Wednesday, August 04, 2004
Greetings from J-List August 4, 2004
This summary is not available. Please
click here to view the post.
Friday, July 30, 2004
Greetings from J-List July 30, 2004
You probably know that the Japanese eat whale, which is "kujira" in Japanese (some trivia for you: Godzilla got his name by combining this word with the word "gorilla"). While this practice is hard for liberal-minded Westerners to accept, the Japanese have traditionally eaten whale meat for hundreds of years -- my wife even remembers having it served as part of her school lunch when she was in elementary school, although they don't do this anymore. As an American, I've always been quite shocked at the Japanese ability to eat whale, but I believe that people should always strive to avoid hypocrisy wherever possible. That's why, when I noticed whale sushi on the menu at our favorite sushi restaurant, I decided to order some, so I could better understand the position of the Japanese before I argued against it. To tell the truth, whale meat tasted like an oil slick, and in the end I was even more confused about why anyone would go to such extremes to eat these creatures.
My home town of San Diego has just two seasons: sunny and slightly less sunny. In contrast, Japan is an extremely seasonal place, with hot, humid summers, freezing, windy winters, and two rainy periods during the year. There are some unique smells that are associated with seasons here. Right now it's hot, and mosquitoes are biting with a vengeance, so my wife burns Japanese mosquito coils at night, which make a pleasant incense smell that instantly reminds me of summer. Likewise, when winter rolls around, most people bring out portable kerosene heaters, which have a unique pungent smell to them when you first turn them on. That first smell of kerosene in December brings back a flood of fond memories of winters past.
One of our favorite places in Japan is Karuizawa, a small resort town in the mountains about 150 km from Tokyo. Originally a postal town during the Edo Period, it was adopted by missionary Alexander C. Shaw in 1886, who built a summer home there because it reminded him of his native Scotland. Now it's one of the most beautiful towns in Japan, frequented by tens of thousands of Tokyoites who want to enjoy the cool mountain air, ride rented bicycles beneath the trees, or shop in the small boutiques. It's a nice place, but a little too popular during certain times of the year, like Golden Week or the Obon Buddhist holidays, when an ungodly number of people flood the town. Since our son is in San Diego right now, we're taking our daughter to a nice onsen (hot springs) hotel in Karuizawa this weekend, to give her a special treat.
We're happy to announce that the Zenra Ballerina series from Soft on Demand has been nominated for Best Film at the 11th Charity Erotic Awards in London and is a finalist. We're very proud of the special recognition this excellent product has received, and SOD is equally happy. We hope it will win!
For the new update, we've got some excellent products from Japan for you. They include:
For our 18+ customers, we've got many new products. The new items include:
J-List carries a unique item you'll never find anywhere: sushi clocks with wax sushi that's hand-made by Japanese wax food artists for perfect detail. Ever since I saw these detailed clocks in Japan I've been on a mission to obtain these fantastic items for J-List customers, and now we've got all the excellent sushi clocks in stock. Not only are the sushi pieces totally realistic, the hands of the clocks are chopsticks! To help you choose one of these amazing and unique items, we've lowered the price of all sushi clocks -- check out the new lower prices on these amazing items. (They make unforgettable gifts, too.)
My home town of San Diego has just two seasons: sunny and slightly less sunny. In contrast, Japan is an extremely seasonal place, with hot, humid summers, freezing, windy winters, and two rainy periods during the year. There are some unique smells that are associated with seasons here. Right now it's hot, and mosquitoes are biting with a vengeance, so my wife burns Japanese mosquito coils at night, which make a pleasant incense smell that instantly reminds me of summer. Likewise, when winter rolls around, most people bring out portable kerosene heaters, which have a unique pungent smell to them when you first turn them on. That first smell of kerosene in December brings back a flood of fond memories of winters past.
One of our favorite places in Japan is Karuizawa, a small resort town in the mountains about 150 km from Tokyo. Originally a postal town during the Edo Period, it was adopted by missionary Alexander C. Shaw in 1886, who built a summer home there because it reminded him of his native Scotland. Now it's one of the most beautiful towns in Japan, frequented by tens of thousands of Tokyoites who want to enjoy the cool mountain air, ride rented bicycles beneath the trees, or shop in the small boutiques. It's a nice place, but a little too popular during certain times of the year, like Golden Week or the Obon Buddhist holidays, when an ungodly number of people flood the town. Since our son is in San Diego right now, we're taking our daughter to a nice onsen (hot springs) hotel in Karuizawa this weekend, to give her a special treat.
We're happy to announce that the Zenra Ballerina series from Soft on Demand has been nominated for Best Film at the 11th Charity Erotic Awards in London and is a finalist. We're very proud of the special recognition this excellent product has received, and SOD is equally happy. We hope it will win!
For the new update, we've got some excellent products from Japan for you. They include:
- First, for Macross fans, superb treat: the Macross Collection Series 2, featuring fabulous soft vinyl figures from the Macross series (full sets in stock!)
- Shirow Masamune fans, we have the new Intron Depot 4 art book, filled with his incredible artwork and original characters
- For Japanese snack lovers, enjoy "Neru Neru Nerune," a fun treat you make by adding water and mixing until the mixture turns into soft candy
- Also, delicious coffee roasted peanuts (?), authentic ramen noodles, tasty squid jerky, and other tasty snacks from Japan
- The Frog Style character series continues to take Japan by storm -- we've got super cute gashapon (capsule toys) featuring super cute frog wind chime keychains, so cute!
- Next, enjoy all-purpose "can cases" for Hello Kitty fans, which look great and securely hold anything you need to store inside
- We've got some great swimsuit idol photobooks too, including the lovely hardcover offering of Mayuko Iwase
- Also, the gorgeous new issue of Race Queen Fan, a great photomagazine featuring the lovely Endless Lady Miki Kobayashi
- Get a great massage with the "massage fish" rolling massager we've got in stock -- I've got one at home and love mine!
- If you have a cat, we've got a cute cat toy that he will love, a furry mouse on a stick that he'll want to chase and play with
- Summer is here and it's hot -- we've gotten in more stylish and cool wooden geta shoes for ladies, with beautiful kimono-fabric designs that look great
- Enjoy a Japanese onsen (hot springs bath) outside of Japan with foaming bath tablets, which we've got in stock for you
- Also, a great bamboo chopstick holder (also good for keeping pens handy)
- Studying Japanese? We've restocked the wonderful kanji workbooks for grades 1-4 for you
- We've reduced the prices on some of our popular Japanese T-shirts to make room for more designs -- enjoy a great close-out price on our "I will pass the test" good luck T-shirt!
- For fans of Kill Bill, we've restocked the Japanese release DVD, which features the scenes that were cutout of the U.S. release of the movie -- a great item for collectors! (region 2)
- Also: the last stock we'll ever get of the amazing photobook of Chiaki Kuriyama, aka GoGo Yubari from Kill Bill
- For your kids this summer, fresh stock of the affordable Japanese "happy" coats, very cheap because they're made of paper
- Daisuke has restocked the popular miniature food toys by Re-Ment, so perfectly detailed and fun to display (full sets are in stock so there's no need to buy duplicates and throw them away)
- Finally, delicious wasabi flavored rice crackers, a handy way to keep your tongue free of plaque, and more!
For our 18+ customers, we've got many new products. The new items include:
- For fans of Japan's famous 18+ magazines, we've got the new issues of Penthouse Japan and Penthouse Special, both featuring all-Japanese girls who will knock your socks off
- Next, enjoy a new issue of More & More DVD + color magazine, this time featuring the sexy elegance of Kyoko Ayana (!)
- For fans of Japan's gorgeous hardcover glossy photobooks, we recommend the amazing photobook of Maiko Tohno, a gorgeous "Zero Woman" from Japan
- For fans of Japan's H manga, we have some dynamite books for you, including a new offering from the famous LINDA, a superb fantasy manga from Shinobu Hattori, and The Hot Water of Tsuyako
- We've restocked many manga titles too, including the Dark Crimson series by Urushihara, Buttagiri Sisters, Teacher Mirako's Huge Panic, and more
- We have a new yaoi comic too, for fans of Japan's famous shonen'ai dramatic comics, as well as fresh stock of the popular Muscle Man series
- For our new update, we've got lots of great DVDs for you, starting with 4 hours of the fabulous Marina Matsushima's best works with Total Media Agency (region free)
- Then from indies studio Dogma, a "Restrictive Chair Trance" offering starring Kurumi Morishita and Shoko Mikami together in a delightful performance (region free)
- Next, the lovely Haruna Harada takes on a park full of homeless men hanging out in a park -- an amazing performance by SOD's Martian Devil label (region free)
- From Deep's, a bold disc featuring two sexy actresses who are very tall (172 cm, or 5'7") (region free)
- Mai Sakashita is back with a superb 3 hour DVD from Wanz Factory -- the slender, velvet-smooth JAV starlet really shines in this disc! (region 2)
- Then from Moodyz, a selection of 14 all-natural Tokyo girls tasting the sweet kiss of other females (region 2)
- Finally, we've restocked some great DVDs for you, including Akira Watase's Complete Collection, Zenra Japanese Drums, recent titles by Sora Aoi and more!
J-List carries a unique item you'll never find anywhere: sushi clocks with wax sushi that's hand-made by Japanese wax food artists for perfect detail. Ever since I saw these detailed clocks in Japan I've been on a mission to obtain these fantastic items for J-List customers, and now we've got all the excellent sushi clocks in stock. Not only are the sushi pieces totally realistic, the hands of the clocks are chopsticks! To help you choose one of these amazing and unique items, we've lowered the price of all sushi clocks -- check out the new lower prices on these amazing items. (They make unforgettable gifts, too.)
Wednesday, July 28, 2004
Greetings from J-List July 28, 2004
Hello and Happy Monday from your friends in Japan!
It is interesting to observe the differences between Japan and the U.S. For one thing, it's an accepted concept that American companies usually "stick to their knitting" and only make products you'd expect them to make. Dell makes computers, and Ford makes cars, and if Ford started making computers we'd all wonder what they were smoking. But in Japan, it's quite common for companies to enter a wide range of businesses. You know Sony for their home electronics, but in Japan, Sony is also famous for life insurance, online banking and high-end make-up products. Building homes is big business in Japan, and companies like Panasonic and Toyota own companies that build homes under those brands -- there's even a builder called TBS Housing, operated by the Tokyo Broadcasting System, of all people. Mitsubishi is famous for their cars, but they're also busy making trains and home electronics and selling securities, and they are the leading manufacturer of pencils in Japan. All the big beer manufacturers have booming soft drink businesses on the side, so Coca Cola decided to try this process in reverse: they've introduced their first alcohol free beer, called Sky Malt, in the Japanese market.
As a man, living in Japan means being at peace with having women around you when you're in the buff. While some may have the impression that men and women bathe together regularly in Japan, kon'yoku or mixed bathing is actually very rare these days. However, there's an unwritten rule that female staff may enter the men's public bath to clean at any time, despite the natural state of all the men bathing inside. Usually the women are "obasans" (older women in their 50s or so), but every once in a while an attractive younger woman will come in to straighten the buckets or check the bath temperature, causing the occasional dash to hot water by gaijin who shall not be named. Bathing in public baths (sento) and hot springs (onsen) is a fun part of life in Japan, and something my family and I are big fans of. By and large, being in the buff in front of others is something you don't give a second thought to -- it's just part of the culture here.
Memorizing the names of the months in English must be difficult for Japanese, but it's easy going the other way -- the months in Japanese are all just numbers followed by the kanji for month (e.g. ichi-gatsu is January, ni-gatsu is February, etc.). They get their revenge, though: although the days of the month in Japanese are expressed with numbers, just like in English, there are special names for the first ten days of the month, which must be memorized, always a chore for gaijin learning Japanese. The days of the week are interesting, too -- each is associated with a kanji that represents the original European origin. The days of the week are Getsu-yobi (lit. "moon day"), Ka-yobi ("fire day" since the first character for Mars is "fire"), Sui-yobi ("water day," from the Japanese name for the planet Mercury), Moku-yobi ("wood day," from Jupiter), Kin-yobi ("gold day," from Venus), Do-yobi ("earth day," from Saturn), and Nichi-yobi ("sun day," from good old Sol).
For the new update, we've got some excellent products from Japan for you, described below. To view all products updated in the past 3 days, click: http://www.jbox.com/UPDATES/3/
Remember that J-List offers dozens of amazing original T-shirts, printed in the USA on quality U.S. size T-shirts. Note that since we're always introducing new designs to the site, we have to close old designs out. We currently have several shirts designs that are being removed from the site, which you can buy at special prices. Check the site now before your sizes are sold out.
Also remember that you can browse the J-List/JBOX.com websites easily using our "text tree" browsing feature, which allows you to see all products in all categories easily, without images or descriptions. Click on a product you want to see more about and it will come up quickly. To access this feature, click the "text browsing" link on the left of each page, or the "text tree browsing" bar at the top of product categories.
It is interesting to observe the differences between Japan and the U.S. For one thing, it's an accepted concept that American companies usually "stick to their knitting" and only make products you'd expect them to make. Dell makes computers, and Ford makes cars, and if Ford started making computers we'd all wonder what they were smoking. But in Japan, it's quite common for companies to enter a wide range of businesses. You know Sony for their home electronics, but in Japan, Sony is also famous for life insurance, online banking and high-end make-up products. Building homes is big business in Japan, and companies like Panasonic and Toyota own companies that build homes under those brands -- there's even a builder called TBS Housing, operated by the Tokyo Broadcasting System, of all people. Mitsubishi is famous for their cars, but they're also busy making trains and home electronics and selling securities, and they are the leading manufacturer of pencils in Japan. All the big beer manufacturers have booming soft drink businesses on the side, so Coca Cola decided to try this process in reverse: they've introduced their first alcohol free beer, called Sky Malt, in the Japanese market.
