Do They Have McDonald's in America?

I'm safely back in Japan, the land where everything is extremely clean and well-ordered. Now I'm trying to get used to the incredible heat and humidity that was waiting to greet me, and keep my jet lag at bay long enough to finish this update...

"Do they have McDonald's in America?" This is a question an adult student of mine asked me once, and it was a strange one, since what could be more American than Big Macs and Happy Meals? Yet somehow the student had been sure McDonald's was a Japanese chain. It can be surprisingly easy to get the wrong idea about famous companies. A Japanese friend I knew decided to become an engineer so he could work for "the famous American company, Sony" (as a child he'd assumed that since Sony wrote its name in English, they must be American), and I myself spent several years certain that Motorola was a Japanese company for some reason. Sometimes this brand confusion is due to the companies themselves. You may think of Häagen-Dazs as a purveyor of delicious ice cream from Denmark, but the brand actually came from The Bronx, New York, and the name is just clever marking. When anti-Japan riots seized China last year, a mob burned down a "Japanese" Samsung factory, convinced thanks to the company's advertising that it was a Japanese brand. Have you ever gotten confused about what country a certain company is from?

"Do they have McDonald's in America?"

Hatsune Miku x Sony PSP, PS3 and PS Vita = Pantsu

If you've got a Sony PSP, PS3 or PSVita and like Hatsune Miku, you should browse the Hatsune Miku Project Diva titles we restocked today. They're awesome rhythm games with great costumes and music and sometimes, pantsu. And all Sony game platforms are region free, so you can play them no matter where in the world you're located.

Funny-Sounding Words of Japanese

While there are many innovative ways of studying Japanese, including self-study programs with flashcards and textbooks, online study programs and so on, I usually recommend the method I used, a formal language program in a university (in my case, SDSU). When you study Japanese in a classroom setting, there are several stages you go through, including massive shock when you first encounter the hiragana writing system, relief when you realize it's not that hard to get down after all, then amazement as your brain starts "reading" written Japanese without your conscious involvement, just as it does for English. You also learn that some Japanese words sound extremely funny to us, and the first time you encounter the word 時々 toki-doki (meaning "sometimes"), there'll always be some giggles since this sounds similar to "okie-dokie" in English. Other words that can cause sniggering include 母 haha, which means "my mother" but sounds like laughing, 父 chichi, which means "my father" but sound like something soft and warm in Spanish, and たこ tako, a delicious Mexican treat to most of us but meaning "octopus" in Japanese. It's easy to remember the Japanese word for "apple," which is 林檎 ringo, as in Ringo Starr, and then there's the word 貧乏 binbou, which means "poor" (as in lacking money) but is pronounced exactly like the English word "bimbo."

Okay, that's all for now. It's off to Japan for me!

Yayoi (right) is the binbou character in Idolmaster. She's also kind of a bimbo.

Japan Election Update

While I was busy meeting customers here in San Diego, Japan was having yet another election, this time for the upper legislative house. Japan has a British-style Parliamentary system which is terribly confusing to my American brain, but it seems to involve separate elections for both houses of the national legislature as well as for prefectural and city representatives...all of which translates into burst eardrums for me, thanks to Japanese politicians' penchant for driving around shouting from speakercars the week before the election. Sunday's election resulted in a big win for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his Liberal Democratic Party, clearing the way for serious economic reform and deflation-busting, or at least that's the idea. One big change lying in store for the Japanese economy is a consumption tax (sales tax/VAT) hike from its current 5% to 8%, then to 10% a few years down the road. This is causing causing an economic boom right now as people rush to make big-ticket purchases before the rate goes up, but there's concern that things will crash whenever the tax hike finally goes into effect.

A big win for Prime Minister Abe and "Abenomics."

Advertising Tissues From Japan

It's the end of another San Diego Comic-Con, and as usual it was a blast. We sold tons of J-List T-shirts, kawaii plush toys and bottles of Tentacle Grape, and talked with many avid fans. I've been attending the show since the mid 80s, back when it was small enough to fit in the tiny San Diego Civic Center. I laugh as I look back at how "big" I thought the show was back then, at around 12,000 attendees, less than 1/10 the current number.

If you visited the convention and walked by our booth, one of our staff probably handed you some Japanese pocket tissue with our website information on it. Advertising businesses with printed pocket tissue has been popular in Japan ever since 1969, when a paper manufacturing company in Kochi Prefecture hit on the idea of using inexpensive packets of tissue to advertise products. Just about anywhere you go in Japanese cities, you'll see people standing on street-corners, handing tissues to passers-by and thanking them for considering the business that's being promoted -- usually a bank advertising this week's rates, or in Akihabara, the newest cat girl maid cafe. J-List has been printing these tissues and shipping them with orders for more than 15 years, and also brings them to conventions to hand out to people, sometimes getting ironic laughs for some reason. Of course you don't have to attend a convention to get free J-List tissues: just make an order from our site, and you'll get a packet included with your order, along with our super-cool "anime eye glasses." (Note that J-List tissues aren't included with orders that would be damaged by their inclusion, such as a thin doujinshi comic, and are subject to availability.)

