Cool Products Wednesday, July 4, 2012

Here are today's "really cool products" that I've picked out for you, out of the 30+ new items we've added to the J-List and JBOX.com sites today. Note that some products may be "not safe for work" but that all links will allow you to redirect yourself either to the J-List or JBOX.com websites. To see all the J-List products, check out J-List or the JBOX.com updated products link.

	Megami Magazine Aug. 2012 A new issue of the definitive bishoujo moe poster magazine is here! Each issue is loaded with super awesome posters for you to remove and hang on your wall -- they somehow fit an amazing 16 posters in this issue, so you have lots of awesome visuals from the top anime series for your room. View products »
	Megami Magazine Creators vol. 24 Stay up on the latest hot art from the best artists in moe works in Japan, with full illustrations from featured creators, posters and more.
	Comic Alive Aug 2012 Here's another outstanding issue of Comic Alive, a super thick magazine with over 800 pages of manga goodness for you.
	Koihime Musou All Busho File An amazing Koihime Musou fanbook by PuSH!, the perfected character file featuring all the heroines from the series. Highly recommended!
	'Dakimakura' Long Pillows Restocked Sleeping at night alone can feel cold and lonely. Find yourself a warm companion, designed by female artist Aoi Nishimata, that's just the right size.
	Sena Kashiwazaki 1/10 Figure One of the most, ah, uplifting characters to come along in a while is Sena from "I Have Few Friends," and we got a gorgeous new figure of her in stock.
	IDOLM@STER 2 Nendoroid Petite Box Your very own idol unit awaits in this box of adorable chibi Nendoroids. It'll take a master producer to find just the right position for all of them.
	Other New Figures In Stock See the super cute Himari "Beach Queen" figure now in stock, plus the Revoltech Takeya Buddhist Deity figure -- it's epic.
	More Kawaii Products for your Kitchen This cute cup features a very cute red riding hood with an umbrella cap and tea strainer. Fans of Japanese cuteness will love it.
	Fruits Aug 2012 No. 181 A new issue of Fruits, the premiere street life publication focusing on the Harajuku freestyle street fashion scene.
	Absolute Zone Knee-Socks We're fans of the Japanese fashion style known as zettai ryoiki, which obsesses over the "sweet 3 cm space" between a girl's over-knee socks and skirt.
	Hatsune Miku Swimsuit, Shimapan Restocked See new stock of our most popular striped underwear products, such as the Hatsune Miku shimabikini and several varieties of shimapan.
	Ninja Hachimaki ~ Japan Ninja Headband Channel the spirit of Japan or use these to focus your concentration in study or in life -- these headbands will put you in the right frame of mind!
	Big Restocking of Popular PSP, PS3 and PSVita Games We love to carry PSP, PS3 and PSVita products, and we've restocked several, including the love-sim Ciel Nosurge, Persona 4 and more.
	Cute iPhone and Android Products Posted Various iPhone and Android phone products restocked, including the cutest stand we've seen yet, plus a Smart Touch Pen for smartphones.
	Cute Egg-Shaped Cat Plush Toys Restocked The cutest egg-shaped cats are restocked today, in various colors, so you can get the cute nyanko-chan you want. Click to view now.
	2ch Kaomoji Pop-Up Toasters We love products that capture the wackiness of Japan's 2ch online community, and toasters that cook ASCII faces into your toast fit the bill.
	Hello Kitty Ice Cube Tray Also: if you're still using boring square ice cubes, why not upgrade to these incredibly cute Hello Kitty ice cube tray? The cutest ice for your scotch whisky.
	Hello Kitty Muffin Mold, Other Fun Items The adorable Kitty-chan comes out pipin' hot and fresh with these muffin molds. We also have HK Onigiri Decoration Sets and a Magic Drawing Board.
	Japanese Inn and Travel - Nihon e toki Jiten 14 A new chapter in the Nihon e Toki Jiten series that aims to teach you everything about Japan's core culture and values.
	Campus Japanese Learning Word Books Learning vocabulary words is a challenge, and J-List has restocked our most popular word books, in two different sizes. Record them all for later study.
	Lotte Rich Toppo Kyoto Uji Match Parfait, More We've got delicious Toppo chocolate sticks for this summer, green tea ice and Hokkaido Milk Ice flavors. A fun way to enjoy the delicious stick snacks that are normally not available in the summer (thanks to the terrible humidity of Japan's summers), and really delicious! View products »