As a man, living in Japan means being at peace with having women around you when you're in the buff. While some may have the impression that men and women bathe together regularly in Japan, kon'yoku or mixed bathing is actually very rare these days. However, there's an unwritten rule that female staff may enter the men's public bath to clean at any time, despite the natural state of all the men bathing inside. Usually the women are "obasans" (older women in their 50s or so), but every once in a while an attractive younger woman will come in to straighten the buckets or check the bath temperature, causing the occasional dash to hot water by gaijin who shall not be named. Bathing in public baths (sento) and hot springs (onsen) is a fun part of life in Japan, and something my family and I are big fans of. By and large, being in the buff in front of others is something you don't give a second thought to -- it's just part of the culture here.
Memorizing the names of the months in English must be difficult for Japanese, but it's easy going the other way -- the months in Japanese are all just numbers followed by the kanji for month (e.g. ichi-gatsu is January, ni-gatsu is February, etc.). They get their revenge, though: although the days of the month in Japanese are expressed with numbers, just like in English, there are special names for the first ten days of the month, which must be memorized, always a chore for gaijin learning Japanese. The days of the week are interesting, too -- each is associated with a kanji that represents the original European origin. The days of the week are Getsu-yobi (lit. "moon day"), Ka-yobi ("fire day" since the first character for Mars is "fire"), Sui-yobi ("water day," from the Japanese name for the planet Mercury), Moku-yobi ("wood day," from Jupiter), Kin-yobi ("gold day," from Venus), Do-yobi ("earth day," from Saturn), and Nichi-yobi ("sun day," from good old Sol).
For the new update, we've got some excellent products from Japan for you, described below. To view all products updated in the past 3 days, click: http://www.jbox.com/UPDATES/3/
- First, a very special item for Evangelion fans: super sexy figures of Rei and Asuka featuring the most gorgeous plugsuits you've ever seen, and cat tails and ears
- For fans of super cute JPOP group Melon Kinenbi (Melon Anniversary), we have a special hardcover photobook in stock for you
- Naruto fans, we have a great treat for you: Naruto gashapon (capsule toys) with all the great characters from the series -- we have full sets so you don't need to worry about getting duplicates and throwing them away
- Add a touch of Japan to your home with "noren," special Japanese curtains which you hang in doorways
- For fans of our wacky Japanese message T-shirts, we have some cool new products for you: bizarre signs to hang in your car and bafflement to everyone
- For fans of our Japanese snack foods, we've got a sampling of tasty corn snacks with flavors like takoyaki (fried octopus balls), teriyaki burger, and the famous natto (fermented soybeans)
- Then enjoy classic shrimp-flavored rice crackers, yummy melon flavored candies for summer, and tasty chocolate er, cotton candy
- Restocked snack items include delicious Toppo and Pretz (which don't melt in the hot summer months, unlike Pocky), several varieties of gum including Black Black caffeine gum, and powdered Pocari Sweat drink mix
- We have some new wacky Japanese condoms for you, which parody the Japanese horror classic The Ring
- For people who want to have cool Japanese things around them when they study, we have a handy pencil sharpener that's incredibly advanced and cool to look at (it matches other "Flavor" items we sell too)
- Hello Kitty fans, we've got some really cute Kitty Frisbees that you can throw and catch -- three different colors to choose from
- Next, enjoy another elegant wing chime that uses pieces of charred wood to make a pleasant sound when the wind blocks
- To all fans of Japanese toys, we hope you've bought at least one Sun Arrow plush so you can see how great the quality of these amazing toys are -- we have a new "Sho Totoro" (the cute white one) plush that is so soft and well made, you'll want to hug it
- Among the 2000+ products we sell, some of the most popular are Japanese refreshing eyedrops -- we've got a new type of extra-refreshing eyedrops that are good for anyone with contact lenses (hard or soft)
- Are you studying Japanese? We've got fresh stock of the very popular Canon Wordtank G50, the dynamite new Wordtank with many fabulous features for serious students of Japanese -- we've got a great new price too
- Also for anyone studying Japanese: we have fresh stock of the Chobits bilingual manga by CLAMP and Princess Knight by the famous Tezuka Osamu -- enjoy these great works
- Finally, find more Domo-kun plush squares that are incredibly cute to display, more useful flashcards that help you learn Japanese words, tasty and fun "whistle ramune" candy, and more!
Remember that J-List offers dozens of amazing original T-shirts, printed in the USA on quality U.S. size T-shirts. Note that since we're always introducing new designs to the site, we have to close old designs out. We currently have several shirts designs that are being removed from the site, which you can buy at special prices. Check the site now before your sizes are sold out.
Also remember that you can browse the J-List/JBOX.com websites easily using our "text tree" browsing feature, which allows you to see all products in all categories easily, without images or descriptions. Click on a product you want to see more about and it will come up quickly. To access this feature, click the "text browsing" link on the left of each page, or the "text tree browsing" bar at the top of product categories.
Monday, July 19, 2004
Greetings from J-List July 19, 2004
Hello again from J-List! For the fourth time this year, I've made the jump from Japan back to the good old USA, this time with my son. I do genuinely love Japan, from its wacky snacks to its kind people, but in the end, I think everyone really loves their home country best. Part of what's great about living outside the U.S. is, I realize what parts of America are really great and can appreciate them all the more when I'm home.
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, they say, and there's plenty of imitation of America going on in Japan. There's a Japanese version of the Academy Awards, where Japanese actors and directors receive awards for Japanese films. Japan's version of 401(k) system goes by the original name of Japan 401(k). Imitation rears its head in television and movies, too. Often, the Japanese will remake shows from the U.S. or Europe, such as the Japanese version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire? (shortened to Quiz: Millionaire? to make it easier for viewers to remember). TV dramas also steal ideas from American TV and movies, such as one drama in the early 90's (Ai to iu na no moto ni, "In the name of love") which was a near-perfect remake of St. Elmos Fire, or another, Emergency Ward, that was Japan's answer to E.R. One drama had an original story involving a woman who falls for a wealthy man, but the last scene was a "tribute" to An Officer and a Gentleman, lifting the entire last scene from that movie. A new drama that just started, Fugitive, promises to be a Japanese-style remake of the excellent Harrison Ford film.
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 to others 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 your community's 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/220 pounds, I am gargantuan for Japan, and have been asked by Japanese if I was a professional 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 as "common sense" but means much more. The Japanese all seem to have a built-in idea of how things should work, and they are very much in harmony with each other as a rule. 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, where they can receive the best care, 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 very soon after, 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, and sometimes hard for non-Japanese to pick up on.
We'll be rolling out some new features on the J-List website over the next week, improving the way our shopping cart system works and adding new checkout features. We expect things to go smoothly, but as always, if you experience a problem with the J-List website, please let us know right away. You can always make orders through the secure email form (the link is in the upper left hand corner of every page) if there are problems.
For the new update, we've got some excellent products from Japan for you, with wonderful new DVDs, great new magazines and photobooks, many new manga, new anime and toy items (including more Totoro monster towels!), great snacks, and more. To see all the great items we have for you, please check the J-List website now. Remember you can check products added or updated in the past three days via this link: http://www.jlist.com/UPDATES/3
J-List carries many delicious snack items from Japan. One of our favorites are Shigekix (from shigeru "to stimulate" and the English word Kicks), which are extremely tart "hard gummi" candies that are really fun to eat. Put 1-2 in your mouth and they'll make you pucker, but they're chewy and satisfying to snack on, and a whole package has very few calories. Check out our stock of great snacks from Japan!
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, they say, and there's plenty of imitation of America going on in Japan. There's a Japanese version of the Academy Awards, where Japanese actors and directors receive awards for Japanese films. Japan's version of 401(k) system goes by the original name of Japan 401(k). Imitation rears its head in television and movies, too. Often, the Japanese will remake shows from the U.S. or Europe, such as the Japanese version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire? (shortened to Quiz: Millionaire? to make it easier for viewers to remember). TV dramas also steal ideas from American TV and movies, such as one drama in the early 90's (Ai to iu na no moto ni, "In the name of love") which was a near-perfect remake of St. Elmos Fire, or another, Emergency Ward, that was Japan's answer to E.R. One drama had an original story involving a woman who falls for a wealthy man, but the last scene was a "tribute" to An Officer and a Gentleman, lifting the entire last scene from that movie. A new drama that just started, Fugitive, promises to be a Japanese-style remake of the excellent Harrison Ford film.
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 to others 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 your community's 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/220 pounds, I am gargantuan for Japan, and have been asked by Japanese if I was a professional 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 as "common sense" but means much more. The Japanese all seem to have a built-in idea of how things should work, and they are very much in harmony with each other as a rule. 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, where they can receive the best care, 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 very soon after, 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, and sometimes hard for non-Japanese to pick up on.
We'll be rolling out some new features on the J-List website over the next week, improving the way our shopping cart system works and adding new checkout features. We expect things to go smoothly, but as always, if you experience a problem with the J-List website, please let us know right away. You can always make orders through the secure email form (the link is in the upper left hand corner of every page) if there are problems.
For the new update, we've got some excellent products from Japan for you, with wonderful new DVDs, great new magazines and photobooks, many new manga, new anime and toy items (including more Totoro monster towels!), great snacks, and more. To see all the great items we have for you, please check the J-List website now. Remember you can check products added or updated in the past three days via this link: http://www.jlist.com/UPDATES/3
J-List carries many delicious snack items from Japan. One of our favorites are Shigekix (from shigeru "to stimulate" and the English word Kicks), which are extremely tart "hard gummi" candies that are really fun to eat. Put 1-2 in your mouth and they'll make you pucker, but they're chewy and satisfying to snack on, and a whole package has very few calories. Check out our stock of great snacks from Japan!
Wednesday, July 14, 2004
Greetings from J-List July 14, 2004
Hello again from Japan, where buildings have funny names like "Apartment Cream Soda." We apologize for the delay with the mail server -- this is yesterday's update, going out today. The server is fixed so all should be fine in the future.
Whenever you learn a language, you have to deal with the fact that words in one language don't always match up with words on a second one. A simple concept like "cold" in English is covered with two words in Japanese, samui for coldness of the air around you and tsumetai for something that's cold to the touch. Similarly, the word for cold water is mizu, but hot water (o-yu) is a totally different linguistic concept, just as "curb" and "curve" are separate ideas to us but the same to the Japanese. Some Japanese words have complex nuances that make them fun to learn. The English word "heart" has three words in Japanese: shinzo (the part of you that's beating now), haato (the English word heart, which describes the heart shape and is used in songs and advertising to signify affection and gentleness), and kokoro (a word encompassing the philosophical elements of the human heart, similar to "spirit" or "mind"). Another word that can't be translated easily is "love." There are two words for the concept in Japanese: koi, which is young, romantic love and ai, a word for the deeper love between family members, or a husband and wife who have been married many years. A third word for love, ren'ai, is the kanji for koi and ai used to form a compound word similar to the romantic koi. If you ever want to fluster a Japanese person, ask them to define the difference between words like koi and ai in English, then sit back and watch them flounder.
Although you may think of certain foods as sushi, sashimi, tempura and sukiyaki as popular Japanese dishes, the national food of Japan has got to be curry, or as the Japanese call it, curry rice. Curry spread to Britain during the 1700s and from there went all around the world, a gift from the British Empire. In Japan, curry is eaten on steamed white rice, and became popular at the start of the 20th century -- and now it's enjoyed more than any other kind of food. Japanese curry is thicker than the soup-like Indian curry, and many companies here compete to make the best blend of curry to appeal to consumers, making products with names like House The Curry, Vermont Curry, and Java Curry. Although Thai food is quite popular in America, it's not very common here in Japan outside of big cities -- but Indian restaurants are everywhere here.
It's common for bilingual speakers to switch between languages when they know the person they're speaking to will understand either one; this is called "code switching." Sometimes kids do it accidentally, because they haven't learned which words go with which language. When my kids were younger, they often would use English words with the Japanese teachers at their preschool, causing confusion. I remember when my son Kazuki went to the local public bath with me, back when he was two years old or so. He told me that the cold-water bath was "cold-katta." I didn't understand what he meant, but then it hit me: he had mixed the English word cold with the past tense ending in Japanese (-katta). The Japanese for "it was cold" would have been tsumeta-katta. My son is now nine, and is looking forward to spending three weeks in San Diego relearning the English he learned last summer but has since forgotten.
Of the 2000+ products J-List has for you, we offer hundreds of varieties of fun Japanese snacks, from traditional "bubble ball" fizzing candies that have been loved by Japanese for decades to super tart Shigekix gummi candies. Due to the extreme heat and humidity of Japan in the summer months, we remove chocolate products like Pocky temporarily to keep them from melting. Usually we have to go all summer without any Pocky on the site, however we're happy to announce a new Pocky, called Pocky Reverse, that features cookie on the outside and chocolate on the inside (so it won't melt). We've got this amazing new taste on the site right now -- order 5 or more boxes and get a 15% discount, too.
For the new update, we've got some excellent products from Japan for you. They include:
For our 18+ customers, we've got many new products. The new items include:
J-List customers tell us the #1 way they hear of us is through recommendations from friends. If you've got friend who may be interested in our unique brand of wacky Japanese pop culture, we hope you'll give them our URL or tell them about us. Thanks in advance!
Remember that J-List is fortunate to be able to carry the high-quality plush toys made by Sun Arrow, a Japanese toy company founded back in the Taisho era, with a hundred years of history to their name. For many years they've been the trusted partner and licensee of all Studio Ghibli toys including Totoro, Spirited Away and more. The plush toys they create are the best we've ever seen, soft to touch and furry to hold, far inferior to the anime plush toys you may have seen for sale in the U.S. (which are, alas, usually Taiwanese pirate products). We hope you'll browse our extensive selection of Studio Ghibli products!
