Greetings from J-List July 28, 2003

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Greetings from J-List July 25, 2003

Hello again from Japan, where a car's horn is called "klaxon," a blinker is a "winker" and lipstick is known as "rouge."

J-List is based in Gunma Prefecture, located right in the middle of the main Japanese island of Honshu -- the city of Shibukawa, about 30 km from where we are, is the actual geographic center of the country, and they have a big "Heso Matsuri" (Belly-Button Festival) there every summer. Gunma, pop. 2 million, is close enough to Tokyo (100 km) that Gunma-ites consider themselves part of the Tokyo area, although in actuality life here is very different. Outside of the three major cities of Maebashi, Takasaki and Isesaki, it's very rural, and you can see farmers peeing in their fields quite often (urinating outdoors is a favorite past time of many Japanese men). Although landlocked Gunma is far from the sea, we've got grand mountains and great skiing just an hour up the freeway (which costs around $20 each way to use, so it's not very free). Kyoto might be the place you think of when you think about beautiful old castles and thousand-year-old temples, but Gunma's culture is much older, and we have the highest number of burial mounds from Japan's ancient culture (which ran up through 400 A.D. or so). All Japanese regions carefully cultivate a "meibutsu" (literally "famous thing"), something that tourists will be compelled to eat or buy when they go there. For example, Nagoya is famous curry udon (udon noodles in a curry soup), and Osaka's "takoyaki" (balls of batter with cooked octopus meat inside) is the best. Gunma's specialties are yaki-manju (bread with miso and sauce on them) and sauce-katsudon (pork cutlet cooked in a delicious sauce, eaten over rice). Gunma is also famous for Prime Ministers, and several of Japan's leaders hail from our little prefecture.

Since there's not much to do at night in Gunma Prefecture, young people with too much time on their hands invented the "Rotary," which is where you basically drive in and out of the local train station looking for members of the opposite sex to pick up. Men hitting on women is called "nanpa" (if a girl hits on a guy it's reverse nanpa, or gyaku nanpa). Men will usually drive very flashy cars to try to attract females, complete with neon lights mounted inside and under the cars. Most women in Japan drive cars that look cute or feminine, like the Nissan March (sold as the Nissan Micra in Europe) or the Toyota Vitz. I used to drive a March, and was often approached by guys around the train station -- they were always surprised when the girl they were trying to hit on turned out to be a big gaijin instead.

We're happy to report that Creamy Angels 3, the really excellent collection of hentai artwork by Japanese artist Mashitaka, is in stock and shipping now. The collection of "doujin" artwork, which includes six different CD releases by the artist, captures the artist's love of Ah My Goddess erotic parody, with plenty of bukkake and hermaphrodite themes for fans of extreme hentai. In addition to Creamy Angels 3, Transfer Student is back in stock after being backordered for several months (we were waiting on the new master CD).

Remember that we're always removing our wacky Japanese T-shirts from stock to make room for new designs. Currently, we're closing out the popular baby doll versions of "Looking for a Japanese Boyfriend" and "I want to be Japanese," as well as both current colors of the Akira GoGo parody shirt, and the limited edition "American Devil" shirt. Please check these great shirts out before the size you need sells!

For the pre-weekend update, we've got an extra special volley of cool products from Japan for you. They include:

• First, we've got a great treat for PEZ collectors: great Disney PEZ toys sold only in Japan - really nicely made, and great for collectors!
  
• The Japanese film Battle Royale is a hit all over the world, and its sequel, BR II, is breaking records in Japan right now -- we have a photobook of the lovely Ai Maeda from the film
  
• A fun item for fans of sushi and of Takara's Choro Q line of toy vehicles, we've got full sets of wind-up sushi racers that are fun to play with
  
• Also, enjoy the "kawaii" (cute) Sayaka Isoyama who stars in a great new Chinkame-format photobook
  
• For fans of Shirow Masamune and his Ghost in the Shell anime series, we've got the new disc for you, vol. 8, with episodes 15 and 16 of this incredible new anime series for you (region 2)
  
• For fans of Japanese snacks, we've got several new items, including Japanese onigiri mix, "grill n' mustard" flavored potato chips, cute koala cookies, and more
  
