Kawaii Crafts from Japan

We like to call J-List "a wonderful toybox of things from Japan," and we do have an awful lot of interesting items. The other day I was browsing our database to see what products were popular in different countries. For example, we sell a huge number of bento boxes and accessories to customers in France, since bento culture is very big there. I browsed to see what customers in Italy liked to buy, and was surprised to see that the #1 products were the Mousse-chan "Paper Clay" molds, the Let's Make an Eraser in Microwave craft sets and beautiful foldable Origami paper. No matter where you are in the world, J-List has some cool items from Japan for you. Why not browse J-List for these and other fun items from Japan now?

And one last time: this weekend is your last chance to take advantage of our J-List special sale, in which we give you $5 back for every $100 spent. This is frankly a great time to start your Christmas shopping, grabbing cool toys and Totoro products and snacks and Domo-kun T-shirts. Thanks!

Arimasu and Imasu and Japanese Grammer

I often talk about the various unique aspects of Japanese, in part because I just think languages are cool, but also in the hopes of helping anyone who's planning on learning Japanese in the future. One early aspect of Japanese grammar that proves challenging for students are the verbs imasu and arimasu, which both mean "to exist [in a place]." The catch is that imasu ("ee-mahs") is used for animate objects, anything that's alive ike a person or animal, and arimasu ("ah-ree-mahs") is for any inanimate object. A good example sentence might be: Watashi wa Tokyo ni imasu ga, ie wa Osaka ni arimasu, which means "I am in Tokyo, but my house is in Osaka." I remember tormenting my teacher with questions about these verbs, asking which I should use if referring to an android that was indistinguishable from a human, or an undead zombie, or a Venus Fly Trap, as my brain sought to define the boundaries of the new concepts. When I came to Japan I happened to meet a small child who referred to cars driving down the road with imasu instead of the correct arimasu (since they're not alive, even though they move). I felt a strange kinship with her, since I might have made the same error myself.

Strictly speaking, since Doraemon is a "robot of cat type" is should use arimasu, right?

Poupeegirl, an Open Minded Fashion Community

Ever since the Internet showed up, our lives have been greatly enriched by companies offering amazing services, like YouTube or Skype or Facebook or Twitter. These companies have become popular here in Japan, too, and it's largely taken for granted that the really good web-related ideas will all come from America and Europe, not from inside Japan itself. Oh, Japan certainly has its share of unique sites, such as Pixiv for art sharing, Mixi for social networking and Nico Video for watching Miku Hatsune sing about leeks for hour on end. Don't expect these services to change the world, though: almost without exception, these sites are difficult to use from outside Japan, requiring you to navigate through Japanese-language registration pages in order to access the content. Which is why online fashion community Poupeegirl, where girls create a virtual avatar then buy cute dresses for her, is a breath of fresh air, since they're happy to have users from around the world.

The Poupeegirl online fashion community is a rarity in Japan, happy to have visitors from the outside world.

Gasshuku: Training Camp Stories in Anime

When you watch anime, you open yourself up to a culture that's very different from the West, and it's not uncommon to encounter an idea or two that can be hard to understand, even if you have subtitles to read. Concepts like senpai (an upperclassman in a school or senior in an organization) and kohai (the opposite) were strange to me, as were "cram schools" where students memorized information to be regurgitated on a college entrance exam a few years hence. Another concept that took me a while to figure out was gasshuku (translatable as "training camp"), essentially when members of a club or sports team spend several nights at a separate location so they can practice their sport or activity for hours on end without interruption, as everyone in the group polishes their kiai ("fighting spirit") and generally get energized to do well. It's yet another concrete example of Japan being a very group-oriented place, and an interesting lesson in Japanese culture for us, on the outside looking in.

Training camp side-stories are common in anime, and K-On! manages to have two of them.

