Of Anime Figures and Dating-Sim Games

J-List carries thousands of fun products from Japan, including the beautiful prepainted anime figures from Japan's top toy studios. Queen's Blade is the popular book-based fighting RPG which has spawned so many beautiful artbooks and figures. Then there are the many "cast off" figures we stock, which give you, ah, various reconfiguration options when it comes to the clothes your anime figure are wearing. We also carry all the most famous figure lines, like Figma and Revoltech, and we also carry the kawaii Pinky Street line of toys with clothes you can change (well, you're actually changing the bodies). Finally, the Nendoroid toys we carry are great fun, since you can display them in so many ways. Browse all figures ia this link, or click here to see the top 50 figures this week.

Remember, J-List is having a great Valentine's Day Sale on our interactive dating-sim games, which means that this is a great time for you to pick up a title or three. Here's how it works: buy Bazooka Cafe and you'll get a coupon back for $5 when we process your order. But you get another $5 for other games you buy, so if you add three more games, that's $20 back, which is in addition to any other discounts that may apply. The sale even applies to the newly shipping Cat Girl Alliance, the fun game of cat girls and futanari. Why not pick up a bunch of titles now and save?

"Preferential Gift" to Shareholders by Japanese Companies

Like America, Japan is a capitalist country in which investors can buy stock in companies in the hopes that it will rise in value, but unlike the U.S. there are some interesting things companies do to make their stock more attractive. It's common for large companies here to issue kabunushi yutai or "preferential shareholder gifts" to individuals holding a certain amount of company stock, a custom that's tied to the tradition of giving seasonal gifts twice a year. If you've got stock in McDonald or Starbucks, you'll get a booklet of coupons for free products sent to you, while Ito Ham distributes a succulent ham to all shareholders with 1000 or more shares. Asahi Beer sends a beautiful gift box of its flagship Super Dry to its shareholders, while the Mercian company actually creates a special premium wine for holders of the company's stock. But the king of the "shareholder gift" game has to be Takara Tomy, which creates rare fashion dolls that are only available for purchase by shareholders, which means I have to keep coming up with ways to keep my wife from buying stock in the company, since she loves Licca-chan dolls. This tradition of giving perks to shareholders may seem strange, but in a country where gift-giving is as important as it is in Japan, it's a cheap way for companies to create goodwill among their stockholders and (if the gifts are really special) generate some buzz for their company.

"False" Dialects of Japanese in Anime

Like other languages, Japanese comes in various dialects. Some of these are regional, like "standard" Tokyo speech or the more colorful Osaka-ben (Osaka dialect), while other speech patterns are based on sex, as illustrated by different first and second pronouns for men and women. One interesting aspect of the language is the existence of "fake" dialects which show up in anime or manga but which are never used naturally by any real Japanese person, ever. One of these is ojosama speech, a special way that pampered rich girls like Cerina Iori Flameheart from Ladies Versus Butlers speak to indicate that they're well-bred. Instead of saying yoroshiku, a casual way of saying "Nice to meet you," they'll use the more refined-sounding yoroshiku-teyo, which is no more authentic than a sign advertising Ye Olde Bookshoppe. Then there's the rough "old man" speech used by almost every elderly male character ever animated, in which the phrase so da ("that is so") always changes to so ja. (Aside: in Japanese versions of Star Wars, Yoda speaks this standard form of "old man" speech, which is quite a shame considering how much Yoda's unique dialect to his character adds.) Yet another example of a stylized dialect of Japanese in anime is the "kid speech" of characters like Rika from Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni, who adds nano desu to any sentence, making her sound more feminine and cute. Learning Japanese through anime is a fun way to expose yourself to new vocabulary, but it's important to realize that the medium does have its limitations.

Anime features many "false" dialects that no one actually speaks, nano desu!