Whenever you learn a language, you have to deal with the fact that words in one language don't always match up with words on a second one. A simple concept like "cold" in English is covered with two words in Japanese, samui for coldness of the air around you and tsumetai for something that's cold to the touch. Similarly, the word for cold water is mizu, but hot water (o-yu) is a totally different linguistic concept, just as "curb" and "curve" are separate ideas to us but the same to the Japanese. Some Japanese words have complex nuances that make them fun to learn. The English word "heart" has three words in Japanese: shinzo (the part of you that's beating now), haato (the English word heart, which describes the heart shape and is used in songs and advertising to signify affection and gentleness), and kokoro (a word encompassing the philosophical elements of the human heart, similar to "spirit" or "mind"). Another word that can't be translated easily is "love." There are two words for the concept in Japanese: koi, which is young, romantic love and ai, a word for the deeper love between family members, or a husband and wife who have been married many years. A third word for love, ren'ai, is the kanji for koi and ai used to form a compound word similar to the romantic koi. If you ever want to fluster a Japanese person, ask them to define the difference between words like koi and ai in English, then sit back and watch them flounder.
Although you may think of certain foods as sushi, sashimi, tempura and sukiyaki as popular Japanese dishes, the national food of Japan has got to be curry, or as the Japanese call it, curry rice. Curry spread to Britain during the 1700s and from there went all around the world, a gift from the British Empire. In Japan, curry is eaten on steamed white rice, and became popular at the start of the 20th century -- and now it's enjoyed more than any other kind of food. Japanese curry is thicker than the soup-like Indian curry, and many companies here compete to make the best blend of curry to appeal to consumers, making products with names like House The Curry, Vermont Curry, and Java Curry. Although Thai food is quite popular in America, it's not very common here in Japan outside of big cities -- but Indian restaurants are everywhere here.
It's common for bilingual speakers to switch between languages when they know the person they're speaking to will understand either one; this is called "code switching." Sometimes kids do it accidentally, because they haven't learned which words go with which language. When my kids were younger, they often would use English words with the Japanese teachers at their preschool, causing confusion. I remember when my son Kazuki went to the local public bath with me, back when he was two years old or so. He told me that the cold-water bath was "cold-katta." I didn't understand what he meant, but then it hit me: he had mixed the English word cold with the past tense ending in Japanese (-katta). The Japanese for "it was cold" would have been tsumeta-katta. My son is now nine, and is looking forward to spending three weeks in San Diego relearning the English he learned last summer but has since forgotten.
Of the 2000+ products J-List has for you, we offer hundreds of varieties of fun Japanese snacks, from traditional "bubble ball" fizzing candies that have been loved by Japanese for decades to super tart Shigekix gummi candies. Due to the extreme heat and humidity of Japan in the summer months, we remove chocolate products like Pocky temporarily to keep them from melting. Usually we have to go all summer without any Pocky on the site, however we're happy to announce a new Pocky, called Pocky Reverse, that features cookie on the outside and chocolate on the inside (so it won't melt). We've got this amazing new taste on the site right now -- order 5 or more boxes and get a 15% discount, too.
For the new update, we've got some excellent products from Japan for you. They include:
- First, we love the detailed miniature toys that are popular in Japan right now, called "candy toys" because you usually get candy inside the box -- newly in stock are replicas of miniature Japanese gardens, great for all gaijin
- Hello Kitty fans, we have a great set of Kitty glasses that are ultra cute and fun to drink out of
- Also for Kitty lovers, super cute plush Kitty plush chair protectors that keep your chairs from scratching the floor
- In addition to the new Pocky, we've got other great snacks for you, including whistling ramune candy that's been sold in Japan for decades, tasty chicken corn snacks, and more
- We've got a great restocking of snack items too, including Black Black Tablet caffeine candy and gum, Pretz Roast flavor (my own favorite), more Sushi Gummi, delicious sake candy and Okinawa Black Sugar caramels from Morinaga
- For fans of Japanese chewing gum, delicious new whitening gum from Lotte that has Xylitol in it (this is a famous sweetener from Norway that improves the strength of teeth)
- We love the aesthetic beauty of kanji, and have cool framed kanji messages in stock for you, very traditional and cool
- Delight your guests by giving them a clean, unopened toothbrush just for them -- we have packs of these convenient disposable toothbrushes in stock
- Next, are you learning how to use chopsticks? We recommend the beginners chopsticks we have, very easy to practice with
- From Jun Planning, a dynamite full-sized doll in their Pullip line, best described as "Blythe meets Gothic & Lolita Bible"
- Next, more items for Japanese Girl Nagomi fans -- beautiful station sets featuring the artwork of Seiichi Hayashi
- For fans of unique computer products from Japan, we've got new "Bit Grast" portable USB mice in stock, along with the excellent beige laptop case from Elecom
- Also, fresh stock of the popular Groomy line of computer plush pets -- they're soft and cute and have soft leather undersides which you can clean your computer monitor with
- Then we have some awesome Japanese headbands for you with messages like "I will Pass the Test"
- For smaller sized customers, we have the excellent Japanese tattoo shirts which will make you look like a real yakuza
- Fans of the very popular Go Go Pinky Street toy + photobook series, we've restocked this for you too
- Finally, cute characters in the "Usagi Collection" series, excellent sushi erasers, more funny signs for your car, and more!
For our 18+ customers, we've got many new products. The new items include:
- For fans of one of Japan's most famous video genres, we have the new Gal's Shower, a great new issue for you (but stock is limited)
- Fans of gorgeous women from Europe and North America, enjoy the new issue of Bachelor, filled with amazing photographs from around the world
- For photobook lovers, we have a dynamite offering by Sakura Shiratori, an amazing angel from Japan
- Then enjoy the superb bikini photos of Yoko Kumada, one of our favorite cute idols in Japan right now
- Also, we've got fresh stock of at least a dozen previously sold out magazines and photobooks on the site, including some $5 magazines and many rare photobooks that are out of print
- For H manga collectors, we have the long-awaited vol. 7 of Blue Eyes, filled with incredibly gorgeous artwork and stories by Tohru Nishimaki
- Also, other dynamite new manga works, including a new Female Panther series book and a great work from Winterlong, "I cannot shout love at the bottom in the world"
- We've got a bunch of restocked manga for you too, with a dozen or more excellent works like Michael Plan, Oshiri ni Oborete and Shining Musume, back in stock for you to order
- Yaoi lovers, we've also got a great item for you, with the new issue of b-Boy Luv, featuring works from nine different talented manga artists and 240+ pages
- For our DVD customers, we have some dynamite items for you, starting with 4 hours of the elegant and popular Karen Kisuragi's performance, by Million (region free)
- From Dogma, enjoy a great "triple manko" offering with three gorgeous JAV idols (region free)
- From SOD's Hibino label, the triumphant return of Miki Sawaguchi, a star who was famous when J-List was getting started back in 1996 -- she's back again and as gorgeous as ever (region free)
- Then enjoy a whopping 240 minutes of the best scenes of Kyoko Ayana, a bright and cheerful F cup angel from Japan (region free)
- Next, meet Rin. (another girl who always puts a period as part of her name, like Nao. and Morning Musume.), a bright and energetic girl who will delight you (region 2)
- Then from Moodyz, see the unbelievably cool Naughty Dancing Queens of Tokyo's top-name discos, a real treat to see (region 2)
- Finally, enjoy some great newly restocked DVDs, including Momo Iizawa's Gock'n Roll, Miki vs. Black Guys, Mirei as an "M" actress, and more low-cost Concentration DVD titles.
J-List customers tell us the #1 way they hear of us is through recommendations from friends. If you've got friend who may be interested in our unique brand of wacky Japanese pop culture, we hope you'll give them our URL or tell them about us. Thanks in advance!
Remember that J-List is fortunate to be able to carry the high-quality plush toys made by Sun Arrow, a Japanese toy company founded back in the Taisho era, with a hundred years of history to their name. For many years they've been the trusted partner and licensee of all Studio Ghibli toys including Totoro, Spirited Away and more. The plush toys they create are the best we've ever seen, soft to touch and furry to hold, far inferior to the anime plush toys you may have seen for sale in the U.S. (which are, alas, usually Taiwanese pirate products). We hope you'll browse our extensive selection of Studio Ghibli products!
Saturday, July 10, 2004
Greetings from J-List July 10, 2004
Hello again from J-List -- it's time for another slice of life from Japan!
Each country in the world has what the Japanese call kokumin-sei, a kind of "national personality" or a list of traits that most people from that country tend to share. For example, Americans are optimistic almost to fault, believing that virtually any problem can be solved. The Japanese komumin-sei is quite unique, too. In general, Japanese tend to be very peaceful, and go out of their way to avoid conflict with others. They're concerned with the image Japan presents to the world, and some major construction projects such as Japan's first bullet trains were done partially to make foreigners oo and ah when they came for the 1968 Tokyo Olympics. Also, most Japanese tend to be extremely modest, and it can be surprising when Westerners compliment a Japanese on their English ability, only to have them vehemently deny the compliment. In my single days, I traveled all around Japan, hitchhiking or riding trains (there's a cool ticket called Seishun 18 which lets you ride as far as you want for $24, a bargain as long as you don't mind riding the slow local trains). Once, I encountered a boy and his mother while traveling near Hiroshima, and as we talked, the boy was going on and on about how "baka" (stupid) he was, so stupid that he'd never amount to anything. It surprised me to hear anyone talk like this about himself, much less an educated youth from one of the world's richest countries, but I realized later it was a kind of polite self-effacing that didn't mean much. Still, personal modesty is an amazing and sometimes surprising aspect of the Japanese.
The Japanese use quite a lot of English in their daily lives, but not usually for communication: it's more of a decoration, since English always sounds "kakko ii" (cool) to Japanese. Like the Sony Walkman and Swatch watches, English is used in cute ways to appeal to consumers; there are products with names like Charmy Green (a dishwashing soap), Melty Kiss (a delicious chocolate fudge sold in the Winter), Perky Bit (fried chicken nuggets), Cook-Do! (a line of boil-in-bag Chinese meals), and Supporty (support pantyhose). The English word "the" is thrown around quite a lot, too, added to products names and events (Ito Yokado, the largest department store chain here, has an annual sales event called "The Sale"). English can also be found in plentiful amounts on beer cans ("this beer is made with the most quality hops"), camera bags ("with you for the best scenes of your life") and sport utility vehicles ("the Earth is not only for a human").
We've added a new category to the J-List site: Traditional Japanese Items, where we'll be featuring many cool items from Japan with a traditional or cultural flare. We've moved several of the sub-categories out of the "Wacky things from Japan" section into the new Traditional category. From traditional Japanese "geta" shoes to bento boxes, chopsticks and much more, look for some really great items for you in this new category!
For the Saturday update, we've got some excellent products from Japan for you. They include:
For fans of our 18+ magazines, enjoy the pure angels of Girl's Club, a double-thick magazine for you
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, Toppo, and also the delicious and popular Felix the Cat bubble gum, which is famous all the world over. If you check the snack page you may notice that we don't have any Pocky in stock now. The reason for this is that Japan is extremely hot in the summer, and any Pocky we stocked would turn into a big melty block of chocolate. We'll have Pocky back in stock as soon as Japan cools down, and in the meantime, we hope you'll enjoy the 200+ items we still have for you now.
Also note that J-List carries a great item this summer: "towelkets," large blanket-sizes cotton towels that are a truly amazing Japanese invention. Useful as both a large, absorbent towel as well as a light blanket for the summer, the Hello Kitty towelkets we have in to stock right now are really excellent. Check them out!
Each country in the world has what the Japanese call kokumin-sei, a kind of "national personality" or a list of traits that most people from that country tend to share. For example, Americans are optimistic almost to fault, believing that virtually any problem can be solved. The Japanese komumin-sei is quite unique, too. In general, Japanese tend to be very peaceful, and go out of their way to avoid conflict with others. They're concerned with the image Japan presents to the world, and some major construction projects such as Japan's first bullet trains were done partially to make foreigners oo and ah when they came for the 1968 Tokyo Olympics. Also, most Japanese tend to be extremely modest, and it can be surprising when Westerners compliment a Japanese on their English ability, only to have them vehemently deny the compliment. In my single days, I traveled all around Japan, hitchhiking or riding trains (there's a cool ticket called Seishun 18 which lets you ride as far as you want for $24, a bargain as long as you don't mind riding the slow local trains). Once, I encountered a boy and his mother while traveling near Hiroshima, and as we talked, the boy was going on and on about how "baka" (stupid) he was, so stupid that he'd never amount to anything. It surprised me to hear anyone talk like this about himself, much less an educated youth from one of the world's richest countries, but I realized later it was a kind of polite self-effacing that didn't mean much. Still, personal modesty is an amazing and sometimes surprising aspect of the Japanese.
The Japanese use quite a lot of English in their daily lives, but not usually for communication: it's more of a decoration, since English always sounds "kakko ii" (cool) to Japanese. Like the Sony Walkman and Swatch watches, English is used in cute ways to appeal to consumers; there are products with names like Charmy Green (a dishwashing soap), Melty Kiss (a delicious chocolate fudge sold in the Winter), Perky Bit (fried chicken nuggets), Cook-Do! (a line of boil-in-bag Chinese meals), and Supporty (support pantyhose). The English word "the" is thrown around quite a lot, too, added to products names and events (Ito Yokado, the largest department store chain here, has an annual sales event called "The Sale"). English can also be found in plentiful amounts on beer cans ("this beer is made with the most quality hops"), camera bags ("with you for the best scenes of your life") and sport utility vehicles ("the Earth is not only for a human").
