge up from the depths of your memory, even if English is your native language. It's especially bad for native English speakers who work as English teachers in Japan, because you can go for months without hearing any English except the simplified utterances of your students, which invariably begins to affect your English in a negative way. In the same way that living in a country like India or New Zealand would begin to affect your own spoken English over time, living in Japan can takes its toll, too.
One of the core concepts to Japanese society is an unstated belief that all Japanese are basically "the same" (known as the Myth of Japanese Uniformity). While Japanese would be insulted at anyone insinuating that "all Japanese look alike" to foreigners (although I've been told by Japanese that all foreigners look alike to them), they do have a tendency to see all Japanese as coming from the same stock and having the same features, which is a useful social engine for creating a unified national identity. Here's the rub: in reality, there is a wide variety of features among "Japanese" people, with obvious influences from Korean, Mongolian and Ainu blood, differences in skin color and the depth of facial features, size of the eyes, and so on. Conveniently for their harmony-based society, the Japanese don't "see" differences in facial features of their own people, allowing everyone to get along on a more even plane.
One group that is somewhat outside this umbrella of uniformity are the Ainu, the indigenous people who lived in Japan from prehistoric times. As culture took root in the Kansai region of Japan, rising with Buddhism and trade after 593 A.D., the Ainu people got pushed further and further north. Now the "Ainu" (defined as people who describe themselves as Ainu, as opposed to people with Ainu blood in their veins but who consider themselves Japanese) live mainly in Hokkaido and on smaller islands, including the disputed islands occupied by Russia after World War II. Ainu living in Hokkaido often come into conflict with the Japanese government, such as when the government wanted to build a dam that would displace hundreds of Ainu.
For bishoujo gaming fans, we're happy to announce that Viper Paradice, one of the freshest and most entertaining concepts in the English hentai gaming world, is in stock and shipping now! This is a great game in which you assume the role of one of four lovely females from the Viper games, and play against other human or computer-controlled characters to get points and collect all the erotic Viper movies. A great new game from Hobibox Europe, and in stock in San Diego!
For the new update, we've got lots of nice items, including really cool backpacks for kids featuring Hello Kitty and "Shinkansen" (the Sanrio characters for boys who love trains), more of the excellent Totoro music boxes (great for collectors) and plush toys, great new bento boxes, fresh stock of only-sold-in-Japan Star Wars plush toys and other items, more of the cool Jin-Roh figures and Japan Hot Wheels, stock of the excellent Original Pocky and Men's Pocky, a great line of anime toys based on classic anime shows, and more! For our adult customers, we've got some very nice items, including a new photobook by the lovely Maiko Kazano, new and restocked hentai manga, a great erotic new DVD release from Akira Watase, fresh stock of dozens of top-selling adult DVD titles including the Very Best of Million, Desire Lesbian and CC Idol, fresh stock of rare back-issues of Urecco, Gal's Dee and others, and much more!
Do you love the anime films of Hayao Miyazaki? One of his best-ever films is coming out on DVD in just a few days -- Castle in the Sky, Laputa. It's available for preorder from J-List, so reserve your copy now! Laputa is one of the best of all the Studio Ghibli works, and is an excellent film that no anime fan should be without. The Japanese release contains the full English dubbed version, as well as English subtitles. It's a region 2 release.
Remember that J-List sells region-free DVD players that allow you to view DVDs from all over the world, even PAL DVDs from Europe. And, the two Sampo units we sell have a feature (unsupported, but it works well) that removes Macrovision, making the players "VCR friendly" -- a great additional feature for you. Best of all, our players are very affordable, with the Sampo DVE-612 starting at just $109. All DVD players are stocked in San Diego for your ordering convenience.
One of my favorites from my YBIJTLW list, located on my personal homepage: "You've been in Japan too long when it takes you several seconds of deep thought to recall the first name of the President of the United States." It's true -- you'd be surprised what living in a foreign country can do to your ability to recall seldom-used information, or even remember some English vocabulary words. Try going years without ever hearing or uttering difficult words, like "gynecologist" or "irreplacable" -- they can be quite difficult to dredge up from the depths of your memory, even if English is your native language. It's especially bad for native English speakers who work as English teachers in Japan, because you can go for months without hearing any English except the simplified utterances of your students, which invariably begins to affect your English in a negative way. In the same way that living in a country like India or New Zealand would begin to affect your own spoken English over time, living in Japan can takes its toll, too.