Things You Say Only In Japan

There are some things you say when you live in Japan that you'd certainly never utter back home. For example, when you give someone something it's common to be self-effacing and say, "Please accept this boring gift" as you hand it to them, something you'd never do in English. When introducing yourself in Japan, most people specify their "hobby" (in Japanese, shumi), and statements like "My hobby is playing the piano" are common here even though it sounds a little weird. Asking a person's blood type then having an in-depth conversation about it is odd, as is being reminded to "turn off the carpet" before going to bed, referring to the electric "hot carpet" heater some homes have in Japan. When a member of the J-List staff goes home for the day, I'll usually tell them ki o tsukete, which literally means "be careful," but this goodbye greeting would sound strange if translated into English. Then there's, "At what age did you stop taking baths with your parents?" In Japan, baths are made extra large, and parents will generally take their baths with their kids up to a certain age. It's a wholesome time for parent-child communication which the Japanese call "skinship," and something I like a lot about Japan. A common joke in anime is a character who's embarrassed when his friends find out that he was taking baths with his mother well into junior high school.

A "hot carpet" is an electric carpet that you sit on to keep warm.

The YouTube Method of Learning English?

There are many approaches to learning language, including the Grammar-Translation Method, which involves formal learning and lots of translation, the Communicative Method, focusing on communicating with others, and the Natural Approach, which tries to imitate how children learn, e.g. starting with listening comprehension and physical feedback rather than speaking. I learned about these in Linguistics class back at SDSU, but there are a few unofficial ways to learn, like the Social Feedback Method, whereby you do whatever it takes to get cute girls to talk with you. My daughter has started watching YouTube, using the popular video service to find her favorite American TV shows like Hannah Montana and Wizards of Waverly Place, and an interesting thing has happened: she's started using English all the time at home, including American slang that amuses her. Has she discovered an effective new way to learn a language -- the YouTube Method? I wonder if, decades or centuries from now, we'll have identified any changes in the flow of human language through Internet-based services like YouTube or Twitter.

My daughter seems to have stumbled on a new way to learn English.

Keeping Positive in Japan

I once had a friend with an old car that leaked oil, so that whenever he wanted to drive somewhere he had to add some to make sure he didn't burn his engine out. But rather than be depressed about his automotive problems -- or get his car fixed -- he chose to take a positive view of his cool car with its "self-changing oil." This impressed me, and I realized at that young age that each of us has the ability to choose whether we want to be positive or negative about what we face in life. Sadly, it's common to see people in Japan being very negative about things, and while this is to be expected in a recession that's seen Japan's GDP drop an alarming 13%, something not seen since the "oil shocks" of the 1970s, it's a trend I hope can be reversed. Seen from the Japanese point of view, Americans are very optimistic, and that positive spirit was immensely important to Japan in the aftermath of World War II. One of my favorite Japanese words is mae-muki (mah-eh moo-ki), which literally means "forward-facing," and I hope to see some positive forward-facing attitudes in Japan in the future.

Wacky Things from Japan

J-List loves to bring you unexpected things from Japan, which we've come to call Wacky Things from Japan™, and any day we can surprise you with something cute or interresting is a good day in our book. From stamps that allow you to express your current emotion to fun phone straps to cute bento products while smile at you and a rather strange traditional noise-maker brough out at parties, there's always something cool to find at J-List!

The World of Food in Japan

When I came to Japan, I naturally expected to find foods like ramen, udon, tempura and sushi, but when I got here I was really bowled over by the amazing variety of culinary delights that awaited me. In addition to the major Japanese dishes everyone's familiar with, I discovered many delicacies I had no idea existed, from varieties of donburi (food served over a large bowl of steamed rice) to the best seafood I'd ever eaten to amazing regional foods that are associated with different parts of Japan. There were many foods from around the world, too, including Chinese-derived dishes like gyoza and Indian curry with that dreamy naan bread, which the Japanese eat as often as Americans eat Italian. The Japanese are very good at importing ideas from the outside and making them into something new, and many foods served in "Western" restaurants are still uniquely Japanese. One of my favorite such foods is omurice, or a delicious omlette served over chicken fried rice. It's really good with a demi-glace sauce on it, or if you like, with a heart drawn in ketchup. If you're interesated in learning more about Japanese food, J-List sells some fun items, including our Traditional Food Drops with famous flavors from different parts of the country, and many awesome cookbooks.

Wax samples of omurice in a restaurant window. Yes, this blog post is making me hungry.