• We love the die-cast cars from Tomy's Tomica line, and there's a great new one: the distinctive Will Cypha car that is one of the most popular in Japan today
  
• For older drivers, a funny bumper sticker that says "I'm A Nervous Driver"
  
• For fans of Japan-style cute, a cute Nohohon Park towel, mirror and tissue pack
  
• Japanese oil-removal paper is used all over the world by people who want to wipe oil from their faces -- here's a super-sized package of oil-removal paper for you, made of real washi paper
  
• We have a cool leather wallet that features a space for a train pass, if you want to be extra Japanese
  
• For Kitty fans, a fun Hello Kitty hamburger that you can play with, great for display
  
• We've restocked our wacky Loose Socks Glue, which you use to keep your loose socks stuck to your leg just so
  
• Also, just in time for summer, great Japanese mosquito coils, which you burn like incense to keep annoying mosquitoes away
  
• Finally, see more funny Japanese food-shaped erasers, more onigiri makers and bento boxes, as well as Hello Kitty wrapping paper from Japan!
  

For our 18+ customers, we've got some excellent adult products for you. They include:

• For fans of delicious Japanese AV idols and sexy models, we have the new Urecco, the #1 selling magazine at J-List, loaded with incredible girls and great photography
  
• For those who like harder core, enjoy the new Shuffle, the magazine that features all lovely amateurs in love hotels
  
• Then enjoy MPEG Hits, a great "mook" (Japanese parlance a cross between a magazine and a book) that features two VCDs with great kogal and bukkake action, and many famous stars
  
• Miyuki Uehara is a lovely create from Japan, and you can see her hardcover photobook in stock now
  
• As mentioned above, Creamy Angel 3 is shipping and Transfer Student is back in stock, too
  
• For manga fans, some superb new works for you, including new hentai from Fujio Okamoto, superb erotic sex from Megastore and more!
  
• Also, a real treat: an excellent new deluxe-sized manga by Satoshi Urushihara, complete with music CD!
  
• For doujinshi, we've added stock of the incredibly popular Dulce Report works, which feature incredible hermaphrodite erotica for you
  
• For yaoi fans, a new manga of love and sex with classic yaoi themes by Kojima Nazuki
  
• For adult DVD fans, we've got some great new items for you, starting with the debut sex and 3 hours performance of Aiai Sakura (region free)
  
• Then enjoy the first lesbian performance of the pure and lovely Chiharu Moritaka, who performs with Ruri Anno and the busty Maria Yumeno for the first time (region free)
  
• Then see the best of the AV series known as "We were fell a victim to an act of nympho" (we just love wacky Japanese English) (region free)
  
• See more beautiful Russian girls performing for you, including their lovely anal sex (region free)
  
• From Moodyz, see some great sex in the bath starring Bunko Kanazawa, the long-reigning Queen of Adult Video in Japan (region 2)
  
• Finally, look for great newly restocked DVD titles including the Big Morkal 2003 Anthology (4 hours of AV for $15), and the amazing, Anna Ohura and Maria Yumeno's "I Love H," and fresh stock of Gold Bird and Euro Angels!
  

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 and show in the final total when you check out.

The J-List server move will be taking place during the weekend. We expect things to go smoothly, but if there are any hicups please let us know and we'll check things right away. Thanks! We look forward to many happy years with our new high-speed server, which will offer lots of new features for J-List customers.

Greetings from J-List July 23, 2003

Hello from beautiful San Diego once more. In a few hours I'll be on my way back to Japan, taking yet another trip across the Pacific. It's been a great visit home, and I'm ready to go back, heavily laden with taco sauce from Taco Bell and other cool things I can't get in my adopted country.