One of the core concepts to Japanese society is an unstated belief that all Japanese are basically "the same" (known as the Myth of Japanese Uniformity). While Japanese would be insulted at anyone insinuating that "all Japanese look alike" to foreigners (although I've been told by Japanese that all foreigners look alike to them), they do have a tendency to see all Japanese as coming from the same stock and having the same features, which is a useful social engine for creating a unified national identity. Here's the rub: in reality, there is a wide variety of features among "Japanese" people, with obvious influences from Korean, Mongolian and Ainu blood, differences in skin color and the depth of facial features, size of the eyes, and so on. Conveniently for their harmony-based society, the Japanese don't "see" differences in facial features of their own people, allowing everyone to get along on a more even plane.
One group that is somewhat outside this umbrella of uniformity are the Ainu, the indigenous people who lived in Japan from prehistoric times. As culture took root in the Kansai region of Japan, rising with Buddhism and trade after 593 A.D., the Ainu people got pushed further and further north. Now the "Ainu" (defined as people who describe themselves as Ainu, as opposed to people with Ainu blood in their veins but who consider themselves Japanese) live mainly in Hokkaido and on smaller islands, including the disputed islands occupied by Russia after World War II. Ainu living in Hokkaido often come into conflict with the Japanese government, such as when the government wanted to build a dam that would displace hundreds of Ainu.
For bishoujo gaming fans, we're happy to announce that Viper Paradice, one of the freshest and most entertaining concepts in the English hentai gaming world, is in stock and shipping now! This is a great game in which you assume the role of one of four lovely females from the Viper games, and play against other human or computer-controlled characters to get points and collect all the erotic Viper movies. A great new game from Hobibox Europe, and in stock in San Diego!
For the new update, we've got lots of nice items, including really cool backpacks for kids featuring Hello Kitty and "Shinkansen" (the Sanrio characters for boys who love trains), more of the excellent Totoro music boxes (great for collectors) and plush toys, great new bento boxes, fresh stock of only-sold-in-Japan Star Wars plush toys and other items, more of the cool Jin-Roh figures and Japan Hot Wheels, stock of the excellent Original Pocky and Men's Pocky, a great line of anime toys based on classic anime shows, and more! For our adult customers, we've got some very nice items, including a new photobook by the lovely Maiko Kazano, new and restocked hentai manga, a great erotic new DVD release from Akira Watase, fresh stock of dozens of top-selling adult DVD titles including the Very Best of Million, Desire Lesbian and CC Idol, fresh stock of rare back-issues of Urecco, Gal's Dee and others, and much more!
Do you love the anime films of Hayao Miyazaki? One of his best-ever films is coming out on DVD in just a few days -- Castle in the Sky, Laputa. It's available for preorder from J-List, so reserve your copy now! Laputa is one of the best of all the Studio Ghibli works, and is an excellent film that no anime fan should be without. The Japanese release contains the full English dubbed version, as well as English subtitles. It's a region 2 release.
Remember that J-List sells region-free DVD players that allow you to view DVDs from all over the world, even PAL DVDs from Europe. And, the two Sampo units we sell have a feature (unsupported, but it works well) that removes Macrovision, making the players "VCR friendly" -- a great additional feature for you. Best of all, our players are very affordable, with the Sampo DVE-612 starting at just $109. All DVD players are stocked in San Diego for your ordering convenience.
Wednesday, September 25, 2002
Greetings from J-List September 25, 2002
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Monday, September 23, 2002
Greetings from J-List September 23, 2002
Hello again from Japan!