What I Learned By Not Going to Hakodate

Over the summer I had a lot of fun taking my son to Hakodate, the city on the southern tip of Hokkaido famous for its fresh fish and beautiful night view. I actually had an opportunity to visit the city much earlier, back when I was studying Japanese in university. It was an exchange program that the city was putting on to give a group of college students the chance to come to Hakodate for free, but to get into the program I had to pass an interview process. I'd studied Japanese for two years at that point, and thanks to learning with manga and translating Japanese songs I could speak the language pretty well, but that didn't mean I'd internalized the values of the Japanese at all, and the interviewer could sense this, I think. During the interview I was asked to give a concrete example of steps I'd taken to get along with others in a group, but I couldn't come up with any, as I was very "going my way" at the time, meaning I was selfish and did things as I pleased. Not being picked for the program was a bitter pill for me back then, but it introduced me to some key concepts that would help me later on, including hansei (to reflect on yourself and your own faults rather than blaming others, which was my first reaction) and kenson (the imporantance of showing humility in social situations).

Yes, the subject of Japanese groups is an incredibly complex one, and maintaining harmony inside a group is something the Japanese seem to be especially good at. I've observed many different kinds of groups, from elderly ladies studying English together to company employees to university "circles" (a club at a university is always called a "circle" by the way), and there always seemed to be a kind of "invisible hand" at work when members interacted with each other, keeping people from giving opinions that might offend others, speaking in the passive voice ("it has been decided") rather than the active voice ("he decided it"), avoiding making a devision if even one member of the group is inconvenienced by it, and so on. If you want to learn a lot about Japan, check out Genshiken, a fascinating anime and manga that's essentially a slice-of-life story about the "Modern Visual Arts Club" at a university. When you can understand Genshiken, you can understand Japan.

The dynamics of maintaining harmony within a group can be very complex.

A Short Hop to South Korea

This weekend my wife is in South Korea, where she'll eat delicious food, get a Korean massage and do some sightseeing on the island of Cheju with a friend. The Korean Peninsula is just a 90 minute Taepodong missile flight hop from Narita to Seoul -- the bus trip to the airport from Gunma actually takes longer -- and many Japanese travel there to sample the exotic culture and shop for bargains, or perhaps visit a place from their favorite Korean drama. The past ten years have really been a cultural renaissance for the two countries, thanks to Korea ending an official ban on all forms of Japanese culture including comics, music and animation, and there's a lot more exchange of popular culture across the Sea of Japan these days. Quite a few Korean television stars and professional athletes are household names in Japan, and when hot K-Pop boy bands like Touhou Shinki arrive at Narita Airport, there are hundreds of screaming fans waiting for them. At J-List we're firm believers in the concept of "World Peace through Shared Popular Culture," so we approve of this free sharing of ideas very much.

South Korea is a popular destination for Japanese tourists.

Anime Solved: It's All About the Emotions

There are many reasons that Japanese animation has grown popular in nearly every corner of the world, including the uniqueness of the characters, the bold stories in which people actually change and fall in love and die, and a willingness to tackle a wide range of issues that are important to viewers, even if they might be on the silly side. There's also the built-in kakko ii (coolness) factor that anime has going for it, since it comes from a distant foreign land. (Hmm, that might explain why Japanese beer-drinkers will choose Budweiser while I'll always order a Grolsch...got to think on that one a bit more.) Another reason anime is so enduring might be the way the best shows channel strong emotions to viewers. And not just the sappy boy-meets-girl-and-they-kiss-under-the-sakura-tree kind, either: often the themes can be bitter and sad and all the more exhilarating because of that. In the show Hatsukoi Limited, there are three boys who've gotten their hearts broken when the girls they liked didn't choose them, so they decide to take a trip to "find themselves." Frustrated by his one-sided love for Nao Chikura, a girl who's in love with a senpai who painted her favorite picture, Hiroyuki shouts: "I can't forget Chikura-san! Her smile is such a wonderful thing, but I can't win her love the way I am now...I can't go back until I find a way to become worthy of her!" The frustration and sadness -- called setsunai in Japanese, if you want to know -- becomes the most interesting aspect of the show.

At least, that's me. What do you get out of your favorite emotional anime? If we're getting some kind of emotional high from shows like Clannad, does it mean something has changed in our meatspace lives compared with the old days?

In the end, the attraction of anime might be the emotions it summons up inside you.