	Pepsi X Gundam 350ml This is cool -- a limited edition set of Gundam Pepsi cans, which will be available soon. Enjoy your favorite classic Gundam mechs on Pepsi cans.
	Huge Restocking of Top Snack Items Enjoy the delicious Green Tea Chocolate & Cookie Set, UHA Zerosh Shigekix, delicious Glico Cheeza crackers plus epic Kracie Happy Kitchen Hamburger snacks!
	PARFUM Slim Stainless Thermal Bento Box Set  A super cute and compact premium bento box set, including a thermo bag, 3 boxes and a pair of chopsticks. It's a great deluxe bento set!
	Kawaii Totoro Bento Boxes Restocked Love Totoro all over again, in a whole new way with these very cute bento boxes and accessories, now newly restocked.
	Cute Bento for Anime Fans To add to our bento box collection, and just in time for bonus points, is this very cute Rilakkuma tight sealing bento box. Awesome.
	Fun Bento Items Restocked See our Antibacterial Sheets for Bento, and other fun items for making your bento life more special.
	Kawaii Japanese Soy Sauce Bottles Also: we posted some great bento sauce bottles for carrying soy sauce, Bull-dog sauce or other condiments with your lunch. Warning, cuteness overload.
	Samurai Sandals, Other Traditional Items See fun traditional products restocked, from our Classic Waraji Samurai Sandals to Tokugawa Crest Case and "Daruma" dolls.
	Rouna 1/8 Figure ~ Shining Hearts *Preorder* From Tony Taka's Shining Hearts comes this gorgeous figure of Rouna, made by Kotobukiya. Check it out.
	Catherine 1/8 Figure *Preorder* Fans of Catherine, the amazing game from Atlus, rejoice as there is a new figure of the cute Catherine out there.
	false From Max Factory comes this amazing figure of Samurai Katanako from the 7th Dragon 2020 series.
	Gertrud Barkhorn Nendoroid - Strike Witches A new cute Nendoroid figure of Gertrud Barkhorn from Strike Witches, complete with weapons, customizable faces and costume.
	Lingerie the Best Swimsuits 2 pieces The summer edition of The Best Magazine Lingerie comes with two hot bikinis, worn by your favorite AV actress and a 4 hour DVD.
	Kyun ~ Kokomi Naruse Photobook A new colorful and sexy hardcover photobook featuring the multi-talented, super popular AV performer Cocomi Naruse.
	Ama Love CHU Girlfriend, Childhood friend, step sister, sempai, teacher... Tons of lovely, cute and pretty characters sharing wild sex experiences in this manga.
	Yuna Tachibana School Swimsuit - Tsundero  Inspired by the amazing Tsundero Manga by Hiromitsu Takeda, comes this new sexy figure of Yuna Tachibana. Other figures posted too!
	WX10 - Wireless Remote Control Vibrator An amazing new stealth vibrator with remote control and 10 different vibration modes and patterns that'll make her scream of pleasure.
	Other Personal Massagers for Women Now isn't this the cutest vibrator you've ever seen? Glamorous Butterfly's new heart-shaped stress relief toy will definitely get you in the mood.
	Awesome Love Doll and Parody Onahole Toys We also restocked popular love doll products including the Super Sonico toys plus Madoka Magika "natural hole" toys, for S-rank otakus.
	Restocked Onahole + Pantsu Toys Toys for boys are more fun when they come with pantsu, and we've restocked several of our most popular combo items.
	DEARDROPS Limited Edition In Stock A superb visual novel about music, love and rock n' roll, DearDrops is one of the most popular visual novels released in recent years. Comes with tons of extras!
	MUV-LUV Alternative ~ Windows 7 Edition The enormously successful Muv-Luv series finally gets it's Alternative sequel released specially for Windows 7!
	MUV-LUV Altered Fable We've got more MUV-LUV for you with this version called Altered Fable, an alternate version to the acclaimed Muv-Luv Extra with tons of extras.
	Gorgeous Import Games Restocked See several restocked games too, including Bero-Chu! Magic Tongue and Cosplay Maids, KonoSora, Fortuna Rhapsody and more.
	Chika Eiro Premium Best HD 4 Hours TMA releases a high definition Blu-Ray best-of featuring the cute Chika Eiro, one of the popular performers of the moment.
	Premium Virgin ~ Mika Kato SOD gives us another amazing production featuring the 18 years old Mika Kato, who decided to offer her first time to SOD's cameras.
	Slave Lesbian vol. 6 A awesome new lesbian DVD with 2 hot nurses enslaving one of their colleagues for tons of lewd lesbian traning and 3P female sex action.