The Disappearance if Haruhi Thoughts

This weekend was the opening of The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya, and since I'm one of the few people in the world who can say it's his job to watch anime, I went to check it out. It was excellent, with many twists and turns that Haruhi fans will surely enjoy. I'm a big fan of hardcore science fiction stories, and have read just about every book about time travel ever written, from Guns of the South to The Time Ships to Time After Time and even To Say Nothing of the Dog. It struck me while watching the Haruhi film that Western-style stories about time travel (or time dilation in space) are relatively rare, and the anime series that do deal with these themes have clear Western inspirations. In the case of Haruhi, many of the "future Mikuru" ideas are lifted from the Hyperion books by Dan Simmons (this is actually the book Yuki gives to Kyon in episode 3), and the Haruhi-as-Godhead story harkens back to the classic Twilight Zone episode "It's a Good Life." Gunbuster is essentially an homage to the awesome SF books Ender's Game and The Forever War, with skimpy uniforms added for fan service. When Japanese do create "timeslip" stories, they tend to be simpler, about a character who goes back in time to buy a red straw hat for his future girlfriend, or the well-trodden genre of modern Japanese person going back to Japan's "Warring States" historical period. Western time travel stories are sweeping tales about Deloreans man's mastery of technology and looking at society through different lenses, while Japanese time travel tends to be a device to put dramatic pressure on different characters.

So, what time travel books have you read that you can share with us in the comments?

Haruhi Suzumiya is back in a new movie, and it's pretty bad-ass.

Products for Espers, Time Travelers and Aliens

J-List is loaded with fun products for Haruhi fans. First, we've got several outstanding T-shirts, like our popular "No Normal Humans" T-shirt that has gorgeous kanji, or the popular "I Would Die for Haruhi" shirt design. Churuya-san, a cute-ified version of Tsuruya from the series, is another popular shirt (nyoro~n). We love the detailed Haruhi Figma toys made by Max Factory, and we have all the best figures on the site for you to browse. Finally, I can't help but recommend the excellent magazines that are loaded with free stuff, like Nyan Type or Megami Magazine, available by revolving month-to-month subscription from J-List.

Sapporo Snow Festival

Today is the start of the Sapporo Snow Festival, the famous snow-sculpting event in which a dozen or so teams work to create beautiful masterpieces out of snow. This is the 60th anniversary of the festival, which got its start in 1950 when the city of Sapporo decided to turn several local snow sculpting competitions into a regular event, and everything just sort of snowballed from there (sorry). Different sculptures are created each year, and it's always fun to see what the will be made -- one group is making a giant Miku Hatsune Nendoroid this year, for example. During my days as a single gaijin I did a fair bit of hitchhiking around Japan, and I visited the city of Sapporo but not during the festival. I'd love to go see it properly sometime.

The 60th Sapporo Snow Festival is going on right now. Wish I were there.

Coming-of-Age Ceremony for Junior High School Students

My son turns fifteen this year, and in accordance with a Japanese custom I'd never heard of before, he'll be participating in a school ceremony called risshi-shiki, the Ceremony of Attending Manhood (also called Genpuku or Genbuku). It's a revival of an old tradition that goes back a millennium or so in which boys who had reached the minimum age of adulthood had their hair cut in the fashion of adults for the first time, and after that point they could be called to go to war and kill with a sword. In these modern times, it's become a ceremony where boys (and girls) stand up in front of their teachers and other students and declare their goals, what they want to do with their lives in the future. My son goes to a special experimental immersion school in which 50% of the classes are taught in English, so he has to give his speech twice, once in English and once in Japanese.

When I was fifteen and attending school in America, I never gave a thought about where my life would take me -- I was too busy playing AD&D and M.U.L.E. on my Atari 8-bit computer. Do you think this is a good way to get young people to think more seriously about the future?

A rissho-shiki ceremony is an opportunity to reflect on your personal goals.

Asashoryu Bows Out of the Dohyo

Japan's sumo world was rocked today by the announcement that Mongolian wrestler Asashoryu, the top-ranked yokozuna (Grand Champion) in the sport, would be retiring to take responsibility for an incident in which he got drunk and punched an employee at a drinking establishment. This was far from the only time the sumo star has been in trouble: he'd also been reprimanded for brawling with other wrestlers privately and was photographed playing soccer back home in Mongolia while he was supposed to be on medical leave for a back injury. One of the biggest problems with the wrestler, from the Japanese point of view, was that he lacked the hinkaku (dignity) that's expected in a person of that rank, yet Asashoryu refused to accept Japanese-style humility, often striking a "guts pose" after a tournament win and preferring a large Hawaiian shirt to his official sumo wrestler yukata while in public. Asashoryu was one of the strongest wrestlers the sport had ever seen, with an unprecedented 25 tournament victories in his 11-year career.