Perceptions of Japan through Green Tea Ice Cream

Although the Japanese have developed quite a taste for coffee in recent years, green tea is still very popular here, and Japan is known for consuming some pretty interesting green tea products, including matcha ice cream. I had a friend in America who once asked me, "Do the Japanese have any flavors of ice cream other than green tea?" which I thought was a very telling question. Of course the answer is yes: with a few rare exceptions like a town that's trying to declare itself the wasabi ice cream capital of the world, the ice cream eaten in Japan is exactly the same as what you're used to, but since the image of Japanese people eating vanilla ice cream isn't all that interesting, this information isn't communicated by the media or all the "look what those crazy Japanese are doing this week" blog posts out there, and so our view of Japan is shifted towards the bizarre. The way we perceive crime in other countries is affected by this phenomenon of selective information, too. There's a show called World's Greatest TV which highlights various television from around the world, and they have a segment about crimes that happened to be caught on video. Due to the video sources mostly coming from U.S., America is overrepresented in this show, and Japanese viewers who see crime after crime might get a negative view of the U.S. despite the fact that the video was only selected on its entertainment value. Bottom line, the next time you see sensational news from somewhere in the world, try to get more information before forming an opinion, if you can.

Japanese Calendar, J-List Sale Update

Japan is a very seasonal place, where different things done in each part of the year. Right it's "calendar season," the time to pick the awesome calendars you'd like to spend 2010 with. Japanese calendars are beautifully printed, with large, glossy page. While we've got a huge selection of popular anime calendars, we always make it a point to pick a wide range of calendars to offer, including gorgeous photo calendars of Japan in all seasons, calligraphy and art calendars, beautiful idols wearing kimono, plus the always popular Lucky Cat calendar offering. Click this link to browse all calendars, or here to see the top 50 calendars this week. (Also, we've got an HD review of the Totoro and other calendars up on YouTube if you like.)

Just a reminder that we're having a "J-List Birthday Sale" around here this month, giving you a gift certificate worth $5 for every $100 you spend on the site this month, which gives you a nice excuse to add another few boxes of Pocky or bento items to your cart if you're near the next $100 level. It's also a great time to start your holiday shopping since J-List is a wonderful place to find rare and fun items to make the Japan-obsessed person on your list really happy this year.

Fun with Hello Kitty

J-List sells rather a lot of Hello Kitty products from Japan, and it makes us happy to see how popular they are with our customers, from the bento boxes and accessories we stock, to the fun plush toys and even uniquely Japanese products like Shinto good luck charms featuring Japan's most kawaii kitty. We have a microwave rice cooker that lets you enjoy steamed white rice without the need to buy an electric rice cooker, training chopsticks for those still perfecting their chopstick skills, super Hello Kitty products for stress relief, and even a product for people who absolutely hate the famous Sanrio character. This year is Hello Kitty's 35th year as Japan's unofficial ambassador to the world, and we've got a huge selection of amazing items for you, including the two just-released Hello Kitty Anniversary Books. Click here to view all Hello Kitty items, and here to view the top 50 Kitty-chan products on the site this week.

Moero Downhill Night Download Now Shipping!

J-List loves to promote the PC dating-sim games from Japan (aka eroge), like the fantastic Deus Machina Demonbane, which we posted for preorder last time. Now, an update on the newest English-language game to be released, Moero Downhill Night. Unfortunately due to a production error, the game is currently being repressed, which will take another few weeks. Since so many people want to play this great Initial D-esque racing & dating simulator, we've got a great announcement: we've posted the game for download sales right now! So you have the option of ordering the package version (and waiting for it to be printed), buying the download version right now, or getting the special download + shrinkwrapped set! Click the graphic above to visit the game's official site and see the awesome CG racing scenes (created by the Initial D staff, incidentally)!

Are you involved with retail anime or related products? J-List operates a wholesale-only company in San Diego for making our wacky Japanese T-shirts, cool PC dating-sim games and other products available to retail shops, and would love to serve you. We've recently relaunched our wholesale website, so if you'd like to know more, please drop by either PCRdist.com (PC games, manga and apparel) and PCRstyle.com (family-friendly apparel and games only).