We've added a new category to the J-List site: Traditional Japanese Items, where we'll be featuring many cool items from Japan with a traditional or cultural flare. We've moved several of the sub-categories out of the "Wacky things from Japan" section into the new Traditional category. From traditional Japanese "geta" shoes to bento boxes, chopsticks and much more, look for some really great items for you in this new category!
For the Saturday update, we've got some excellent products from Japan for you. They include:
- First, for Shirow fans, we're happy to announce that volume 2 of Jashin Hunter (aka Beast Hunter), the amazing Japanese novel illustrated by Shirow, has been reprinted and is back in stock after many months
- We have some great new soft vinyl figures for you, incredibly detailed and fun to display in your room
- For manga fans all around the world, we have the new issue of Gekkan Dengeki Gao, a fabulous monthly manga with 500+ pages of top-notch stories and art in it
- Next, enjoy a great photobook offering with the CoComina Girls, super cute and charming
- Then we have a bargain edition of Seasonal S, featuring the most incredible artwork and imagery you've seen
- For fans of video games, a really cool full set of Capcom classic game figure gashapon (capsule toys)
- Gundam Seed fans, we've got some cool items for you too, great for collectors
- We're happy with the incredible popularity of our Furuta Star Trek ship sets -- we've got a new set in stock too, a set of 8 different incredibly detailed ships with display bases
- We love the super cute Panda Z -- enjoy a new "punching panda" figure in stock now, as well as fresh stock of other items
- For anyone studying Japanese, we've got fresh stock of the popular kanji toilet paper, with kanji to study while you squat -- makes a great gift too!
- Eva fans, we've got fresh stock of the dynamite Asuka Summer Version soft vinyl figure, guaranteed to brighten any room
- For fans of our delicious Japanese snacks, enjoy tasty bitter chocolate wafers, gun gummy candy with fruit juice inside, great melon gum, and more
- For jet-setters, we have a cool stainless steel pocket watch with protector that makes it easy to tell time around the world
- For your desk, a wacky and fun way to keep clean -- little "desk sweepers" that remove dust and eraser bits for you
- Enjoy a major restocking of many popular Totoro and Studio Ghibli items, including character magnets, cute stamps, soft character replicas, keychains and plush toys
- We've added stock of Japan Hot Wheels too, as well as additional sets of Re-Ment miniature food toys that had gone out of stock
- For anyone who'd love to try traditional Japanese soba this summer, we have a great deluxe summer soba set including tray, cup, ingredients holder and more
- Finally, look for cool colored glue sticks, more wonderful wedding gift envelopes that are just gorgeous, wacky "hachimaki" headbands, and more!
- For our adult customers, we've got many new 18+ products. They include:
For fans of our 18+ magazines, enjoy the pure angels of Girl's Club, a double-thick magazine for you
- Next, we have the new issue of Deka Melon, featuring nothing but fabulous Race Queens being bag
- H manga fans, we have some great offerings for you, including an amazing new work by Sengoku-kun, the super Sinful Days of illustrator Ren, and more
- Also, an amazing large-size manga/art book by Drill Murata, featuring some of his most amazing artwork yet
- For our DVD customers, some nice new works too, including a treatment of the Japanese genre of "tekoki" as only Soft on Demand can do it (region free)
- Then enjoy a fantastic a bold "super angle" DVD of Mika Kitagawa, who performs for you, a great multi-angle DVD release from TMA (region free)
- Also, we have a bold new "study" genre DVD by Moodyz in which six beautiful Tokyo girls engage in some interesting studies for the camera (region 2)
- Finally, look for various restocked DVD for you, and more!
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, Toppo, and also the delicious and popular Felix the Cat bubble gum, which is famous all the world over. If you check the snack page you may notice that we don't have any Pocky in stock now. The reason for this is that Japan is extremely hot in the summer, and any Pocky we stocked would turn into a big melty block of chocolate. We'll have Pocky back in stock as soon as Japan cools down, and in the meantime, we hope you'll enjoy the 200+ items we still have for you now.
Also note that J-List carries a great item this summer: "towelkets," large blanket-sizes cotton towels that are a truly amazing Japanese invention. Useful as both a large, absorbent towel as well as a light blanket for the summer, the Hello Kitty towelkets we have in to stock right now are really excellent. Check them out!
Friday, June 25, 2004
Greetings from J-List June 25, 2004
Hello again from all your friends at J-List!
There's no doubt about it: living in Japan will make you a better driver. The combination of driving on narrow roads with many twists and turns, dodging pedestrians walking along the streets that are too narrow for sidewalks, and parking rear-end first into tiny parking spaces, will polish your driving skills so much that you'll get compliments when you go back home. There's one problem though -- living in Japan will also make you forget anything you ever knew about your car's engine. Because cars here must receive a special check-up (called "sha-ken") every two years, it's customary for drivers to leave every minor technical aspect of their car's performance up to their car dealer or local mechanic. Even simple things like tune-ups and oil changes are nearly always left to professionals. The only time I've even lifted the hood (which the Japanese call the "bonnet," borrowing the British term) is when a cat managed to climb into my car's engine compartment to sleep, only to be ripped to ribbons when I started my car.
One of the biggest changes I've seen in Japan in the thirteen years I've lived here is a major opening of the economy to products from the outside. When I got here in 1992, finding a store that sold Doritos was a major find, and the only non-Japanese beer in the whole country was Bud. Now Japan is a much more open place, with many new products from America and Europe easily available in Japanese stores. However, some of the foreign brands in Japan aren't new at all, but have been here for decades. P&G (Proctor & Gamble) has been here for thirty years, so long that Japanese don't really consider brands like Pampers and Whisper to be a foreign at all. McDonald's is another company that started early in Japan -- I've actually been asked by Japanese if they have McDonald's in America. But perhaps the foreign brand most familiar to Japanese is Switzerland's Nestle. They entered the Japanese market officially back in 1961, and as a result nearly all their products, from Ritz Crackers to Oreos to Kit Kat, enjoy dominant positions in Japan. In 2001 they ran a 40th anniversary commemorative TV commercial, showing clips from all their past commercials for Nescafe instant coffee. It was pretty cool.
J-List is your source for quality T-shirts with wacky Japanese messages on them, and we've got dozens of bizarre and fun shirts for you to choose from, from the very racy to the merely hilarious. Today we've got two new shirts for you: super cute "face" shirts of our Domo-kun parody shirt and of a soft and fluffy anime favorite, Totoro. These original shirts are printed on quality 6.1 lb T-shirts which look and feel great, and they're printed with the highest quality screenprinting method for longest life. Check out our new designs!
We had another problem with our RSS feed not updating -- but it's really been fixed this time. Now you can track newly updated J-List products with any standard RSS/XML reader.
For the new update, we've got some excellent products from Japan for you. They include:
For our 18+ customers, we've got many new products. The new items include:
Remember that J-List stocks the delightfully meticulous classic food replica items from Re-Ment and other companies, which recreate famous food of the world -- sushi, Japanese traditional dishes, desserts of the world, delicious food items from a miniature supermarket -- in such detail you won't believe they're not edible (you even get little silverware/chopsticks). Great for display or for use as play food for dolls. Full sets of all items are available, so you don't need to worry about getting duplicates and throwing them away.
There's no doubt about it: living in Japan will make you a better driver. The combination of driving on narrow roads with many twists and turns, dodging pedestrians walking along the streets that are too narrow for sidewalks, and parking rear-end first into tiny parking spaces, will polish your driving skills so much that you'll get compliments when you go back home. There's one problem though -- living in Japan will also make you forget anything you ever knew about your car's engine. Because cars here must receive a special check-up (called "sha-ken") every two years, it's customary for drivers to leave every minor technical aspect of their car's performance up to their car dealer or local mechanic. Even simple things like tune-ups and oil changes are nearly always left to professionals. The only time I've even lifted the hood (which the Japanese call the "bonnet," borrowing the British term) is when a cat managed to climb into my car's engine compartment to sleep, only to be ripped to ribbons when I started my car.
One of the biggest changes I've seen in Japan in the thirteen years I've lived here is a major opening of the economy to products from the outside. When I got here in 1992, finding a store that sold Doritos was a major find, and the only non-Japanese beer in the whole country was Bud. Now Japan is a much more open place, with many new products from America and Europe easily available in Japanese stores. However, some of the foreign brands in Japan aren't new at all, but have been here for decades. P&G (Proctor & Gamble) has been here for thirty years, so long that Japanese don't really consider brands like Pampers and Whisper to be a foreign at all. McDonald's is another company that started early in Japan -- I've actually been asked by Japanese if they have McDonald's in America. But perhaps the foreign brand most familiar to Japanese is Switzerland's Nestle. They entered the Japanese market officially back in 1961, and as a result nearly all their products, from Ritz Crackers to Oreos to Kit Kat, enjoy dominant positions in Japan. In 2001 they ran a 40th anniversary commemorative TV commercial, showing clips from all their past commercials for Nescafe instant coffee. It was pretty cool.
J-List is your source for quality T-shirts with wacky Japanese messages on them, and we've got dozens of bizarre and fun shirts for you to choose from, from the very racy to the merely hilarious. Today we've got two new shirts for you: super cute "face" shirts of our Domo-kun parody shirt and of a soft and fluffy anime favorite, Totoro. These original shirts are printed on quality 6.1 lb T-shirts which look and feel great, and they're printed with the highest quality screenprinting method for longest life. Check out our new designs!
We had another problem with our RSS feed not updating -- but it's really been fixed this time. Now you can track newly updated J-List products with any standard RSS/XML reader.
For the new update, we've got some excellent products from Japan for you. They include:
- First, for fans of Japan's highly developed culture of cosplay, that is, dressing up in super-cute costumes, we've got the new issue of Gothic & Lolita Bible, featuring tons of photos and information on gothlife, complete with patterns you can use to make outfits and a deck of gothic playing cards
- For Star Wars fans, we've got a great only-sold-in-Japan set of incredibly detailed diorama toys -- full sets are available, but stock is limited
- Look for another major restocking of Domo-kun products, including the Domo-kun mini mascot, the Domo plush keychain, the deluxe Domo plush toy (medium) that is the best-selling Domo item hands down, and much more
- It's hard to live in Japan without falling in love with at least a couple members of Morning Musume, the JPOP group that holds Japan it sway -- we have a great hardcover photobook featuring the lovely Mari Yaguchi
- For fans of My Melody, one of the most popular Sanrio characters all over the world, we've got a great treat: a "decoration mug cup" that will make everyone at work envy you
- We love to sell cool things that represent Japan to us -- one such item are the timeless "Kimono Licca-chan" series, featuring Takara's famous fashion doll in traditional Japanese outfits. We have a nice summer yukata version of Licca in stock today
- For fans of our Japanese snack treats, enjoy delicious soy sauce flavored rice crackers (yum), tasty bonito fish you can eat right out of the pack, and delicious gummy treats from Meiji that contain real fruit juice
- Also, look for many restocked items, including Wata Gum which looks like cotton candy, delicious "Fruit of the Bubble" gum, Charcoal Roasted Coffee Candy, and our popular cold-water mugi-cha (barley tea) bags for summer
- Also, a dynamite item from Japan: famous rice crackers that come with Kabuki Frog keychain mascots, the famous Frog Style character with gorgeously painted kabuki faces
- Summer to the Japanese means going to festivals and playing "Kinyo Sukui" or "Save the Goldfish," a game where you have to catch goldfish with paper scoops -- we've got some fun goldfish toy items for you today, including a complete goldfish game you can play with your kids
- Another fun item for summer: a Hello Kitty water pistol, complete with Kitty and her rubber ducky
- We've restocked our popular Dr. Ion pens that come with massage tips for tired shoulders
- Then, enjoy a level of style only available from Japan with MagCatch Pen Stand, a quality aluminum pen with a heavy magnetic base that holds your pen securely, ready for you to to reach for it
- Make sure your family's chopsticks are always hand with our deluxe chopstick holders, which both dry chopsticks and hold them for you
- We have another nice item for summer: charcoal wind-chimes, which make a lovely sound when the breeze blows
- Do you love the stylish kogal Pinky figures? We've restocked the Pinky Street figure + photobook set for you
- We've got more cute Japanese character memo pads, including the super cute Usa Hana (OO-sa HAH-na) and Shinkansen characters from Sanrio
- Finally, look for even more uniquely Japanese ways to clean your ears, more Japanese pens with very fine points for precision, a way to keep your washing machine clean, and more!
For our 18+ customers, we've got many new products. The new items include:
- For fans of gorgeous Japanese women, we've got the new issue of Gal's Dee, featuring girls with a side D or larger cup, like Ami Sakuragi (98 cm G cup)
- Also, the premier issue of Gal Max, featuring gorgeous girls aged 18-24
- We have a new issue of Cho Very Good!! The Movie, a super all-kogal magazine featuring a 2 hour DVD of sample quickies for you
- When Yasu told us he'd found the perfect beauty, we didn't believe him, but he was right: Reon Kadena's new all-natural photobook is simply amazing, and we recommend it highly
- We've also restocked several photobooks, including Kyoko Fukada's dynamite gothic photobook release (Tomo is a big fan of Fuka-Kyon)
- We have some super new H manga for you, including Dogu, a super exploration of the mind of ecchi manga creator Dozamura, as well as AC Comic's Lying Body and an excellent work by Yoshimitsu Kura
- Restocked manga include all volumes of the popular Pururun Seminar series, Heroine Insult, P-Total Bio Chemical, Futanarikko Love and more -- check them all out
- Yaoi lovers, we've got a nice new manga for you by Be Boy Comics and Kazusa Takashima
- For our DVD customers, we've got some great titles for you in time for the end of our special "Thanks Sale" -- starting with the lovely "Fresh Pleasure" of Kyoko Nakajima (region free)
- Next, enjoy more Woman Announcer Insult Play, in which four elegant newscasters (announcers) insult and punish each other (region free)
- Next, two gay men do battle with the gorgeous small-bodied Kaori Kobayakawa in an extremely stylish performance (region free)
- Natural girls from around Japan show off their bodies in a new release from Hajime Planning -- this time see the lovely girls from Japan's northern Tohoku region (region free)
- From Moodyz, enjoy a "6P" (manage a six) with three gorgeous Japanese women and three big black guys from the USA (2 discs, region 2)
- Then from the famous studio Waap Entertainment, enjoy some good Japanese "Gock n' Roll" with lots of fun "gokkun" themed performances for you, performed by Momo Iizawa (region 2)
- Finally, we have some great newly restocked DVDs including some classic all-girl indies DVD titles, fresh stock of Gold Bird and Euro Angels, some new "Concentration" DVD releases, and more!