Asashoryu's name always makes me think of a Street Fighter special attack.

Wacky Subculture, Anime & Traditional Products from Japan

J-List sells a ton of unique and wacky products from Japan, which I like to dig through for you. We love all forms of Japanese subculture, and whenever something becomes popular on the Japanese Interwebs, we'll be there to offer products to you, like our excellent lineup of Touhou manga, figure and cosplay products, or our fun Yukkuri! T-shirt. The Japanese always have a knack for coming up with fun new ways to explore our obsessions, and products like our "3D" Mouse Pads, which provide just the right wrist support an otaku needs, or those Evangelion earphones. Finally, there's a lot of crossover between "wacky" and "traditional" in Japan, and we like to think our line of hachimaki headbands are a little bit of both.

The Adventure of English

If you've been reading my twitter feed lately, you might have noticed me writing about an interesting BBC documentary I'd come across. Called The Adventure of English, the 8-part series follows the evolution of the English language from its early Anglo-Saxon roots, through centuries of refinement by the likes of Chaucer and Shakespeare, and finally to its arrival as England's most famous export to the world during the Colonial Era. For a "language otaku" like myself, the show was awesome linguistic pr0n, and I loved every episode. One of the themes of English is how it was changed by other languages it came into contact with, especially after the Norman Invasion, which led to 300 years of rule by French-speaking kings and is the reason 50% of modern English words are French in origin. This mirrors another island nation I'm fond of. Japan also had a linguistic "invasion" in the form of kanji from China around the 6th century AD, which the Japanese adapted to their spoken language. Today, every kanji used in Japan has two basic readings, a Japanese one for the simpler concepts like mizu for "water" or sora for "sky," and a Chinese reading that's used to create more complex compound words such as suiso for "hydrogen" or and kuuatsu for "air pressure."

I enjoyed the BBC documentary on the history of English, but then I'm a "language otaku."

The Really Big Numbers of Avatar

The other day I was talking with my wife and daughter about an article I'd seen, which said the film Space Pocahontas Avatar had earned an unprecedented 2 billion dollars in ticket sales. "How much money is that?" my daughter asked, so I tried to tell her...then fell flat on my face. Numbers are notoriously difficult to work with in Japanese, since instead of the Arabic system that's based on the unit 1,000 they use the Chinese system which uses 10,000 (mahn) as a base unit, followed by oku which has a value of 100 million. Numbers themselves are exactly the same, of course, and a Japanese math book would have the same written formulas that a Western one would; it's the act of verbally expressing large numbers that's such a challenge. In the end, it took the three of us several minutes of intense discussion to figure how to express the number $2,000,000,000 properly in Japanese yen.

Which works better for you? I think I like the Disney-animated one best.

Setsubun: Out with devils, in with happiness!

Today is Setsubun, a fun day for anyone with kids in Japan. A remnant of a festival that took place on New Year's Eve during the old Lunar Calendar, it's a day when oni (devils) will be symbolically chased out of the house so that happiness can reign during the New Year. The father of the house will assume the role of a devil, wearing a paper mask that makes him look scary. When the devil attacks, the children pelt him with baked soybeans and chase him off, shouting Oni wa soto, fuku wa uchi! ("Out with devils, in with happiness!"). When the devil is properly vanquished, everyone is supposed to eat their age in soybeans to help guarantee good health in the coming year, which is easy for a child of eight or so but more difficult for parents who are getting up there in years. Setsubun is also a day to visit your local Shinto shrine, where people gather to be pelted by soybeans thrown out into the crowd by sumo wrestlers and kabuki actors who have been invited to take part in the festivities.

Feb. 3rd is Setsubun, a day for casting devils out of your home.