You'll never be without tissue in Japan.

Manga Sale This Month on J-List

A reminder: this month we're having a very nice promotion for you, a 2x points sale on all manga on the site! This includes the gorgeous all-ages manga we have, from Evangelion to Yotsubato to Highschool of the Dead, as well as the ecchi manga products we have, with very genre you can think of and a few you can't. Click to browse all manga volumes on the site now!

Slurping Noodles at the San Diego Comic-Con

We're having loads of fun at the San Diego Comic-Con here in always-sunny San Diego, selling tons of Tentacle Grape and J-List T-shirts and copies of English-translated visual novels, and are saying hi to the many fans who come by the booth to shake hands. Please note that this year we're in a new location, in booth 4929, rather than our normal spot in the dark recesses of the 100 aisle. Hope to see you during the show!

Japan is probably the only country where eating too quietly will get comments from people around you. The correct way of eating Japanese and Chinese noodles like ramen, udon and soba is to slurp them while holding your face near the bowl, sucking in the soup along with the noodles to make both taste delicious. There's no upper ceiling to how loud you're allowed to slurp, and making these noises is one way of letting whoever prepared the noodles for you know that you think they're good. When foreigners come to Japan, they usually eat their noodles without making these noises, prompting Japanese to say 静かですね shizuka desu ne (you eat very quietly, don't you?). There are some other areas where table manners differ between the Japan and the West. In Japan, it's perfectly okay to pick up your ramen bowl and drink the soup from it directly, although drinking out of a bowl might get a child smacked in the U.S. It's okay to slurp Asian noodles, but spaghetti is another matter, and the image of an old Japanese man loudly vacuuming his pasta off the plate is very unsophisticated.

When eating noodles, it's okay to slurp.

The Trouble with Sumo Wrestling

Sumo wrestling is the official sport of Japan, enjoying special status and support by the Japanese government. It's more than a sport, really, since it's closely tied to Shinto religious ceremonies going back centuries, and legendary figures from Japan's history like Toyotomi Hideyoshi and Oda Nobunaga were sumo aficionados. Over the past few years the sport has really fallen from grace due to a series of scandals that have rocked the Japan Sumo Association and its fans and harmed its image with fans. These have included wrestlers who were caught with marijuana and ejected from the sport, officials who were found to have ties with yakuza criminals, a high-profile bar fight in which Mongolian wrestler Asashoryu used his mighty strength against another patron, plus a sad incident in which a young wrestler died as a result of hazing by older wrestlers. Another big problem is 八百長 yaoyacho, the organized fixing of matches between wrestlers since, once one wins 50% of matches in a tournament, he has the same chance of promotion whether he wins 90%, and thus can agree to lose some bouts to his friends to help their scores. Brought to light by the authors of the book Freakanomics, who used statistics to prove the problem existed, it's being dealt with strictly by officials as they attempt to rebuild trust with fans. Fun fact: the way to say arm wrestling in Japanese is 腕相撲 ude-zumou, literally "arm sumo wrestling."

Fun fact: arm wrestling is "arm sumo" in Japanese.

Goma-suri

One of the more challenging aspects of learning a foreign language is picking up idiomatic expressions, which can be terribly random and confusing to outsiders. For example, the way to express the concept of "brown-nosing" (i.e. kissing up to your boss or teacher) is ごまをする goma o suru, literally meaning "to grind up someone's sesame seeds for them," since lickspittle underlings would supposedly grind sesame seeds for their boss in order to win points with him. If you want to try this word out on Japanese people you know, just say goma-suri! (which would mean something like "stop trying to flatter me!") when a Japanese person praises you for something, then watch them jump out of their shoes in surprise that you know a word like that. Japanese spend many thousands of hours memorizing the strange idioms and turns of phrase we use in English, never quite sure why it could be possible to "rain cats and dogs," or why something simple is a "piece of cake" or "easy as pie" but not the other way around. As is usually the case with language, asking why something means what it means doesn't get you very far, so encapsulating what you're trying to learn as a defined unit and figuring what situations it works best in is usually the best approach.

Griding up sesame seeds is a piece of cake.

J-List is at San Diego Comic Con + Special Sale

J-List at San Diego Comic Con

The San Diego Comic-Con has become the premier worldwide festival for celebrating all manner of nerd culture, from comic books to sci-fi to anime, and we love attending the show every year. We'll have lots of T-shirts, plush toys, horse head masks and English-translated eroge at the show for everyone, plus our trademark J-List pocket tissues and the new anime eyeglasses, too. Please note that this year we'll be in a new location, in booth 4929, rather than our normal spot in the dark recesses of the 100 aisle (we assume they moved the entire Anime Alley to the other side of the room). This is near the south end of the Convention Center, not against the north wall as in past years.

