A Brief History of Eroge

J-List has been involved with licensing and translating visual novels -- in their ecchi form they're known as bishoujo games, dating-sim games or eroge, though the genre encompasses all manner of games -- since we started out back in 1996, and we think they're a great way to connect with Japan. The basic concept, of course, is that you play a main character (usually male, but not always) and work through a game story, interacting with characters and making choices that cause you to reach different (sometimes sexy) endings, and the stories and characters can be incredibly well developed. The category got its start with Koei's "Nightlife" published in 1982, which was followed by the then-iconic Tenshi-tachi no Gogo published by the original JAST (our first licensing partner), then ToHeart, Graduation, Dokyusei, Alice Soft's Sengoku Rance and so on. Japan's visual novel culture is extremely popular, spawning popular mainstream anime series like Fate/stay night, Higurashi no Naku Koro ni/When They Cry and Steins;Gate. It's quite common for the language of visual novels to leak into anime series. In Aria of the Scarlet Ammo there's a scene in which Riko tempts Kinji by saying, "Don't you understand? This is an 'event scene,'" (meaning an intimate scene from a game illustrated with full-screen graphics), and in the finale of Haganai Rika gets mad at Kodaka for "raising flags" with other girls (e.g. clearing parameters required to romance the girls, like characters in an eroge).

Kirino is the queen of eroge.

The Cuteness of "Haafu" Characters Who Can't Speak English

It's fun to analyze the way anime, game and manga companies go about creating characters that will win the hearts of fans. One common approach is to mix up an all-Japanese cast by adding in a character of mixed ancestry, called ハーフ haafu ("half") or クォーター kuo-ta- ("quarter"), who naturally speaks Japanese thanks to some convenient plot device, usually having been raised by a Japanese grandmother. There's a long list of these half-Japanese characters in anime, including Asuka and Mari in Evangelion, Yomiko Readman from R.O.D., L from Death Note and many more. One joke that comes up quite a lot is characters who are unable to speak English properly despite being haafu, as if language were something that was passed along to children via DNA. Some examples of this joke include Tina Foster from Aoi Yori Aoshi (a full American but raised in Hakata, Kyushu), Aisha from the Da Capo series, the half-British Kobato-chan from I Have Few Friends and Rebecca Miyamoto from Pani Poni Dash!, a child savant who graduated from M.I.T. at the age of eleven yet can't pronounce the word "Massachusetts" without messing up in a ridiculously cute way.

Another example of this joke is the ridiculously kawaii Kudryavka Noumi from the Little Busters! anime and games, who is three-quarters Russian and one quarter Japanese yet cannot speak English. (Nevermind that English is not the native language of Russia, this is anime logic!) In one scene poor Kud is called on to read out loud from the textbook, but she can't even pronounce simple words correctly, making the class laugh. Her friends resolve to help her out by giving her a sentence to translate, which is displayed on the screen in English text which melts into kana syllables as Kud pronounces the words. This is a good example of what's wrong with the way Japanese learn English, allowing their brains to "think" in kana sounds that can only express syllables like ka, ki, ku, ke and ko but never the consonant "k" by itself. This is one big reason why Japanese often have thick accents when speaking English, since coming from katakana words like "warehouse" or "weekend" contain six syllables each instead of two as in English. The reverse version of this is when foreigners learn Japanese from a textbook that uses "Romanized" Japanese (e.g. written in the English alphabet) instead of proper hiragana, katakana and kanji. Study tools like Danny Choo's Moekanji , the Genki textbook series and those outstanding White Rabbit flashcards teach you using only proper Japanese characters, never Romanized Japanese, which is why we recommend them to our customers.

Haafu characters who can't speak English is a fairly common joke.

Get All Three Anime Posters When You Make an Order

J-List has worked hard to license and translate visual novels and eroge from Japan for fans around the world. We'll be printing new catalogs w/cool game posters in time for Anime Expo this year, but for fans who want to collect our current set of promotional game posters before they're retired, we've got a nice offer: order any shrinkwrapped dating-sim game or T-shirt/hoodie that ships from San Diego and get the full set of all three current game posters for free -- so make an order now! The posters are large and show art from School Days, Demonbane and Django. Offer valid while supplies last.

Good and Bad Design in Japan

There are many reasons to like a given anime series, including a truly fresh story approach, characters with endearing moe features, wanting to study the technical aspects of creating high-quality animation, or, well, fanservice and pantsu. I often find myself drawn to shows with a high level of design, in which creators have taken the extra time to create a unique and visually stunning world to place their characters in. There are quite a few outstanding series with excellent design, from Lain to Jigoku Shojo to Spice and Wolf to Sayonara, Zetsubou Sensei and the new Sasami-san@Ganbaranai. One of my eternal favorites is the Bakemonogatari series, in which every frame of animation and every line spoken by the talented voice actors is designed to draw viewers into a unique world.

Sadly this dedication to excellent design doesn't extend to the web, and one of the things I dislike the most is using web forms on Japanese websites, which generally come from a very dark part of design hell. There's something about Japan that makes them especially bad at creating online forms that are easy to use, and every time I need to enter information into a form on a Japanese website I know it'll be an exercise in frustration. Sometimes the problems are needlessly technical, like requiring that users type some information in 半角 hankaku or 1-byte Japanese characters, and other information in 全角 zenkaku, full sized 2-byte Japanese characters. (What's really fun is that space characters also come in single and double widths, which look the same on the screen but are totally different as far as the form is concerned.) Other frustrations include forms that force you to enter your "kanji name" despite the fact that some users are foreigners without kanji, or forms that only work with the latest browser versions from 2004. When I made the post about the Hatsune Miku Domino's Pizza app I decided to register with the company to make sure I could help any J-List customers who might need help using the app…but getting the form to actually create an account for me was a Sisyphean effort that consumed more than an hour.

Japanese love good design...except web forms.