Well, the Autumn Sumo tournament is over, and Hawaiian wrestler Musashimaru has won. He defeated the top Japanese wrestler, Takanohana (the only other Grand Master in the Sumo league; all the other giants of the Sumo world have retired recently), who has been plagued by leg injuries for months. With this victory, Musashimaru has passed the number of tournament victories of Takanohana, quite an achievement for a gaijin. If you'd like to see information on these two wrestlers, see http://www.sumo.or.jp/eng/meikan/rikishidata/rikishi.php?A=1 (for information on Takanohana) and http://www.sumo.or.jp/eng/meikan/rikishidata/rikishi.php?A=36 (for information on Musashimaru). Sumo wrestling, the national sport of Japan, has been around for hundreds of years. Six times a year, the wrestlers meet at different arenas around Japan and fight one bout a day for 15 days. The wrestler with the best win-loss record is the victor. For an excellent overview of the sport, the Nihon Sumo Kyoukai has a very good page -- the URL is here: http://www.sumo.or.jp/eng/index.php
I remember when I first started learning Japanese, I wondered how Japanese text entry could work on a computer. I pictured some horrible keyboard with hundreds of keys, but in reality, they just use the same QWERTY keyboards we do. Japanese input is accomplished through a front-end processor, basically a program that ships with all Japanese computers, which takes the text you enter and lets you choose which kanji (or hiragana, or katakana) you want to put into your document. After typing some Japanese text, you convert it with the space bar, and the front-end processor will bring up the characters it thinks you want. When you get used to the system, you can enter Japanese text quite quickly. Some front-end processors are better than others, though -- Kotoeri, which comes with Mac OS 9 and OS X, tends to get the wrong character pretty often; third party companies in Japan offer replacement front-ends that are more efficient. (The one we recommend is EGBridge, and it's available for all major OSes including Mac OS X.)
It's nice to see Spirited Away getting a lot of good reviews and generating lots of buzz in theatres in the U.S. We love the film and hope it does well in the U.S., especially since it may be Mr. Miyazaki's last film. If you're looking for showtimes for the film, you might try http://www.fandango.com/ . Of course, we've been selling the excellent 2-disc DVD release of the film since it came out in Japan, and we've got them in stock for you if you want to order this excellent film now. Since it's fully subtitled in English (also French), you won't have to endure any bad English dubbing that may have found its way into the American release of the film. Like all anime releases in Japan, it's a region 2 DVD, but happily, we've got region free DVD players in stock for you too!
2003 calendar preorders are coming along nicely. So far, both of the Chobits calendars are in the lead, showing the strong popularity of this excellent anime show, followed this year by several of the nude calendars (Ryoko Mitake and Hitomi Hayasaka especially). Yuko Ogura, a favorite swimsuit idol of mine, is proving very popular, as is the lovely Eiko Koike swimsuit idol. Anime calendars like the Studio Ghibli and Tenchi Muyo offerings are also doing great. We're happy to see some Japanese faces like Rena Tanaka (a cute "girl next door" type of young actress popular on Japanese TV) developing a following around the world -- I wonder if they know they've got fans outside of Japan? JPOP calendars like Morning Musume, Maki Gotoh and Ayumi Hamasaki are selling well, and we've also been happy with the sales of the "sexy idol" calendars like Yinling, Fumika Suzuki and the Japan Race Queens calendar. Remember that the sooner you preorder your 2003 calendars, the easier it is for us to get them for you. J-List makes over 250 of the excellent calendars printed in Japan each year to you, and we hope you'll browse our selection and see what we've got. Order 4 or more calendars and your mailing tubes are free.
For the new update, we've got lots of cool stuff from Japan for you, including:
For our adult customers, we've got many new 18+ products. They include:
Remember that J-List is having a free shipping sale on the Peach Princess bishoujo games. Get any of their currently shipping titles and get free shipping in the U.S. or Canada, or half off your shipping for international orders.
Also remember that J-List makes dozens of magazines available through our "reserve subscription" system. Basically, we'll pre-reserve the current issue of each month's magazine for you and have it in the mail to you by the time it's in bookstores here in Japan -- a few days earlier, since we get our stock earlier than most bookstores. We've got many different anime, toy, JPOP/JROCK, idol and other magazines available. (We also sell adult magazines like Urecco and Gal's Dee via a 6- or 12-month subscription system as well.) See the magazine subscription pages on our site for more information.