Remember that J-List stocks the delightfully meticulous classic food replica items from Re-Ment and other companies, which recreate famous food of the world -- sushi, Japanese traditional dishes, desserts of the world, delicious food items from a miniature supermarket -- in such detail you won't believe they're not edible (you even get little silverware/chopsticks). Great for display or for use as play food for dolls. Full sets of all items are available, so you don't need to worry about getting duplicates and throwing them away.
Wednesday, June 23, 2004
Greetings from J-List June 23, 2004
Hello again from all your friends in Japan!
Now that the ban on Japanese cultural imports has been lifted in South Korea, there's lots of evidence of sharing of culture between the two nations. More and more Korean stars are becoming commonplace on Japanese TV, like my favorite, the lovely Yoon Son Ha (her Korean-Japanese accent is so cute). The popular South Korean war film Brotherhood (in Korean, Taegukgi Hwinalrimyeo) is playing in theatres in Japan right now, and when Korean actor Bin Won came to Japan to promote the movie he was surprised to see 500 screaming Japanese fans at the airport to see him. We're glad to see this new cultural sharing between South Korea and Japan and hope to see more of it in the future.
Japan is experiencing a real "bug boom" right now, as millions of elementary school kids learn everything they can about various kinds of beetles like the Goliath Beetle, Rhinoceros Beetle, Eastern Hercules Beetle and a Japanese variety called Ookuwagata. Part of the interest in bugs is being fueled by the popularity of Mushi King ("Bug King"), an arcade game by Sega which spits out a bar-coded insect card that kids use to fight other 3D animated insects. My son loves this game and has a complete collection of the cards, which have information about the bugs printed on them. Last weekend we took the kids to a nearby Insect Zoo which happened to sell various kinds of beetles, and sure enough, my kids conned us into buying two of them as pets. We're now the proud owners of two red-backed Ookuwagata, which sleep in their cage in a dark corner of my son's room.
There's a fun game Japanese kids play, called Shiritori (lit. "take the rear end") Game. To play, someone thinks of a word -- say, chopsticks, which is "hashi" in Japanese. Then the next person takes the last syllable -- "shi" -- and thinks of a word that starts with this syllable, say, "shika" (deer). The next person continues, with a word that starts with "ka" and so on. In Japanese phonetics, the only consonant that can appear by itself without a noun after it is the letter "n", so in Shiritori Game, saying a word that ends in "n" (such as lion, "raion" in Japanese) ends the game for that person. This game is played by virtually all children in Japan and is a fun way for kids (or gaijin) to pick up and reinforce vocabulary words. It's a great game to play in the car, too.
We love Japan's interactive dating-sim games, which are a huge category of software here -- approximately 25% of all software in Japan are interactive love-sim games of one kind or another. Today we're announcing preorders for two upcoming games from Hirameki, which are DVD games that will play with any standard DVD player, as well as PC/Mac with DVD drives or Sony Playstation/Xbox. In Hourglass of Summer, you suddenly "timeslip" to the end of summer vacation, surprised to learn that your girlfriend Kaho has been killed in an accident the day before. Can you save her by finding a way to go back in time? An adventure of a lifetime, a summer that crosses the boundaries of space and time. Then in Tea Society of a Witch, you must interact with three magical beings and find a way to allow humans to once again live in peace with the mages of the World of Magic. Two great non-H interactive anime games!
For the new update, we've got some excellent products from Japan for you. They include:
J-List carries over 2000 unique products from Japan, from full sets of cool miniature toys from Japan, to unique Totoro and Hello Kitty products to cool Shirow Masamune collectibles, we've got something for everyone. But there's one reality about Japan: although you may have heard that Japanese businessmen are long-range planners, in reality virtually all of the products we sell have very limited production runs. Most items can't be ordered through our distributors once the initial stock is gone, which invariably causes frustration for customers who waited to get the item they wanted. Our advice is when you see something cool on our site, get it before it disappears. Similarly, we're always closing out our popular wacky Japanese T-shirts so that we can make room for new designs. If you've got your eye on a T-shirt or three, don't wait to get them!
Now that the ban on Japanese cultural imports has been lifted in South Korea, there's lots of evidence of sharing of culture between the two nations. More and more Korean stars are becoming commonplace on Japanese TV, like my favorite, the lovely Yoon Son Ha (her Korean-Japanese accent is so cute). The popular South Korean war film Brotherhood (in Korean, Taegukgi Hwinalrimyeo) is playing in theatres in Japan right now, and when Korean actor Bin Won came to Japan to promote the movie he was surprised to see 500 screaming Japanese fans at the airport to see him. We're glad to see this new cultural sharing between South Korea and Japan and hope to see more of it in the future.
Japan is experiencing a real "bug boom" right now, as millions of elementary school kids learn everything they can about various kinds of beetles like the Goliath Beetle, Rhinoceros Beetle, Eastern Hercules Beetle and a Japanese variety called Ookuwagata. Part of the interest in bugs is being fueled by the popularity of Mushi King ("Bug King"), an arcade game by Sega which spits out a bar-coded insect card that kids use to fight other 3D animated insects. My son loves this game and has a complete collection of the cards, which have information about the bugs printed on them. Last weekend we took the kids to a nearby Insect Zoo which happened to sell various kinds of beetles, and sure enough, my kids conned us into buying two of them as pets. We're now the proud owners of two red-backed Ookuwagata, which sleep in their cage in a dark corner of my son's room.
There's a fun game Japanese kids play, called Shiritori (lit. "take the rear end") Game. To play, someone thinks of a word -- say, chopsticks, which is "hashi" in Japanese. Then the next person takes the last syllable -- "shi" -- and thinks of a word that starts with this syllable, say, "shika" (deer). The next person continues, with a word that starts with "ka" and so on. In Japanese phonetics, the only consonant that can appear by itself without a noun after it is the letter "n", so in Shiritori Game, saying a word that ends in "n" (such as lion, "raion" in Japanese) ends the game for that person. This game is played by virtually all children in Japan and is a fun way for kids (or gaijin) to pick up and reinforce vocabulary words. It's a great game to play in the car, too.
We love Japan's interactive dating-sim games, which are a huge category of software here -- approximately 25% of all software in Japan are interactive love-sim games of one kind or another. Today we're announcing preorders for two upcoming games from Hirameki, which are DVD games that will play with any standard DVD player, as well as PC/Mac with DVD drives or Sony Playstation/Xbox. In Hourglass of Summer, you suddenly "timeslip" to the end of summer vacation, surprised to learn that your girlfriend Kaho has been killed in an accident the day before. Can you save her by finding a way to go back in time? An adventure of a lifetime, a summer that crosses the boundaries of space and time. Then in Tea Society of a Witch, you must interact with three magical beings and find a way to allow humans to once again live in peace with the mages of the World of Magic. Two great non-H interactive anime games!
For the new update, we've got some excellent products from Japan for you. They include:
- First, we've got a real treat for Shirow Masamune fans -- the new Intron Depot figure set, series 3, featuring his amazing original characters and lovely females, who come alive as high quality soft vinyl figures for you
- Then for Ultraman fans, we've got newly recreated sets of the dynamite Ultraman Bobblehead toys, with excellent sets in stock for you to buy
- The gorgeous Tamao Sato appears in a fabulous new "Monthly" photobook (although they don't come out monthly so this name is meaningless) -- shot against a traditional Japanese background, she is really lovely
- Want to add a touch of Japan to your kitchen? We have dynamite all-purpose containers for holding sugar, coffee, or just about anything -- they feature the super cute Hello Kitty and Teddy the Teddy and My Melody
- Also for Kitty fans, we've got some great oil-removing sheets for you, which allow you to remove excess oil from your face, featuring super Kitty-chan designs
- Another fun Sanrio item: a super elastic My Melody toy that you can stretch, punch and squeeze to relieve stress
- Interested in Japanese cosplay? Enjoy some great restocked items including Goth Loli vol. 2, loaded with great photographs of gorgeous goth outfits and more
- Enjoy one of my favorite things in the world, a nice dip in a hot springs bath, with new onsen powder we've got in stock for you
- For fans of the super cute character series Frog Style, we have a dynamite treat for you: sets of extremely colorful lemon ramune candy, with outrageous and cool designs on each one, available as a set for collectors
- We've got some great snack items for you today including delicious "Lemon and Pepper" flavored Pretz, a classic Japanese rice cracker that we highly recommend, and a selection of fun low-priced treats you can try out
- Restocked snack items include more traditional Okinawan Black Candy (Kuro Ame), tasty miso soup, restocked flavors of Pretz, sake candy, and one of my favorite items, Poiful fruit-flavored jelly beans
- We also have restocked gum for you: sugar-free Black Black with Xylitol, Blue Berry and Plum gum, and tasty "Watering Kiss Mint" that quenches your thirst
- Godzilla fans, we've got a cool new trading card series based on the new movie -- they are really cool!
- Got milk? Then you need Futayaky-kun, handy milk sealing clips that allow milk in paper cartons to last longer
- For fans of CLAMP, the manga artists who created Cardcaptor Sakura, Rayearth and Chobits, we've got fresh stock of their dynamite new manga
- Totoro fans, we've restocked some awesome items for you, including the deluxe large-size Totoro cuckoo clock, several soft Totoro plush toys, and the excellent Totoro aluminum bento box
- Domo-kun fans, we haven't forgotten you -- we've got fresh stock of several of the most popular Domo items, including the large plush Domo-kun, the large and medium Domo cube plushes, and more
- We've also got more traditional Japanese dishes for you, including a very convenient miso soup bowl
- Finally look for more great Hello Kitty items including the awesome Sanrio Ice Cube Tray and fresh stock of the Kitty Desktop Vacuums, restocked fude pens for brush writing, and more.
- For our 18+ customers, we've got many new products. The new items include:
- For fans of Japan's delightful H magazines, we've got the Shuffle, with authentic Tokyo girls in love hotels and great photography
- Then enjoy the popular Japanese magazine that features girls from the U.S. and Eastern Europe, including some girls who are hard to find
- From the lens of Hiraokanovsky Kuratachenko, the parodically Russian-ified pen name of Japanese photographer Hirano Kurata, a great new Joytoy series book with bold mix of communist and Asian sexy imagery
- Also very cool, we've got the new photobook of Momo Mizutani, with loads of luscious photographs of one of Japan's most gorgeous ladies
- We have a great restocking of popular photobooks, too, including great offerings from Kaoru, Ran Asakawa, Yoko Matsugane, Yuko Ogawa and more
- For Japan's H manga fans and collectors, we've got some dynamite new works for you, including the amazing new WANT from Tenma Comics, a superb "Twin Tail" anthology manga, and an interesting work exploring the nature of infidelity
- Also, we've got another great restocking of manga for you, including Female Panther 1-4, Neo Gentle Casty, the Illustrated Maya Miyazaki, What? - N? and many more great books
- We have some dynamite new DVDs for you, starting with 4 hours of "ii onna" (lit. "good woman," i.e. especially beautiful women performing for you (region free)
- Then, a great title from Hajime Planning, famous Japanese AV director asks beautiful Tokyo girls to get their friends to be in a video, in a great new "Best Friends Series" release (region free)
- Then from SOD's Hibino label, enjoy a new concept: "The Wife who put on the Swimming Suit," a fun hitozuma themed offering (region free)
- From Deep's, a Female Hospital Memorial featuring the most moments of their popular all-woman nurse concept series (region free)
- Moodyz brings you a great new offering, Leg & Foot Infinity, a great collection of amazing high-end themes that you will enjoy watching (region 2)
- Then from Waap Entertainment, a great new "gokkun" themed release, featuring amazing and experienced women who perform for you (region 2)
- Finally, look for many restocked DVDs, including Mai Hagiwara's great recent titles, Hiyori Shiraishi's Masterpiece Concentration release, Aoi Sora's Devil's Training, and more!
J-List carries over 2000 unique products from Japan, from full sets of cool miniature toys from Japan, to unique Totoro and Hello Kitty products to cool Shirow Masamune collectibles, we've got something for everyone. But there's one reality about Japan: although you may have heard that Japanese businessmen are long-range planners, in reality virtually all of the products we sell have very limited production runs. Most items can't be ordered through our distributors once the initial stock is gone, which invariably causes frustration for customers who waited to get the item they wanted. Our advice is when you see something cool on our site, get it before it disappears. Similarly, we're always closing out our popular wacky Japanese T-shirts so that we can make room for new designs. If you've got your eye on a T-shirt or three, don't wait to get them!
Monday, June 21, 2004
Greetings from J-List June 21, 2004
Hello again from all of your friends in Japan!
It's typhoon time in Japan, as typhoon no. 6 meanders its way across the Pacific to touch down in central Japan, right where we are. Typhoons are a big problem, but they usually hit in September -- this is a rare storm to be coming this early in the season. We're battening down all the hatches here...
Coca Cola's new C2 is coming to the U.S. this summer, but it's out here in Japan already. A reformulating of Coke with half the sugar and half the carbs, it's basically a retread of a 1990s Japanese product, Coke Light, which the company brought out here after Diet Coke failed to win over Japanese consumers. (They thought it tasted like medicine.) While some of the J-List staff have taken to drinking C2, I'll stick to drinking mugi-cha (barley tea), a favorite of most Japanese and a delicious natural drink in the summer. We have cold-brew barley tea bags in stock if you'd like to try some.