Foreigners See Japan Through Sakura Colored Lenses

Last time I talked about the way a country like Japan can appear quite different to "outsiders" who come here from some other place (like me) compared with Japanese people who grew up here, and in general I'm far more likely to get excited about things like onsen hot springs or images of Mt. Fuji than my Japanese wife, who can't understand what all the fuss is about. Whenever J-List hires a new Japanese employee, I always take extra time training them so they can understand how foreigners view Japan, to better enable them to find cool products for the site like this replica of an offering box from a Japanese Shinto shrine to save your coins in or this sakura-decorated coffee cup made with the 350-year-old Arita-yaki porcelain glazing method. When I decided to sell dagashi -- traditional Japanese candy and snacks from the Showa Period -- our snack buyer and modeler of strange hats said, "Who would want buy old Japanese candy from 40 years ago? It's so boring." It turns out a lot of people were interested in exploring unique treats like Kompeito and Neri-Ame liquid candy, and they're now among our most popular products. The same thing happened when I wanted to sell those iconic clear plastic umbrellas which are everywhere in Japan: the Japanese staff was sure no one would want to buy anything as mundane as an umbrella, yet we've sold hundreds of them over the years.

Foreigners view Japan through sakura colored lense.

J-List is at Anime Conji This Weekend!

Remember, Anime Conji is a fun anime convention held in San Diego this weekend, and the J-List San Diego staff will be there with lots of awesome T-shirts, eroge, Japanese snacks, random products from Japan and our always-popular Fuku-bukuro grab bags. Hope to see you there!

Full Set of Game Posters with Each San Diego Order

J-List has worked hard to license and translate visual novels and eroge from Japan for fans around the world. We'll be printing new catalogs w/cool game posters in time for Anime Expo this year, but for fans who want to collect our current set of promotional game posters before they're retired, we've got a nice offer: order any shrinkwrapped dating-sim game or T-shirt/hoodie that ships from San Diego and get the full set of all three current game posters for free -- so make an order now! The posters are large and show art from School Days, Demonbane and Django. Offer valid while supplies last.

North Korea Update

I've written before about how one of the least enjoyable aspects of living in Japan is having to be so close to North Korea. Whether it's kidnapping at least 17 Japanese citizens to serve as language teachers for North Korean spies, engaging in state-sponsored programs to flood Japan with illegal drugs and counterfeit 10,000 yen bills or shooting "peaceful space satellites" over the Japanese islands, living this close to the world's craziest country is just no fun. Now things are getting tense again, with North Korea making noises about launching missile(s) again sometime after April 10, perhaps to mark the 1-year anniversary of Dear Leader Kim Jong-un's rule or the 101st birthday of his grandfather Kim Il-Sung, who Wikipedia informs me is the designated "Eternal President" of North Korea. The country does seem somewhat obsessed with dates. After Japanese singer and illusionist Princess Tenko traveled to North Korea to perform in a gesture of goodwill, then-president Kim Jong-Il (the really creepy one) reportedly became obsessed with her. He tried to entice her into staying in North Korea, and when she refused and returned to Tokyo she started getting harassed by North Korean agents who would call her and plead with her to return, always calling exactly at either 2:16 P.M. or 2:16 A.M. (Kim Jong-Il's birthday is Feb 16). Of course, we're not really that concerned with these latest threats, since we've been here before, but on the off chance that this is J-List's last update, thanks for all your support, and hope you enjoyed the shimapan!

Missiles from North Korea, another example of #GaijinWorldProbems

Why Doesn't My Wife Like Sakura?

I've learned a few things during my time in Japan, including dozens of ways to use mayonnaise as well as "never click on Hetalia fanart unless you know what the content is ahead of time." I've also come up with what I call Peter's Outsider Principle, which states that people from a certain country may tend to take that country for granted and feel less passionate about it than "outsiders" (which is what the term gaijin actually means) who came from some other place. Whenever the sakura bloom in Japan I bug my Japanese wife to do hanami flower viewing with me, but she whines about how cold it is outside, and who wants to sit on a blanket with drunk salarymen all around you, and what's so special about cherry blossoms anyway? I face a similar challenge whenever I get the urge to visit Kyoto and try to get her to come along -- while I'd gladly spend weeks exploring Japan's ancient capital city, she's not nearly as excited about the city and would be much happier visiting Los Angeles or New York. I've got an Italian friend from Rome who has never been to Venice even though it's just a few hours up the superstrada from his house. Instead of looking at the "old crap" (his word) that's surrounded him all his life, he's much happier eating Osaka-style kushi-katsu in a hole-in-the-wall restaurant in Shibuya and drinking in the energy of life in Tokyo. I've always thought that the extra passion for a country felt by those who have come from elsewhere to be analogous to the difference between someone raised in a given religion vs. those who have made the conscious choice to convert (the difference between Peter and Paul, if you will).

Outsiders can feel more passion for a place than natives at times.

Names in Japan

Names in Japan, of course, are pronounced family name first, so if you meet someone named Yamada Hanako you'll know that Yamada is her family name and Hanako is her first given name. While this is the rule for Japanese names, it's rare for foreigners to use this reverse name order. Instead we write our names in the normal given name/middle name/family name order, which is why anime characters with "Western" names like Arsene Lupin III or Louise Françoise Le Blanc de La Vallière always have their names in standard order. When you work as a teacher in Japan, though, there's a strange phenomenon that happens: everyone starts calling you by your first name, in my case either "Peter" or else "Mr. Peter" if they're feeling especially formal (never "Mr. Payne"). While Japanese are usually very strict about using the proper name for a given situation, adding name suffixes like -san or -sensei as needed, something about interacting with foreigners breaks down these barriers of politeness. I think it's because for almost all Japanese, the first foreigners they come into contact with are the English teachers they meet in elementary school, who happily played games like Uno while teaching lessons that were fun, and this sets up an expectation of casual interaction that's not present with Japanese teachers.

My students called me "Mr. Peter."

Today is Bento Day!

The Japanese love to designate different days for different reasons, for example June 26 is "Outdoor Bath Day" because the numbers 6-2-6 are phonetically close to 露天風呂 roten-buro or an outdoor hot springs bath, and April 22 is "Happy Married Couples' Day" for similarly confusing reasons. It turns out that today, April 10, is Bento Day, a day to celebrate the visual beauty of Japanese bento boxes. In addition to being a fun way to eat lunch Japanese-style, bringing your own bento is economical (far less expensive than eating out), and great for anyone trying to watch their calorie intake. Why not browse our bento boxes and related bento accessories now, since we're having a great sale this month!

