Wednesday, July 02, 2003
Greetings from J-List July 2, 2003
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Monday, June 30, 2003
Greetings from J-List June 30, 2003
Hello again from Japan and J-List!
One of my favorites from the "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 "irreplaceable" -- 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. You find yourself speaking too slowly, pronouncing words too carefully, and avoiding some words you know listeners won't be able to understand. If I lived in New Zealand, it's natural that the Kiwi English being spoken around me would come to affect my own language -- and this is what happened, actually, when I lived there for a year when I was a boy, and I had to re-learn American English when I went home. Similarly, living in Japan can affect your English language skills in mysterious ways.
Another problem is what's referred to linguistically as interference. When speak two languages, information from one language can sometimes mess with information from the other language, causing confusion and embarrassment. In Japanese the words for splinter (a sliver of wood you get in your finger if you're not careful) and thorn (the prickly things on a rosebush) are the same: toge (TOH-gay). I know that a splinter and a thorn are two different concepts in English, but once in the U.S. when my daughter got a splinter in her foot, I got the two words confused in my head. When my mother heard me asking to help get the "thorn" out of my daughter's foot with tweezers she wondered what I was talking about. ^_^
Another major area of interference between English and Japanese are numbers: the Sino-Japanese numeric system, which came from China, is fundamentally clunky when converting to the Arabic numeric system. The number system used in Japan revolves around the unit 10,000 ("man," pronounced "mahn"), rather than 1,000 as in the Arabic system; thus, the number 10,000 is "1 man" (ichi mahn), 20,000 yen is "2 man" (ni mahn), 100,000 is "10 man" (juu mahn) and so on. The conversion from one numeric system to the other is just frustrating enough that most foreigners will be happy to leave their numbers in Japanese, if the person they're talking with understands the words. Thus a gaijin living in Japan is likely to say, "I bought a new cellular phone, but it cost me 2 mahn en" (20,000 yen), or, "My car broke, and it's going to cost 10 mahn en to fix it" (100,000 yen).
Do you have Paypal? In addition to major credit cards, checks, bank and postal money orders and (in extreme circumstances) cash sent through the mail, we gladly accept Paypal for payment of orders. Paypal is a handy service that makes it quite easy to send money around the world over the Internet. While Paypal is quite popular in the U.S., our customers in Europe without credit cards haven't had a single "best" way to pay for purchases at J-List. Since Paypal is available in 38 countries and can work with US$, CDN$, Euros and U.K. pounds, we strongly recommend it to customers all around the world. To create an account go to http://www.paypal.com (to open a non-U.S. accounts, click the "worldwide" link).
For the new update, we've got some excellent products from Japan for you. They include:
For our adult customers, we've got many new 18+ products. They include:
Finally, a general restocking of all-nude (Zenra) sports including All Nude Basketball -- great fun!
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 Japanese kitchen containers, and more. Please check out the "Kitchen and Bento" section of the Wacky Things from Japan page!
One of my favorites from the "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 "irreplaceable" -- 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. You find yourself speaking too slowly, pronouncing words too carefully, and avoiding some words you know listeners won't be able to understand. If I lived in New Zealand, it's natural that the Kiwi English being spoken around me would come to affect my own language -- and this is what happened, actually, when I lived there for a year when I was a boy, and I had to re-learn American English when I went home. Similarly, living in Japan can affect your English language skills in mysterious ways.
Another problem is what's referred to linguistically as interference. When speak two languages, information from one language can sometimes mess with information from the other language, causing confusion and embarrassment. In Japanese the words for splinter (a sliver of wood you get in your finger if you're not careful) and thorn (the prickly things on a rosebush) are the same: toge (TOH-gay). I know that a splinter and a thorn are two different concepts in English, but once in the U.S. when my daughter got a splinter in her foot, I got the two words confused in my head. When my mother heard me asking to help get the "thorn" out of my daughter's foot with tweezers she wondered what I was talking about. ^_^
Another major area of interference between English and Japanese are numbers: the Sino-Japanese numeric system, which came from China, is fundamentally clunky when converting to the Arabic numeric system. The number system used in Japan revolves around the unit 10,000 ("man," pronounced "mahn"), rather than 1,000 as in the Arabic system; thus, the number 10,000 is "1 man" (ichi mahn), 20,000 yen is "2 man" (ni mahn), 100,000 is "10 man" (juu mahn) and so on. The conversion from one numeric system to the other is just frustrating enough that most foreigners will be happy to leave their numbers in Japanese, if the person they're talking with understands the words. Thus a gaijin living in Japan is likely to say, "I bought a new cellular phone, but it cost me 2 mahn en" (20,000 yen), or, "My car broke, and it's going to cost 10 mahn en to fix it" (100,000 yen).
Do you have Paypal? In addition to major credit cards, checks, bank and postal money orders and (in extreme circumstances) cash sent through the mail, we gladly accept Paypal for payment of orders. Paypal is a handy service that makes it quite easy to send money around the world over the Internet. While Paypal is quite popular in the U.S., our customers in Europe without credit cards haven't had a single "best" way to pay for purchases at J-List. Since Paypal is available in 38 countries and can work with US$, CDN$, Euros and U.K. pounds, we strongly recommend it to customers all around the world. To create an account go to http://www.paypal.com (to open a non-U.S. accounts, click the "worldwide" link).
For the new update, we've got some excellent products from Japan for you. They include:
- First, for Totoro lovers we've got some great new items for you, including a superb set of three Totoro figures and May acting out a famous scene from the timeless animated film by Hayao Miyazaki
- Also, cute magnets of Bou from the popular movie Spirited Away, as well as restocked items from all of Studio Ghibli's films including the large Laputian robot from Cominca
- If you love Chobits, the excellent manga series by CLAMP, enjoy the bilingual Chobits comics, with both English and Japanese printed right in the book
- For Astro Boy fans, a cute item: a Choro Q vehicle that features Atom flying on top
- We've got some great Japanese swimsuit idol photobook items including the sexy "May Be Dream" photobook of Makiko Fujii
- For fans of cosplay and Japanese high school uniforms (which we sell), we've got a superb pair of photobooks that show the prettiest girls from famous high schools, showing the prettiest uniforms you've ever seen
- For Hello Kitty fans, a great item, a cup with straw that your little one (or you) will love to drink from
- We've got a variety of authentic Japanese train pass cases, to hold your train pass, or if you don't have one, then any other cards you may want to carry
- For fans of Japanese snacks, some great items, including Japanese Collon cookies (they're good, really), delicious clear soda-flavored candy, super cute Mickey Mouse cookies filled with chocolate, and an ume (plum) flavored drink for the summer
- Also, we've gotten the cool retro package of Bon Curry, the handy boil-in-bag curry that you just pour over white rice and eat
- English can be difficult for the Japanese, and we've got a wacky wooden sign that welcomes guests to your home -- You are Welcome!
- For Tomica (which is short for "Tomy Miniature Car") we have a cute Pokemon bus and a Coca Cola Event Car, in stock for you
- For fans of Yuka, the super-cute Japanese idol, we've got the making of DVD for her hit film "When You Sing about Love" (filmed in Australia) (region 2)
- I loved the Space Cruiser Yamato/Star Blazers anime when I was a child, and am glad to be able to carry some cool items for people in the same boat as me (no pun intended) -- see the die-cast Yamato toys we've got in stock now
- There's been a huge amount of interest in the Sesame Street Kubrick toys, and we've gotten in fresh stock of full sets -- but snap them up quickly because these things have a way of disappearing from distribution fast
- For Sailor Moon fans, we've restocked the oh-so-cool Sailor Moon PVC figure series, look at them now
- Also, for Shirow Masamune fans, see many new items, such as his Ghost in the Shell bilingual manga and Jashin Hunter illustrated novels,
- Also, for fans of the Japan-only Hot Wheels, new Kamen Rider vehicles that are just too cool
- A dynamite item for fans of the space program: a deluxe Kubrick tribute to the first astronauts, complete with orbiting vehicle, cosmonaut Yury Gagarin and the first dog to orbit the Earth
- Also, for Final Fantasy loves, fresh stock of the high quality PVC figures released this month!
- Finally, look for a funny pencil case with French on it, a handy all-purpose wooden box that feels like old Japan, more tasty miso soup and kimchee furikake, Hello Kitty dental floss and more!
For our adult customers, we've got many new 18+ products. They include:
- For fans of lovely Japanese AV queens, we've got the new issue of Bejean, the oversized Japanese magazine filled with top stars like Yuko Ogura, Megumi, Saori Kamiya, and more -- they come with 3D glasses too!
- Then enjoy the new issue of Gotcha!, a great hardcore bukkake magazine featuring really pretty amateur girls
- See elegant busty Japanese girls with breasts up to 102 cm in size in a great new hardcore Big Bust Paradise
- For photobook fans, don't miss the great Million Girls hardcover photobook, a selection of great erotic photos from the top five girls in Million's pantheon -- Nao Oikawa, Hitomi Hasegawa, Saori Kamiya, Hitomi Hayasaka and Ran Monbu!
- For hentai manga fans, we've got several great new offerings for you including the dynamite Illustrated Maya Miyazaki, one of the most talented hentai artists we've seen in an age
- Yasu has also posted a ton of fresh stock of hentai comics, including Yuwaku by Mujin Comics, the Urotsuki-doji-style Tokyo Requiem, and the dynamite Colors Anthology comic -- see the dozen or so restocked items
- For fans of hentai art books, enjoy the fantastic Hanafuda, the large-format full-color erotic tale of animal lust and kemono themes
- Also, a great doujinshi anthology manga, th new Lovely Collection vol. 2, featuring incredibly erotic anime parody of Chobits, Please Teacher, and more
- For our DVD fans, we've got the 5th and final Bring Up Ecstasy 4 Hours erotic offering from Million -- see 4 hours of Ran Monbu (e.g. Monbu Ran, e.g. Mont Blanc, the famous French dessert) (region free)
- Then see the very best lesbian sex ever filmed by Dogma director Hitoshi Nimura, with six fabulous erotic stars selected for you (region free)
- Then see great sex with girls in bloomers, those elastic sports shorts, in a new offering from SOD's Natural High (region free)
- Then enjoy a great pair of performances by Shinobu Kasagi and Shino Isshiki, featuring a tale of two sisters who learn of true love and sex, in a new offering from Soft on Demand and Deep's (region free)
- Cosplay is a major fetish in Japan, and girls dressing up as anime characters in adult DVDs is popular too -- see a great "cosplay bukkake" performance by Hitomi Hasegawa, as she get fucked and ejaculated upon by men while wearing many cute costumes (region 2)
- Then, we've got a superb erotic show for you by Rua Mochizuki, a new erotic offering for fans of various fetishes, by Wanz Factory (region 2)
Finally, a general restocking of all-nude (Zenra) sports including All Nude Basketball -- great fun!
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 Japanese kitchen containers, and more. Please check out the "Kitchen and Bento" section of the Wacky Things from Japan page!
Friday, June 27, 2003
Greetings from J-List June 27, 2003
Hello again from Japan, home of cars with odd names, like the Daihatsu Naked.
Sanrio's pantheon of cute characters are famous all the world over. The most famous is of course Hello Kitty, who is known as "Kitty-chan" ("chan" being a cute name tag attached to all cute or effeminate things) here in Japan. Kitty changes every year -- past Kitty variations have included Hawaiian Kitty, Kimono Kitty, and Wedding Kitty. Keroppi, the frog officially known as "Kero Kero Keroppi" in Japanese ("kero kero" is the sound of a frog croaking), is popular here, as is the yellow-and-brown dog Pom Pom Purin, who represents a sweet pudding-like dessert called flan, if you know what that is -- I didn't until I came to live in Japan. One of my personal favorite Sanrio characters is Shinkansen, the cute little Japanese bullet train characters that are very popular with Japanese boys, all of whom seem to go through a major love affair with trains when they're three.