Although Japan is famous for sake (sah-kay, remember, try not to say saki if you can avoid it), or distilled rice wine, the national beverage of Japan is definitely beer. Japan's beer market is dominated by the four major breweries, Asahi, Kirin, Sapporo, and Suntory, who introduce dozens of new beers per year in an attempt to win market share from the others: beer with double the carbonation, blends of dark and light beers, beers brewed for women, and season-limited beers such as Sapporo's A Winter's Tale and Kirin's Taste of Autumn. There are actually two kinds of beer sold in Japan: regular beer and "happoshu," a low-malt beverage that's taxed at a lower rate than beer, so it's a lot cheaper (but I don't like the taste). Although there have been some inroads made by microbreweries in Japan, by and large the major breweries have not made much impact in Japan. Part of the problem is that the Japanese government, which is dependent on a steady stream of beer taxes, is not willing to grant licenses to small companies that might not pay their taxes. Whenever you enjoy a frosty beer in Japan you always have "otsumami," a word which means any food you munch on with your beer. There are many foods to choose from: beef jerky, rice crackers with peanuts, cheese with dried cod strips, or if you're feeling adventurous, dried, shredded squid, which seems to taste better the longer one lives in Japan.
The most profitable Disney theme park in the world is Tokyo Disneyland, which opened in 1983 and has broken all records for money-making for the Disney theme parks (oops, I mean "resorts"). The Japanese penchant for spending money on souvenirs for family members, called "omiyage," helps push this profitability up. Japan has a second theme park to enjoy now, too: DisneySea, centered around themes of the sea. The park features a volcano, a replica of Agrabah from Aladdin, a fun under-the-sea area for younger kids, a cruise ship, a "jet coaster" (as they say in Japan) based on Journey to the Center of the Earth, and even a hotel where you can get married right inside the park (for all the Japanese "Disney otaku" who really love Disney characters). When we went to the park last year, my son commented that it was "kakko warui" (unstylish, uncool) for Mickey Mouse to speak Japanese when he should be speaking English.
Thanks for all the warm feedback on our problem with our graphic images -- we really love being able to serve such an excellent group of individuals around the world! Now that the J-List graphics are back to normal, remember we're having a one-week special "Thanks Sale" to say thanks to everyone for their patience. Get a special 20% discount on 4 or more DVDs, or a whopping discount of 25% on 4 or more English dating-sim games.
For the new update, we've got some excellent products from Japan for you. They include:
For our 18+ customers, we've got many new products. The new items include:
Remember that J-List carries dozens of the coolest magazines from Japan, with regular subscriptions available via our Reserve Subscription system. Interested in the mysterious world of Japanese cosplay? We recommend Gothic & Lolita Bible and COSmode, both of which feature real sewing patterns in the back that you can use to make costumes. Interested in JPOP music? Why not get a subscription to Zappy, which comes with a CD in every issue, or the excellent Uta Bon, which prints sheet music from the most popular songs in Japan. Want to keep an eye on Japan's high tech world? Then I recommend one of my favorite magazines, Goods Press, which shows you what's hip in the world of electronics, men's fashion and Zippo lighters each month.
It's typhoon time in Japan, as typhoon no. 6 meanders its way across the Pacific to touch down in central Japan, right where we are. Typhoons are a big problem, but they usually hit in September -- this is a rare storm to be coming this early in the season. We're battening down all the hatches here...
Coca Cola's new C2 is coming to the U.S. this summer, but it's out here in Japan already. A reformulating of Coke with half the sugar and half the carbs, it's basically a retread of a 1990s Japanese product, Coke Light, which the company brought out here after Diet Coke failed to win over Japanese consumers. (They thought it tasted like medicine.) While some of the J-List staff have taken to drinking C2, I'll stick to drinking mugi-cha (barley tea), a favorite of most Japanese and a delicious natural drink in the summer. We have cold-brew barley tea bags in stock if you'd like to try some.
Although Japan is famous for sake (sah-kay, remember, try not to say saki if you can avoid it), or distilled rice wine, the national beverage of Japan is definitely beer. Japan's beer market is dominated by the four major breweries, Asahi, Kirin, Sapporo, and Suntory, who introduce dozens of new beers per year in an attempt to win market share from the others: beer with double the carbonation, blends of dark and light beers, beers brewed for women, and season-limited beers such as Sapporo's A Winter's Tale and Kirin's Taste of Autumn. There are actually two kinds of beer sold in Japan: regular beer and "happoshu," a low-malt beverage that's taxed at a lower rate than beer, so it's a lot cheaper (but I don't like the taste). Although there have been some inroads made by microbreweries in Japan, by and large the major breweries have not made much impact in Japan. Part of the problem is that the Japanese government, which is dependent on a steady stream of beer taxes, is not willing to grant licenses to small companies that might not pay their taxes. Whenever you enjoy a frosty beer in Japan you always have "otsumami," a word which means any food you munch on with your beer. There are many foods to choose from: beef jerky, rice crackers with peanuts, cheese with dried cod strips, or if you're feeling adventurous, dried, shredded squid, which seems to taste better the longer one lives in Japan.
The most profitable Disney theme park in the world is Tokyo Disneyland, which opened in 1983 and has broken all records for money-making for the Disney theme parks (oops, I mean "resorts"). The Japanese penchant for spending money on souvenirs for family members, called "omiyage," helps push this profitability up. Japan has a second theme park to enjoy now, too: DisneySea, centered around themes of the sea. The park features a volcano, a replica of Agrabah from Aladdin, a fun under-the-sea area for younger kids, a cruise ship, a "jet coaster" (as they say in Japan) based on Journey to the Center of the Earth, and even a hotel where you can get married right inside the park (for all the Japanese "Disney otaku" who really love Disney characters). When we went to the park last year, my son commented that it was "kakko warui" (unstylish, uncool) for Mickey Mouse to speak Japanese when he should be speaking English.
Thanks for all the warm feedback on our problem with our graphic images -- we really love being able to serve such an excellent group of individuals around the world! Now that the J-List graphics are back to normal, remember we're having a one-week special "Thanks Sale" to say thanks to everyone for their patience. Get a special 20% discount on 4 or more DVDs, or a whopping discount of 25% on 4 or more English dating-sim games.
For the new update, we've got some excellent products from Japan for you. They include:
- First, for fans of the amazing Chobits anime and manga by CLAMP, we have a superb high-end set of Chobits candy toys (shokugan) featuring the incredibly beautiful female characters (full sets are in stock)
- Want to keep your desk clean? We recommend our cute Hello Kitty desk vacuum cleaners, which allow you to clean up dirt, dust and more from your desk and keep it looking clean -- plus they're great for displaying
- Also for fans of Kitty items not available outside of Japan, we have a great Hello Kitty tissue cover that fits over any long box of tissue
- We're big fans of the Pinky character toys from Vance Project, extremely cool super deformed anime figures -- to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Gainax, we've got some Pinky Cosplay figures featuring Asuka and Rei from Evangelion -- so cool!
- Are you a fan of Japan's wonderful cars? We've got more Tomica die-cast metal vehicles that are great to collect and display -- newly added are the Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution and the new Honda Odyssey
- For fans of our tasty Japanese snack items, we've got delicious Endomame Pretz, tasty maguro snacks, pretzel sticks with the tasty flavor of green soybeans that are eaten as a snack with beer
- Also, look for cream soda Hi-Chew Kids, a delicious variation on beef jerky (heh heh), and more dynamite fizzing bubble ball bubble gum
- Restocked snack items include several varieties of Shigekix (the delicious super-tart gummi treats), Mobi snack cookies, various flavors of Lotte chewing gum, and more
- Enjoy the dynamite photographs of Mariko Takeda, a gorgeous and stylish model from the fashion magazine SuperCawaii (SCawaii), in her new photobook
- Like wacky Japanese English? We've got a set of all-purpose canvas bags that are rife with funny English
- Next we have two very uniquely Japanese ways to clean your ears, with ring-style cotton swabs and soft Japanese "cleaning hooks" that feel great
- Brighten your computer area with a single beautiful flower -- we've got a handy flower holder from Hanako Style
- Studying Japanese? We have fresh stock of great flashcards that make it fun to learn basic words and greetings, as kids do, as well as more katakana flashcards and 1st grade kanji study books
- Learning to make bento as the Japanese do? We've got more wiener shapers, which allow you to turn sausages into penguins, crabs, tulips and more
- For fans of the super cute Pinky Street figures, little super deformed high school figures, we've restocked the Special Box, which includes a photobook with two figures
- Finally, we have a great box for storing anything, restocked authentic chopsticks from Japan, and many more cool items for you!
For our 18+ customers, we've got many new products. The new items include:
- For fans of our excellent JAV magazines, we have the dynamite new issues of Best Video and Video Boy, the great monthly magazines for fans of the Japanese video industry
- We've also got the new issue of Gotcha, featuring super Tokyo girls in gorgeous love hotels
- For photobook fans, we've got some really special items for you today, including Hikaru Koto's fabulous glossy offering showing her in her best naughty pictures ever
- Also, Aya Kudo will amaze and delight you with her gorgeous photobook offering
- For H manga fans, a superb new work from Mujin Comics featuring amazing themes of hermaphroditism and more, as well as the super office love story by Nuku Nuku Heart and a Love Song of Angels
- Also, we've got a major restocking of manga for you too, including the great futanari manga Buttagiri Sisters, Sleeping Doll, Madam Hisae's Diary, How To Make a Widow, and many more
- Also for yaoi lovers, we have a great new story about love, life and barriers
- For our DVD customers, enjoy some amazing new titles for you, starting with the Complete AV Actress performance by Nao., the silky and sexy starlet who always puts a period after her name (region free)
- Then see the real on-camera performance of girls from Hungary, as Japanese actors and film crews capture the most beautiful girls of that country for you (region free)
- Next-up, a great DVD for fans of she-male love (e.g. Mr. Lady), gorgeous girls who also pack meat (region free)
- We've got another bold "anatomy study" with girls from famous cabaret clubs, brought to you by Soft on Demand (region free)
- From Moodyz, see the very best of the their Superuma Rezu series, featuring gorgeous girls on camera for you (region 2)
- Then, enter Tokyo's super disco world and experience dancin' vixens who lose all inhibitions when they get out on the dance floor (region 2)
- Also, for fans of Yulia Nova's amazing and graceful body, we've got good news -- the 2nd DVD is back from the duplicators and in stock now, ready for your immediate order
- Finally a great restocking of popular DVD titles, including Noa Torigoe's Beautiful Leg, Mai Sakashita's Female Teacher, lots of Tekoki and more, Kyoko Ayana's dynamite 4 hours special, and more!
Remember that J-List carries dozens of the coolest magazines from Japan, with regular subscriptions available via our Reserve Subscription system. Interested in the mysterious world of Japanese cosplay? We recommend Gothic & Lolita Bible and COSmode, both of which feature real sewing patterns in the back that you can use to make costumes. Interested in JPOP music? Why not get a subscription to Zappy, which comes with a CD in every issue, or the excellent Uta Bon, which prints sheet music from the most popular songs in Japan. Want to keep an eye on Japan's high tech world? Then I recommend one of my favorite magazines, Goods Press, which shows you what's hip in the world of electronics, men's fashion and Zippo lighters each month.
Friday, June 18, 2004
Greetings from J-List June 18, 2004
Hello and TGIF from all of us in Japan!
First of all, we're extremely happy to announce that all 18+ images on the J-List website have been put back to normal, with no more annoying yellow censors. We thank everyone for their understanding while we fixed that unpleasant problem. To show our appreciation, we're announcing a one-week-long "Thanks Sale" (to use a popular Japanese term). For the next week, you can get a special 20% discount on purchases of 4 or more DVDs, and a whopping 25% discount on purchased of 4 or more bishoujo dating-sim games. All DVDs and games are part of the same. We've got the best customers in the world at J-List, and we want you to know we appreciate you!
The Japanese do love tests. In addition to their world-famous college entrance exams, the Japanese have standardized tests for just about everything, with levels that are similar to the belt colors in karate and judo. Just about every subject, from abacus to waapro (word processing) to accounting have national tests that students and adults are encouraged to study for and take. The most famous test in Japan is Eiken, a series of English ability tests that Japanese students take over the course of their lives -- level 3 while in junior high school, level 2 while in high school, and level 1 if they really want to try a challenging test during or after college. There are standardized tests for Japanese brush writing, penmanship, memorizing train schedules, and even a test for calculating rapidly and accurately with a calculator. All sports have their own various standardized tests, too, to provide a series of goals for students learning to play the sport. My son takes skiing lessons every winter, and he's progressed quite well by clearing each level of the skiing tests -- he's only 9 and he can already ski down slopes I wouldn't walk down.
For gaijin like you or me, there's another useful test: the Nihongo Noryoku Shiken or the Japanese Ability Test, taken each December at various cities around the world. It's a standardized test that checks all aspects of Japanese comprehension. There are four levels to the test, designed so you can take one each year as you advance in your Japanese studies. Level 4 tests basic kana and the first 100 kanji, levels 3 and 2 are progressively harder, and level 1 is a really difficult test required for all students who want to enter a Japanese university. Japan's test mania may seem odd, but I think it is a good way to motivate people to study and better themselves. If you'd like to take the Japanese Ability Test and are near Los Angeles, see http://www.jflalc.org/proftest/ (do a Google search for other cities). Note that if you are interested in taking the test, you must sign up soon, so don't delay -- many a gaijin has worked up his or her courage to challenge the test, only to forget to sign up by the cut-off period, which is in late summer.