Will You Be at Anime Conji This Weekend?

Remember, Anime Conji is a fun anime convention held in San Diego this weekend, and the J-List San Diego staff will be there with lots of awesome T-shirts, eroge, Japanese snacks, random products from Japan and our always-popular Fuku-bukuro grab bags. Hope to see you there!

Sakura and Time Travel

Over the weekend I took a drive with Mrs. J-List up to the mountains above Karuizawa, the pleasant city in Nagano Prefecture that's a nice getaway for people in Tokyo. One of the problems with cherry blossom season in Japan is that it's so short, usually just 7-10 days, and strong winds or rain always threaten to make it even shorter. There's a solution to this problem, however: head for the hills, since you effectively roll back the season a few days for every 100 meters of elevation you gain. Down where J-List is located the cherry blossoms have sadly ended their fleeting beauty for the year, but during our pleasant drive over the mountains to we got to experience all stages of sakura again, from 桜名残 sakura-nagori or the "melancholy felt in the aftermath of the cherry blossoms' passing" to 桜雨 sakura-ame or a "rain of sakura petals" to 満開 mankai, with flowers in full glorious bloom, and so on. So if you ever plan a trip to Japan but find (as sometimes happens) that you've missed the cherry blossom season, remember you can head for the mountains and still find some.

You can travel back in time and enjoy sakura if you like.

Kawaii Culture in Japan

I took a trip to Tokyo last week to see some guys about an eroge, and while I was riding the train I noticed a ridiculously cute picture of a bear warning riders to be careful not to lean against the train door as it opened or close their fingers in the door as it closed. The message was made more emotionally appealing (and thus more effective) through the use of a kawaii character which was designed to be noticed by as many people as possible, especially young children who might otherwise be injured by the train door. There's really no limit to what can be made cute in Japan: guard rails for construction sites that look like rabbits, kitty litter that features a cat holding his nose, antibacterial sheets for your bento, and even surprisingly cute Rilakkuma products for the bedroom. No one knows for sure why Japan has such a highly developed tradition of embracing cute characters, but one theory is that it started in 1960 when an inflatable plastic doll called Dakko-chan was introduced by the Takara Vinyl Manufacturing Company (now Takara Tomy). The toy was a huge hit, and that summer everyone walked around with Dakko-chan dolls clinging to their arms. According to theory, the popularity of this character prepared Japan for the rise of later "character dynasties" like Hello Kitty in the same way the popularity of Planet of the Apes (the first film in which merchandising was more valuable than the film itself) helped pave the way for the success of Star Wars.

There's no limit to what can be made kawaii in Japan.

Japanese Driving Safety + Yakuza Awareness Week

People in J-List's home prefecture of Gunma are going to be extra careful driving this week, for two reasons. The first is that it's time for the Spring Driving Safety Week, when police will be especially vigilant watching for speeders and drunk drivers, and anyone driving is apt to be stopped by elderly people with Haruhi-style armbands and thanked for being mindful of others while behind the wheel. Pop groups like HKT48 (the offshoot idol group from Hakata, Kyushu) get into the spirit, too, becomming the official spokes-idols for traffic safety. The other reason we'll be a little more careful when driving is found in a fax we received by the Gunma Prefectural Police. Supposedly there's a big problem with 当たり屋 atariya right now, yakuza gangsters affiliated with the Yamaguchi-gumi mafia group from Osaka who get into accidents on purpose so they can extract money from innocent drivers and their insurance companies. (The word comes from 当たる ataru "to hit," which is the root of Atari by the way, and 屋 ya which means "roof" but in this context denotes a profession.) We're supposed to watch out for cars with license plates from Yamaguchi, Kobe and the Naniwa area of Osaka, among the shadiest parts of Japan. If you're ever in an accident with a yakuza you're supposed to refuse to give them any personal information but instead call the police, who have special experience dealing with these unsavory characters.

It's traffic safety and yakuza awareness week in Japan.

J-List Bento + Kitchen Sale Continues

Spring is here, and that means a new start and trying new things -- like making beautiful bento from Japan! We're having a big sale on all bento boxes and kawaii bento accessories, plus everything in your kitchen. Want to score a great traditional bento box from Hakoya? How about a cute Pokemon or Totoro themed bento box? Or a cooker for making Takoyaki or Taiyaki as seen in anime? We've got it all in stock.

Love Hotels in Japan: Q&A

One of the more exotic aspects of Japan are its "love hotels," private hotels that couples can go to in order to spend a few hours of quality time together if they don't have anywhere else to go. Based on "private inns" that were common in the Edo Period and official facilities set up during the Allied Occupation, love hotels are a huge industry in Japan. I decided to fire off an "ask me anything" question to the J-List Facebook page and see what questions people had. Here are some of them.

Q. What are they? How much do they cost?

A. Basically, hotels where couples can "rest" for 2-3 hours, or "stay" overnight. The cost is usually around $30-50 for a few hours or $80-130 for all night.

Q. Who uses them?

A. Everyone from couples in their 20s to married couples who live with their parents or children. Recently there's been a lot of use by "silver" couples who are still genki, and hotels are starting to embrace these customers by creating 'barrier free' hotel rooms. Though there's no doubt an occasional connection to "delivery health" and other thinly disguised prostitution-esque services, the hotels are surprisingly professional and legitimate.

Q. Can foreigners use them?

A. Sure, no one cares who uses them. If you're coming to Japan and want to give one a try, it would probably be a lot of fun. They're quite common in Tokyo, such as the Spain-zaka area of Shibuya or Uguisu-dani station. If you're outside a major city like Tokyo they can be harder to find, as they're usually placed on the edge of town, hard to get to if you don't have a car.

Q. What will I find there?

A. Competition has forced the hotels to become quite creative, and they offer different themes to couples, with everything from Disney and Hello Kitty themes to rooms with various costumes you can try on to at least one "Hotel California" style establishment. In addition to a vending machine selling ridiculously cute toys for couples, there's lotion and a condom, too, but the J-List staff tells me it's common sense to never use condoms from a love hotel as the previous person might have poked a hole in it as a joke. There are often exotic baths that can be as much fun to play in the main reason for going.