Japan's Literary Celebration

This year is the 100th year of the birth of Osamu Dazai, one of the major Japanese writers of the 20th century, who created a fascinating body of work including short stories like Run, Mellos! and major novels such as The Setting Sun (the story of an aristocratic family in the aftermath of World War II) and the semi-autobiographical No Longer Human. Japan is a very literate country, and they've always had a tradition of raising their great writers and poets up for all to see. While only former presidents appear on U.S. currency (except for good old Ben Franklin), Japan has featured many of its writers on its money, including Souseki Natsume, writer of "I am a Cat" and other books, who was on the previous 1000 yen note; Inazo Nitobe, who first wrote about bushido for the West and who adorned the former 5000 yen note; and the current 2000 yen note, which features both female novelist and poet Ichiyo Higuchi and the famous Murasaki Shikibu, writer of The Tale of Genji.

Japan has a long tradition of celebrating its writers by putting their faces on money.

My Two Personalities (Japanese and English)

When a person learns a foreign language they actually develop a second personality, which takes over when they're speaking that language. In Japanese, I'm a very different person, so much so that I'm often surprised myself. Japanese people tend to be humble, and when I'm speaking the language I'm able to sincerely humility in ways that I couldn't be if I were speaking English, and yes, I do bow while speaking on the phone. My wife on the other hand is much more assertive in English than in Japanese, since English is just built that way -- you always say the subject of sentences and use "yes" or "no" to clearly indicate your opinion, unlike in Japanese where meanings are often more vague and nuanced. It's always enjoyable to observe how this "English personality" works in my kids when I take them to the U.S. In English, my daughter is cute and feminine since she usually plays with other girls in the States, but in Japanese, she's a pure tomboy, even using the male first person pronoun (boku) the one that girls should use (atashi).

Cultural Comparisons and Ninjas

It's funny how we're all wired to perceive things a certain way, depending on what culture we come from. When my daughter was younger, we took her to an eye doctor in the U.S. for some tests, and the doctor showed her some pictures and asked her to identify them. She wasn't able to answer properly, not because of some problem with her eyes, but because the pictures -- silhouettes of household objects -- looked strange to her since she'd grown up outside the U.S. When I went to see a kabuki play in Tokyo for the first time, I was confused by the story, and not just because of the archaic Japanese the actors were speaking. As the story progressed, men in black costumes would appear on stage and scurry around, moving props and background objects. To my eyes, they looked like classic ninja, ready to strike their enemies dead, yet for some reason the characters on stage ignored their presence and went on with the story. It turns out I was looking at kuroko, stage hands who manipulate objects during the performance but who are supposed to be ignored by the audience. These unique "invisible shadows" show up on other performance arts, too, especially bunraku, a play put on using highly detailed dolls that are manipulated by a puppet master who wears the kuoroko clothing, making him invisible to the audience.

Other Stuff: Costumes & Demonbane

Halloween is right around the corner, but there's still time for you to order an awesome complete cosplay set from J-List. We've got dozens of anime costumes to choose from, from Toradora! to Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni to Naruto and Bleach, and many fun accessories, too, including anime wigs that will make you feel like your favorite anime character. We also have popular cosplay magazines like CosMODE and Layers, which are filled with useful articles and reference photos for you to make your next cosplay extra special. Browse all anime costume products now!

J-List is extremely happy to announce that preorders for Deus Machina Demonbane is now available for preorder on our site. J-List has long been a champion of PC dating-sim games from Japan, working to make them available in English to fans all over the world. It's a great day for fans of these unique games from Japan indeed, as the first game to be translated -- the awesome Demonbane -- can now be preordered. The game, which is in translation now, is one of the most awesome visual novels ever, and we're extremely happy to be able to offer it to you. Click here to view the official site for the game, or visit here to preorder the game from J-List. Be sure to check the NitroplusUSA blog to see when new content is added, too.

On the Lack of Lawsuits in Japan

The unceremonious ending of several major public works projects by the recently elected Democratic Party of Japan has been a big change in a country where projects historically are never cancelled once they've received an official blessing. The policy changes highlight another big cultural difference between Japan and the U.S., too: the lack of litigation as way of redressing issues between parties. While no one may be a fan of lawsuits, they do have their place in a free society, allowing individuals and groups to seek redress when they feel they've been wronged in some way, and if these changes were happening in the U.S., some legal challenges would certainly be filed. So far I've seen only one case of a Japanese company threatening legal action: Fuji Heavy Industries is demanding compensation from the government for agreeing to buy 62 Apache helicopters then actually only ordering ten of them.

Fuji Heavy Industries licensed the Apache from Boeing but only sold ten of them.