Well, the Autumn Sumo tournament is over, and Hawaiian wrestler Musashimaru has won. He defeated the top Japanese wrestler, Takanohana (the only other Grand Master in the Sumo league; all the other giants of the Sumo world have retired recently), who has been plagued by leg injuries for months. With this victory, Musashimaru has passed the number of tournament victories of Takanohana, quite an achievement for a gaijin. If you'd like to see information on these two wrestlers, see http://www.sumo.or.jp/eng/meikan/rikishidata/rikishi.php?A=1 (for information on Takanohana) and http://www.sumo.or.jp/eng/meikan/rikishidata/rikishi.php?A=36 (for information on Musashimaru). Sumo wrestling, the national sport of Japan, has been around for hundreds of years. Six times a year, the wrestlers meet at different arenas around Japan and fight one bout a day for 15 days. The wrestler with the best win-loss record is the victor. For an excellent overview of the sport, the Nihon Sumo Kyoukai has a very good page -- the URL is here: http://www.sumo.or.jp/eng/index.php
I remember when I first started learning Japanese, I wondered how Japanese text entry could work on a computer. I pictured some horrible keyboard with hundreds of keys, but in reality, they just use the same QWERTY keyboards we do. Japanese input is accomplished through a front-end processor, basically a program that ships with all Japanese computers, which takes the text you enter and lets you choose which kanji (or hiragana, or katakana) you want to put into your document. After typing some Japanese text, you convert it with the space bar, and the front-end processor will bring up the characters it thinks you want. When you get used to the system, you can enter Japanese text quite quickly. Some front-end processors are better than others, though -- Kotoeri, which comes with Mac OS 9 and OS X, tends to get the wrong character pretty often; third party companies in Japan offer replacement front-ends that are more efficient. (The one we recommend is EGBridge, and it's available for all major OSes including Mac OS X.)
It's nice to see Spirited Away getting a lot of good reviews and generating lots of buzz in theatres in the U.S. We love the film and hope it does well in the U.S., especially since it may be Mr. Miyazaki's last film. If you're looking for showtimes for the film, you might try http://www.fandango.com/ . Of course, we've been selling the excellent 2-disc DVD release of the film since it came out in Japan, and we've got them in stock for you if you want to order this excellent film now. Since it's fully subtitled in English (also French), you won't have to endure any bad English dubbing that may have found its way into the American release of the film. Like all anime releases in Japan, it's a region 2 DVD, but happily, we've got region free DVD players in stock for you too!
2003 calendar preorders are coming along nicely. So far, both of the Chobits calendars are in the lead, showing the strong popularity of this excellent anime show, followed this year by several of the nude calendars (Ryoko Mitake and Hitomi Hayasaka especially). Yuko Ogura, a favorite swimsuit idol of mine, is proving very popular, as is the lovely Eiko Koike swimsuit idol. Anime calendars like the Studio Ghibli and Tenchi Muyo offerings are also doing great. We're happy to see some Japanese faces like Rena Tanaka (a cute "girl next door" type of young actress popular on Japanese TV) developing a following around the world -- I wonder if they know they've got fans outside of Japan? JPOP calendars like Morning Musume, Maki Gotoh and Ayumi Hamasaki are selling well, and we've also been happy with the sales of the "sexy idol" calendars like Yinling, Fumika Suzuki and the Japan Race Queens calendar. Remember that the sooner you preorder your 2003 calendars, the easier it is for us to get them for you. J-List makes over 250 of the excellent calendars printed in Japan each year to you, and we hope you'll browse our selection and see what we've got. Order 4 or more calendars and your mailing tubes are free.
For the new update, we've got lots of cool stuff from Japan for you, including:
- For fans of the rubber hero Ultraman, the original hero to defend Japan from terrible monsters, we have a deluxe large-size soft vinyl figure that is very cool
- For fans of the very Japanese "Mi-ke Neko" alarm clock and picture frame, we've got two very nice Japanese mirrors that feature these very cute characters and traditional settings
- If you like Japan's lovely swimsuit idols and Race Queens, enjoy the new items we're posting for you today
- Also, we've got fresh stock of some nice items, including the Morning Musume photobooks and more
- We've also got a new high-quality My Neighbor Totoro music box from Sun Arrow, a great item for collectors of Totoro items
- We have some cool Hello Kitty items that you can't get outside of Japan, including two very cool Kitty notebooks (complete with funny English on them), Kitty pencils and erasers, and a cool Japanese Kitty correction tape dispenser
- Also, a very cute Hello Kitty "Dental Care Kit" with everything you need to take care of your teeth on the road
- Parody goods are popular in Japan right now, and we've got a nice item for you: a series of ballpoint pen and mechanical pencil that look like injection needles full of blood
- Want to get attention? We've got a cool rubber mask of the golden Great Buddha statue in Nara, Japan, that's just too wacky
- For fans of our snack foods, enjoy the new Pucchi Kitty Chocolate, delicious squares of chocolate in three flavors for Kitty fans
- Also in stock, we've got new items like Okinawa Black Sugar Pretz, new miso soup and furikake, fresh stock of Pucca (chocolate filled fish-shaped crackers),
- Also very fun, we've got tubes of Japanese wasabi and "karashi" mustard that are really fun keychains with lights inside them
- We love Tomy's line of Tomica mini-cars, small die-cast toy cars that are compatible with Hot Wheels or Matchbox cars, and we've got new cars in stock for you (including the Toyota Prius)
- Finally, look for Japanese diet tea, a handy way to cut hard-boiled eggs, more fun with bento boxes, wooden signs with messages on them, Thunder Bunny goods, and more!