The Japanese love to abbreviate words. Often it's to shorten a long and clumsy words imported from English: "digital camera," which is quite hard to say, is often shortened to "digi-kame" for example. Other abbreviations follow this four syllable pattern: Ame-komi (American comics), Sony-Pura (the fashionable Sony Plazas that dot Japanese cities), geesen (game center), pure-sute (Playstation), pasacon (personal computer), and so on. Names of famous people also get reduced to short versions, ala J.Lo -- handsome Japanese "talent" (what they call multi-talented entertainers here) Kimura Takuya is universally known as Kimu-Taku, and the cute former Morning Musume member Gotoh Maki is called Go-Maki. The Japanese love Brad Pitt's movies, and they've christened him with a Japanese nickname: Bura-Pii. We do this at J-List too. If there's a problem with Tomokazu's computer we would say "Peter, please take a look at Tomo-Con when you get time."
Often, when products from America or Europe are marketed in Japan, they are sold by Japanese companies who license the brands from their owners. I can enjoy drinks like Canada Dry Ginger Ale or Bireley's Orange Drink, but they don't come from Canada or the UK -- they come from the good old Asahi Beverage Company, and you can see the little Asahi corporate mark, hidden somewhere in the packaging. Budweiser is bottled by Kirin, and Ritz crackers are made by the Yamazaki Bread Company and sold under the Ritz brand name. A year ago, Tic Tacs (a word which sounds like "tick tock" to the Japanese) appeared in Japan, courtesy of the Morinaga Confectionery Company, but they didn't do well here -- Japanese thought it tasted like toothpaste.
For the new update, we've got some excellent products from Japan for you. They include:
For our adult customers, we've got many new 18+ products. They include:
Looking for a way to browse J-List products easily? Since we have over 2500 different products on our site (amazing, we know), you can use the handy "Three Day Link" which shows you all products added or updated within the past three days. Want to see more? Click the "View all products" link in the upper left hand corner of the site, and view all products on the J-List page, with the most recently added items appearing at the top, in order of how recently they were updated.
Remember that J-List carries a full line of Japanese snack foods, with many rare cult favorites in stock for you, like Japanese sushi gummi, Black Black caffeine gum, and also the delicious and popular Felix the Cat bubble gum, which is famous all the world over (we're not sure why, but based on the mails we get from customers, it is).
The J-Mate site has been updated again, this time with a great interview with experienced Japanese AV star Yukari Sakurada who is famous for her bukkake performances. Read her views on the adult video world and why she become an AV actress -- it's very enlightening! The URL is http://www.jmate.com
Sanrio's pantheon of cute characters are famous all the world over. The most famous is of course Hello Kitty, who is known as "Kitty-chan" ("chan" being a cute name tag attached to all cute or effeminate things) here in Japan. Kitty changes every year -- past Kitty variations have included Hawaiian Kitty, Kimono Kitty, and Wedding Kitty. Keroppi, the frog officially known as "Kero Kero Keroppi" in Japanese ("kero kero" is the sound of a frog croaking), is popular here, as is the yellow-and-brown dog Pom Pom Purin, who represents a sweet pudding-like dessert called flan, if you know what that is -- I didn't until I came to live in Japan. One of my personal favorite Sanrio characters is Shinkansen, the cute little Japanese bullet train characters that are very popular with Japanese boys, all of whom seem to go through a major love affair with trains when they're three.
The Japanese love to abbreviate words. Often it's to shorten a long and clumsy words imported from English: "digital camera," which is quite hard to say, is often shortened to "digi-kame" for example. Other abbreviations follow this four syllable pattern: Ame-komi (American comics), Sony-Pura (the fashionable Sony Plazas that dot Japanese cities), geesen (game center), pure-sute (Playstation), pasacon (personal computer), and so on. Names of famous people also get reduced to short versions, ala J.Lo -- handsome Japanese "talent" (what they call multi-talented entertainers here) Kimura Takuya is universally known as Kimu-Taku, and the cute former Morning Musume member Gotoh Maki is called Go-Maki. The Japanese love Brad Pitt's movies, and they've christened him with a Japanese nickname: Bura-Pii. We do this at J-List too. If there's a problem with Tomokazu's computer we would say "Peter, please take a look at Tomo-Con when you get time."
Often, when products from America or Europe are marketed in Japan, they are sold by Japanese companies who license the brands from their owners. I can enjoy drinks like Canada Dry Ginger Ale or Bireley's Orange Drink, but they don't come from Canada or the UK -- they come from the good old Asahi Beverage Company, and you can see the little Asahi corporate mark, hidden somewhere in the packaging. Budweiser is bottled by Kirin, and Ritz crackers are made by the Yamazaki Bread Company and sold under the Ritz brand name. A year ago, Tic Tacs (a word which sounds like "tick tock" to the Japanese) appeared in Japan, courtesy of the Morinaga Confectionery Company, but they didn't do well here -- Japanese thought it tasted like toothpaste.
For the new update, we've got some excellent products from Japan for you. They include:
- First, for fans of the Groomy line of plush pets for your computer, a new series: Clip Groomy, cute little bears that can do things like hold your mouse cord out of the way, hold messages and cling to your computer monitor!
- Also, a huge restocking of the popular Groomy plush dogs and cats, who have soft chamois bottoms for cleaning your computer monitor with
- If you love our Japanese snacks, enjoy several new items, such as Japanese plum wine candy, pineapple gummi treats, vitamin C candy from Japan, stewed ika (don't ask what this is), and delicious Japanese mushroom rice bowl mix for you to make and eat
- Also, enjoy authentic Japanese green tea -- with a cool Japanese tea container to hold your tea, too
- We just love the highly detailed die-cast metal Tomica cars from Tomy, and we've got two cool new unique Japanese cars for you
- For Hello Kitty fans, we have a great piece of pop culture for you: a deluxe Kitty kaiten zushi (conveyor belt sushi) that's great fun to display in your room
- If you love cute Japanese girls, we have a great photobook for fans of Yui Ichikawa -- comes with a cute paper doll of Yui-chan too!
- Then enjoy Sayuri Anzu's very sweet idol photobook, a great hardcover photobook that comes with a full image DVD too! (region 2)
- For doujinshi fans, a great non-hentai comic for you that parodies the Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball game
- We positively love the new Ghost in the Shell TV series that's being released on DVD in Japan -- we've got volume 7 in, and it's another great one you won't want to miss! (region 2)
- Also for Shirow Masamune fans, we've got fresh stock of his popular computer mouse!
- Usako Friends is really emerging as the super cute Japanese character of the year, and we've got two Usako Friends PET bottle holders for you -- they keep your drink hot or cold!
- We've got a handy item little "micro lens" that makes it easy to see anything -- items you look at are magnified 15 times!
- We've got more funky Japanese wooden signs for you -- "Open" and "Closed"
- Also, a really handy item -- a bag in a bag, which you can take with you, and whenever you need a bag, open the bag and get the other bag out
- For Hello Kitty fans (or those who hate Kitty-chan), we've got fresh stock of the super cute Kitty Toilet Paper, in two colors
- Finally, find authentic Japanese chopsticks, a great way to stop snoring, tofu and miso soup, furikake like your mother used to make, and more!
For our adult customers, we've got many new 18+ products. They include:
- For fans of great professional Japanese adult magazines, we've got the bold and sassy new issue of Gokuh, filled with top-quality Japanese AV stars for you
- Also enjoy a great magazine for fans of erotica between people who are in love, Couples Vol. 01, featuring boyfriend/girlfriend couples who are enjoying each other's sex because they love each other
- Then we've got the new issue of Yo! with many Japanese kogals in love hotels and amateur sex
- There's nothing better than getting a 180 minute DVD with a magazine for free -- check out the new issue of Mappa, which features short clips of sex from Japan's most famous and lovely AV stars, a great sampler item (region 2)
- For photobook fans, a superb erotic photobook featuring Ai Nagase's "nudie and virtual" sex, and it comes with a super giant poster too
- Also, enjoy the lovely pure nude of Lovely Maria and the incredible photobook of Kaoru, photographed by Aida Garo
- For fans of our extensive selection of hentai manga, we've got another great selection of items for you, including the erotic Amber Girl by Mujin Comics and The Slave as Flesh Hole by hentai artist Psycho, and the long-awaited Blue Eyes vol. 6
- For doujinshi fans, a manga that compiles some fantastic game girl parody hentai, with incredible Final Fantasy, Evangelion, naughty tentacles, and more
- Also, we've got a huge restocking of many popular books, including An Equation of the Night and The Equation of the Immoral by Azuki Kurenai, Oshiri Excellent (all ass-fetish anthology manga), and about a dozen more
- For fans of yaoi erotic comics, a great new "Judicial Love Story" from Aqua Comics
- J-List stocks many adult toys and vibrators which are only sold in the Japanese market -- look for fresh stock of the colored Cute Mini Vibrator, the Vibrating Ecstasy Brush, and the incredibly popular Rabbit Rotor, a cute little bunny that brings pleasure
- Also, we're stocked the enigmatic Clitoris Cap for you as well
- For our DVD customers, enjoy another value-priced Bring Up Ecstasy 4 Hours DVD, featuring Hitomi Hayasaka in an incredibly erotic production (region free)
- Then, a special One Year Anniversary Release by Million, see a superb lesbian performance starring Nao Oikawa and Kurumi Morishita, their first lesbian performance together (region free)
- Sora Aoi (aka Sola Aoi) is a pure, beautiful G cup angel -- see her great new release on th Samantha label (region free)
- From SOD, enjoy a remix of the best works of super busty Maria Yumeno -- includes chapters from Chie's Angels, the erotic parody of Charlie's Angels (region free)
- For those who like their sex "wet and messy," we've got a very interesting new release from SOD's Martian Devil, including body paint fetish and the first ever "gold leaf titty fuck" (region free)
- Then enjoy the Illusion Sperm Angel performance of Yu Tsutsumi, a wonderful bukkake release from Audaz for fans of sperm fetish (region 2)
- Finally, look for fresh stock of the popular Fetish & Erotic soft porn DVD series, and more!
Looking for a way to browse J-List products easily? Since we have over 2500 different products on our site (amazing, we know), you can use the handy "Three Day Link" which shows you all products added or updated within the past three days. Want to see more? Click the "View all products" link in the upper left hand corner of the site, and view all products on the J-List page, with the most recently added items appearing at the top, in order of how recently they were updated.
Remember that J-List carries a full line of Japanese snack foods, with many rare cult favorites in stock for you, like Japanese sushi gummi, Black Black caffeine gum, and also the delicious and popular Felix the Cat bubble gum, which is famous all the world over (we're not sure why, but based on the mails we get from customers, it is).
The J-Mate site has been updated again, this time with a great interview with experienced Japanese AV star Yukari Sakurada who is famous for her bukkake performances. Read her views on the adult video world and why she become an AV actress -- it's very enlightening! The URL is http://www.jmate.com
Wednesday, June 25, 2003
Greetings from J-List June 25, 2003
Hello again from your friends in Japan!
First and foremost, an apology about the site going down for a few hours yesterday. Our current (aging) server knew it was being replaced in a few more days and did a HAL 9000 on us. Things are running smoothly now though.
Companies have had to find new ways to survive in the lackluster Japanese economy, and one way is to make tons and tons of new products. Japan's big four beer companies have a staggering forty different varieties of beer and happoushu (a low-malt beer that's taxed lower than beer, so it can't be called by the same name) on the market, as they constantly try to come up with new ways of taking market share away from the others. They're really good at coming up with new ideas, too, like beer with extra CO2 in it, beer marketed at young women, a keg of beer that chills itself as you pour, dark versions of popular existing brands and the old standby, "limited" beers sold in each season, like Sapporo's "A Winter's Tale" and Kirin's "Aki-Aji" (taste of autumn). Digital cameras are also seeing many new developments, as manufacturers refresh their product lines every three months to keep from losing ground to their competitors, and to keep consumers looking for the newest thing. Camera that are incredibly small, Bluetooth cameras and phones that have high-end digital cameras built into them, complete with removable media up to 512 mb, are all helping Japanese electronics companies flourish in the new Japanese economy.