Separated Worlds

I like to read sci-fi novels with mind-bogglingly big ideas in them. One series I enjoyed was the Uplift Saga books by David Brin, which described a galactic society of races that gained status in each others' eyes by discovering pre-sentient life and "uplifting" them to intelligence. There were two fundamental forms of life in the books, oxygen-breathing types like humans and hydrogen-based life that lived inside gas giants and stars, and the great differences between these two groups meant that they could never interact but must exist side by side instead. Sometimes I feel this way about the Japanese and the English web: both are vibrant, constantly inventing new mini-trends and memes and fads, yet they're largely separated by the Great Wall of Language. Most Japanese people will instinctively click away from an English page they happen to land on, perhaps as a result of being forced to study it for all those years in school; likewise, most native English-speakers I know won't spend a lot of time trawling Japanese-language websites unless they're there for a reason. They come together at certain points, of course -- YouTube is a good example of a bridge that has joined the two halves nicely -- but by and large, English-speaking web surfers will tend to be more familiar with the latest "I Can Haz Cheeseburger" cat jokes while Japanese fans know entirely different memes

An interesting book if you're a fan of hardcore SF.

Anime Expo 2012 Update

We're having a great time here at Anime Expo in Los Angeles, meeting fans and customers and selling lots of fun J-List products to everyone while shaking lots of hands. We've got thousands of items at our booth (number 911, kind of hard to forget), including the newly released School Days, so if you're at the show, make sure you come by and say hello!

I've been doing these shows for a long time -- I attended the first all-anime con in 1991, back when no one knew for sure if anime was popular enough to support a whole convention -- and have become quite an expert on how to run a good show. First, we bring lots of stuff that people will want and make sure it's visible, right up on the tables. It's always important to get people over to the booth, and I've found that nothing can bring over the crowds like those "oppai" mouse pads, since everyone wants to squeeze just once. I do love coming to these events, and feel like I'm "home" with lots of people around me who are passionate about Japan.

Having fun at Anime Expo in Los Angeles. Come by and say hello if you are here!

Cool Products Monday, July 2, 2012

Here are today's "really cool products" that I've picked out for you, out of the 30+ new items we've added to the J-List and JBOX.com sites today. Note that some products may be "not safe for work" but that all links will allow you to redirect yourself either to the J-List or JBOX.com websites. To see all the J-List products, check out J-List or the JBOX.com updated products link.