Q. How is privacy handled?

A. Since no one wants to see anyone else when visiting one of these places, hotels get creative here, too. You park your car in the space reserved for the room you want and go right into your room. Payment is handled by a machine that unlocks the door after you insert payment or else a pneumatic tube that delivers your payment to the front desk without you seeing anyone.

Q. How big is the industry?

A. At around $42 billion, the love hotel industry is around twice the size of the entire anime/manga industry. Being such a healthy area of the economy, it occasionally attracts interest by international hedge funds, but they usually can't get around the idea of investing money in a taboo industry. Incidentally, Nintendo famously operated a love hotel for a few years before settling on their current product line

Q. Any more information?

A. If you're curious about these love hotels, we've got a couple of cool photobooks on the site for you to check out.

Love hotels are one of the more mysterious aspects of Japan.

Catching Up with Anime: Kotoura-san

It happens every time: a new anime season is about to start, yet I'm still working through the last one. One show I've been plowing through lately is Kotoura-san, a fun series about a girl who's born with the ability to read people's 心 kokoro -- translatable as "hearts" or "minds" -- which leads to trouble (and more than a little slapstick comedy) since she can tell what everyone is thinking. (Warning, the first episode is quite laden with "feels" but the rest of the series is much lighter.) The word kokoro is one of my favorite Japanese words, representing the romantic and philosophical elements of a person's heart, essentially where one's mind is focused in the body. In Japan it's thought to be located in the chest, whereas most of us would consider the "mind" to be located in the head. The shows up in various places in the language, e.g. the eyes are thought to be the "mirrors of one's kokoro" (目は心の鏡 me wa kokoro no kagami), and someone with mental illness is said to have a 心の病 kokoro no yamai or "sickness of the kokoro." There's an insightful proverb on women which has served me well in my years of marriage: 女心と秋の空 onna-gokoro to aki no sora, which means "a woman's heart is like the sky in autumn, always changing and never the same" [so keep an umbrella handy].

I've been enjoying Kotoura-san, a fresh idea for an anime.

The J-List Spring Bento Sale is On Now

Spring is here, and that means a new start and trying new things -- like making beautiful bento from Japan! We're having a big sale on all bento boxes and kawaii bento accessories, plus everything in your kitchen. Want to score a great traditional bento box from Hakoya? How about a cute Pokemon or Totoro themed bento box? Or a cooker for making Takoyaki or Taiyaki as seen in anime? We've got it all in stock.

Fun With Japanese Companies

One unique aspect of companies in Japan is the way they do pretty much everything, without limiting themselves to one main area of business. Do you want to "reform" (remodel) your home? Panahome, the construction company operated by Panasonic, will be happy to help you, and you can get a Panasonic high-performance bicycle to go with it. When you think of Hitachi you think of consumer electronics, but they also make Japan's speedy bullet trains. Kawasaki makes trains too (the New York Subway cars are made by them) as well as ships, helicopters and of course motorcycles. Other companies to have surprising side-businesses include Toyota (they manufacture pre-fab homes under the Toyota Home brand), Mitsubushi (the 8th largest bank in the world is also a major supplier of military hardware), Sony (who sells life insurance) and Fuji Film (which used its chemical expertise to switch to from film to high-end make-up products). Japan's beer companies also manufacture a variety of beverages from Asian teas to health drinks, and Coca Cola even tried their hand at producing an alcohol-free beer for a short time.

Need a house? Have Toyota Home build one for you.

Learning to Mock Society with "Haganai"

I've been watching the second season of Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai, aka Haganai, aka I Have Few Friends, a surprisingly good show about a bunch of misfit high school students who don't have any friends, so they form a school "neighbor's club" in order to learn how to make some. (The joke is on them: they don't realize that they've already got great friends in each other.) One word that comes up a lot in the show is リア充 ria-juu, so I thought I'd talk about it a bit. Coined around 2005 on Japan's ubiquitous 2ch BBS, it's short for リアル充実組 riaru juujitsu-gumi or "those to live a satisfied, happy life in the real world." It's a catch-all (and somewhat mocking) term for anyone who leads a happy life with normal hobbies and healthy human relationships, especially those lucky enough to have a real girlfriend/boyfriend instead of having to make due with alternatives. The battle cry of Japan's hardcore otaku and Internet users is リア充は爆発しろ！ ria-juu wa bakuhatsu shiro! or "blow up all people who have happy sex lives."

Haganai is about high school kids who want to find friend.

Thoughts on Maids and Culture Shock

It's funny the way our "base culture" can shape the way we look at the world. The other day I came across a picture of a black couple from the U.S. posing ironically in front of what appeared to be scary guys in KKK hoods...but if course it was the cofradías (Brotherhood of Penitents) of Seville, Spain, whose unique costumes date back to the 14th century. It's similar to the minor shock Westerners get when they arrive in Japan and see swastikas printed on Japanese maps. The symbols (which are left-facing, the opposite of the ones we see on History Channel documentaries) are called manji and are an ancient symbol used in Buddhist and Hindu countries to denote the locations of temples. A few years ago my wife and children visited a friend in Kuala Lumpur, Malysia, staying at her house. The friend was quite wealthy and employed several maids to clean their house and cook, which caused some confusion with my daughter, who wondered why the women weren't wearing flamboyant uniforms modeled after 19th century French maids. To her, a maid is a kawaii female who serves coffee and cakes for her go-shujin-sama ("master"), maybe while wearing cat ears for extra cuteness. We all had a big laugh at this interesting example of culture shock.

Some thoughts on culture shock and maids.

See the J-List x Tamatoys Itasha at Anime Expo

We have great news for anyone who'll be attending Anime Expo this year. J-List and TamaToys have teamed up to make an awesome itasha anime car which we'll be displaying at our booth. TamaToys is the company that creates those awesome parody stress toys and innovative cosplay products, and we're happy to be their partners and creating this cool car. Come by and get your picture taken beside it!