Yaeba, a "Charm Point" in Japan

During my time in Japan, I've been able to observe some of the more interesting traits of the females around me. Japanese girls in their teens or 20s are generally in touch with their "inner kawaii" and are capable of making a wide range of cute manga-like gestures and facial expressions without warning. Thanks to the grid-like organization of hiragana, it's easier to enter Japanese text with the number pad on a phone than it is in English, and on trains you can see females typing rapidly with their thumbs. Japanese females are extremely group-oriented creatures, and seem unable to go to the bathroom without bringing their friends with them, a social phenomenon called called tsureshon. Another interesting feature of Japanese females is the tendency of many of them to have crooked teeth, called yaeba (ya-eh-ba). Instead of being viewed as a negative, yaeba are often thought of as being cute, and many idols and singers use their imperfect teeth as a "charm point" to win more fans. This isn't universal, of course, and increasingly people here are getting crooked teeth fixed at a young age (both of my kids wore braces). These cute teeth show up in anime, too, represented two-dimensionally as a single fang protruding from the mouth.

Crooked teeth can be quite a "charm point" in Japan,

The Definition of "Macross Buzzkill"

Another tragedy struck the anime world, with the news that Kazuhiko Kato, the composer of the "Do You Remember Love?" song from the 1984 Macross movie, had committed suicide in a hotel in Karuizawa. The timing of the sad event was especially pointed for me, since I was in the middle of my "Weekend of Macross geekery," playing the new Macross Ultimate Frontier (quite frankly the best anime game ever made) on my PSP, and was playing just as the news popped up in my twitter feed. The announcement of Kato-san's death was sad for other fans as well, coming just hours before the Macross Crossover Concert, with five singers including Mari Iijima performing for fans. There are of course many cool songs in the anime world, but for me, "Do You Remember Love?" was the song, the very first one I heard in Japanese, which I vowed to understand someday. Mr. Kato had many achievements in his life including writing many beloved songs and forming a band called The Sadistic Mika, which became the first Japanese band to tour in Great Britain back in the 1970s.

Ai Oboete Imasu ka? composer Kazuhiko Kato will be missed.

Peter's Tips on Learning Japanese

At J-List, we like to encourage interest in learning Japanese, since it's such a rewarding language to study whether you're just trying to master hiragana and katakana or are going for the Japanese Language Proficiency Test this December. People are all different, and it's no surprise that we learn in different ways. In general, my advice is to find what "floats your boat," in other words sample a lot of different aspects of Japan to see what aspect of the country you're interested in, be it history, traditional culture and martial arts, anime and popular culture or what have you. Another bit of advice I can offer is to be "8x" about studying Japanese, by which I mean try several approaches at once to see what works for you rather than just trying one thing. (I translated JPOP songs for friends while reading manga and watching anime, then eventually got interested in Japanese literature.) Another thing you might try is writing a diary in Japanese, which gives you an excuse to practice writing (always a good idea), and you can see how far you've progressed by reading your old diary entries later. I did this for several years, although I had to give it up when I started J-List, which (as Apu from the Simpsons says) puts great demands on my time. Although in a way, I never stopped writing a diary about my life in Japan at all -- you're reading it right now.

An artist's conception of what keeping a diary in Japan is like.

Mixed Bathing in Japan

Japan has had a culture of bathing in public baths and natural volcanic hot springs for centuries, and I've really become an aficionado of this great aspect of the country since my arrival in 1991. Everywhere I drive, I've got my "bath kit" in the car with me, so I can stop at any roadside hot springs and get clean. One of the more famous images of Japan is male-female "mixed bathing" (called kon'yoku), although I have some bad news for would be mixed bathers -- it's almost impossible to find these baths anymore. As Japanese society has evolved to become more Western, the idea of men and women bathing together has faded, and in all my journeying I only managed to find one official mixed bath. This doesn't mean that men bathing in a public bath need go without females around them, however. For some odd reason, it's perfectly normal for the cleaning lady in these baths to enter when the men are washing themselves, to tidy the buckets or check the temperature of the water, and no one thinks anything of it here.

Sadly, mixed bathing is a lost art in Japan outside of anime comic-relief stories.