America and Japan are quite different from each other -- even something as simple as names can be very different. My daughter and I came to the U.S. with Daisuke Furuta, one of our employees from Japan, and Rina enjoyed having one more person to speak Japanese with in the U.S. However, she called me aside to ask me why all the people in America called him by his first name, Daisuke, rather than by his last name with "kun" (the name suffix usually used for boys or men), e.g. Furuta-kun. You'd usually use the last name with -san in formal situations (e.g. Furuta-san), and -kun if the person you were talking to was male, and was fairly well known to you. -chan, the suffix usually used for girls, is used with the first name, e.g. Rina-chan or Kaori-chan. Sometimes the last name only is used to refer to someone, usually among males or schoolmates (Tomo might call Daisuke by his last name only, e.g. "Furuta, come over here"). Using the first name only, e.g. "Daisuke," is somewhat odd in Japanese, and implies an extremely close relationship, hence my daughter's confusion about everyone in America calling Daisuke by his first name. Once I called a female student of mine at home and asked her mother if she was home. I accidentally referred to the student by her first name only, and her mother was immediately on her guard, wondering what kind of relationship this gaijin had with her daughter (I was innocent, honest).

When you become bilingual in a language, you learn a lot about how your own brain works, what processes go on when you learn new vocabulary words (every act of learning involves a physical change in your brain, the creation of a new synapse from one cell to another), and so on. It makes you think about the nature of language in general and consider deeply parts of your own native language that you've taken for granted all your life -- in short, it's really cool. The act of translation from one language to another is really something, too: it takes place deep inside your brain, on a level below your conscious thoughts, like a process in a computer that's running in the background. You place some English in the "buffer," and then something happens in your brain, and in a few seconds Japanese is waiting for you to retrieve it. You can almost hear the "ding" in your mind as the translation "cooks" and is done, without any conscious awareness, at least as far as I've experienced.

When it comes to translation, though, there's one direction to go: from your second language to your native language. If I am translating from Japanese to English, I'll be able to do it just fine; but woe is me if I try to translate from English to Japanese. I know this because I tried it once. My father, who was a nautical engineer who built advanced hydrofoils, had to get a patent of his translated into Japanese, so he asked his Japanophile son to do it for him. Wanting to impress my Dad, I agreed, and two months of hard labor later had produced what had to be the most hilarious patent translation ever seen in Japan. I learned my lesson and now politely refuse any requests for translations into Japanese. I believe that 90% of the "wasei eigo" (literally "made in Japan English"), e.g. the silly English words the Japanese come up with, are inadvertently created by Japanese asked to translate from Japanese to English -- they are doing their best but are basically translating the wrong direction.

The J-List staff in Japan has gotten another great update of products for you. The newly added items include a great deluxe art book for Please Teacher (one of my favorite anime shows), great toys for SD character and Masked Rider fans, a great collection of short films by seven directors including Ryuhei Kitamura, fresh stock of super Shirow Masamune items, Hello Kitty ice cube makers, new gum and candy items, more cool toys only available in Japan, and more! For adult customers, we've got many new 18+ products, with great new DVDs ("Heating Double Manko"), a super all-cat girl fetish photobook, more penis teasing fetish, a new Aida Garo breast fetish photobook, .hack hentai manga and other great adult comics from Japan, many newly added and restocked adult DVDs, the new issue of Dela Beppin, and other great products.

The J-List Server Move is coming up in a few days. The new server is going to be great, about ten times the raw power to serve up J-List pages, and several other new features. As always, we expect things to go smoothly, but problems may occur. If you notice any oddness with our site over the next few days, please let us know. Also, if the order system breaks, you can order through the secure email form located at https://jastusa.cybrhost.com/Merchant2/contact.mv? .

Greetings from J-List July 11, 2003

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Greetings from J-List July 9, 2003

Hello again from Japan, where you know you've been here too long if you can squeeze all the juice from a slice of lemon using chopsticks, and not get any on your fingers.

Japan does love vending machines. Like most gaijin (foreigners), I had a fixation with Japanese vending machines when I came to live here, and took many silly pictures of them. Vending machines are quite advanced here, and usually accept 10,000 yen notes (the equivalent of a $100 bill) and give change, verbally thanking you for your purchase. In Tokyo, where land is scarce, there are vending machines that are incredibly slim, so you can fit them in small spaces. You can buy just about anything from vending machines here, including canned coffee (hot in the winter, cold in the summer), Pocky, gum, and cigarettes. Eggs and rice are sold in areas where there are no shops around, and I've seen machines that sell frozen meals and microwave it for you. Beer has been sold in vending machines for decades, and I have many fond memories of sitting in front of the local vending machine with friends, throwing a few back and talking with people who came by on their way to the station. Beer vending machines are being phased out, though, due to concerns about minors buying alcohol -- although the machine we have at our liquor store features a slot which reads your drivers' license for verification. Adult products are sometimes sold in vending machines, too, since Japanese customers like the privacy a machine affords.