Japanese Era Names: Heisei

Do you know what year it is? I often don't, thanks to the Japanese custom of counting years according to the reign of the Emperor in power. The current era of Heisei (translatable as "Having Achieved Maturity and Peace") started in 1989, when Emperor Akihito ascended to the throne, making this year 平成 Heisei 25. Heisei is the fourth era since Japan became a "modern" nation; the others were 明治 Meiji ("Enlightened Rule," 1868-1912), when Japan began to emulate the West for the first time; 大正 Taisho ("Great Righteousness," 1912-1926), which saw a terrible earthquake that killed 140,000 in Tokyo; and the long and eventful 昭和 Showa ("Brilliant Harmony," 1926-1989) period, a time of war, rebuilding and eventually, toilets that wash your butt for you. When you live in Japan for a while, you naturally come to memorize certain events in the Japanese era system: for example I was born in Showa 43, I came to Japan in Heisei 3, and started J-List in Heisei 9. Japanese Emperors are always referred to by their era name in Japan, e.g. Emperor Showa for Hirohito, Emperor Heisei for the current Akihito, and it's quite common for Japanese to have no idea what their Emperor's name is. Considering how flat and dreary the Heisei period has been economically for Japan, I'd like to see them choose a name with a bit more kick to it when the current Emperor passes on.

Mr. Obuchi declares the Heisei era in 1989. He later died in office of a stroke, the poor guy.

The Latest Trends in Anime Character Creation

As a student of Japanese pop culture, I like to observe how 2D characters evolve and change with each new anime season. Sometimes these character updates are visual, like the Pocky Shiori from Tamako Market puts her hair up with (though we suspect they're really these Pocky Chopsticks), and sometimes they're internal, like making the teacher from Kiss x Sis (which I naturally only watch for the plot, honest) into a rekijo, a female who loves Japanese history, which is all the rate in Japan these days. Virtually all sentai (fighting team) stories from Himitsu Sentai Goranger to Sailor Moon follow established character patterns, with the Leader/most heroic fighter, the charismatic Lancer/second in command, the Smart Guy/nerd, the Big Guy/athlete, and the Chick (usually a balancing force who keeps the team together). In the spandex-enabled magical girl anime Vividred Operation, it wasn't enough to update the "Smart Guy" character (Himawari-chan) to be a genius computer hacker. The creators went a step beyond, making her a hikikomori (NEET) who was also a "factory otaku," that is, a girl who loves the aesthetics of sprawling manufacturing facilities, which is a thing in Japan.

The latest character design innovation? Hair Pocky.

Sakura Viewing with Hatsune Miku

While some may mark the arrival of spring through the traditional appearance of a groundhog or other mythical creature, in Japan it's much easier: when you hear the unpleasantly loud roar of the boso-zoku biker gangs driving around your city, you know winter has finally been banished and warmer weather is here at last. One of the joys of spring in Japan is naturally doing hanami, or cherry blossom viewing, and all around Japan cities will engage in a great battle, claiming that no, their sakura are the most beautiful in the country. While there are some great places to view cherry blossoms in Japan, including Ueno Park in Tokyo, Hirosaki Park in Aomori and Arashiyama in Kyoto, this year I'll be taking the family to Ueda Castle in Ueda, Nagano. It's one of the few really beautiful and historic castles in the Kanto (Tokyo) part of Japan, and happens to be the setting of the Summer Wars anime film, if you're into 聖地巡礼 seichi junrei (lit. making a pilgrimage to the holy land), what visiting locations used in anime is called by otaku-dom. But there's another reason to go: this year Hatsune Miku is the official hanami mascot at Ueda Castle, and you can buy limited products from her "Senbon-zakura" ~ One Thousand Sakura Trees single there.

Enjoy sakura viewing at Ueda Castle with Miku.

Remember, No Delay for Saya no Uta Download Preorder

As you know, the awesome English-translated visual novel Saya no Uta has gone "master up" (as they say in Japan) and is in duplication now. Normally we ship preorder package games then begin sales of the download a week later, to give time for the package editions to reach people who have waited so patiently for the game to be released. But customers told us that they wanted the option of getting their game via download on release day, and we've heard their requests. Starting immediately, you can preorder the download edition of the game which will be available as soon as the package editions ship, with no delay for either version. In addition, for $5 more you can order the package/download bundle, so you can be playing the download game while the package edition makes its way to you. Two great new ways to order Saya!

Will You Be at Anime Conji?

We love anime conventions, though we don't get to attend as many of them as we like. One show we'll be at this year is Anime Conji, a fun anime convention held April 12-14 this year. Since our San Diego office is local, the staff will be on hand with lots of fun T-shirts, eroge, random products from Japan and our always-popular Fuku-bukuro grab bags. Hope to see you there!

Understanding "Genki"

Words are complex things, which naturally won't always match up on a 1:1 basis with words in another language. A good example of this is 元気 genki, one of the first words a student of Japanese encounters, so I thought I'd write about this term. Essentially, the word means healthy and energetic, and also describes a sort of "baseline" state of happiness. The first greeting you usually learn in Japanese is often お元気ですか？ o-genki desu ka? which corresponds to "How are you?" (although it can be more accurately translated as "Are you fine?"). The reply is はい、元気ですhai, genki desu (Yes, I am fine). Some other situations where the word might be used include to describe a child with lots of energy, running around a room; to describe an elderly person who is still active and healthy; and when trying to cheer someone by saying 元気を出して genki o dashite, "Show me your happy smile." In another context, a man becoming "genki" can refer to a common phenomenon that happens to us in the morning.

Incidentally, every red-haired anime girl ever is defined as "genki."

Twitter Comes to Japanese Elections

One part of Peter's Unified Theory of Japan™ is that the country follows behind the West socially, taking its cues from the U.S. and Europe only after after new ideas have been thoroughly tested. Everything from laws against sekuhara (sexual harassment) in the workplace to allowing people to legally remove brain-dead family members from life support started in the West then filtered over to Japan some years later. Japan's conservatism is nowhere more prevalent than in its elections, and there are many laws that strictly regulate how elections are managed, including how early a candidate is allowed to sit outside your window in a loudspeaker car shouting I AM YAMADA, I WILL WORK HARD FOR YOU, PLEASE SUPPORT ME ON ELECTION DAY. Newfangled technologies like Twitter, Facebook or even email are strictly forbidden from being used in the weeks before an election, as each communication from a candidate is considered a printed pamphlet, which are also regulated by election rules. Happily, though, it looks like this is finally about to change, thanks to a law allowing use of social media in elections that's currently being debated in the Japanese Diet. Modernizing Japan's elections would change the dynamics of politics in favor or younger voters, allowing geriatric politicians with memories of WWII to hopefully fade away more quickly. Last night I caught a TV show on the subject, which carefully explained to viewers how Twitter worked, including explaining the company's "verified user" program which ensures the person you think is your candidate is really him. With any luck, Japanese elections could enter the 21st century only a decade or so behind the rest of the world.