In Japan, there are often concepts that are very difficult for Westerners to grasp. One measurement of beauty here is related to the number of creases in a person's eyelid when their eyes are open -- one crease ("hitoe" hee-TOE-eh), two creases ("futae" fu-TAH-eh) or three ("mie" MEE-eh). (As always, there's no silent 'e' in Japanese, or magic 'e' as they call it here, so you pronounce the final 'e' in words.) Single-creasers have slender, traditionally Asian eyes, while those with more creases have larger eyes that look European to the Japanese. Getting plastic surgery to change the appearance of your eyes is quite popular among TV stars and young Japanese people in general (mostly women). I have to admit, I'd never considered that people had different numbers of creases in their eyelids until coming here -- it was a totally alien concept to me, and I still can't tell how many creases a person's eyelids have, no matter how closely I look. Another measure of beauty, having a "high nose" is an important feature for anyone who wants to enter modeling. I never really thought of noses as anything other than "big" or "small" before coming here, but apparently there is more to a person's nose than meets the eye.
For whatever reason, Japanese men are fond of urinating outdoors. When driving around Japan, it's not uncommon to happen on an older man relieving himself by the side of the road -- even walking from my home to J-List, a mere 100 meters or so, I sometimes see one of our neighbors peeing in the ditch by the side of the road. It's partially a rural thing -- with a population of 140,000, our city is not large, and there's a lot of agriculture -- but I've seen friends from Tokyo and Yokohama do it when the need took them. It can get so bad that people occasionally put signs that say "It is forbidden to urinate here" (Tachi-shon kinshi) in front of their homes. Well, we've captured this great concept in a new wacky Japanese T-shirt just for you -- see it on the site now!
In other news, we're happy to announce the arrival of Kango Shicyauzo 2 ~ Is The Sorority House Burning?, the great sequel to the best-selling bishoujo dating-sim game from G-Collections. In addition, a new 2-CD version of Kango Shicyauzo ~ I'm Gonna Nurse You, with full character voice, is in stock and available for immediate order. If you want to get both Kango 1 Voice Plus and Kango 2 and save some money, you can order the special KANGOSET we've set up for you -- both are just $75!
For the new update, we've got some excellent products from Japan for you. They include:
For our adult customers, we've got many new 18+ products. They include:
Remember that J-List offers you discounts for buying multiple items. Want to get some great bishoujo games? Pick up 4 or more and get 20% off. Looking for hentai manga? Get 4 or more books and get 15% off. You can also get 15% off 4 or more DVDs. All discounts are calculated automatically at check out.
I had a typo in one of my Japanese phrases posted last time. It should have been "Chotto futorimashita ne" (You've gained weight, haven't you?). Sorry about that.
A friend of mine is taking a dream trip around the world with his BMW motorcycle, going from Japan, through Mongolia and Russia to Europe and then beyond. If you'd like to see his adventures in Siberia, his page is here: http://www2.gol.com/users/chrisl/travel/ (the page is in English and Japanese, but the Japanese text seems to have gotten corrupted during uploading).
First and foremost, an apology about the site going down for a few hours yesterday. Our current (aging) server knew it was being replaced in a few more days and did a HAL 9000 on us. Things are running smoothly now though.
Companies have had to find new ways to survive in the lackluster Japanese economy, and one way is to make tons and tons of new products. Japan's big four beer companies have a staggering forty different varieties of beer and happoushu (a low-malt beer that's taxed lower than beer, so it can't be called by the same name) on the market, as they constantly try to come up with new ways of taking market share away from the others. They're really good at coming up with new ideas, too, like beer with extra CO2 in it, beer marketed at young women, a keg of beer that chills itself as you pour, dark versions of popular existing brands and the old standby, "limited" beers sold in each season, like Sapporo's "A Winter's Tale" and Kirin's "Aki-Aji" (taste of autumn). Digital cameras are also seeing many new developments, as manufacturers refresh their product lines every three months to keep from losing ground to their competitors, and to keep consumers looking for the newest thing. Camera that are incredibly small, Bluetooth cameras and phones that have high-end digital cameras built into them, complete with removable media up to 512 mb, are all helping Japanese electronics companies flourish in the new Japanese economy.
In Japan, there are often concepts that are very difficult for Westerners to grasp. One measurement of beauty here is related to the number of creases in a person's eyelid when their eyes are open -- one crease ("hitoe" hee-TOE-eh), two creases ("futae" fu-TAH-eh) or three ("mie" MEE-eh). (As always, there's no silent 'e' in Japanese, or magic 'e' as they call it here, so you pronounce the final 'e' in words.) Single-creasers have slender, traditionally Asian eyes, while those with more creases have larger eyes that look European to the Japanese. Getting plastic surgery to change the appearance of your eyes is quite popular among TV stars and young Japanese people in general (mostly women). I have to admit, I'd never considered that people had different numbers of creases in their eyelids until coming here -- it was a totally alien concept to me, and I still can't tell how many creases a person's eyelids have, no matter how closely I look. Another measure of beauty, having a "high nose" is an important feature for anyone who wants to enter modeling. I never really thought of noses as anything other than "big" or "small" before coming here, but apparently there is more to a person's nose than meets the eye.
For whatever reason, Japanese men are fond of urinating outdoors. When driving around Japan, it's not uncommon to happen on an older man relieving himself by the side of the road -- even walking from my home to J-List, a mere 100 meters or so, I sometimes see one of our neighbors peeing in the ditch by the side of the road. It's partially a rural thing -- with a population of 140,000, our city is not large, and there's a lot of agriculture -- but I've seen friends from Tokyo and Yokohama do it when the need took them. It can get so bad that people occasionally put signs that say "It is forbidden to urinate here" (Tachi-shon kinshi) in front of their homes. Well, we've captured this great concept in a new wacky Japanese T-shirt just for you -- see it on the site now!
In other news, we're happy to announce the arrival of Kango Shicyauzo 2 ~ Is The Sorority House Burning?, the great sequel to the best-selling bishoujo dating-sim game from G-Collections. In addition, a new 2-CD version of Kango Shicyauzo ~ I'm Gonna Nurse You, with full character voice, is in stock and available for immediate order. If you want to get both Kango 1 Voice Plus and Kango 2 and save some money, you can order the special KANGOSET we've set up for you -- both are just $75!
For the new update, we've got some excellent products from Japan for you. They include:
- First, for fans of Star Trek, we're extremely happy to announce that the Furuta series of Star Trek ships has come in -- see these great sets of items on our site now, but we recommend that yu hurry! (you can still preorder the other series by Yamato too)
- For fans of our Japanese snacks, we've got some delicious items, including salmon ochazuke (one of my own favorites), two new varieties of miso soup and fabulous "soup type spaghetti sauce" with clams that's really good
- Also, fun gelatin dessert mix that you can drink, just add milk
- For Kubrick collectors, we've got a super *full set* of the new Back to the Future Kubricks, with five extremely well designed and very detailed block toys in the set
- Take an authentic Japanese hot springs bath with sweet smelling peach bath crystals from Japan
- For fan of unique Tomica cars, we've got a set of four McDonald's vehicles that are really cute and cool (one is a replica of a Mazda Bongo Friendee, the car we happen to drive in Japan)
- We've got great Japanese items for your kitchen, including a sandwich box and matching thermos that are both very cute, as well as a cool onigiri maker that makes rice balls in various shapes
- If you're stopping smoking right now, we've got a wacky Japanese sign for you
- For fans of Hello Kitty, two variations of a really cute Kitty "Flying Character" which you put in your ceiling, and Kitty flies around your room, along with other new items
- For Totoro and Miyazaki Hayao fans, a great new plush Jiji keychain that's one of the coolest we've seen yet, along with fresh stock of many other Totoro items for you as well
- Finally, check out many new items such as the popular Kitty pachinko and Kitty darts set, fresh stock of the incredibly popular Zelda Box data book with figures and full game soundtrack, traditional Japanese candy, and more!
For our adult customers, we've got many new 18+ products. They include:
- For fans of great Japanese magazines, we've got the new issues of Video Boy and Best Video, both loaded with super erotic photos of Japan's most famous AV idols and stars
- Then we've got the new issue of Dick, the "World Hard Skin Magazine" featuring beautiful adult stars from America and Europe -- see Japan's fascination with busty western women through the eyes of the Japanese
- We've got the superb Mai Hagiwara Mirukuru Love 2003 Bauhaus Mook, a complete magazine dedicated to the glory that is our little Mai-chan
- For photobook lovers, we've got some nice items including the beautiful nude photobook of Yuka Kotono, who looks damned good in tight underoos (trust us), as well as restocked panty and stocking fetish and other photobooks
- Also, a super "Nude Gallery" photobook featuring the lovely nudes of Japan's top stars -- Cocolo, Jun Kusanagi, Maria Yumeno, and many more
- For fans of Japan's erotic comics, we've got several great new books, including a superb manga of cherry blossoms in the spring by Shinyusha and the erotic and mysterious series of short stories called Female Panther
- Also restocked manga such as Married Women's Lecherous Discipline (love those Japanese manga names), and New Century Big-Breasted Legend Natsumi
- For fans who want to read the excellent English translation of Tohru Nishimaki's best-selling Blue Eyes manga series, we've gotten all copies in stock again in San Diego -- and you now get a discount of 20% off if you order 3 or more issues together, too
- Also for Yaoi lovers, we've got the new issue of Kinniku Otoko (Muscle Man) for fans of big manly men
- For DVD fans, we have more incredible DVD titles for you starting with the Bring Up Ecstasy offering of Saori Kamiya -- four hours of her best hardcore (region free)
- For fans of Japanese erotica who want to sample tons of great material, check out the Big Morkal DVD Anthology, with 4 hours of quickies from 70 titles (region free)
- From Soft on Demand, enjoy a massive festival of female masturbation, with female friends being challenged to touch each other and see how it feels -- great for fans of "manko study" fetish (region free)
- Also from SOD, a great new chapter in their erotic lesbian anime, Lesbian Hospital 2 (region free)
- Also for Saori Kamiya lovers, a superb "Fetish and Erotic" offering that shows you all about the lovely AV girl, with many costumes and fetishes satisfied -- and at a great price too (region 2)
- From Waap, enjoy "Double Moe" (MOH-eh), Moe Yamasaki and Moe Nishimura, two fabulous girls who get it in on for you in Sperm Lesbian of Friends (region 2)
- Finally, fresh stock of several great titles, including Aika Miura's Respect, Kurumi Morishita's Beautiful Slave, Ran Asakawa's Endless Semen and the wonderful "Let's Lesbian!"
Remember that J-List offers you discounts for buying multiple items. Want to get some great bishoujo games? Pick up 4 or more and get 20% off. Looking for hentai manga? Get 4 or more books and get 15% off. You can also get 15% off 4 or more DVDs. All discounts are calculated automatically at check out.
I had a typo in one of my Japanese phrases posted last time. It should have been "Chotto futorimashita ne" (You've gained weight, haven't you?). Sorry about that.
A friend of mine is taking a dream trip around the world with his BMW motorcycle, going from Japan, through Mongolia and Russia to Europe and then beyond. If you'd like to see his adventures in Siberia, his page is here: http://www2.gol.com/users/chrisl/travel/ (the page is in English and Japanese, but the Japanese text seems to have gotten corrupted during uploading).
Monday, June 23, 2003
Greetings from J-List June 23, 2003
Hello again from Japan, where having kids means never taking a bath alone.