Besides taking pictures of vending machines, many foreigners will take on that most famous symbol of Japan, Mt. Fuji. Mt. Fuji is the tallest mountain in Japan, a volcano that stands 3776 meters above sea level. During the official climbing season, July 1 to August 31, tens of thousands will tackle the mountain, walking up the slope to experience the sunrise at the top. You start from the 5th level, the highest point that vehicles are allowed on the mountain, and take one of three paths up to the 10th level, the very top. When I made my climb in 1993, I accidentally took the longest and most difficult route, the Gotemba trail, and had a hard time of it. As you ascend, you go rapidly from the middle of summer to the middle of winter, so you have to have lots of extra clothes with you to put on when the temperature drops. You continue to climb, passing the various stations along the way and rasping as the air gets thinner and thinner. I slept for a few hours at one of the little inns that are at each station, and woke up at 4 am, to finish the rest of the climb and arrive at the top at dawn. Silly fool that I am, I sang the Yamato (Star Blazers) theme song in Japanese at the top of my lungs, and got some applause.

In case you were wondering what the Japanese use to estimate the size of a person's privates, well, we'll tell you, and then you'll know. Unlike in the U.S., where the size of the hand often indicates male member size, here the size of a man's nose in relation to his face supposedly indicates whether or not he is well endowed. So if you've got a large nose and come to Japan, you may find yourself popular with girls (although your mileage may vary). In similar silly Japanese fashion, the area inside a woman's ear (the little cavity formed by the bottom of the "S" shape) supposedly indicates the general closeness of her womanhood.

For the new update, we've got some excellent products from Japan for you. They include:

• First, for fans of the Terminator movies, we've got another really cool miniature toy and ramune candy series for you, a set of eight different -- full sets are in stock for you to buy
  
• Also: a fabulous set of character keychains from Final Fantasy X-2, and we've got full sets in stock (no need to buy duplicates)
  
• For Totoro and Hayao Miyazaki fans, enjoy the cute plush doll collection from Sekiguchi -- we have a new Mei plush from Totoro, and black cat Jiji from Kiki's Delivery Service
  
• For Hello Kitty fans, cute character bandages, and a super cute die-cast replica of Toyota's best-selling car Vitz, covered with Kitty for you to display
  
• Also for Sanrio fans, a J-List first: we have Sanrio condoms in stock, for fans of the cute monkey Monchichi
  
• For Japanese snack lovers, enjoy many new items, like March of the Koalas (the favorite food of Crayon Shinchan), delicious chocolate cookies, seaweed to put on your rice, and boil-in-bag Bon Curry in a great retro package
  
• For fans of cute Japanese bikini babes, enjoy a new hardcover photobook by Yoko Matsugane, filled with beautifully printed photos of this incredible angel
  
• For fans of Lotte's bizarre Black Black gum, loaded with caffeine to keep you awake while studying or driving, we've gotten more stock posted to the site
  
• We love Japanese things with funny English on them, so we've restocked our low-priced wacky Japanese notebooks
  
• If you love bento, we've got a great item for you: a new deluxe-size bento box that's great for really hungry eaters -- features two compartments, built-in chopsticks, and its own secure carrying case
  
• For your bath, enjoy the scent of real jasmine in a new box of bath powder from Japan
  
• If you have a computer, we've got a great cover for your monitor, which will protect it from dust
  
• For Hot Wheels fans, we've got fresh stock of the original Back to the Future Delorean car, the Knight Rider Kitt 2000, and the very cool Magna Beatle from Urashiman, all sold only in Japan
  
• Also, a rare treat: six full sets of the dynamite Nostalgic SF Vehicle series, including toys from Space: 1999, Stingray and other famous SF shows of the 1970's, but this is the last stock we'll have available ever
  
• Finally, enjoy authentic Japanese chopsticks, more ways to remove oil from your face, delicious sukiyaki flavored furikake and traditional Japanese candy, more stock of miso soup from Japan, and other cool items!
  