The ban on Internet use during elections might be ending.

Gaijin Dream Jobs

A lot of foreigners want to come work in Japan, but aren't so keen on working in the field usually reserved for native English speaking gaijin, teaching of English conversation. While finding non-teaching work in Japan can be a big challenge, especially if you're not a fluent in the language and possessing of some in-demand skill, there are always options. Western-style wedding ceremonies are quite common here, and some foreigners work as pastors, joining happy couples in marriage. There are talent agencies like Inagawa Motoko Office who manage the careers of foreigners in Japan, if you're looking for work modeling, doing voice-over narration or perhaps working as an actor in dramatizations for Japanese television. While not everyone can be as successful as Nigerian comedian Bobby Ologun or former Minnesota Vikings linebacker Bob Sapp, who are both staples of Japanese television these days, there is a viable ecosystem of foreign "talents" you might be able to tap into. Another idea? Become a cast member at Tokyo Disneyland, where a small army of performers from various countries fill roles like Cinderella or Alice in Wonderland while Japanese visitors fawn and snap photos.

Gaijin dream job in Tokyo Disneyland?

Announcing No-Delay Saya Download Preorders!

As you know, the awesome English-translated visual novel Saya no Uta has gone "master up" (as they say in Japan) and is in duplication now. Normally we ship preorder package games then begin sales of the download a week later, to give time for the package editions to reach people who have waited so patiently for the game to be released. But customers told us that they wanted the option of getting their game via download on release day, and we've heard their requests. Starting immediately, you can preorder the download edition of the game which will be available as soon as the package editions ship, with no delay for either version. In addition, for $5 more you can order the package/download bundle, so you can be playing the download game while the package edition makes its way to you. Two great new ways to order Saya!

J-List Will Be at Anime Conji in San Diego

We love anime conventions, though we don't get to attend as many of them as we like. One show we'll be at this year is Anime Conji, a fun anime convention held April 12-14 this year. Since our San Diego office is local, the staff will be on hand with lots of fun T-shirts, eroge, random products from Japan and our always-popular Fuku-bukuro grab bags. Hope to see you there!

Japan, South Korea and Freedom of Thought

One aspect of Japan I like very much is the way people are generally open to debate and free thought here. Freedom of speech is guaranteed by article 21 of the Japanese constitution, and you can express virtually any opinion in Japan without running into trouble -- you can even be a communist if you like, and no one will care one way or the other. There are quite a few outstanding TV programs here which, for me, capture Japan's tradition of free-thinking debate. One is If Ota Hikari Were Prime Minister, in which comedian (and very smart guy, in the center of the top left picture) Ota Hikari throws out various topics to be debated by different commentators, including actual sitting politicians from Japan's major political parties. The show does cool things like, bring a studio full of children in and have them fire questions at the politicians, who struggle to match their bizarre politician's logic against the smart insight of the kids. There's also an interesting program called Asa Made Nama TV (Live TV Til Dawn, the lower left image, above) in which political commentator Noritsugu Watanabe is locked in a room with leading politicians where they debate various issues all night long while the cameras roll. While there are always a few touchy subjects -- anything related to the Emperor or the politically connected Sokka Gakkai Buddhist religion (SGI) will be handled delicately -- virtually anything else is fair game for lively debate, from Japan's future and place in the world to whether North Korea's nuclear program means Japan should seek nuclear weapons herself.

Sadly, this tradition of allowing free thought doesn't seem to be the case with Japan's neighbors, at least where I sit on this side of the Sea of Japan East Sea. I happened to see an article that South Korea was requiring all children receive mandatory education on Dokdo, the islands also claimed by Japan. It's possible of course that this "education" will be open and free, presenting both sides of the debate fairly, but it's far more likely it will be a brainwashing session so that 100% of Korean children believe the "proper" things about Dokdo/Takeshima. Dissent on the issue is apparently frowned upon -- the author of an informative blog on the history of the dispute lost his university teaching job for daring to post evidence that was pro-Japan, something that really shouldn't happen in a country as modern and well-educated as South Korea.

Please note, by the way, that I'm not choosing sides on the Dokdo/Takeshima issue. I believe that neither side has an iron-clad claim to the islands, which each clearly wants only to keep the other side from getting them. There's a long history of both governments inadvertently referring to the islands as the territory of the other side in official documents, and the rest comes down to which county recorded the islands as their territory on old maps, which isn't conclusive one way or the other. While it was definitely the policy of the Allies and Douglas MacArthur that Dokdo/Takeshima was valid Japanese territory, clearly Japan should take the realistic view and negotiate and end to the conflict. My main point is that, Koreans should be able to debate issues like this dispute calmly and rationally, instead of posting silly billboards in Texas and shouting in all-caps on Twitter and Facebook.

Japan loves to debate issues on TV news programs; South Korea goes overboard with its passion sometimes.

Cross-Cultural Food

Whenever two cultures come into contact, there's a sharing of language on both sides. This is why we all know the word "head honcho," which was imported from the Japanese 班長 hancho (meaning neighborhood or squad leader) during the Allied Occupation. It's also fun to observe what happens to food when two cultures bump into each other: the creation of hybrid dishes that are totally new, and usually delicious. There are many examples of this intercultural food blending, including Tex-Mex cuisine, California Roll sushi and Teriyaki McBurgers from McDonald's. When you go to a 洋食店 yohshoku-ten or "Western restaurant" in Japan, you might encounter some blended foods you've never seen before, like korokke (Japan's take on French croquettes, delightful with Bull-dog sauce), Napolitan spaghetti (a pasta dish that can be made with simple ingredients including ketchup and Tabasco sauce), katsu (fried pork cutlet), nikujaga (a meat-and-potato stew, famous for sounding like the lead singer of a certain rock band) and various Japanese doria and gratin dishes. Few places represent the coming together of multiple cultures as much as Okinawa, and one food that can be seen as a bridge between East and West is Taco Rice, a popular dish of flavored ground beef, cheese, tomatoes and lettuce eaten over white rice. I had some last night, and it was wonderful.