Today is Friday, and that means I'll be taking the kids to our favorite public bath. Bathing in hot springs ("onsen") and public baths ("sento") is a popular pastime in Japan, and despite the hard economic times of the past few years, Japan's public bathing sector never stopped growing. Our favorite bath is called Yura no Sato, or Hot Water Village, and offers over a dozen different baths to enjoy, from traditional Japanese "kama" baths which are basically giant metal pots to baths with rocks on the bottom which massage your feet, several saunas and more. It's a lot of good, clean fun, Japan-style.
We had a bug in our RSS feed, which caused the feed to not update properly. We've fixed it now. You can use any standard RSS feed reader to quickly note when the site has been updated, see the newest 120 products, and access J-List's updated pages easily. RSS readers let you set up feeds from your favorite websites so you can quickly check for updated information. If you have any questions about the RSS feed, please let us know.
For the new update, we've got some excellent products from Japan for you:
For our 18+ customers, we've got many new products. The new items include:
Remember that J-List specializes in candy toys, miniature, affordable toys that often come with candy inside (hence the name). There are many different kinds of these great toys: realistic figures based on anime, deliciously realistic replicas of famous Japanese foods, replicas of Sony's AIBO robot dogs, and more. One series I especially love are the Furuta Star Trek replicas: extremely detailed and realistic starships from the timeless TV and movie series. They're very popular, and we ordered over 3000 of the ships two months ago, yet incredibly our stock is disappearing fast. Because we know that most collectors want to get full sets and avoid buying random duplicates, we're happy to make full sets of most items available. Browse our anime and toy pages for all these great toys that we have for you!
First of all, we're extremely happy to announce that all 18+ images on the J-List website have been put back to normal, with no more annoying yellow censors. We thank everyone for their understanding while we fixed that unpleasant problem. To show our appreciation, we're announcing a one-week-long "Thanks Sale" (to use a popular Japanese term). For the next week, you can get a special 20% discount on purchases of 4 or more DVDs, and a whopping 25% discount on purchased of 4 or more bishoujo dating-sim games. All DVDs and games are part of the same. We've got the best customers in the world at J-List, and we want you to know we appreciate you!
The Japanese do love tests. In addition to their world-famous college entrance exams, the Japanese have standardized tests for just about everything, with levels that are similar to the belt colors in karate and judo. Just about every subject, from abacus to waapro (word processing) to accounting have national tests that students and adults are encouraged to study for and take. The most famous test in Japan is Eiken, a series of English ability tests that Japanese students take over the course of their lives -- level 3 while in junior high school, level 2 while in high school, and level 1 if they really want to try a challenging test during or after college. There are standardized tests for Japanese brush writing, penmanship, memorizing train schedules, and even a test for calculating rapidly and accurately with a calculator. All sports have their own various standardized tests, too, to provide a series of goals for students learning to play the sport. My son takes skiing lessons every winter, and he's progressed quite well by clearing each level of the skiing tests -- he's only 9 and he can already ski down slopes I wouldn't walk down.
For gaijin like you or me, there's another useful test: the Nihongo Noryoku Shiken or the Japanese Ability Test, taken each December at various cities around the world. It's a standardized test that checks all aspects of Japanese comprehension. There are four levels to the test, designed so you can take one each year as you advance in your Japanese studies. Level 4 tests basic kana and the first 100 kanji, levels 3 and 2 are progressively harder, and level 1 is a really difficult test required for all students who want to enter a Japanese university. Japan's test mania may seem odd, but I think it is a good way to motivate people to study and better themselves. If you'd like to take the Japanese Ability Test and are near Los Angeles, see http://www.jflalc.org/proftest/ (do a Google search for other cities). Note that if you are interested in taking the test, you must sign up soon, so don't delay -- many a gaijin has worked up his or her courage to challenge the test, only to forget to sign up by the cut-off period, which is in late summer.
Today is Friday, and that means I'll be taking the kids to our favorite public bath. Bathing in hot springs ("onsen") and public baths ("sento") is a popular pastime in Japan, and despite the hard economic times of the past few years, Japan's public bathing sector never stopped growing. Our favorite bath is called Yura no Sato, or Hot Water Village, and offers over a dozen different baths to enjoy, from traditional Japanese "kama" baths which are basically giant metal pots to baths with rocks on the bottom which massage your feet, several saunas and more. It's a lot of good, clean fun, Japan-style.
We had a bug in our RSS feed, which caused the feed to not update properly. We've fixed it now. You can use any standard RSS feed reader to quickly note when the site has been updated, see the newest 120 products, and access J-List's updated pages easily. RSS readers let you set up feeds from your favorite websites so you can quickly check for updated information. If you have any questions about the RSS feed, please let us know.
For the new update, we've got some excellent products from Japan for you:
- First, for those who want to explore Japan's love of "minus ion" products, we've got something very special for you: a Sanrio Hello Kitty hair dryer that emits negatively charged ions as it dries your hair
- Also for Kitty enthusiasts, we've found more limited stock of the soon-to-be-gone-forever Hello Kitty Massager, the coolest pop culture item the world has ever seen
- The lovely Kyoko Fukada, an actress and singer who is famous all over Asia, has an amazing new photobook release for you capturing her in the most amazing Gothic & Lolita outfits
- For fans of Ruroni Kenshin, aka Samurai X, we've got another dynamite Story Image Figure series, with five extremely detailed figures for you to display anywhere (full sets in stock)
- Fans of Tomy's die-cast Japanese cars, we've got some cool new items, including the Toyota Harrier, aka the Lexus RX300, and very cool Toyota Probox
- Fans of delicious Japanese snacks, we've got a new flavors of Pretz for you, delicious traditional treats, and with tasty ramune and other snacks that are fun to munch on (and very affordable, too)
- Other Hello Kitty items include a really cool Kitty watering can as well as various restocked Sanrio items sold only in Japan
- We live to bring you wacky and unique things from Japan -- we have a new electric eraser that makes it easy to permanently remove pencil marks from paper, something only the Japanese could have thought of
- For your car or home, we have a great wire clip system that makes it easy to stick anything anywhere -- trash bags in your car, holders for the things you need in your daily life, and more
- At Japanese weddings it's customary to bring a cash gift in a beautifully decorated envelope -- we've got the envelopes in stock for you today
- For anyone with a notebook computer, we have two positively wonderful laptop bags from Japan's top computer peripheral maker Elecom
- Budding manga artists, we've made a major restocking of How To Draw Manga books, with all the most popular titles back in stock for you to order
- Look for fresh stock of several Studio Ghibli items including the Totoro Collection plush toys, the No Face keychain and music box, various soft Totoro toys and more
- We stock great Japanese films on DVD -- look for fresh stock of the wonderful Grasshoppa vol. 1, as well as Takeshi Kitano's ZATOICHI and more
- Finally we've got an all-purpose box from Japan, more of the popular Cup Noodle coffee cups that perfectly mimic the famous Japanese staple food, and more!
For our 18+ customers, we've got many new products. The new items include:
- For lovers of Japan's high quality 18+ magazines, we've got some great items for you, including the new issues of Penthouse Japan and Penthouse Special, featuring only Japanese models shot by Japanese photographers
- Then enjoy the beautiful photo-magazine of Miwa Ohshiro (Oshiro), the gorgeous swimsuit idol who will make your eyes pop out of your head with her new offering
- We've also reduced the prices of many of our magazines, starting at just $5 -- check out the great bargains we have for you
- Photobook collectors, enjoy the sweet natural photographs of Yuuka Sawachi, which will amaze and delight you
- For H manga fans, we've got more superb works for you, including an anthology of stories about women who go after inexperienced men, an excellent comic about female teachers, and a great new book from Pon-Takanada
- We've also restocked several popular manga, including the Blue Eyes series, Legend of Demon Coming, and great works by the powerful manga artists Hiroyoshi Kira, Azuki Kurenai and Shiwasu no Okina
- Yaoi fans, we have another dramatic story of boy's love by the talented Kanako Meiji
- DVD collectors, we've got some great new items for you in time for our special sale -- starting with 4 hours of the most dynamite performances by Yui Asahina (region free)
- Next, we've got a selection of super low-angle "Noble Legs by Costume Play," including the silky, sexy legs, stockings and high heels of many dynamite ladies
- From SOD's best-selling Zenra series, we've got a naughty version of Swan Lake performed by extremely talented natural ballerinas -- don't miss this amazing new release! (region free)
- Next, see the very best of SOD's popular Idol series, featuring the best wet performances by Izumi Hasegawa, Nao Oikawa, Nanami Nanase and more (region free)
- Then from Moodyz, Cocolo fulfills all your fantasies in Illusion Hospital, a bold nurse-themed work from one of Japan's top indies studios (region 2)
- Then enjoy an amazing sports camp where fabulous full-size girls engage in all kinds of exercises to improve their bodies and their health (region 2)
- Finally we've got fresh stock of new DVDs, including Nao's wonderful Dream Shower, 4 Hours of Back Dynamite, All Girls' School 4 and many other titles!
Remember that J-List specializes in candy toys, miniature, affordable toys that often come with candy inside (hence the name). There are many different kinds of these great toys: realistic figures based on anime, deliciously realistic replicas of famous Japanese foods, replicas of Sony's AIBO robot dogs, and more. One series I especially love are the Furuta Star Trek replicas: extremely detailed and realistic starships from the timeless TV and movie series. They're very popular, and we ordered over 3000 of the ships two months ago, yet incredibly our stock is disappearing fast. Because we know that most collectors want to get full sets and avoid buying random duplicates, we're happy to make full sets of most items available. Browse our anime and toy pages for all these great toys that we have for you!
Monday, June 14, 2004
Greetings from J-List June 14, 2004
Hello and Happy Monday from all of us at J-List! It's a beautiful day in Japan -- a great day for a new J-List update!
The Japanese believe some interesting things about a person's blood type, mainly that it determines much of their personality. Whenever you see a profile of someone in a magazine, you can be sure that beside their birthdate, hobbies and favorite foods will be their blood type, since Japanese readers are always interested in knowing the blood types of their favorite people. Basically, type A are straight-laced, serious about everything, very organized (Felix from The Odd Couple, basically); type B are "my pace" (e.g. they go at their own pace, live in their own world), quickly get bored with things that don't interest them, and speak their minds to a fault; type O are very bold, hate to lose and have good leadership skills; and AB people are often so smart they look strange to everyone else. We saw an interesting TV show last night that attempted to break down the various personality types according to blood type. In one experiment they separated kids by blood type and asked them to move water from one aquarium to another one, them filmed the results. The type A kids used small spoons to carefully move the water from one tank to the other; the type B children tried to come up with a good way to move the water, but got bored and gave up in the middle; the type O kids lifted the first tank and poured the water into the second tank, not caring how much water they spilled on the floor in the process; and the type AB kids got smart and moved the two tanks around, so that it appeared that they'd moved the water when they hadn't actually done so.
The statistical data the show presented on blood types was interesting, too. People with blood type O tend to be quite charismatic, and some of Japan's most popular male heart throbs like SMAP member Takuya Kimura and singer/actor Masaharu Fukuyama are type O. People reported that the blood type they liked least was B (my own blood type) -- it seems that men and women with type B blood speak their minds too easily, and can offend others, making them difficult to be with. Most of the top Japanese athletes including soccer star Nakata and Yankee centerfielder Matsui were type O, and the vast majority of Japan's past Prime Ministers were also of this blood type. However, 60% of the sumo wrestlers to reach the highest rank of Yokozuna (Grand Champion) were of blood type A -- it seems it takes a meticulous nature to work your way up the top rank in Japan's traditional sport. Type B people may be the least popular with people of other blood types, but we have the highest representation at Tokyo University, Japan's top-ranked school, perhaps because we're creative and don't know what can't be done. The blood type couplings with the highest chance of divorce are two people with type A blood; couples where both have type B, or one has B and the other has O, are supposedly the happiest. Type A people are good at saving money for a rainy day; type B people waste their money on things they don't need (like me). For the record, Japanese are usually amazed that many Americans don't know their own blood type. In Japan, the interplay of blood types is always at work in any group.
J-List is proud to bring you dozens of great magazines from Japan, available each month via our revolving subscription system. We've got many great titles to choose from: all the popular anime magazines from Japan including Megumi, which comes with tons of free stuff in each issue; JPOP magazines like Zappy and Uta-BON; super cosplay magazines like Gothic & Lolita Bible and COSmode; and delightful fashion magazines like Super Cawaii and FRUiTs. We've added some great new magazines to our reserve list today, starting with Kera, a superb fashion/culture magazine that combines elements of FRUiTs and G&LB with superb and bold Tokyo street fashions. For fashion-oriented guys, we've got Smart, a super magazine of male fashion culture that comes with tons of cool stuff each month. Finally, for car enthusiasts, you can subscribe to Car Graphic and keep an eye on all that's happening in the Japanese automotive world each month. All magazines are loaded with color pictures for the Japanese-challenged, and are great ways to keep your finger on the pulse of Japan.
For the new update, we've got some excellent products from Japan for you. They include:
For our 18+ customers, we've got many new products. The new items include:
Remember that J-List is fortunate to be able to carry the high-quality plush toys made by Sun Arrow, a Japanese toy company founded back in the Taisho era. For many years they've been the trusted partner and licensee of all Studio Ghibli toys including Totoro, Spirited Away, Kiki's Delivery Service, and more. The plush toys they create are the best we've ever seen, soft to touch and furry to hold, and of such high quality we know you'll treasure these for years to come.