Valentine's Day Sale on Dating-Sim Games

J-List is happy to announce a special Valentine's Day sale on all our dating-sim games, which are great fun to curl up with in front of a warm computer. Here's how it works: buy the outstanding game Bazooka Cafe, which includes the free Valentine Special bonus game, and we'll send you a $5 coupon via email for a future J-List purchase. Want to save even more? Add any other game(s) to your order and we'll send you another $5 coupon for each game. Buy a total of four games and get a coupon for a $20 coupon back, in addition to the automatic 15% discount for getting four titles. This offer is available for both download and shrinkwrapped package games costing $14.95 or more. Although have Bazooka Cafe? We'll still honor the $5-per-game credit for other titles you pick up. Click here for more info.

All Things in Life are Like Peter's Photoshop Job

The other day, I was rolling up my sleeves to start a Photoshop job, cutting out a large image so I could separate it from the background, which we find ourselves doing a lot around here. I'd gotten about five minutes into the work when suddenly the breaker went out, which caused my Mac to lose power along with all the other computers at J-List. I groaned at the prospect of starting my Photoshop job again, when Shingo (the guy who handles technical support for our dating-sim games) noticed what I was doing and said, "If you need that file with layers separated, I've got one in my computer." This was a classic example of the Japanese proverb ningen banji saiou-ga-uma (nin-gen BAHN-gee sai-OH ga oo-mah), meaning "All things in life are like Sai's horse." This refers to an old Chinese story about a man named Sai whose horse ran away, causing everyone to be sympathetic about his bad luck. But the horse returned soon with another horse in tow, so it turned out to be good luck. Then Sai's son fell off the new horse and broke his leg, which was bad luck -- although because of his injury, he didn't need to go off to war when his village was called to fight, so it was good luck. The moral of the story is, when something good or bad happens, no one can say for sure how it will be in the end.

One of the many tidbits of wisdom from China.

Traditional Japanese Candy & Snacks from the Showa Period

J-List sells a lot of fun Japanese snacks, from Pocky to Meltykiss to the amazing Japan Kit Kat. We also go out of our way to carry many types of traditional candy from the Showa Period, called dagashi in Japanese. These traditional Japanese sweets are loads of fun for Japanophiles, since everything is so mysterious and old-fashioned, yet delicious. The most popular of all these mysterious Japanese candies has to be Kompeito, the star-shaped candies seen in the animated film Spirited Away, or perhaps the fun Bubble Ball fizzing ramune candies. I love the sweet Mochi Candy which is very chewy and comes in several flavors, as well as Bontan Ame, candy that comes in a wrapper made of rice, so you can eat it wrapper and all. Morinaga's Black Sugar caramels are a solid hit with J-List customers, as are the legendary Sakuma Drops, seen in Ghibli film Grave of the Fireflies, which have spawned an interesting line of other "drops" candies. Finally, Felix the Cat bubblegum is one of the most popular products we've ever carried. Best of all, these traditional candies from Japan are often very inexpensive, so you can try a bunch of different ones and see which you like.

Great Service in Japan

The tradition of retail establishments offering excellent service to customers is one of my favorite aspects of Japan, and if I were in the restaurant business I'd look to see what ideas I could import. Like the excellent custom of handing out hot towels called oshibori to customers who've just sat down to order -- there's nothing that makes you feel positive about a restaurant like cleaning your hands (and face, although it's bad manners) with a steaming hot towel. Another innovation I'm a fan of are electronic buttons you press when you're ready to order. The staff of the restaurant can see your table number light up on a board, and they instantly appear. Another idea which might have potential in urban areas are restaurant ticket vending machines. If you want to order, say, a bowl of ramen, you insert your money into the machine and press the button, getting a ticket that you give to the cook. All monetary transactions are done by the vending machine, so the restaurant doesn't need staff at a cash register, allowing the cost of the meals to be lowered.

(By the way, the Japanese achieve this higher level of service without ever taking tips, and in fact a Japanese person would be confused and insulted if you tipped them for doing their jobs. What an amazing country this is!)

I love the steaming hot oshibori towels they give you in restaurants.