It's often said that Japanese society is 10-25 years behind the U.S., and that changes in the U.S. will filter over to Japan 10-25 years after they've happened in America. Sometimes this seems true -- it took Japan until 1999 to get its first law requiring car seats for children, and laws against things like sexual harassment in the workplace similarly followed U.S. laws about a decade later. When I first came to Japan, it was common for newspaper job listings to be divided among "men" and "women" with many listings stating that only people aged 30 and under would be considered. Over the past few years, laws have been passed that forbid this practice. Companies get around this new rule by using graphics in their classified ads -- for example, a picture of a young, pretty OL (that's Japanese for "office lady" or female office worker) sends a signal that that company is looking for younger females to fill a certain position, and not males.
If you've paid attention while watching Japanese anime or AV, you've probably picked up on the word "ne." This is an interesting Japanese grammatical particle that usually goes on the ends of sentences and serves several purposes, mostly related to asking for confirmation of information or agreement with an opinion. Here are two examples:
"Aisu kohii futatu desu ne?" You'd like two glasses of ice coffee, is that right?
"Kyou wa atsui desu ne." It's hot today, isn't it?
Other functions of the all-purpose Japanese particle "ne" include softening a sentence so its meaning it less harsh ("Chotto furimashita ne." You've gained a little weight, haven't you?); emphasizing what you want to say ("Kondo chanto kiite kudasai, ne." Please listen closely next time, alright?); working as a pause in sentences, like "um" in English; and to get the attention of the listener before saying something. Girls use "ne" more often than men and with a higher intonation, so males should use the word with caution lest they appear effeminate.
Japan's various traditions of bathing are quite famous all over the world. Most Japanese take baths in the evening, although younger people replace this tradition with a shower in the morning. In Japanese homes, the actual bath-room is a bath and a separate tiled area outside the bath, with a drain for water to escape (the toilet is in a separate room). You always wash your body thoroughly before getting into the bath, and never use soap or shampoo inside the bath itself, as the water will be reused by other family members, and saved for several days. All baths here have heaters to allow you to re-heat the old water, and ours has a one-touch computer that will fill the bath to the pre-set temperature and level. If you're a parent, you always take your kids in the bath with you and wash them. The concept of mother or father taking a bath with their children is known as "skinship" to the Japanese. Japanese are great fans of public baths (sento) and hot springs (onsens), too -- see the dating-sim game Tokimeki Check in! for lots of information on traditional Japanese hot springs. Since the water is "everyone's water," you must wash thoroughly before getting into the baths, although I've seen quite a few old men who skipped this step. As a foreigner living in Japan, I try to be an "ambassador of goodwill" and what not, so I make sure I follow the rules. The Japanese are famous for bathing with men and women together (kon'yoku), but this is actually very rare, since Japanese women don't want to bathe with men they don't know. It's more common for hotels to have a "family bath" that a family can reserve and take a bath together.
For the new update, we've got some excellent products from Japan for you. They include:
For our adult customers, we've got many new 18+ products. They include:
Remember that J-List carries the famous Japanese gum Black Black, a caffine-laced gum that will wake up you and keep you awake. Black Black was recently written up in Wired magazine, complete with a link to J-List (thanks, guys!). And as with most of our gum and snack items, if you buy 10 or more you get a 15% discount at checkout.
The J-Mate site has been updated again, with reviews of the great collection of Japanese short films called Grasshoppa (which is even subtitled in English!), as well as a review of the bizarre Happatai Yatta DVD that was posted on Friday. Enjoy reading reviews and interviews from Japan on our sister site, J-Mate! The URL is http://www.jmate.com/
It's often said that Japanese society is 10-25 years behind the U.S., and that changes in the U.S. will filter over to Japan 10-25 years after they've happened in America. Sometimes this seems true -- it took Japan until 1999 to get its first law requiring car seats for children, and laws against things like sexual harassment in the workplace similarly followed U.S. laws about a decade later. When I first came to Japan, it was common for newspaper job listings to be divided among "men" and "women" with many listings stating that only people aged 30 and under would be considered. Over the past few years, laws have been passed that forbid this practice. Companies get around this new rule by using graphics in their classified ads -- for example, a picture of a young, pretty OL (that's Japanese for "office lady" or female office worker) sends a signal that that company is looking for younger females to fill a certain position, and not males.
If you've paid attention while watching Japanese anime or AV, you've probably picked up on the word "ne." This is an interesting Japanese grammatical particle that usually goes on the ends of sentences and serves several purposes, mostly related to asking for confirmation of information or agreement with an opinion. Here are two examples:
"Aisu kohii futatu desu ne?" You'd like two glasses of ice coffee, is that right?
"Kyou wa atsui desu ne." It's hot today, isn't it?
Other functions of the all-purpose Japanese particle "ne" include softening a sentence so its meaning it less harsh ("Chotto furimashita ne." You've gained a little weight, haven't you?); emphasizing what you want to say ("Kondo chanto kiite kudasai, ne." Please listen closely next time, alright?); working as a pause in sentences, like "um" in English; and to get the attention of the listener before saying something. Girls use "ne" more often than men and with a higher intonation, so males should use the word with caution lest they appear effeminate.
Japan's various traditions of bathing are quite famous all over the world. Most Japanese take baths in the evening, although younger people replace this tradition with a shower in the morning. In Japanese homes, the actual bath-room is a bath and a separate tiled area outside the bath, with a drain for water to escape (the toilet is in a separate room). You always wash your body thoroughly before getting into the bath, and never use soap or shampoo inside the bath itself, as the water will be reused by other family members, and saved for several days. All baths here have heaters to allow you to re-heat the old water, and ours has a one-touch computer that will fill the bath to the pre-set temperature and level. If you're a parent, you always take your kids in the bath with you and wash them. The concept of mother or father taking a bath with their children is known as "skinship" to the Japanese. Japanese are great fans of public baths (sento) and hot springs (onsens), too -- see the dating-sim game Tokimeki Check in! for lots of information on traditional Japanese hot springs. Since the water is "everyone's water," you must wash thoroughly before getting into the baths, although I've seen quite a few old men who skipped this step. As a foreigner living in Japan, I try to be an "ambassador of goodwill" and what not, so I make sure I follow the rules. The Japanese are famous for bathing with men and women together (kon'yoku), but this is actually very rare, since Japanese women don't want to bathe with men they don't know. It's more common for hotels to have a "family bath" that a family can reserve and take a bath together.
For the new update, we've got some excellent products from Japan for you. They include:
- First, for Macross fans, a rare treat: the VF-1A Valkyrie transforming toy from Bandai
- For fans of the films of Akira Kurosawa and samurai movies, we've got a great new Japanese film on DVD for you: Owl's Castle, an incredibly high-budget, high-quality film about the years before Japan was unified under the Tokugawa Shogun -- and it's subtitled in English! (region 2)
- The incredibly detailed replicas of famous Japanese bird (who really sing when you press a button) sold very well over the weekend -- now we've posted the last four in the series! These are great for all nature lovers or those who want to bring a little happiness into their rooms
- For fans of Japanese snack foods, enjoy some delicious items, including chocolate bread, delicious fish furikake for your bento, Japanese potato chips with "soy sauce and scallops" flavoring, and delicious fish and sesame seed snacks
- Also, some great "etiquette breath candy" that helps remove odors in your mouth within 60 seconds, as well as fresh stock of many popular items including miso soup and "Mill Make" (milk flavoring that virtually all Japanese children drink in elementary school)
- For Kitty fans, a really cool leather Kitty purse that is extremely cute and well made, along with fresh stock of the plush Kitty bonnet that you wear on your head -- it's so cute
- And speaking of cute, we've got a super cute Hamtaro plush backpack that you will die for
- We love wacky parody goods from Japan, and have some fun "Aham Pham" hamster envelopes that are really cute
- Also, we've got fresh stock of the popular "injection needle pens" that are so cool
- For Totoro lovers, we've got a very special PVC keychain figure of Mei with a rusted bucket trying to catch a Totoro -- really nice
- Also catch fresh stock of some popular joke items, including our line of Japanese headbands, kanji quiz toilet paper, and more
- Also, for fans of Domo-kun, that wacky character who is the spokesmonster for NHK's BS ("Broadcast Satellite") network, we've got a cool item for you (although it will sell out soon)
- We love the Tomica die-cast metal cars from Japan, which are highly detailed and match Hot Wheels and other cars perfectly in scale -- look for three cool new vehicles posted today
- Looking or something uniquely Japanese to put in your room? We humbly recommend the ceramic Japanese mailbox, which doubles as a piggy bank for you
- Finally, look for a great way to hang boxes of tissue from your wall so you can get at it easily, a great way to cut paper accurately, more Japanese ear cleaners, and many other cool and unique things from Japan!
For our adult customers, we've got many new 18+ products. They include:
- For fans of beautiful Japanese models with large, natural breasts, we have the great new Gal's Dee, filled with very special busty gals like Aoi Mizuno (92 cm, F cup), Mika Nagase (93/G) and Mayu Koizumi (107/J), just for you
- Then, a personal favorite of mine, Apricot Magazine, the "perfect super beauty girls principle magazine" that is filled with fantastic pro and amateur girls you'd love to get to know, and the photographs are great
- Bondage fans will enjoy the new Aido Club, a great magazine and DVD combination item that is filled with rope and bondage play for you (region free)
- For fans of let and panty fetish, we've got a great new photobook featuring the thrill of "almost nude"
- In the "you really don't want to miss this" category, we've got a special Smart Girls Remix photobook, featuring incredibly pure and sexy photos of lovely Tokyo girls -- the girls are so pretty and the photos so special that this photobook is marketed to women as well as men in Japan
- For our manga customers, enjoy a half dozen great new volumes including the super erotic "Maid In" by Tatsuya Mitamori, the super sexy doctors and nurses of Momoka Clinic, a new anthology of all Game Girl hentai manga, and more
- Then, enjoy a restocking of manga for you including fresh stock of Celamic Garden, What?, Pururu Princess, Blue Sky Oppai Pasture, and more -- over a dozen manga restocked
- Also: by customer request we've got a massive restocking of the popular "dick girl" doujinshi by Behind Moon, which you won't want to miss
- For yaoi lovers, enjoy fresh stock of several items too, including the Kinniku Otoko (Muscle Man) series and more
- For DVD collectors, we've got some superb titles for you, starting with a new Bring Up Ecstasy 4 Hour special DVD, featuring the lovely sex of Hitomi Hasegawa (region free)
- Then enjoy a great new offering from the hallowed Mejiri ("ass of woman") series, this time featuring the delicious Sora Aoi (region free, multiangle)
- Then a great item, the 24 Hour Bukkake Semen of Moe Nishimura -- poor Moe-chan has men blowing their wads on her as she goes about her daily life, brushing her teeth, sleeping, going to the bathroom, and so on (region free)
- There's a new "Night Visiting" fetish title from Deep's, about going to sleeping girls in the night and fondling them, waking them up and having sex with them. Features girls who starred in the All Nude Volleyball and Basketball releases by Deep's (region free)
- A special treat for fans of bondage play, enjoy a great Actress Restraint Maniac collection featuring the lovely Miyuki Kasuga -- 9 erotic bondage play scenes! (region 2)
- Then, from Waap Entertainment, enjoy the fantastic bukkake facials of Yui Kayama, great for fans of bukkake (region 2)
- Finally look for a great new English-language (subbed and dubbed) hentai DVD boxed set from Nutech, the Dvine series (region 1).
Remember that J-List carries the famous Japanese gum Black Black, a caffine-laced gum that will wake up you and keep you awake. Black Black was recently written up in Wired magazine, complete with a link to J-List (thanks, guys!). And as with most of our gum and snack items, if you buy 10 or more you get a 15% discount at checkout.