Of S'Mores and Curry and "Cultural Buttons"

It's interesting how each of us has a set of special "cultural buttons" which bring up different images when pressed. As an American, when I think of going camping my brain conjures a mental image of sitting around a campfire and eating S'mores, which are delicious sandwiches made with two graham crackers, Hershey's chocolate and a marshmallow you've just toasted over the fire. But when the Japanese think of camping, the first on their mind is...making curry? Yes, the Japanese idea of "roughing it" involves peeling potatoes, washing pots and building a fire so they can boil up some first-rate curry rice, complete with a special kind of rice cooker for steaming rice over a flame called a hango. Making curry rice in the great outdoors requires a lot of cooperation from different members of a group, and when it all comes together it's not only a delicious meal, but it brings people together. When my daughter was doing Girl Scouts, the scout leader used to bring ingredients so the girls could eat S'mores just like they do in America. But since there are no graham crackers here in Japan, she brought Saltines, which isn't the same thing at all...

When the Japanese think of camping, they think of a big pot of steaming curry.

Fun Anime Snacks from J-List

J-List, of course, carries tons of fun anime toys and figures for you to browse, and we also stock many rare and wonderful snack items direct from Japan. So it makes sense for us to go out of our way to carry the best anime-themed snacks we can find for our customers, which we do . See some fun items, like the Lucky Star Cornet Cookies (which incidentally come in a flat gift-style box, so you can give them to others as gifts); the delicious traditional snack Konpeito, as seen in Spirited Away; the wonderful Sakuma Drops candy, from Grave of the Fireflies; and the delicious Milk Caramels from Morinaga, as seen in the Totoro sequel "Mei and the Kitten Bus" (which is only viewable at the Ghibli Museum in Tokyo). Why not browse our new Anime Snacks page, or check out the top 50 snack items this week?

The Enigmatic "Returned Japanese"

I often write about how Japan is a homogeneous place in which 99% of the people consider themselves to be of the same genetic stock, despite the obvious variations in skin color, facial shape and body type among supposedly "pure" Japanese, who of course contain varying amounts of Mongolian, Korean, Ainu and other blood in their veins. This "myth of Japanese uniformity" may seem strange to Westerners, but in reality it's a useful social tool that the Japanese have used to create a happy society ostensibly free of discrimination, since almost everyone is "included" in the overall social group as an equal. (This is the theory, anyway.) No matter how far this happy social umbrella may be stretched, though, there are certain groups within Japan that it just can't cover, which include zainichi ("residing in Japan") Koreans and Chinese, who in many cases were born and raised here yet don't take Japanese citizenship for cultural reasons; Okinawans, who have a unique culture separate from Japan; the Ainu, the original residents of northern Japan; gaijin like me, living and doing various jobs here; and historically, burakumin, the "untouchables" who lived at the bottom of society.

Another group that doesn't fit perfectly into the neat Japanese social fiber are the kikoku shijo, a word which literally means "girl children who have returned to Japan from a foreign country" and refers to any Japanese (male or female) who has come back to Japan after living abroad for several years when they were younger. These "returned Japanese" have a unique status in society here, since they naturally can't be expected to fit in perfectly or write every kanji. Kikoku shijo people are supposedly "KY" -- a Japanese word meaning kuuki yomenai or "can't read the air," meaning that these Japanese from overseas have trouble understanding the subtleties of social interaction all around them. It's common for organizations to have special rules for these individuals, for example universities usually have separate entrance exams to allow a certain number of students who have lived abroad to enter. Anime is especially well populated with these "special" nihonjin, who often seem to be everything the Japanese themselves are not: tall with fiery Western features, fluent in foreign languages and given a free pass to act differently from everyone else. Some famous "returned Japanese" characters include Asuka Langley Soryu and Mari Illustrious Makinami (who may both also be haafu, a related trope as far as anime is concerned), and Kaede Kimura from Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei, who always manages to flash her underwear then threaten to sue anyone who happened to see.

Anime is well populated with "returned Japanese." Which is your favorite?

Autumn, Beautiful Leaves and Kotatsu

Autumn is starting to make its presence known in Japan, with beautiful hues of red and orange and yellow starting to show on the trees. This is the season that makes me want to stop whatever I'm doing and go to Nikko, a collection of temples and a five-storied pagoda that are just about the single best sightseeing spot in the Kanto (Tokyo) area, especially when the leaves are just starting to turn. Fall is also time to break out the kotatsu, a low table with a blanket over it and an electric heater inside. During the colder months, everyone in the family will sit around the kotatsu with their legs stuffed inside, feeling warm and toasty while avoiding the waste of heating an entire room. The symbol of a kotatsu with a bowl of mikan oranges on when it's cold outside it is a great image of the country.