Jobs for Gaijin in Japan

There are certain jobs in Japan that are naturally better filled by foreigners, such as employees in certain ethnic restaurants, the cast members at Tokyo Disneyland, or a minister who performs Western-style wedding ceremonies. Teaching English as a Second Language is another job best done by a native speaker, and there are many expats working here as English conversation teachers or other types of language instructor. By its very nature, translation from one language to another goes more smoothly if the person doing the translating speaks the target language natively, which provides another career path for foreigners wanting to work in Japan. This rule isn't strictly followed however, and there are some who work as proofreaders or "rewriters," essentially cleaning up English translations made by non-native speakers. Before I started J-List I worked for my city as a "Facilitator of Internationalization," essentially being a bridge between the foreign community and the city government, and I did a fair bit of this kind of clean-up work. Once I even proofread a translation done by an American who'd lived here since the 60s, so long in fact that his English needed to be checked for errors afterwards. I wonder if I'll ever get like that? (We have some interesting guidebooks for living and working in Japan, by the way.)

It's considered very "authentic" to have a wedding performed by a gaijin minister.

Confusing Japanese is Confusing

Words are complex things, and one of the challenges a person learning a language like Japanese faces is parsing everything properly. Most people know about the -san suffix that's placed at the end of a person's name for politeness, e.g. Yamada-san to mean Mr. Yamada. Another san that pops up quite often in normal use is written with the character for "production" meaning "...made in," so next time a character in an anime asks for Bulgaria-san no marmalade you can figure what she's saying. It's used in the kanji name for the Nissan auto company, which literally means "Made in Japan." Another word that causes confusion is kau, which usually means "to buy" but (when written with a different kanji) means "to keep a pet," and we poor gaijin always go through a period of confusion about why our Japanese friend is "buying" a dog before we figure it out. The word for "to cut" in Japanese is kiru, but when written with a different kanji character it assumes the more specialized meaning of "to kill with a sword," which is another concept that's easy to get wrong.

Tthe name Nissan literally means "made in Japan," in case you were wondering.

Korean Invasion!

We're having a bit of a "Korea Boom" in my house right now, courtesy of my wife. Like millions of other Japanese women, she's decided that Korean dramas are the neatest thing since sliced sashimi, and has been watching them on Japanese TV and rented DVD almost every night. (She even has a calendar of handsome actor Hyun Bin in her office.) When I ask her what's so interesting about the shows, she gets very animated. "Oh, they're nothing like Japanese dramas," she says. "They're more intense, and the characters are deeper and more interesting. I can always guess how Japanese dramas will end, so they're boring." I've often thought that her love of Korean dramas was a lot like my own feelings for Japanese animation -- she even complains when she has to watch them dubbed instead of with subtitles, just like me when watching anime. My theory is that the brain has a fundamental craving for the fresh and unique, and when something fills this need for an "other-ness" it's hard to resist embracing it. Supposedly Korean dramas remind Japanese of the good old days of the Showa Period, which may be why so many fans in Japan are in their 40s and older.

I decided to check out the anime version of the Korean drama Winter Sonata, which was interesting on several levels. It was a long time since I'd needed to pay attention to subtitles in anime, but since I was watching it in the Korean language, my eyes needed to stay glued to the TV if I was to understand the story. I found I'd been taking my knowledge of Japanese cultural iconery for granted, and parts of the anime were difficult for me to identify easily, since it was different from Japan. There were other cultural differences, too, like a scene in which a high school girl berates another for pretending to be a natural beauty even though she'd had plastic surgery, which would be unthinkable in Japan. As with watching the Korean-language scenes in Lost, it was fun to try to pick out the tiny smattering of words that are the same in Japanese, like yakusoku (promise), heikin (average) or kando (to be moved emotionally by something).

Korean anime presents new cultural learning experiences; my wife has also started serving kimchee with every meal.