For our adult customers, we've got many new 18+ products. They include:

• First, enjoy the new issue of Gokuh, just brimming over with beautiful girls for you, including a giant
  
• Also, we've got a new "Photo Magazine Mook" dedicated to the delicious Megumi Asou, filled with her superb sexy pictures
  
• The new issue of Bachelor is in, and it's a beauty, filled with pages and pages of red hot girls from the Czech Republic, Russia, Hungary and more -- also includes the dynamite Yulia Nova and Marina Matsushima
  
• Also -- fresh stock of several discount-priced magazine items on magazine page 3, starting at just $5!
  
• If you love Japan's hardcover glossy photobooks, enjoy the "white room" of Akane Sakura, an E cup idol in a sweet sailor uniform
  
• Also, a beautiful new photobook capturing Noriko Aota's incredible body, shot in the American southwest
  
• For fans of best-selling J-List stars like Maiko Kazano, Mai Hagiwara, and Anna Ohura, see several restocked photobooks for you
  
• For fans of sexy Japanese Race Queens, we've got fresh stock of DVD Race Queen, featuring supremely sexy gals on a 2 hour DVD for you to enjoy -- comes with a full color magazine too! (the DVD is region free)
  
• For manga fans, we've got lots of great items for you, including the super sexy Caution! Mufufu Area by Shimizu Kiyoshi, super sexy maid play by Aura Seiji and a new anthology of super hentai artwork by Toh Moriyama (aka the famous Naoki Yamamoto, creator of Dance Till Tomorrow)
  
• Also, enjoy a general restocking of popular titles including Insult!, Active Heart, Neo Gentle Splady Casty (love that name), the erotic Grown Up Girls and more
  
• Then for hentai fans, a fantastic art book and "visual album" from Angelium - Tokimeki Love God
  
• For our DVD customers, enjoy a superb collection of 20 of the most gorgeous AV stars in Japan today, performing their erotic sex over 3 hours for you -- and at a great price! (region free)
  
• Then see a great competition of sluts, as only SOD and Deep's can bring you -- which girl will win the "petting and fellatio" contest, bringing the most men off in a fierce battle royale of bukkake (region free)
  
• Then see the superb G cup breasts of Ayami Sakurai in her beautiful Ultra-Mix, 220 minutes of her superb busty sex (region 2)
  
• See the debut of Ran Monbu, e.g. Monbu Ran, e.g Mont Blanc, the famous French pastry -- she was the girl who was scouted into the Japanese adult video world while working at a cake shop, directed by Kazuhiko Matsumoto, creator of the worldwide bukkake boom
  
• We've reduced the prices on many of our DVDs, including the Adult Video Wrestling (super sexual pro wrestling at its best), SOD's great bukkake work "The Seven Semen Samurai," more obscene kisses of Japanese girls, and other titles
  
• Finally, look for fresh stock of the popular Fetish and Erotic series, Yuko Ogura's delightful Endless Summer, the erotic sex of Sola Aoi (aka Aoi Sora, aka Aoi Sola -- her name means "blue sky" in any event), and more!
  

Remember that J-List carries some interesting U.S.-published adult comics from White Lightning, including the first five volumes of the English version of Tohru Nishimaki's Blue Eyes. These are all stocked in our San Diego office for your ordering convenience. We also humbly recommend AG, the excellent English language magazine of hentai sex and CG culture.

Also, J-List has many unique and bizarre items that would make great gifts for anyone. If your friends like Japanese street fashion, why not buy them a pair of authentic loose socks from Japan, worn by all the high school girls? Do they like (or hate) Hello Kitty? Then some Hello Kitty toilet paper would be perfect! Browse through our selection of items, or ask us for recommendations!

Greetings from J-List July 7, 2003

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Greetings from J-List July 2, 2003

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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:

• 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!

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:

• 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

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:

• 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).

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:

• 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/