The J-Mate site has been updated again, with reviews of the great collection of Japanese short films called Grasshoppa (which is even subtitled in English!), as well as a review of the bizarre Happatai Yatta DVD that was posted on Friday. Enjoy reading reviews and interviews from Japan on our sister site, J-Mate! The URL is http://www.jmate.com/
Friday, June 20, 2003
Greetings from J-List June 20, 2003
Hello and TGIF from your friends in Japan!
Transliteration is the act of transcribing from one writing system into another, for example from Japanese to the Roman alphabet. There are several aspects of Japanese that make writing Japanese words in English an inherently vague and challenging process. For example, there are long vowels in Japanese that are meaningless when written out in English and which don't affect the pronunciation of words at all. The correct way to write "pretty girl" in Japanese is "bishoujo" with the extra 'u' in the middle, and yet it's often shortened to "bishojo." Is it better to leave the long vowels in the word, which complicates pronunciation and makes the words harder to remember, or should they be omitted? Incidentally, famous place names like Tokyo and Osaka also have long vowels that are cut to avoid making the name needlessly long. Another area where there is vagueness about how to write Japanese words or names in English is L and R. Is Japanese AV idol Aoi Sora better written as Aoi Sola? There's often little agreement and so both names are used sometimes -- there's no "right" way to write her name. It can be very confusing, especially to search engines that can't tell that two similar words are the same.
Then there's the system used to actually write Japanese words in English. Japanese is a syllable-based language, and has a system of syllabary sounds built into its structure. You can express the sounds ka, ki, ku, ke, and ko in Japanese, but not "k" all by itself. Three of the syllables in Japanese are pronounced "shi" "tsu" "chi" and thus, it's natural that they be written that way when translating from Japanese to English. This is part of the Hepburn system of transliterating, and most gaijin favor it because it makes the transliterated word easier to pronounce accurately. Another system, the Nihon system, forces these three syllables into neat "consonant + vowel" pairs, producing "si" "tu" and "ti" even though the sounds aren't pronounced like that at all. Whenever there are two competing systems it's common for the lesser one to be adopted as standard -- kind of reminds me of computing platforms ^_^ -- and thus millions of Japanese children are forced to learn the Nihon system in Japanese schools. If you want to see how the two systems compare, here's a page for you: http://papillon.ex.nii.ac.jp/romaji/hepburn.html
Want to know a Japanese joke? In Japanese, the word for Prime Minister is "souri" ("sori" but with a slightly elongated first syllable), which sounds like the English word "sorry" to the Japanese. "Sori," a similar-sounding word, means "razor." Japanese kids have a stupid saying that has endured for decades: "I'm sorry, hige sori (beard shaver), jori jori (the sound of rough, unshaven whiskers)." If you're ever talking to a Japanese person, and they apologize to you for something, come back at them with "hige sori, jori jori!" (HEE-gay SO-ree, JOE-ree JOE-ree) and watch them jump out of their shoes in surprise.
We've got a great update for you this weekend, starting with a bizarre new wacky Japanese T-shirt for you. In Japanese public baths, there's always a sign indicating that customers with tattoos (e.g. yakuza, Japanese famous Mafia) are not allowed in. We loved this idea so much, we've captured it on a wacky T-shirt. As usual, we pride ourselves on offering shirts that everyone can enjoy, and we have size S all the way up through 3XL available. All shirts ship from our San Diego warehouse.
For the special weekend update, we've got some excellent products from Japan for you. They include:
For our adult customers, we've got many new 18+ products. They include:
Remember that J-List offers revolving subscriptions to some of Japan's most popular magazines, including anime magazines (Animage, Newtype), toy magazines (Hobby Japan), manga magazines (Coro Coro and Afternoon), and more. Some of these are very cutting edge and cool to read, such as Japanese street fashion magazines Fruits and Egg, and don't forget to check out Megami Magazine, loaded with posters and stickers and other cool things. These magazines will be sent to you as soon as they're available each month, before they're even sent to the newsstands here in Japan, and you can cancel your subscription any time. See the magazine subscription pages for more information.
Transliteration is the act of transcribing from one writing system into another, for example from Japanese to the Roman alphabet. There are several aspects of Japanese that make writing Japanese words in English an inherently vague and challenging process. For example, there are long vowels in Japanese that are meaningless when written out in English and which don't affect the pronunciation of words at all. The correct way to write "pretty girl" in Japanese is "bishoujo" with the extra 'u' in the middle, and yet it's often shortened to "bishojo." Is it better to leave the long vowels in the word, which complicates pronunciation and makes the words harder to remember, or should they be omitted? Incidentally, famous place names like Tokyo and Osaka also have long vowels that are cut to avoid making the name needlessly long. Another area where there is vagueness about how to write Japanese words or names in English is L and R. Is Japanese AV idol Aoi Sora better written as Aoi Sola? There's often little agreement and so both names are used sometimes -- there's no "right" way to write her name. It can be very confusing, especially to search engines that can't tell that two similar words are the same.
Then there's the system used to actually write Japanese words in English. Japanese is a syllable-based language, and has a system of syllabary sounds built into its structure. You can express the sounds ka, ki, ku, ke, and ko in Japanese, but not "k" all by itself. Three of the syllables in Japanese are pronounced "shi" "tsu" "chi" and thus, it's natural that they be written that way when translating from Japanese to English. This is part of the Hepburn system of transliterating, and most gaijin favor it because it makes the transliterated word easier to pronounce accurately. Another system, the Nihon system, forces these three syllables into neat "consonant + vowel" pairs, producing "si" "tu" and "ti" even though the sounds aren't pronounced like that at all. Whenever there are two competing systems it's common for the lesser one to be adopted as standard -- kind of reminds me of computing platforms ^_^ -- and thus millions of Japanese children are forced to learn the Nihon system in Japanese schools. If you want to see how the two systems compare, here's a page for you: http://papillon.ex.nii.ac.jp/romaji/hepburn.html
Want to know a Japanese joke? In Japanese, the word for Prime Minister is "souri" ("sori" but with a slightly elongated first syllable), which sounds like the English word "sorry" to the Japanese. "Sori," a similar-sounding word, means "razor." Japanese kids have a stupid saying that has endured for decades: "I'm sorry, hige sori (beard shaver), jori jori (the sound of rough, unshaven whiskers)." If you're ever talking to a Japanese person, and they apologize to you for something, come back at them with "hige sori, jori jori!" (HEE-gay SO-ree, JOE-ree JOE-ree) and watch them jump out of their shoes in surprise.
We've got a great update for you this weekend, starting with a bizarre new wacky Japanese T-shirt for you. In Japanese public baths, there's always a sign indicating that customers with tattoos (e.g. yakuza, Japanese famous Mafia) are not allowed in. We loved this idea so much, we've captured it on a wacky T-shirt. As usual, we pride ourselves on offering shirts that everyone can enjoy, and we have size S all the way up through 3XL available. All shirts ship from our San Diego warehouse.
For the special weekend update, we've got some excellent products from Japan for you. They include:
- First, a unique item for nature lovers: We've gotten in incredibly detailed bird figures that look great, and the birds sing for you when you press a button! Wonderful miniature bird figures from Japan that will bring a little happiness to your room
- For fans of cosplay, there is a great cosplay photobook that features dozens of great cosplayers dressing up for you, famous idols and more -- a great item for all fans of Japanese costume play!
- Then enjoy a great 5 year anniversary photobook of Morning Musume, with great pictures from all the Mo-Musu girls
- For fans of cut maid girls, we've got a great special issue of Automatic Maiden that comes with a great full-color completed PVC figure
- We love the fun and unique Kubrick block toys from Japan's famous toy maker Medicom Toy, and we've got some new ones for you: the Lupin the 3rd Castle of Caliostro figures, and we have full sets available for you!
- Another great item for Kubrick fans, full sets of the Sesame Street figure collection, including Big Bird, Ernie and Grover -- this rocks! (but our stock is extremely limited)
- The superb Ghost in the Shell toy sets have been selling so fast we're afraid of running out of stock soon -- get yours fast if you want one! We've also added a two-figure set, two "black metal" versions of Major Kusanagi
- For fans of Japanese TV and comedy on DVD, we've got the very cool Happatai, the wacky team of six comedians who dance with fig leaves covering their privates, all lots of fun
- For fans of Japanese snacks, we've got some nice new items for you, including chocolate rusk (which are baked and dried bread, we're told), tasty sausages, sardines stewed in miso (yum) and Japanese fried rice mix
- Also, some great Japanese "etiquette gum" that freshens your breath
- For Hello Kitty fans, a great item for your kitchen: a plastic container that holds 1.7 liters of any liquid (we recommend that you use it with the Japanese mugi cha tea bags that we sell -- great for summer, and very healthy!)
- Also very fun, a Hello Kitty sushi playset (stock is limited to one unfortunately)
- We love to sell all kinds of cool things from Japan, and always stock healthy miso soup, onigiri mix, and other items like that -- look for various newly stocked items today
- J-List carries authentic "loose socks" -- the big baggy socks that high school girls wear here, and we've restocked our 70 and 120 cm socks for you
- For Totoro and Studio Ghibli fans, restocking of many popular items, including the Laputa Robot music box, the Totoro knapsack, and the cute Fox Squirrel from Nausica and Laputa
- Finally, look for new wacky notebooks from Japan that sport funny English, a Hello Kitty flower notebook that's very cute, more cute dictionaries for those studying Japanese, a great Kitty ceramic mug, fresh stock of the Hello Kitty USB hub, and more!
For our adult customers, we've got many new 18+ products. They include:
- First, for fans of the beautiful and bold photography of Urecco, we've got a great new Urecco Gal in for you, filled with positively fabulous Japanese kogals and bombshells
- Then enjoy hardcore sex in the new Sasotte Ageru ("I'll ask you out"), featuring authentic amateurs in love hotels
- Follow the Japanese video industry with the new Video Girls, which covers all the top Japanese AV stars -- and comes with a 120 minute DVD free!
- Also, we've got a great magazine and DVD combo item that gives you super erotic S&M and bondage action and a 120 DVD, for a great price
- Enjoy several new glossy and hardcover new photobooks including the erotic nude of An Nanba (so nice), and fresh stock of other photobooks including Garo Aida's Strawberry Diary, Sora Aoi's great hardcover photobook, and Yui Ichikawa dressing up in sexy costumes
- For hentai manga fans, some great items today, including the erotic Caramel Taste (lactating sex manga), World War of Cat Ears (an all-cat girl hentai manga), and many more great new books
- Also, a massive restocking of manga for you, including the popular Blue Eyes manga by Tohru Nishimaki, Cheeky Petite Angels, New Century Big-Breasted Legend Natsumi and more
- For yaoi fans, another great story of romance and sex by Nase Yamato
- For our DVD collectors, some great items for the before-weekend update, starting with the elegant and stylish sex of Amu Masaki in a new Stars!! DVD release, 150 minutes long and offered at a great price (region free)
- For fans of Nao Oikawa, who is the #1 ranked AV idol in Japan today (she gets $25,000 just for showing up on an AV set), a new Bring Up Ecstasy 4 Hour DVD from Million (region free)
- Alternately, you can get the wonderful new Bring Up Ecstasy 4 Hour box set, featuring five fantastic titles for a total of 20 hours of prime Japanese AV (the Nao Oikawa title is included in this boxed set) (region free)
- Soft on Demand is always there for you, letting you act out your fetishes -- now explore the world of bikini fetish in a great new Magic Mirror Bus offering from SOD (region free)
- Girls from Russian and Eastern Europe are extremely popular in Japan these days, and there are many great videos that aren't available outside of Japan -- explore the wonderful pure sex of four girls from Hungary in a new offering from Wild Side (region free)
- For fans of the best lesbian DVDs in Japan, we've got a new offering from U&K, featuring the female sex of Maki Tomoda and Yuna Suzaki (region free)
- For Hikari Kisugi fans (including yours truly), a great new erotic image DVD in the "Fetish & Erotic" series, featuring incredibly beautiful images of Hikari-chan dressing up in costumes, swimming underwater, playing with lingerie, and much more -- and the price is great! (region 2)
- Finally, look for restocked DVDs, including Keep on a Fascinate Uniform, Campaign Gal Party 7.5 hours, Ayumi Sakurai Re-Mix Special, Shinobi (ninja fetish) and more!