	Fun Anime T-Shirts J-List is known for our fun and wacky anime and kanji T-shirts, including the new "AnoNatsu" and "Another" licensed shirts!
	'Shimapan' is a Hit at AX J-List is famous for a few things, and one of them is those cute striped underwear seen in most recent anime series.
	Japanese Study Products Not able to visit Japan right now? Then you should play Go! Go! Nippon!, a great all-ages visual novel. Lots of other study items!
	Japanese Pens, Pencils and Notebooks We carry lots of fun Japanese stationery products, from notebooks to pens and amazing erasers (no, really).
	Cute Totoro Products We love to carry Totoro and Ghibli products, like the new 2013 calendars we posted -- we might die of cuteness from these.
	Cute Things for your iPhone We carry many products from Japan for people with iPhones and other Android phones. Click to see the best items.
	J-List Carries iTunes Japan Cards One of our most popular products are the iTunes Japan prepaid cards which let you buy all kinds of songs and iOS apps from Japan. Fully compatible with your iStuff!
	Restocked Science Kits for Adults We carry the Otona no Kagaku (Science for Adults) science kit series. Click to see the cool geeky stuff we have.
	Awesome Japanese Snacks We carry hundreds of Japanese snacks, including Popin' Cookin', a fun series of candy that you make yourself. Click to see them now.
	Cute Bento Boxes from Japan Our customers have ranked all the bento boxes we carry, according to popularity. See the ranking here.
	Other Things for your Kitchen We have some pretty fun bento and kitchen items too. Click to see some of the most kawaii items we have.
	Fun Anime Magazines from Japan We carry all the most popular anime, moe and 2D magazines, many of which come with cool free stuff. See the list now.
	We Love Japanese Photobooks, Too J-List always has outstanding photobooks from Japan. Click to see some nice items as selected by our customers.
	Parody Onaholes from Japan You can bring your love of certain anime characters to the next level with the parody onahole products we stock. We won't judge you.
	Love Body Aki Doll, plus Costumes Inflatable dolls are also a popular category of stress toy at J-List, especially the Love Body Aki series. See these popular products!
	Interesting Stress Relief for Girls Girls need stress relief too, and we have some really excellent offerings from Japan for your private time.
	School Days HQ is NOW SHIPPING You can now buy the greatest animated visual novel ever made, now that we're shipping School Days. Pick up a copy now!
	Great English Eroge We love to carry English translated visual novels and H-Games. Click to see one of the most popular games at AX.
	JAST USA Memorial Collection Remember, we have great news for fans of classic visual novels: a collection of five classics you can still play.
	Import Anime Games We carry import eroge for fans who want to play the originals. It's a creative way to learn the language, heh.
	Today's Top JAV Products Finally, we carry a lot of quality JAV titles, with all the best actresses. Click to see today's most popular products.

Japanese Pronunciation Guide 2012

Every once in a while I like to revisit the rules of Japanese pronunciation, since the language can be tricky. First, understand that Japanese is a syllable-based language, meaning that sounds always come in consonant + vowel syllable pairs (e.g. ka, ki, ku, ke, or ko, never just a "k" sound by itself), or as a single vowel syllable. The exception is the letter n, the only consonant that can appear by itself, without which we wouldn't have the word "ramen" (and that would be a travesty). Vowels are easy as pie in Japanese -- there are only five, identical to the ones in Spanish:

A - "ah" rhyming with "fall"

I - "ee" rhyming with "feel"

U - "oo" rhyming with "fool"

E - "eh" rhyming with "let"

O - "oh" rhyming with "go"

Some things to keep in mind. First of all, discard if you can the spelling rules of English, like "silent e" on the ends of words. Every syllable is pronounced, so that the last name of voice actress Yui Horie would be pronounced "ho-ri-eh." There is no short "a" sound (as in "cat") in Japanese, so if you find yourself saying words like kanji (Chinese characters) or the final syllable of ichi man (the number 10,000) like the word "at" or "fan," try to say "KAHN-ji" and "ee-chi MAHN" instead. If you're interested in learning Japanese, I always recommend textbooks and study guides that force you to work in the "native" Japanese writing system, hiragana, as its much easier to pronounce well if you move away from Romanized Japanese. The Kanji Practice Flashcards from White Rabbit and the Genki Japanese textbooks both use kana are both good for learning as they avoid writing any Japanese words in the Roman alphabet, forcing you to learn to read and pronounce correctly.