I'm a fan of "hybrid" dishes like Okinawan Taco Rice.

Have You Ordered Saya no Uta Yet?

In the history of Japan's highly developed culture of visual novels, a few games really stand out as being absolutely fresh and unique, and one of these is Song of Saya. It's the story of Fuminori, a medical student who's been in a horrible car accident which forever altered his perceptions of the world into one of abject horror. But there is one bright spot in the hell that he constantly perceives, that of Saya, the only girl who appears beautiful to him. What dark secret to Saya hiding, and who will deliver the world to safety? Written by Urobuchi Gen, creator of Madoka Magika and Fate/Zero! The game is gone "Golden Master" and will be shipping in late April or early May. Order your copy now!

"Yellow Sand" in Japan

Although I generally like my adopted country of Japan, there are a few aspects of life here that aren't so much fun. Hay-fever season and being so close to nuclear-happy North Korea are two of these, and a third would be 黄砂 kousa, the "yellow sand" that blows over from China. Known as Asian dust, yellow sand or yellow wind (I swear that's what it's really called), it's a weather phenomenon whereby fine dust is blown from the deserts of Mongolia eastward towards Japan where they irritate people's eyes and make our cars filthy. While the dust is usually not a major concern, this year has been extremely bad, causing the sun to disappear in the dust clouds and making actual sand dunes appear around J-List. Among other problems, jumbo jets cannot fly when contaminated with the dust and must be meticulously cleaned before they can fly, which costs several thousand dollars.

"Yellow sand" blowing from China is a problem in Japan.

Minorities In Japan

I often write about how Japan is a homogeneous place in which 98.5% of the people consider themselves to be of the same genetic "Yamato Japanese" stock, despite the obvious variations in skin color, facial shape and body type you notice if you actually pay attention to people. While Japanese like to propagate this "myth of Japanese uniformity" for socially convenient reasons (it eliminates all discrimination, in theory), the reality is that even "pure" Japanese contain varying amounts of Mongolian, Korean, Chinese, Ainu and other blood in their veins. (I contributed some American blood, too, through my kids.) No matter how far the happy social umbrella of a unified Japanese gene pool is stretched, though, there are certain groups within Japan that it just can't cover. These include zainichi ("residing in Japan") Koreans and Chinese, who were born and raised here and often speak only Japanese yet don't take Japanese citizenship for cultural reasons; Okinawans, who have a unique culture and language separate from Japan; the Ainu, the original residents of northern Japan; nikkei foreigners, usually Brazilians or Peruvians of Japanese descent who get special visas to immigrate to Japan; and regular gaijin like me, who have come to Japan from other countries for various reasons. While born-in-Japan Koreans have historically been the largest minority inside Japan, a few years ago zainichi Chinese overtook them to become the biggest group.

Yokohama is the center of Chinese culture inside Japan.

Anime Voice Actors Are the Best

One of the joys of watching anime is, of course, the incredible high quality of the seiyu, the voice actors that bring the characters to life for us. Often an anime series will succeed or fail based on the quality of its voice actors, and smart production studios will put a lot of effort into choosing the voice cast carefully. In the currently running love comedy Sakura-so no Pet na Kanojo, my favorite character is Nanami Aoyama, voiced by up-and-coming seiyu Nakatsu Mariko. Nanami has come to Tokyo from Osaka to follow her dream of becoming a voice actress -- woah, that's kind of meta -- and there she falls in love with the male lead Sorata and comes to live in the Sakura-so boarding house to be near him. Nanami's voice really communicates emotions -- or "feels," to use the modern term -- to viewers, and the way she falls into Osaka-ben when she gets excited is so charming. Voice actors lucky enough to get famous roles become household names in Japan, and almost everyone is familiar with names like Akira Kamiya (voice of Kenshiro from Fist of the North Star and Saeba Ryo from City Hunter) and Norio Wakamoto (who shows up in everything from Code Geass to Mirai Nikki to our own excellent Family Project visual novel). When Lupin III voice Yasuo Yamada died in 1995, it was a national tragedy that everyone felt. Last week Goro Naya, who voiced the undaunted Inspector Zenigata as well as Captain Okita from the original Space Battleship Yamato, passed away, causing an outpouring of sadness and fanart tributes.

Anime voice actors bring the characters to life.

The Song of Saya -- Now Golden Master!

In the history of Japan's highly developed culture of visual novels, a few games really stand out as being absolutely fresh and unique, and one of these is Song of Saya. It's the story of Fuminori, a medical student who's been in a horrible car accident which forever altered his perceptions of the world into one of abject horror. But there is one bright spot in the hell that he constantly perceives, that of Saya, the only girl who appears beautiful to him. What dark secret to Saya hiding, and who will deliver the world to safety? Written by Urobuchi Gen, creator of Madoka Magika and Fate/Zero! The game is gone "Golden Master" and will be shipping soon -- so order your copy now!

New Fears of a Super Earthquake

Even while it continues to help the Tohoku region recover from the terrible earthquake and tsunami of two years ago, the Japanese government is trying to prepare for future disasters. One great fear that's being planned for is a possible "Nankai Megathrust Quake," a particularly nasty kind of earthquake caused by contact between large tectonic plates located to the south of Japan. These have caused great damage over the past 1300 years, including a particularly bad quake and 28-meter tsunami in 1854 that killed 3000 people. For all the damage and loss of life caused by the March 11, 2011 quake, the Tohoku area of Japan is among the most lightly populated parts of Japan. Now the government is projecting damage and loss of life of up to ten times the 2011 quake's numbers if a similarly strong quake were to happen in Southern Japan -- among other things, as we learned in Kobe in 1995, building codes are less strict in the region, compared with the more quake-prone Tokyo. Which is one more reason we're happy to be in Gunma, as far from the sea as you can get in Japan.

Images from the big quake and tsunami in 1946.