The Japanese believe some interesting things about a person's blood type, mainly that it determines much of their personality. Whenever you see a profile of someone in a magazine, you can be sure that beside their birthdate, hobbies and favorite foods will be their blood type, since Japanese readers are always interested in knowing the blood types of their favorite people. Basically, type A are straight-laced, serious about everything, very organized (Felix from The Odd Couple, basically); type B are "my pace" (e.g. they go at their own pace, live in their own world), quickly get bored with things that don't interest them, and speak their minds to a fault; type O are very bold, hate to lose and have good leadership skills; and AB people are often so smart they look strange to everyone else. We saw an interesting TV show last night that attempted to break down the various personality types according to blood type. In one experiment they separated kids by blood type and asked them to move water from one aquarium to another one, them filmed the results. The type A kids used small spoons to carefully move the water from one tank to the other; the type B children tried to come up with a good way to move the water, but got bored and gave up in the middle; the type O kids lifted the first tank and poured the water into the second tank, not caring how much water they spilled on the floor in the process; and the type AB kids got smart and moved the two tanks around, so that it appeared that they'd moved the water when they hadn't actually done so.
The statistical data the show presented on blood types was interesting, too. People with blood type O tend to be quite charismatic, and some of Japan's most popular male heart throbs like SMAP member Takuya Kimura and singer/actor Masaharu Fukuyama are type O. People reported that the blood type they liked least was B (my own blood type) -- it seems that men and women with type B blood speak their minds too easily, and can offend others, making them difficult to be with. Most of the top Japanese athletes including soccer star Nakata and Yankee centerfielder Matsui were type O, and the vast majority of Japan's past Prime Ministers were also of this blood type. However, 60% of the sumo wrestlers to reach the highest rank of Yokozuna (Grand Champion) were of blood type A -- it seems it takes a meticulous nature to work your way up the top rank in Japan's traditional sport. Type B people may be the least popular with people of other blood types, but we have the highest representation at Tokyo University, Japan's top-ranked school, perhaps because we're creative and don't know what can't be done. The blood type couplings with the highest chance of divorce are two people with type A blood; couples where both have type B, or one has B and the other has O, are supposedly the happiest. Type A people are good at saving money for a rainy day; type B people waste their money on things they don't need (like me). For the record, Japanese are usually amazed that many Americans don't know their own blood type. In Japan, the interplay of blood types is always at work in any group.
J-List is proud to bring you dozens of great magazines from Japan, available each month via our revolving subscription system. We've got many great titles to choose from: all the popular anime magazines from Japan including Megumi, which comes with tons of free stuff in each issue; JPOP magazines like Zappy and Uta-BON; super cosplay magazines like Gothic & Lolita Bible and COSmode; and delightful fashion magazines like Super Cawaii and FRUiTs. We've added some great new magazines to our reserve list today, starting with Kera, a superb fashion/culture magazine that combines elements of FRUiTs and G&LB with superb and bold Tokyo street fashions. For fashion-oriented guys, we've got Smart, a super magazine of male fashion culture that comes with tons of cool stuff each month. Finally, for car enthusiasts, you can subscribe to Car Graphic and keep an eye on all that's happening in the Japanese automotive world each month. All magazines are loaded with color pictures for the Japanese-challenged, and are great ways to keep your finger on the pulse of Japan.
For the new update, we've got some excellent products from Japan for you. They include:
- First, for fans of Shirow Masamune, we're happy to announce preorders for the upcoming 2nd series of glossy Galgrease posters, as well as the long-awaited art book Intron Depot 4
- Also for Shirow lovers, two great new figures for you: Kusanagi and ManMachine, great for displaying anywhere
- Fans of Blythe and Kubrick figures, we're happy to announce a new series of Blythe Kubrick block figures, extremely well made and very fashionable -- and full sets are in stock!
- Then for all fans of Pokemon, we've got the ultimate toy set in stock for you -- a super set of soft vinyl figures that are fun to display or play with -- full sets are in stock for this item too (no need buy duplicates)
- Fans of Japan's delightful swimsuit idols, we've restocked several photobooks for you, including the offerings of Yuko Ogura, Maki Goto, Yoko Kumada, and more
- Hello Kitty lovers, we've got more cool only-sold-in-Japan items, including a great Kitty coffee cup and a way to cut your fingernails in style
- For fans of Japanese snack items, we've got delicious, er, squid meat, along with fun grape candies, tasty tako-yaki snacks and more!
- Restocked snack items include Relaxing Bear cookies, more Sushi Gummi that's really fun to eat, Grilled Corn Pretz and Pocari Sweat powder for making your own tasty drink!
- Also, for fans of our best-selling Bubble Ball fizzing candies, which have been sold in Japan since the early Showa era, we've got new flavors of delicious fizzing candies with bubble gum inside -- yum!
- For lovers of Panda-Z, the super cute panda robot who defends our happiness, we've got some new keychain mascots in stock
- Want to master a traditional Japanese game? We've got really cool kendama toys in stock now
- When Japanese cashiers give you change in Japan, they place it in a little dish to make it easy to pick up -- we've got these cool items in stock for you
- For fun in the bath, we've got some great "fortune monkey" toys that pop out of a dissolving ball in the bath water
- For fans of Japanese cars, we've got more Tomica die-cast metal vehicles for you, including the Toyota Estima and Soarer, and the popular Vitz
- Studying Japanese? We've got fresh stock of our popular dictionaries that help you learn various aspects of the Japanese language, as well as fresh stock of traditional Japanese writing paper
- Also, look for various restocked Japanese food miniatures, which are great to display as-is or use as food for dolls -- in stock are the Family Restaurant ver. 2 and Puchi Burger fast food replicas
- Finally, a super way to store men's neckties, a traditional air freshener that will improve the look of your home, a deluxe shogi board for anyone who wants to learn the game, and more!
For our 18+ customers, we've got many new products. The new items include:
- For fans of Japan's popular 18+ magazines, we've got some great new items, starting with the Diva Photo Magazine of Mihiro, the most popular new face in Japan's sexy model world -- don't miss out on this fantastic book!
- Then we've got a great issue of Mix, featuring super sexy Tokyo girls in various fun costumes for you
- Next up, the new issue of Hip & Lip, a superb magazine with both glossy photographs and H manga, with tons of fun stuff for you to enjoy
- For photobook fans, check out a great new offering from Hiromi Fujishima, excellent for fans of the genre we've come to call "Japanese girls in underoos"
- The lovely Aki Hoshino is back with a great new hardcover photobook, which will delight you as it delighted us
- Then enjoy what Nana Natsume has for you, a superb glossy photobook of some of her best photos ever
- We've restocked many photobook works for you too, including Mihori's dynamite books, Moe Yoshizawa's More II, Nanako Eighteen, and the dynamite low-angle photography of Miki Komori's Straddle
- For H manga fans, we've got some super works for you, including Tropical Pudding 2 by Fujio Okamoto, a delightful new work from Mujn Comics, and from the very popular Bijogi Junction, enjoy a great new manga release that you'll love
- For yaoi manga fans, we've got a great parody for you -- instead of Lord of the Rings, we have Lord of the Boy's Dorm
- DVD lovers, we've got some great new titles for you today, starting with 4 hours of the best "super soapland" performances on the Million label (region free)
- Next, SOD brings you a superb collection of all-female "MAX" performances, a super item for lovers of yuri and more (region free)
- Also from SOD, lovely Tokyo girls experiment with various fun places to put their tongues, a superbly wacky new DVD for you (region free)
- For fans of Japan's highly advanced stocking photography, we've got an all new "leg & hip" offering that's truly breathtaking (region free)
- From Moodyz, a super double performance with Ann Nanba and Kirari Koizumi exploring separate worlds of pleasure (region free)
- Finally, newly stocked DVD titles include Re-MIX 3-in-1 special releases by Marina Matsushima and Anna Ohura, 4 hours of premium back action, Ran Asakawa's super sexy performances, and more
Remember that J-List is fortunate to be able to carry the high-quality plush toys made by Sun Arrow, a Japanese toy company founded back in the Taisho era. For many years they've been the trusted partner and licensee of all Studio Ghibli toys including Totoro, Spirited Away, Kiki's Delivery Service, and more. The plush toys they create are the best we've ever seen, soft to touch and furry to hold, and of such high quality we know you'll treasure these for years to come.
Saturday, June 12, 2004
Greetings from J-List June 12, 2004
This summary is not available. Please
click here to view the post.
Wednesday, June 02, 2004
Greetings from J-List June 2, 2004
Hello again from the hardworking J-List team!
It's amazing how very different Japan and America can be. In the U.S., a major element driving the economy are home sales, and the appreciation that owning a home can bring is one of the foremost ways to get ahead in life. But in Japan, the concept of a "used" home having any value at all is almost completely alien. Very few Japanese would consider purchasing an existing home from someone else; it's much more common to buy land and tear down any existing buildings, to make room for a new house that you'll build from scratch. While land is still very expensive, it's been steadily losing value in almost all parts of Japan ever since the speculative land bubble burst in 1989 -- thus buying land as an investment for the future is not something that most people are willing to do. Personally, I prefer the American system much better, even if rising home prices can make it difficult for young people to get their first home.
It's said that Japan is 25 years behind the U.S. in terms of social development, or 10 years behind, depending on who you ask. Seen from a certain viewpoint, there does seem to be a "social development gap" between Japan and the rest of the world, from the growth of the Internet to attitudes about women and more. For example, for decades you could find "skin color" crayons in Japan, but they were quietly renamed in the late 1990's. When I came to Japan, I was amazed to see that there was no child carseat law, and you could regularly see kids standing up in the front seats of cars driving around town. Embarrassment at being "behind" the West, though, caused Japan to enact a strict child seat law in 1999. In the early 90's, Japan was a smokers' paradise, with few limitations on where smokers could light up, but over the past decade, there's been real progress in making many areas free of smoking, including all JR local trains (smokers who want to enjoy a cigarette must pay extra to ride the more expensive Bullet Trains).
Have you ever spoken to a Japanese person and wondered why they make agreeing noises while you're talking? This is aspect of Japanese speech called "aizuchi," basically "agreeing sounds" that speakers make when having a conversation. In Japanese, I could be explaining something that happened to me, and the person I'm speaking to would say things like "eeh" (yes), "so" (that's true), and "ne" (a general word of agreement). It may sound funny, but in Japanese, these words are necessary to show that you're listening attentively to the other person -- not making these sounds shows you're not paying attention, and the person you're talking with is likely to stop and ask you what's wrong. The trouble is when you carry aizuchi into English, and butt into what the other person is saying with "that's right" and "oh, yes -- it sounds really weird.
For the new update, we've got some excellent products from Japan for you, including several great new magazines, super cute photobooks, a great item for Cutey Honey fans, more great manga items, anti-catnip for cat haters, new Totoro and Hello Kitty toys, a super Macross/Robotech transforming model series, wacky Japanese buttons, a great replica of world famous military ships, a half dozen great new DVD releases including many items you won't want to miss, and more!
Remember that J-List sells hundreds of varieties of delicious Japanese snack foods, gum, candy and other treats. We've got traditional foods like miso soup and furikake (a name for foods that are sprinkled over white rice), amazing and fun to eat treats like Funya-Q (a big, soft gummy face that you can mash and eat), and more. Why not browse our excellent line of Japanese snack items today?
It's amazing how very different Japan and America can be. In the U.S., a major element driving the economy are home sales, and the appreciation that owning a home can bring is one of the foremost ways to get ahead in life. But in Japan, the concept of a "used" home having any value at all is almost completely alien. Very few Japanese would consider purchasing an existing home from someone else; it's much more common to buy land and tear down any existing buildings, to make room for a new house that you'll build from scratch. While land is still very expensive, it's been steadily losing value in almost all parts of Japan ever since the speculative land bubble burst in 1989 -- thus buying land as an investment for the future is not something that most people are willing to do. Personally, I prefer the American system much better, even if rising home prices can make it difficult for young people to get their first home.
It's said that Japan is 25 years behind the U.S. in terms of social development, or 10 years behind, depending on who you ask. Seen from a certain viewpoint, there does seem to be a "social development gap" between Japan and the rest of the world, from the growth of the Internet to attitudes about women and more. For example, for decades you could find "skin color" crayons in Japan, but they were quietly renamed in the late 1990's. When I came to Japan, I was amazed to see that there was no child carseat law, and you could regularly see kids standing up in the front seats of cars driving around town. Embarrassment at being "behind" the West, though, caused Japan to enact a strict child seat law in 1999. In the early 90's, Japan was a smokers' paradise, with few limitations on where smokers could light up, but over the past decade, there's been real progress in making many areas free of smoking, including all JR local trains (smokers who want to enjoy a cigarette must pay extra to ride the more expensive Bullet Trains).
Have you ever spoken to a Japanese person and wondered why they make agreeing noises while you're talking? This is aspect of Japanese speech called "aizuchi," basically "agreeing sounds" that speakers make when having a conversation. In Japanese, I could be explaining something that happened to me, and the person I'm speaking to would say things like "eeh" (yes), "so" (that's true), and "ne" (a general word of agreement). It may sound funny, but in Japanese, these words are necessary to show that you're listening attentively to the other person -- not making these sounds shows you're not paying attention, and the person you're talking with is likely to stop and ask you what's wrong. The trouble is when you carry aizuchi into English, and butt into what the other person is saying with "that's right" and "oh, yes -- it sounds really weird.
For the new update, we've got some excellent products from Japan for you, including several great new magazines, super cute photobooks, a great item for Cutey Honey fans, more great manga items, anti-catnip for cat haters, new Totoro and Hello Kitty toys, a super Macross/Robotech transforming model series, wacky Japanese buttons, a great replica of world famous military ships, a half dozen great new DVD releases including many items you won't want to miss, and more!
Remember that J-List sells hundreds of varieties of delicious Japanese snack foods, gum, candy and other treats. We've got traditional foods like miso soup and furikake (a name for foods that are sprinkled over white rice), amazing and fun to eat treats like Funya-Q (a big, soft gummy face that you can mash and eat), and more. Why not browse our excellent line of Japanese snack items today?
Monday, May 31, 2004
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)