Wacky Japanese T-shirts & Hoodies from J-List

Ever since J-List brought out our first "Looking for a Japanese Girlfriend" T-shirt more than a decade ago we've sold a huge number of wacky Japanese T-shirt and hoodies to customers all over the world. The "Girlfriend" shirt has been our top seller, closely followed by our wacky "Beware of Perverts" design and the always-fun shirt that says "In Emergency, Commit Seppuku Along This Dotted Line." J-List helped make Domo-kun the world-famous character he is today, and our Domo-kun line of shirts, hats and hoodies has always been popular with our customers. Recently we've been banging out some great new designs, like our K-On! "Afternoon Teatime" shirt or our tribute to tsundere anime girls. Our T-shirts are printed by our hardworking staff in San Diego (not mass-produced in Asia) and all sizes are full U.S. sizes (not tiny Japanese ones). Click here to browse all our products, or here to see the top 50 this week.

Vagueness in Japan

I've written many times about how the Japanese language can be vague and imprecise, with chunks of meaning often left out. One example common in anime might be a boy who confesses his love for a girl by saying suki desu, literally "[I] love [it/you]" with both the subject and object omitted. Usually the meaning would be clear, but then the boy loses his nerve and adds the word "...ramen" to his statement, so that now he has just said that he likes noodles instead. Another example of Japanese being too vague for their own good is the use of pronouns to stand for words which aren't entirely clear. The location-based pronouns in Japanese are kore (koh-rey, "this one"), sore (soh-rey, "that one, near you") and are (ah-rey, meaning "that one over there, farther away"). Many Japanese will say something like, "What shall we do about 'that'?" using the word are, but it's quite easy for others to not understand and have to ask for clarification. The word for people who use these unclear pronouns too much is are-byo, literally meaning "That" Sickness.

If you haven't seen it, the independent film Fumiko's Confession is pure genius. Enjoy.

Your Japan "Shoe Strategy"

Going back to the U.S. is always a treat: I get to load up on foods that I can't get in Japan like Quaker Oatmeal, Pop Tarts and packets of Taco Bell hot sauce. It's also nice to hit the shopping malls and pick up shoes for the next year, since for most gaijin buying shoes in Japan can be a challenge. In one store I was in I found a pair of nice looking boots that I wanted to buy, but then I remembered that I lived in Japan, and reconsidered. The custom of removing shoes before entering any home and many businesses (including J-List) means you're likely to take your shoes off and put them on again many times during the day, so wearing shoes that are hard to get on and off easily like boots or high-top basketball shoes is a chore. Most foreigners living here develop a "shoe strategy," buying slip-ons or low sneakers which can be laced loosely so you can get them on and off easily. In the end I liked the boots so much I went ahead and picked them up anyway, knowing that I was going against the grain of things in Japan.

Living in Japan means developing a "shoe strategy."

Gaijin Indecision 2010

Besides making the freeways here actually "free" -- a policy that's received surprisingly little support once people realized the horrific traffic jams that would likely ensue -- Prime Minister Hatoyama's government appears to be moving ahead with a plan to give foreigners in Japan with permanent residence status the right to vote in local elections. The idea is to make foreigners who embrace living permanently in Japan feel more like a part of society as the country comes to grips with its new role in the 21st century. Much as I'd enjoy being able to vote for local politicians then blog about it, I don't think for a moment that this plan will actually go anywhere due to Constitutional and other concerns, and everyone from a group of prefectural governors to the Capcom game company (go figure) has come out against the idea. For the record, this proposal isn't really about gaijin like me at all, since 91% of the "foreigners" holding permanent residence status here are zainichi Koreans, descendents from the Koreans who lived and worked in Japan mostly from 1910 through the end of World War II. Nearly all of these people were born in Japan and often don't speak Korean, yet for historical and cultural reasons that are difficult for me to fathom go through life holding a passport from South or North Korea, despite the fact that they can become Japanese citizens very easily. It speaks volumes of Japan's society that they could have a national discussion about a topic like this without actually naming the group that the legislation is really about.

Should foreigners here have the right to vote? The DPJ says yes.

What Are J-List's Top Selling Products?

Ever wonder what the best-selling products at J-List are? Well, I'll tellyou. The iTunes prepaid cards that allow anyone to buy J-POP, anime and other cool songs for their iPod or iPhone are usually at the top of the list, as are the Japan Kit Kat treats, which our customers love to buy. The traditional candy from the Showa Period called dagashi are also quite popular, and products like Neri Ame which you knead with chopsticks or those delightful Sakuma Drops from Grave of the Fireflies are also top sellers. Since February 14 is fast approaching, our selection of chocolate has been selling briskly, like those wacky Unchikun poop-shaped chocolates that promises to bring you good luck. If you'd like to see the top 50 products at J-List over the past week, just click this link -- it's kind of interesting to see what other customers are buying.