Heir to the Soba Restaurant

The other day I went with my wife to eat at our favorite soba noodle restaurant. After a strapping young man who worked at the restaurant delivered our lunch, my wife said, "I'm really happy for the owner of this place, since he has a successor to take over this shop when he dies. That was him just now." She was talking about 後継ぎ ato-tsugi, meaning an heir or successor who takes over a family business, and it's quite an important concept here in Japan, at least in our more rural part of the country. One problem is that Japanese have been having fewer and fewer kids, often just one, and this places a strain on those children who may want to do something different with their lives than take over, say, their parents' rural liquor store (in the case of my wife). Looking at the young man who was following in his father's footsteps and making soba noodles the proper traditional way, it was hard to avoid feeling happy for the owner.

Having an heir to take over the family business is important.

The Japanese Love Trains

One of my favorite aspects of Japan is definitely the train culture here, and it's always fun to take a trip somewhere by rail, whether it's to Tokyo for shopping or business or picking some random, lonely station in the mountains of Gunma and traveling there just because. There's a lot of pressure in Japanese society, and all too often people choose to check out of life early by jumping in front of a train as it pulls into the station -- these "human injury accidents" (as they're euphemistically called) can get so common in Tokyo that you'll sometimes allow extra time before appointments, just in case the train you need to ride is delayed because of a suicide. This situation will hopefully be improved soon, thanks to the installation of tall safety gates at stations in Tokyo which only open when the train is stopped and ready to take passengers. The pride and joy of Japan's rail system are the shinkansen or "bullet trains" which zip along at up to 300 km/hr. The newest of these is the brand new Super Komachi "Japan Red" train in Akita in Northern Japan. It's a beautiful train, and is being heavily promoted in part to attract train aficionados to the area to spend much-needed tourist dollars.

Train culture is important in Japan. This the official Shinkansen of Char from Gundam.

Sakura, Sakura Everywhere

Spring is in the air, a great time to remind you of all the fun sakura-themed products J-List stocks. We've got bento boxes decorated with sakura petals, real cherry trees that "bloom" on your desk over the course of a few hours, various sakura-themed Japanese snacks including the mystery of Hatsune Miku bread, plus popular Sweet Sakura Tea. Click to browse the top sakura-themed items from Japan!

My Career as a Japanese Civil Servant

I like to think I've made the most of my time in Japan, having a wide range of experiences in different fields of work. I've worked in education, teaching eikaiwa (English conversation) and more advanced subjects like writing and TOEFL test preparation at English schools, and I've experienced the harried-but-fun life of an entrepreneur thanks to J-List. But in between those two carriers, I had a third, that of a Japanese public employee, working as "coordinator of international relations" at my local city office. My job was essentially to be the bilingual gaijin in the city office who could translate emails and letters, meet with foreigners who visited our city in an official capacity and spend four hours on Fridays at a help desk for foreign residents who needed help with some problem or another. In Japan, all national and prefectural employees who administer the official business of the government, as well as all policemen and firemen, are 公務員 koumu-in, civil servants who can arguably be considered a unique caste in Japanese society. In exchange for a guarantee of lifetime employment, they agree be transformed into a certain kind of bland individual who will faithfully manage the business of government without ever interjecting their own personality or ideas into the process. It was fun to have the experience but I think I'm more suited to running J-List somehow.

My brief career as a Japanese public employee was very educational.

Japan Sakura Season 2013

Over the weekend I went to Tokyo to meet with some friends for beers and Osaka-style kushi-katsu (pork cutlet and other foods fried then dipped in a delightful sauce before eating). As usual, it was fun to go to Tokyo and feel the energy all around me. While I was there I read a news post saying that the cherry blossoms had officially opened in Tokyo, so I headed for Ueno Park to see them for myself. The start of sakura season is an important time in Japan, marking not just the symbolic end of winter but the beginning of many new things, since the school year and entrance ceremonies at Japanese companies begin at this time of year. For the next ten days people will gather under the cherry trees and contemplate their fleeting beauty while imbibing beer and sake, then the cherry blossoms will be gone. This year's sakura season start tied with 2002 as the earliest-ever since the government started keeping detailed records on cherry blossom blooming patterns in the 1950s.

The Season of the Sakura has come to Japan.

Thinking About Anime Logic

I've got a few hobbies, including reciting lines from all Tom Hanks movies in a Forrest Gump voice and trolling the Budweiser Lime Facebook page by telling them what "BL" means to most of us. I'm also a fan of analyzing anime logic, the unique set of physical rules that apply in anime but nowhere else. Like the way eyebrows happily exist on top of hair, or the strange properties of light that cause it to bend around the glasses of a meganekko character so we can see their large, expressive eyes even if the frames are in the way. Everyone can be clumsy at times, but only in anime do characters fall down in such as way as to accidentally kiss another character, or come in contact with their pantsu. Anime hair colors may seem random at first, but they follow several establishes patterns, with red hair being matched with fiery-spirited characters, blue for "pure" characters who are usually naive, gray/silver for characters who hide a mysterious secret or power, etc. Still, it's odd that some characters are perceived as being "foreign" (and possibly scary) based on hair color, like Kodaka from I Have Few Friends, yet no one wonders about a "Japanese" girl with luxurious blonde hair (Sena from the same show). Perhaps the strangest aspect of anime is how boring, mild-mannered males always end up with a half-dozen cute girls romantically in orbit around them -- maybe someone who's better at math than me can write an equation describing the attractive force produced by the main character in a harem anime so the rest of us can try to get in on it.

It's fun to deconstruct the physical laws of anime.

Great Time to get a PS Vita

Now that the Sony PS Vita has gotten its price drop in the U.S., we can really recommend that everyone who's interested in playing fun import anime games from Japan consider getting one. As with the PSP before it, the Vita is really shaping up to be the best ota-gaming platform we could have asked for, and all games are region free! Whether you want to play the best version of Fate ever made, dance to the pantsu of Hatsune Miku or get great Japan-only DLC via our prepaid PSN Japan prepaid cards, there are many great reasons to get a Vita. Incidentally, we're often asked about import games for other platforms. Sadly, both Xbox and Nintendo have chosen to region lock their current systems, so the only options available to fans of import anime games are the Sony PSP/PS3/PSVita and Windows platforms.