Autumn is my favorite season to enjoy the beauty of Japan.

Japan, Bacteria-Resistant Nation

I happened to see that the venerable Ticonderoga Pencil Company had brought out a line of pencils that are "bacteria resistant" thanks to a special coating on the pencils's surface called MicroBan™. This kind of sales gimmick is everywhere in Japan, a country where germs are so worrisome to people that it's not rare to see someone going about their day wearing a surgical-style health mask (without or without Hello Kitty on it), even before the current H1N1 problem. The Japanese seem particularly sensitive to the thought that germs might be getting on themselves or their loved ones, and many products are promoted as being anti-bacterial, including the desks my kids study at, the sheets and pillows we use, and just about every household appliance you can think of. They even rolled out special "bacteria resistent" hand railings for escalators at major train stations in Tokyo recently.

This hand railing at Ueno Station advertises itself as "bacteria-resistant."

Duality with Japanese Language

One fact about learning Japanese I've written about before is the odd "duality" your brain starts to perceive. In general, most kanji have two pronunciations, a Chinese reading roughly based on the original Chinese word, and a Japanese reading which has been shoe-horned in to fit that character's meaning over the years, and knowing which to use can be a challenge. The word "cold" in French is froid, and it's used exactly the same way as we use it in English, but this convenient 1:1 translation doesn't always work in Japanese, where they have separate words for coldness in the air (samui) and coldness to the touch (tsumetai). Another example of a simple concept becoming more complex is "sister," which is translatable as oneesan for an older sister and imoto for younger sister. There are quite a few English words that get split into multiple versions, too. The device used to smooth out wrinkles in clothes is an airon (iron) but the thing you hit a golf ball with is an aian, a completely different word as far as the Japanese are concerned. If you're thirsty, you can drink drink water from a gurasu (glass) while looking through the garasu of the window -- those two words have also become separate concepts. Honestly, remembering which word to use can actually make your brain tired at the end of the day.

Which is it? I'm not sure! Help me! (It's a gurasu, not a garasu.)

Dams, Damn Dams and the Politicians Who Cancel Them, Part II

The changes in Japan's political world continue, as the Democratic Party of Japan works to implement its "Manifesto" of campaign promises. Last week it was announced that Seiji Maehara, the minister of land, infrastructure, and tourism, had frozen 48 out of 56 dam projects that were under way in Japan, refusing to fund any contracts this fiscal year. The government seems to be targeting public works projects as a way of freeing up tax money to make good on its promise of paying families a monthly allowance of $250 per child in the hopes of raising the nation's birthrate. Honestly, I'm kind of torn on some of these changes. On the one hand, wasteful public spending is a huge problem in Japan, a country positively addicted to construction as a way of propping up employment, and building projects that provide questionable public benefit should be eliminated. On the other hand, cutting projects already started is wasteful too, and will increase unemployment in the construction sector, which is already being pummeled. My initial reaction to the cancellation announcement was, "How the heck could Japan have thought it needed 56 more dams at this point in its development?" although with 2800 currently operating dams, Japan has a lot less than the 75,000 in the U.S. Incidentally, there are "dam otaku" in Japan who love to take pictures of their favorite multiple-arch reverse-pump turbine gravity dams for their scrapbook. Those Japanese are so wacky!

The future of dam construction construction in Japan is looking cloudy.

Macross Ultimate Frontier on the PSP

Over the weekend I had some fun with my copy of Macross Ultimate Frontier, a superb game for the Sony PSP that lets you re-live all the battles of the entire Macross series, from the 1982 original series and epic "Do you remember love?" 1984 movie to all the later series, all the way up to the most recent Macross Frontier. We're happy that the PSP and DS have turned into such great platforms for anime fans to enjoy games direct from Japan. Another popular title is the Miku Hatsune Project DIVA in which you must do fun things like teach Miku to dance and sing and outfit a virtual room for her. You also get to enjoy many shots of her her legendary shimapan. Why not take a moment to browse all the cool PSP and Nintendo DS games from Japan we have in stock?