Remember that J-List offers revolving subscriptions to some of Japan's most popular magazines, including anime magazines (Animage, Newtype), toy magazines (Hobby Japan), manga magazines (Coro Coro and Afternoon), and more. Some of these are very cutting edge and cool to read, such as Japanese street fashion magazines Fruits and Egg, and don't forget to check out Megami Magazine, loaded with posters and stickers and other cool things. These magazines will be sent to you as soon as they're available each month, before they're even sent to the newsstands here in Japan, and you can cancel your subscription any time. See the magazine subscription pages for more information.
Wednesday, June 18, 2003
Greetings from J-List June 18, 2003
Hello again from all of us in Japan!
One of the engines that drives Japanese society and makes Japanese people the way they are is called "hito no me" (HEE-toh noh meh), which translates as "the eyes of others." In all that you do in Japan, there is the sense that you're being watched by everyone around you, and that if you stray too far outside the invisible lines of what is acceptable you'll be judged harshly. This tendency to be concerned with how you appear in the eyes of people is a big part of Japanese daily life, and it's part of the reason why Japan can seem a very homogenous place when viewed from the outside. In Japan, you throw your garbage out on set days, and knowing what kind of trash is okay to put out on any given day can require a Master's Degree in Trashology. But if you don't follow the rules and put exactly the right trash out that morning (not, by the way, the night before), you'll suffer the ire of the ever-watching people around you, which subtly causes you to conform in ways that no threat of punishment could. Since most people in Japan are considerably thinner than they are in the States (at 100 kg, I am gargantuan for Japan, and have been asked by Japanese if I was a K-1 fighter), there is always that pressure to conform to the others around me and lose weight--which is a good thing of course. In the U.S., we try to value adversity and individuality, and if we saw someone walking under an umbrella even though it wasn't raining outside, we might chuckle and say that he dances to his own tune. But in Japan there's less chance that doing something that no one else is doing will be viewed in a favorable light.
Related to "hito no me" is the idea of "joshiki," a word which translates to "common sense" but means much more. The Japanese all seem to have a built-in common sense, ideas about the way things work, and they are very much in harmony with each other. It is "joshiki" that all kids will go to school to be taught and brought up as happy citizens of the society, and so there is homeschooling in Japan. Similarly, it is common sense that babies be born in hospitals, and so there is very little in the way of alternate birthing here. An American friend of mine who was pregnant planned on having her baby and going back to work a few months later, but unfortunately, this goes against the "joshiki" rule that mothers should spend the first few years at home with their children before coming back to work, and she found herself blocked at every pass. This "all powerful common sense" that the Japanese seem to possess is always at work in Japan.
There's an unfortunate phenomenon that affects all Japanese who use computers or "waapro" (word processors) at work: they lost almost all ability to write Kanji, or Chinese characters. With the steady acceptance of computers into Japanese life, many people use keyboards all day long, and as a result, almost never actually write characters by hand. Because kanji is a very structured system, not writing it for long periods of time really makes you forget how to write (although reading ability is retained). I imagine this happens not only with Japanese, but with all cultures that use kanji. Sadly, I am affected by this as well, as I almost never hand-write Japanese anymore, and it's shocking when I go to write an elementary character but can't bring it up in my mind.
We'll be making a server move to a much faster machine sometime over the next week. We're letting you know just in case anything fails to work right during the changeover. We think it will go smoothly but if you should notice anything that doesn't seem right, please email us about it and we'll check it right away. Thanks!
For the new update, we've got some excellent products from Japan for you. They include:
For our adult customers, we've got many new 18+ products. They include:
Bewildered at Bishoujo? Confused about Kogal? Head hurting over Hentai? If you're confused at some of the terms used on the J-List site and this updates list (which can be quite out there, we admit), be sure to check out our online J-List Glossary of Terms -- the link is on our site, right below the product category listing on the left side of your browser window. We explain all confusing terms from Anime to Tekoki and more. We've recently updated the list, too, so check it out.
If you've got friends who may be interested in the wacky brand of Japanese pop culture J-List provides, why don't you tell them about us? We'd love to have you share J-List with your friends, family and coworkers -- please let them know about us! Thanks in advance from your friends in Japan.
One of the engines that drives Japanese society and makes Japanese people the way they are is called "hito no me" (HEE-toh noh meh), which translates as "the eyes of others." In all that you do in Japan, there is the sense that you're being watched by everyone around you, and that if you stray too far outside the invisible lines of what is acceptable you'll be judged harshly. This tendency to be concerned with how you appear in the eyes of people is a big part of Japanese daily life, and it's part of the reason why Japan can seem a very homogenous place when viewed from the outside. In Japan, you throw your garbage out on set days, and knowing what kind of trash is okay to put out on any given day can require a Master's Degree in Trashology. But if you don't follow the rules and put exactly the right trash out that morning (not, by the way, the night before), you'll suffer the ire of the ever-watching people around you, which subtly causes you to conform in ways that no threat of punishment could. Since most people in Japan are considerably thinner than they are in the States (at 100 kg, I am gargantuan for Japan, and have been asked by Japanese if I was a K-1 fighter), there is always that pressure to conform to the others around me and lose weight--which is a good thing of course. In the U.S., we try to value adversity and individuality, and if we saw someone walking under an umbrella even though it wasn't raining outside, we might chuckle and say that he dances to his own tune. But in Japan there's less chance that doing something that no one else is doing will be viewed in a favorable light.
Related to "hito no me" is the idea of "joshiki," a word which translates to "common sense" but means much more. The Japanese all seem to have a built-in common sense, ideas about the way things work, and they are very much in harmony with each other. It is "joshiki" that all kids will go to school to be taught and brought up as happy citizens of the society, and so there is homeschooling in Japan. Similarly, it is common sense that babies be born in hospitals, and so there is very little in the way of alternate birthing here. An American friend of mine who was pregnant planned on having her baby and going back to work a few months later, but unfortunately, this goes against the "joshiki" rule that mothers should spend the first few years at home with their children before coming back to work, and she found herself blocked at every pass. This "all powerful common sense" that the Japanese seem to possess is always at work in Japan.
There's an unfortunate phenomenon that affects all Japanese who use computers or "waapro" (word processors) at work: they lost almost all ability to write Kanji, or Chinese characters. With the steady acceptance of computers into Japanese life, many people use keyboards all day long, and as a result, almost never actually write characters by hand. Because kanji is a very structured system, not writing it for long periods of time really makes you forget how to write (although reading ability is retained). I imagine this happens not only with Japanese, but with all cultures that use kanji. Sadly, I am affected by this as well, as I almost never hand-write Japanese anymore, and it's shocking when I go to write an elementary character but can't bring it up in my mind.
We'll be making a server move to a much faster machine sometime over the next week. We're letting you know just in case anything fails to work right during the changeover. We think it will go smoothly but if you should notice anything that doesn't seem right, please email us about it and we'll check it right away. Thanks!
For the new update, we've got some excellent products from Japan for you. They include:
- First, for fans of Japanese snacks, we've got some unique and rare tastes for you, including green tea flavored caramel chips, pineapple pie snacks new onigiri mix and fresh, shredded ika (if you don't know what ika is, don't ask)
- Also if you love the popular anime Naruto, we've got some cool gummi Naruto figures that are fun to eat
- For fans of beautiful CG girls, enjoy the N.U.D.E.@ digital art book, featuring a robotic princess that you teach and bring up
- For those fascinated with Japanese high school uniforms, either because they want to make replicas for cosplay at anime conventions or they just like how cute they are, we've got two new pocket photobooks featuring the cutest sailor uniforms in all Japan
- For fans of sexy swimsuit idols like Miho Yoshioka and Yoko Matsugane, enjoy the Kira Kira Sexy Idol Magazine
- Want to see cool Japanese late-night TV? Check out the new Grasshoppa, featuring some of the boldest and funniest Japanese TV and skits, and all subtitled in English for your enjoyment
- Also, we've gotten in a great photobook for Japanese Race Queen fans, the lovely Pit Queen
- Kubrick block figures are incredibly popular all over the world -- we've got a brand new series of these great toys for you, three different Shrek sets from Medicom Toy. Sold only in Japan!
- If you think the cool Japanese cars of the 1960s and 70s were cool, we've got a rare set of die-cast vehicles from Tomy for you, including the original Honda Civic, the Toyota Corolla II, and the Nissan Bluebird
- Happy faces are everywhere in Japan, and we've got two parody "happy face picnic sheets" that are plastic sheets for you to sit on while at the park -- they're wacky and loaded with funny English
- Just in time for summer, we've got some great Japanese sandals, which are called "beach-san" in Japanese, from "beach sandals" -- they have the Japanese character for "shave ice" printed on them
- Also great for summer, some beautiful Japanese wind chimes that gentle ring in the breeze
- If you love Hello Kitty, we've got some cool Kitty nail polish bottles that come in great colors and are really cute for collectors, too
- We've got a great item: a Japanese hanko case that features a funny parody of a Japanese salaryman on top, who dances when you use it
- Studying Japanese? We carry many items to help you including a fun item, a dictionary of four-character Japanese phrases
- For your kitchen, we have food separators for bento, delicious wasabi, sushi makers, and more!
- Finally, look for a great way to protect your food from flies, a fun Kitty brush for little ones or big, a handy case for remembering your medicine,
For our adult customers, we've got many new 18+ products. They include:
- For fans of great Japanese adult magazines, we've got the new Urecco for you, filled with jaw-dropping beautiful women including both kogal amateurs and top-name AV stars
- Then enjoy a great amateur magazine, Bjam, which features real Japanese girls doing real hardcore in love hotels
- Nao Oikawa looks lovely in her new hardcover photobook, "Naked Heart" which we have for you
- Also, we've gotten fresh stock of the popular Make Lovers, a beautiful hardcore magazine featuring the sex of couples in love
- Then enjoy the super sexy body of top Japanese swimsuit idol Harumi Namoto, an amazing and sexy idol for you
- If you love Japan's fascination with "dick girls" and hermaphrodites, we've got a new issue of New Half DX for you
- If you love hentai manga, enjoy several great new books, including the erotic "Prisoner of Sodom" by Fujimi Comics and AV Comic's "The Secret Date Club"
- Also, we've got great newly restocked manga including Slap Me With Your Breasts, Aero and a major restocking of the Paradise Lost Evangelion hentai manga series -- new yaoi manga too!
- Be sure to order the excellent vol. 6 of Tohru Nishimaki's Blue Eyes, too -- it's up for preorder now
- For doujinshi fans, another treat: new Please Teacher manga from Behind Moon, although they will sell out fast if recent history is a guide
- For our DVD collecting customers, we've got some great new titles for you, starting with a new "The Idol" release featuring 180 minutes of Ami Sakurai's delightful pure sex (region free)
- Dogma brings you the erotic kissing and sex of Kurumi Morishita as directed by Hitoshi Nimura -- an incredibly erotic performance, and she looks damned good in that cowboy hat (region free)
- Then from Soft on Demand, see Hikaru Inoue as the bukkake nurse, an erotic lady who swallows semen most happily (region free)
- Also from SOD, Ayami Sakurai is an elegant and experienced high-class soap lady who uses her fabulous body to clean you and make you happy (region free)
- A great "adult gravure movie" from Wanz Factory features an erotic "image DVD" of Mai Satoh, with many great erotic images of her incredibly sexy body for you (and at a great price too) (region 2)
- Then see the super erotic Ria Nanami and her fetish mania, with many fun fetishes explored (including ashi-koki, foot masturbation, and much more (region 2)
- For hentai DVD fans, we've gotten in fresh stock of a half dozen or more popular titles, too (region 1)
- Finally, even more freshly restocked DVDs, including the excellent Lesbian Heaven 4 Hours Special, Ran Asakawa's "Masterpiece Concentration" offering, 4 hours of the best of Momo Aida (one of my personal favorite AV idols from the 90's), and Let's Do Sex with Ai Nagase.