The Bilingual Brain: Me and my Daughter

I've written before about how people who are bilingual actually develop separate personalities for each language, and it's interesting to analyze how the connections between the two sides work. I'm a normal American from California who's somehow able to switch into Japanese mode, bowing and using polite language as needed -- I even bow while speaking Japanese on the phone. Since I learned the language in a normal classroom, the synaptic links between Japanese and English sides of my brain were built piece-by-piece, as eat new concept was internalized. My daughter's experience is somewhat different: she learned to be Japanese and write kanji normally here in Japan, but our frequent trips to the U.S. have also allowed the English side of her to develop into a Hannah Montana-loving American teenager. The interesting thing is that in her case, the two sides are hardly linked at all, and whenever I ask her to translate a certain word she fumbles, despite the fact that she can recite her favorite High School Musical quotes without pause. Recently she's been learning English using the "YouTube Method," watching all those Disney Channel shows, and it's fun to hear the English slang she pulls out.

Being bilingual is fun, but it can be a strange experience at times, too.

Have an Entrance Exam, Have a Kit Kat™

Right now it's juken (test) season in Japan, when hundreds of thousands of high school students take the university entrance exams they've prepared for over the past three years. The tests that each student must take differ depending on what school they're shooting for: students trying to get into a prestigious national university like Tokyo or Kyoto University must take both a standardized exam called the Center Test plus the individual test for that school. Japan has one of the lowest birthrates in the industrialized world, and as the dearth of new children has started to filter up to the university system, more schools will be chasing fewer students, resulting in lower academic standards for all but the top institutions. Due to a happy linguistic accident, the name Kit Kat sounds similar to the Japanese phrase kitto katsu ("you will surely win"), which has made it the official snack mothers give to their kids to munch on while studying. To commemorate the season, Nestle has released a cool Kit Kat coffee mug + chocolate set to help anyone who is studying hard this winter. You will surely pass your test!

"Test season" is a stressful time for students hoping to pass their entrance exams.

Karaoke as a Japanese Learning Tool

The J-List crew had fun at our official company New Year's Party on Friday, consuming lots of good food and sake as we all officially promised to gambarimasu -- to do our best and work hard -- for our customers in the new year. Afterwards we went to belt out some songs at the "karaoke box" near the J-List office. I was amazed at the thickness of the karaoke song book on the table, which had grown over the past few years into a Shonen Ace-esque 800 pages featuring just about any song you could want to sing. Best of all for members of the otaku generation, the number of offerings from anime and video games at karaoke boxes these days is incredible, with every song from Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha and Macross Frontier plus a heaping portion of Miku Hatsune tunes, too. I'd made use of karaoke ever since my early days of learning Japanese since it's fun, gives you positive social feedback and exposes you to lots of kanji words, but the number of anison (anime songs) to be found in a karaoke book in the 80s was nothing compared to the rich bounty available today. If you're interested in learning to sing some Japanese songs, we recommend the iTunes Japan prepaid cards that we sell -- most songs have karaoke versions available.

Karaoke can also be a fun study tool -- you can even remember better if you how the song goes.

Some Random Things from J-List

At J-List, we strive to surprise you with fun and interesting things from Japan that you never expected to see. Products like our "Dirty American Devil" T-shirt, which presents the derogatory word the Japanese were using for gaijin during World War II -- a direct translation would be something like "beastly American soldier" -- on a camouflage-themed T-shirts. Or our popular "Looking for a Japanese Girlfriend" line of T-shirts, hoodies and hats, which even occasionally work, we're told. We always have a large selection of fun and random J-snacks, from Takoyaki treats from FritoLay Japan to Kit Kat with chili powder in them. Finally, if we can't surprise you with the wacky Japanese kitchen items we carry, like the Hello Kitty ice cube trays, we'll eat our Domo-kun hats.