For our adult customers, we've got many new 18+ products. They include:
- For magazine fans, please enjoy the new issues of Best Video and Video Boy that we've posted for you, two very nice all-purpose adult video magazines that track all AV companies in Japan
- Also, we've got the new issue of Shuffle in, which is very popular because it really pushes the limits on amateur sex in love hotels
- We've got an older issue of Photo Shot in stock too, featuring such lovelies as Hikaru Kawamura, Mai Shiina and Akari Yamasaki (girls who are hard to find these days since most are retired
- Also very cool, the "goodbye" nude photobook of Megumi Osawa, and a beautiful bondage and lingerie photobook featuring some lovely models
- We've got fresh stock of many nice items, including the sexy photobooks of Rio Sannomiya and Maiko Kazano, and more
- For hentai game fans, the new issue of Push is in stock, featuring two CD-ROMs of demos and other goodies just for you, as well as tons of information on the current bishoujo games selling in Japan
- For bargain hunters, we've got the very nice Adult DVD Paradise, which features 150 minutes of AV on a Japanese DVD (region free) along with a magazine
- For hentai manga fans, we have an extra cool selection of hentai comics, including a great large-breast dick-girl offering from Suzuran Comics, a compilation of the classic "Cambion" Vampire Savior hentai manga, and much more
- Also, newly posted issues of the popular Angelic Impact, compilations of hentai doujinshi from Fusion Project, and fresh stock of the cool Chobits hentai anthology Chokotto
- Also, we've got fresh doujinshi for you, including some extremely rare and special items from Koh Kajiwara (!)
- Look for fresh stock of many sex toys that are only sold in Japan, including the New Magical Mitten, the inflatable love pillows of real Japanese AV idols, the deluxe Hello Kitty massager, and more
- For DVD fans, we've got some great new items for you, starting with fresh stock of the best-selling Big Breast Girls' School, which stars a host of famous AV idols like Wakana Sena -- and it's subtitled! (region free)
- See the lovely Ryoko Sawayama in a huge festival of bukkake in Soft on Demand's Endless Fucker, directed by Tohjiro (region free)
- See eleven lovely Japanese girls show you their masturbation in a new release from Deep's (region free)
- Enjoy the lovely "peach colored lesbian deep kiss" brought to you by the bold and popular Aroma Planning, a very cool AV studio highly recommended by our own Yasu (region 2)
- We love Akira Watase, and there's a super new DVD release from Wanz Factory for fans who want to inspect every crack and crevice of their favorite AV idol (region2)
- For fans of sexy Japanese Race Queens, enjoy the new DVD of Toko Ushikawa (region 2)
- Finally, look for restocked DVDs like Nanami Nanase's "Body Reconstruction," the lovely Stars 3-hour release from Megumi Osawa, the very erotic Mini Skirt Police parody from IEnergy, and more!
Remember that J-List is having a free shipping sale on the Peach Princess bishoujo games. Get any of their currently shipping titles and get free shipping in the U.S. or Canada, or half off your shipping for international orders.
Also remember that J-List makes dozens of magazines available through our "reserve subscription" system. Basically, we'll pre-reserve the current issue of each month's magazine for you and have it in the mail to you by the time it's in bookstores here in Japan -- a few days earlier, since we get our stock earlier than most bookstores. We've got many different anime, toy, JPOP/JROCK, idol and other magazines available. (We also sell adult magazines like Urecco and Gal's Dee via a 6- or 12-month subscription system as well.) See the magazine subscription pages on our site for more information.
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