Bewildered at Bishoujo? Confused about Kogal? Head hurting over Hentai? If you're confused at some of the terms used on the J-List site and this updates list (which can be quite out there, we admit), be sure to check out our online J-List Glossary of Terms -- the link is on our site, right below the product category listing on the left side of your browser window. We explain all confusing terms from Anime to Tekoki and more. We've recently updated the list, too, so check it out.
If you've got friends who may be interested in the wacky brand of Japanese pop culture J-List provides, why don't you tell them about us? We'd love to have you share J-List with your friends, family and coworkers -- please let them know about us! Thanks in advance from your friends in Japan.
Monday, June 16, 2003
Greetings from J-List June 16, 2003
Hello again from Japan, where it's good manners to turn your car's headlights off while waiting at a red light (to avoid blinding the person across the intersection from you).
We're in the middle of June now, and that is dreary news for everyone in Japan: the month-long rainy season will be starting any day now, transforming the Japanese islands into the Pacific Northwest for four weeks of drizzle, rain and general grayness. Coming from bright, sunny San Diego as I do, it's sometimes hard to fight off the blues during all that rain. The only thing worse than the long gray of the rainy season is what comes after: Japan's sweltering real summer with its 100% humidity is always difficult to bear.
In preparation for that heat, we've purchased some new electric fans to help keep cool. There's a real "electric fan gap" between Japan and the States, with Japanese companies producing some wonderfully high-tech gadgets, from tricked-out units that have remote controls, timers so they turn off after a set number of hours, selectable rotation settings, and more. I bought some fans that feature what the Japanese call "minus ion" (negative ions, like the fresh air after a thunderstorm has passed), although I can't say for sure if my ions are being negatively charged or not. Another feature I like is "natural wind" -- the fan alters its speed randomly to simulate the wind blowing in from outside. One thing the Japanese haven't invented, however, is the slim, square fan that sits on a windowsill and blows air in directly from outside, which are quite common in the U.S. Fans with many features cost between $40 to $90 each. The windowsill fan I got at Walmart and brought back with me was around $7.
The Japanese use a lot of English in their daily lives, but it's often impossible to identify it sometimes after the Japanese get through with it. If you ask your boss for a raise, but he says no, it's "NG" (which stands for "no good") -- a TV "blooper" is also called an NG. The letter "W" stands for "double" to the Japanese, thus a washing machine might be advertised as "W (double) Power." If you want to check your weight, you'd better ask for a health meter -- the English term "scale" is used in Japanese, but only meaning something's size in relation to something else. Sometimes Americans are confused by alien terms that are British English -- I didn't know that the hood of a car was a "bonnet" in British English until I came to Japan. If you want to tell someone to not worry about something, you can say "Donmai!" which comes from "Don't mind!" Similarly, when someone is backing their car up, you can tell them it's okay to come back further by saying "Orai!" which comes from "Alright!" Many English words have been imported into Japanese, but with different pronunciations -- "energy" is pronounced with a hard "G," and "vitamin" comes out like "bitamin" (bee-TA-min). Finally, many of the foreign words used in Japan, like "anket" (a questionnaire) and "arubaito" (a part-time job) don't come from English at all, but that doesn't stop the Japanese from trying to use them during English conversation class.
For the new update, we've got some excellent products from Japan for you. They include:
For our adult customers, we've got many new 18+ products. They include:
Remember that at J-List, we carry the whole line of unique Japanese chewing gum from companies like Lotte and Glico. Some of our most popular items are Lotte's "Black Black" (menthol gum with caffeine, it will keep you awake!), delicious Sweetie (grapefruit) gum, and tasty Ume, Japanse plum. Check out all these items on our Japanese snack pages!
World-famous animation creator Hayao Miyazaki has a new project: a series of TV commercials for House Foods, a company that makes curry and other household foods in Japan. The commercials capture the happy, simpler era of Japan in the 1950's, and are great to watch. We found them hosted on Nausica.net -- the URL is here: http://www.nausicaa.net/miyazaki/newspro/latest_news.shtml
We're in the middle of June now, and that is dreary news for everyone in Japan: the month-long rainy season will be starting any day now, transforming the Japanese islands into the Pacific Northwest for four weeks of drizzle, rain and general grayness. Coming from bright, sunny San Diego as I do, it's sometimes hard to fight off the blues during all that rain. The only thing worse than the long gray of the rainy season is what comes after: Japan's sweltering real summer with its 100% humidity is always difficult to bear.
In preparation for that heat, we've purchased some new electric fans to help keep cool. There's a real "electric fan gap" between Japan and the States, with Japanese companies producing some wonderfully high-tech gadgets, from tricked-out units that have remote controls, timers so they turn off after a set number of hours, selectable rotation settings, and more. I bought some fans that feature what the Japanese call "minus ion" (negative ions, like the fresh air after a thunderstorm has passed), although I can't say for sure if my ions are being negatively charged or not. Another feature I like is "natural wind" -- the fan alters its speed randomly to simulate the wind blowing in from outside. One thing the Japanese haven't invented, however, is the slim, square fan that sits on a windowsill and blows air in directly from outside, which are quite common in the U.S. Fans with many features cost between $40 to $90 each. The windowsill fan I got at Walmart and brought back with me was around $7.
The Japanese use a lot of English in their daily lives, but it's often impossible to identify it sometimes after the Japanese get through with it. If you ask your boss for a raise, but he says no, it's "NG" (which stands for "no good") -- a TV "blooper" is also called an NG. The letter "W" stands for "double" to the Japanese, thus a washing machine might be advertised as "W (double) Power." If you want to check your weight, you'd better ask for a health meter -- the English term "scale" is used in Japanese, but only meaning something's size in relation to something else. Sometimes Americans are confused by alien terms that are British English -- I didn't know that the hood of a car was a "bonnet" in British English until I came to Japan. If you want to tell someone to not worry about something, you can say "Donmai!" which comes from "Don't mind!" Similarly, when someone is backing their car up, you can tell them it's okay to come back further by saying "Orai!" which comes from "Alright!" Many English words have been imported into Japanese, but with different pronunciations -- "energy" is pronounced with a hard "G," and "vitamin" comes out like "bitamin" (bee-TA-min). Finally, many of the foreign words used in Japan, like "anket" (a questionnaire) and "arubaito" (a part-time job) don't come from English at all, but that doesn't stop the Japanese from trying to use them during English conversation class.
For the new update, we've got some excellent products from Japan for you. They include:
- First, for fans of the super cool Ghost in the Shell figures from Shirow Masamune, we've got a great new limited edition all-black metal version of the figures, with full sets available to buy (no need to buy dozens of duplicates to complete your set)
- Also for fans of "shokugan" (small toys that come with ramune candy inside), we've got a single full set of Heidi, Girl of the Alps, a unique and rare item
- For Totoro/Miyazaki fans, a huge volley of newly restocked items, including several Totoro and Neko Bus plush toys, the popular Totoro magnet set, sitting Bou plush and the Fox Squirrel from Laputa/Nausica, more music boxes, and moer
- If you love cute Japanese swimsuit idols, check out Yui Ichikawa's lovely new photobook, shot on location in beauty Italy
- For fans of Japanese film on DVD (with subtitles in English), we've got the popular Water Boys, a very entertaining movie about an unlikely topic, men's synchronized swimming (region 2)
- For fans of Japanese pro wrestlers, we've got two cool rare figures, Kenta Obashi and Kokushimusou, in stock now
- Also, we've got a cool oversized version of the American kick boxer who has taken Japan by storm, Bob Sapp
- For fans of Japanese snacks, we've got delicious miso soup and "tuna mayonnaise" fried rice mix, a new flavor of the delicious Poifull, and sweet Momo Choco (Peach Chocolate)
- Also, Chip Star, the famous knock-off of Pringles by Nabisco sold in the Japanese market for years -- try new salad dressing flavor!
- Like Japanese baseball? We've got a great series of baseball cards featuring all of Japan's top stars, including Hideki Matsui
- Also, look for a new series of great Yu-Gi-Oh card game from Konami, very cool and in Japanese
- For Hello Kitty fans, some cool and rare items from Japan, including a "car puzzle," a handy plastic holder for important documents, a great Kitty "floating tumbler" for your bathroom, Kitty stickers that show your mood, and a fantastic high-quality Kitty "Charm Watch" that you will love
- Also, for those learning Japanese, a great Hello Kitty wall chart showing the hiragana and katakana syllabaries, as well as a cute ABC chart for little ones
- For your car, a handy Japanese holder that allows you to take even large bottles with you
- Finally, look for more funny Japanese signs, Hello Kitty giftwrapping paper, freshly restocked Canon Wordtank electronic dictionaries, and more!
For our adult customers, we've got many new 18+ products. They include:
- For, we've got some great adult magazines for you, starting with the new Gal's Dee, which is loaded with super busty Japanese women who will blow you away
- Also, we've got the new Bachelor, an oversized magazine for fans of lovely busty women all over the world -- this issue features a great opening series with Russian bombshell Yulia Nova and much more
- For fans of hardcore sex, enjoy the new issue of Aishite Ageru ("I'll Love You") featuring a virtual date with Chika Kawamura
- The great "KARAMI" photo magazine is always a popular item because each issue is dedicated to a certain lovely star -- this issue features nothing but dynamite erotic photos of Asuka Sawaguchi
- Also, see fresh stock of several great photobooks including Mai Hagiwara's Alive and Ran Asakawa's erotic Reijo ("Love Slave")
- For our manga collecting fans, we've got some great new books for you, including a great new offering by Masaki Kamitou, the erotic Love Dolls of Ai Yuri and "Bad Girl Play" with sexy maid girls
- Also, fresh stock of many popular books including the popular hermaphrodite works of Amanojack, the popular Alice First and Alice Second, and the superb Private Teacher from Kenji Kisuzuki
- Also, for yaoi fans, a great new manga of love and sex by Yuuki Amow
- And for doujinshi fans of the popular "dick girl" themes of Behind the Moon, enjoy limited stock of two sold-out doujinshi -- but stock will not last long
- For DVD lovers, we've got some great items for you, starting with a super "Removal of the Ban" offering by the lovely Asuka Ozora, who performs some of her best sex ever for you (region free)
- In Japanese, the word OL means "office lady" (or female office worker), and there's quite a fetish for these sexy, gorgeous ladies in their lovely company uniforms -- explore this fetish with a new offering from Dogma starring four supremely erotic OLs (region free)
- Then enjoy a superb bukkake performance by the sweet but slutty Ran Asakawa in a new Endless Semen DVD, directed by master AV director Tohjiro himself (region free)
- Enjoy beautiful all-nude fetish and hoary sex in a new title by SOD's IEnergy label, featuring seven top AV stars including Nozomi Momoi, Ai Nagase and more (region free)
- The lovely Chiharu Moritaka stars in a great new work from Soft on Demand, assisting your masturbation with super-fine "digital mosaic" that's great to see (region free)
- From the bold and exciting Wanz Factory, see slender Rina Usui in a great new fetish, tickling -- Rina-chan is bound and teased and tickled, and made to do many fun and bizarre things
- Finally, we've got fresh stock of several popular DVDs, including Anna Ohura's "I Love H," more underwater "Aqua Set," Mirai Hoshizaki's bondage offerings, and the best-selling Mizuho Kano (aka Jun Kusanagi) Special.
Remember that at J-List, we carry the whole line of unique Japanese chewing gum from companies like Lotte and Glico. Some of our most popular items are Lotte's "Black Black" (menthol gum with caffeine, it will keep you awake!), delicious Sweetie (grapefruit) gum, and tasty Ume, Japanse plum. Check out all these items on our Japanese snack pages!
World-famous animation creator Hayao Miyazaki has a new project: a series of TV commercials for House Foods, a company that makes curry and other household foods in Japan. The commercials capture the happy, simpler era of Japan in the 1950's, and are great to watch. We found them hosted on Nausica.net -- the URL is here: http://www.nausicaa.net/miyazaki/newspro/latest_news.shtml
Friday, June 13, 2003
Greetings from J-List June 13, 2003
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Monday, June 09, 2003
Greetings from J-List June 9, 2003
Hello again from all of us in Japan!
If you're going to travel to Japan, you'd better bring your suitscase, and make sure you wear a clean shirts and a nice suits. My favorite sports is soccer, and my favorite anime show is Fruits Basket. Sound odd? For some inexplicable reason of Japanese phonetics, some English words are imported into Japanese in their plural forms. The word for a suit in Japanese is "suits," even though you may only be talking about one suit, and a can of fruit juice is "fruits juice." Japanese don't mind these words, although the misuse of English grammar tends to give English natives the heebie jeebies at first. Then you get used to the strange words, and the next thing you know, you're accidentally using them in English while talking to your mother on the phone -- how embarrassing. Sometimes the words are used in their plural forms to make them easier for Japanese to pronounce or write, and other times because to keep two words from sounding the same in Japanese. Because "fruit" and "flute" would have the exact same pronunciation when written in katakana, the writing system used for expressing foreign loan words, the musical instrument became "furu-to" and the edible stuff became "furu-tsu."
When you learn a foreign language, especially one that's very different from your native language, you get used to words on one side not matching up perfectly with words on the other side. Take the word "heart," which has several possible translations in Japanese. One is "kokoro," a concept which encompasses the philosophical elements of the heart and mind, including the soul. I watched the Matrix in Japanese the other day, and "kokoro" was the word Morpheus used to describe the "minds still wired to the system." (Incidentally, the Japanese believe the soul is located in your chest, but Westerners would say it's located in your head.) Another word, "shinzou," describes the actual physical organ that pumps blood through your body. Finally, the English word "heart" (haato) is used the way it's often used in English, i.e. to express love and heartbreak, and also to describe the famous heart shape, which has no other name in Japanese. Learning foreign languages is fun because it makes you reflect on how your own language is structured.
We love the cult status our wacky Japanese T-shirts have attained, and we thank you for your kind support. Our "Proud of my Sexual Power" shirt is one of our most popular designs, with its cool dragon shape winding around the Japanese text. When we made the silver versions of these two shirts, we made a mistake with the mixing of the silver paint, with the result being that the silver flecks come off in the washing machine, leaving a solid grey color underneath. Unfortunately we'd printed a bunch of these shirts with the improperly mixed silver paint. The shirts still look great after they've been washed, but since they didn't come out quite as we intended, we decided to sell the shirts at a big discount. If you're interested in getting one of these discounted shirts, please see them on our site.
For the new update, we've got some excellent products from Japan for you. They include:
For our adult customers, we've got many new 18+ products. They include:
Remember that J-List carries virtually every English translated love-sim game available out of our San Diego office. We carry all titles by Peach Princess, G-Collections, Hobibox Europe, and JAST USA. We positively love these unique story-based games which accurately give you a cultural snapshot of an important aspect of Japanese popular culture. The English hentai games we carry are translated faithfully into English with no "writing down" of cultural elements for non-Japanese, and they're also uncensored, too! Browse our great games or email us if you'd like us to give you an honest recommendation. And don't forget that you get 20% off for buying 4 or more games!
Also, remember that J-List is the only place you can get the excellent and authentic high school uniforms from Matsukameya of Nagoya. These are extremely well made girls' uniforms that are famous all over Japan, and they're just beautiful. These authentic Japanese school uniforms aren't cheap, but we know that you'll be totally happy with the unparalleled quality of these products. We humbly suggest that you might want to wear one of these school uniforms as cosplay at this summer's anime conventions -- it will get you noticed!
If you're going to travel to Japan, you'd better bring your suitscase, and make sure you wear a clean shirts and a nice suits. My favorite sports is soccer, and my favorite anime show is Fruits Basket. Sound odd? For some inexplicable reason of Japanese phonetics, some English words are imported into Japanese in their plural forms. The word for a suit in Japanese is "suits," even though you may only be talking about one suit, and a can of fruit juice is "fruits juice." Japanese don't mind these words, although the misuse of English grammar tends to give English natives the heebie jeebies at first. Then you get used to the strange words, and the next thing you know, you're accidentally using them in English while talking to your mother on the phone -- how embarrassing. Sometimes the words are used in their plural forms to make them easier for Japanese to pronounce or write, and other times because to keep two words from sounding the same in Japanese. Because "fruit" and "flute" would have the exact same pronunciation when written in katakana, the writing system used for expressing foreign loan words, the musical instrument became "furu-to" and the edible stuff became "furu-tsu."
When you learn a foreign language, especially one that's very different from your native language, you get used to words on one side not matching up perfectly with words on the other side. Take the word "heart," which has several possible translations in Japanese. One is "kokoro," a concept which encompasses the philosophical elements of the heart and mind, including the soul. I watched the Matrix in Japanese the other day, and "kokoro" was the word Morpheus used to describe the "minds still wired to the system." (Incidentally, the Japanese believe the soul is located in your chest, but Westerners would say it's located in your head.) Another word, "shinzou," describes the actual physical organ that pumps blood through your body. Finally, the English word "heart" (haato) is used the way it's often used in English, i.e. to express love and heartbreak, and also to describe the famous heart shape, which has no other name in Japanese. Learning foreign languages is fun because it makes you reflect on how your own language is structured.
We love the cult status our wacky Japanese T-shirts have attained, and we thank you for your kind support. Our "Proud of my Sexual Power" shirt is one of our most popular designs, with its cool dragon shape winding around the Japanese text. When we made the silver versions of these two shirts, we made a mistake with the mixing of the silver paint, with the result being that the silver flecks come off in the washing machine, leaving a solid grey color underneath. Unfortunately we'd printed a bunch of these shirts with the improperly mixed silver paint. The shirts still look great after they've been washed, but since they didn't come out quite as we intended, we decided to sell the shirts at a big discount. If you're interested in getting one of these discounted shirts, please see them on our site.
For the new update, we've got some excellent products from Japan for you. They include:
- First, for fans of the excellent Final Fantasy X-2, we've got the incredibly detailed new soft vinyl figures from Square Enix, and boy are they cool!
- For fans of our unique Japanese footwear, we've got some great new zori sandals for you, with several great designs of these cool "tatami shoes" including an extra-large deluxe pair with real leather bottoms
- Japanese erasers with funny shapes are popular in Japan these days, and you can get it on it with the sets of fun Japanese erasers we've got for you -- enjoy both fruit and vegetable and ice cream erasers!
- For fans of delicious Japanese snacks, enjoy tasty Bon Curry boil in bag curry that you can put on white rice, delicious Fruche gelatin dessert drink mix, and more delicious dried, shredded squid that goes great with beer!
- Also, we've got a super new ramune candy item, a delicious five-pack of ramune candy in five delicious flavors
- If you love JPOP idols, we recommend the ultracute new photobook of Aya Matsuura, the new super doll of the Japanese cute idol scene
- We love to carry Japanese films on DVD, complete with English subtitles for fans living outside of Japan -- see the great new film Phantom Light, starring the stylish and lovely Makiko Esumi (region 2)
- If you or your little one loves Hello Kitty, why not play "dart balls" with a great Kitty dart board set that comes with Velcro balls for you to throw -- it even keeps score!
- For Totoro lovers, we've got two absolutely fabulous Totoro watches that will really make others take notice -- both are very high quality and made by Seiko
- J-List stocks many fun items for your kitchen -- see fresh stock of onigiri makers as well as a fun egg shape ring, Sanrio Shinkansen chopsticks and more
- Want to clean your ears the way the Japanese do? We've got some great 100% cotton swabs that come with soft hooks at the ends, perfect for gently cleaning the insides of your ears
- Like cute things with funny English on them? We've got some all-purposes pouches (they make nice pencil cases) with super cute English printed on them
- Finally, look for other great items like a puzzle photo frame, more all-purpose handy cases for you to store things in, authentic chopsticks from Japan, and more!
For our adult customers, we've got many new 18+ products. They include:
- First, for fans of great Japanese adult magazines, we've got the new issues of Penthouse Japan and Penthouse Special, both featuring top Japanese gals like Yuko Ogura, Yinling and more!
- For fans of hardcore magazines, enjoy the new Shuffle, featuring couples in love hotels doing unspeakable things
- We also love great Japanese hardcover photobooks -- check out new offerings by super Japanese cutie Eri Sakai and the elegant and sexy Sayaka Tasuta
- We've also restocked several nice photobook items including Yuko Ogura's popular Rorinco, Eiko Koike's super sexy Candy Girl and more
- Japanese "dick girls" are a popular theme in erotic culture here, and we've got a new photobook for fans of hermaphroditism or chicks with dicks, known as New Half in Japan
- For hentai manga fans, our staff has been working hard for you, adding a half dozen or so great hentai books including a superb new work by Bijogi Junction, the erotic sex of Zero no Mono, and more!
- Also, we've got a huge update of great hentai manga with several books that had been out of stock for a long time -- check them all our now
- For DVD fans, we've got some great items for you, starting with the great Masterpiece Concentration DVD release of Aki Sawamiya, said to be the "second Aika Miura" because she'll perform any sexual act in front of the cameras (region free)
- Sola Aoi (aka Sora Aoi, aka Blue Sky) has gained many fans because of her girl next door beauty and sexy body -- see a great new DVD of her best sex just for you (region free)
- SOD, the company that brought you pretty girls kicking men in the balls, is looking for the next fun fetish to bring you, and this time it's "cat fighting" or the joy of watching two women slap each other silly and fight it out. Enjoy a new concept for fans of pretty girls slapping the shit out of each other! (region free)
- Enjoy a host of pretty amateur girls who use their highly developed tongues to bring pleasure to men in a new erotic release from Martian Devil and SOD (region free)
- Enjoy the erotic sex of AV porn star Kay in a great new release from Waap, featuring her excellent fellatio, bukkake and group sex (region 2)
- Then see the high quality bukkake sex of Momo Hoshino in a great work featuring many men blowing their wads on her face, in her hair, and more -- see it all in the new Dream Shower from Waap (region 2)
- Lesbian fans love the very erotic lesbian performances of the U&K company, a fantastic indies studio that specializes in all-lesbian indies releases -- you can now enjoy vol. 4, 5 and 6 of their popular titles in region free DVD format!
- Finally, see many newly restocked DVDs, including several lesbian kissing fetish items, more all-nude sports titles, and more!
Remember that J-List carries virtually every English translated love-sim game available out of our San Diego office. We carry all titles by Peach Princess, G-Collections, Hobibox Europe, and JAST USA. We positively love these unique story-based games which accurately give you a cultural snapshot of an important aspect of Japanese popular culture. The English hentai games we carry are translated faithfully into English with no "writing down" of cultural elements for non-Japanese, and they're also uncensored, too! Browse our great games or email us if you'd like us to give you an honest recommendation. And don't forget that you get 20% off for buying 4 or more games!
Also, remember that J-List is the only place you can get the excellent and authentic high school uniforms from Matsukameya of Nagoya. These are extremely well made girls' uniforms that are famous all over Japan, and they're just beautiful. These authentic Japanese school uniforms aren't cheap, but we know that you'll be totally happy with the unparalleled quality of these products. We humbly suggest that you might want to wear one of these school uniforms as cosplay at this summer's anime conventions -- it will get you noticed!
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