Learning a Foreign Language with Anime and Manga

I happened to see an article that officially declard anime and manga to be good ways of learning a foreign language. This didn't come as news to me, since I've used this method to assist my Japanese studies ever since the beginning. Manga can be a good tool for studying Japanese because it's mostly spoken dialogue, which gives you lots of input to read and understand and (eventually) to use yourself. The kanji used in manga may seem challenging at first, but in truth only 500-700 characters are used in most manga, often with furigana (hiragana characters written above a kanji character to help with pronunciation), so it's not that hard to get the hang of reading. I also used anime to teach my kids English, "strategically" buying boxed sets of series they wanted to watch then pretending that there was only an English track on the disc. (I also made sure 100% of the movies we watched were imported from the U.S., so they had to get them in English or not watch them at all.) Of course, you have to take the Japanese used in anime and manga with several grains of salt and remember that it's as stylized and unique as the English used in movies. Don't make the mistake I did, learning most of my Japanese from Fist of the North Star and walking around talking like Kenshiro, if you can avoid it!

My kids learned English basically so they could watch my "English only" Rayearth DVDs.

Of Japanese Culture and Potato Chips

I finally made time to finish the second season of Ore no Imouto ga Konna ni Kawaii Wake ga Nai, aka There's No Way My Younger Sister Is This Cute. The second season was surprisingly good, with lots of "feels" -- especially for fans of Kuroneko and Ayase ♡ -- and more character development than I dared hope for. I like to watch random episodes of anime and see what interesting cultural points I can uncover, like the scene in episode 1 of K-On! when Tsumugi shyly adds her french fries to a pile that Ritsu and Mio are eating from, in order to remove an invisible barrier between herself and the other members of the Light Music Club. In episode 12 of Oreimo, Kyosuke has an impromptu party with all the girls, and there's a shot of various drinks and snacks laid out on a table, including a bag of potato chips that's been split down the center so that its contents are laid out to the air. This is a very Japanese thing to do when entertaining, to open all the snacks so that they will go to waste if guests don't dig in and eat, due to a cultural phenomenon known as 遠慮 enryo. Literally meaning restraint or reserve, or as a verb, to refrain from doing something, enryo is manifested as the Japanese tendency to hesitate to take offered food or drink out of politeness. If anyone is to relax and have any fun, you have to break through these social barriers, and forcing people to eat in order to avoid wasting food is one way to go about it.

Learning about Japanese culture through potato chips.

A New Anime Season + Genshiken

It's time for a new anime season, even though I still haven't caught up with the previous one. There are some nice new shows starting up this time, including a "second season" of Bakemonogatari, more High School DxD. a reboot of the Rozen Maiden gothic doll series, and an anime based on the popular (and ecchi) Cho Jigen Game Neptune games for the PS3. I'm also happy to report that, for the first time in six years, we've got new Genshiken to watch. Genshiken is a slice-of-life series about a "circle" (what a club at a university is called) dedicated to the study of Modern Visual Culture, mostly related to anime, manga, games and cosplay, and along with the Daikon IV opening animation, Gainax's seminal Otaku no Video and Welcome to the NHK, it's really come to define what being otaku is. What I like best about the series is its realism, the way different types of fans (Gundam plamo builders, 'layers, BL loving fujoshi, ) interact with each other in realistic ways, and nitty-gritty details like how they go about getting jobs after college are part of the story. The new series features all your favorite characters plus some new ones, and updates the story nicely...though how is it they're making Bakemonogatari and Oreimo jokes if the story is supposed to be set in 2004-2005?

It's great to have new Genshiken to watch.

J-List @ San Diego Comic-Con, And a Sale!

J-List at San Diego Comic Con

The San Diego Comic-Con has become the premier worldwide festival for celebrating all manner of nerd culture, from comic books to sci-fi to anime, and we love attending the show every year. We'll have lots of T-shirts, plush toys, horse head masks and English-translated eroge at the show for everyone, plus our trademark J-List pocket tissues and the new anime eyeglasses, too. Please note that this year we'll be in a new location, in booth 4929, rather than our normal spot in the dark recesses of the 100 aisle (we assume they moved the entire Anime Alley to the other side of the room). This is near the south end of the Convention Center, not against the north wall as in past years.

Thinking About "Love" in Japan

Do the Japanese say "I love you"? It's an interesting question that touches on cultural issues as well as linguistic. There are several ways to express the concept of love in Japanese, with the most casual being 好きです suki desu ("I like you") or 大好きです dai-suki desu ("I 'big-like' you"), both of which imply romantic love when used with a person as the object; or the phrase 愛してる ai shiteru, which specifically means "I love you." As a general rule, Japanese couples verbally express love for each other a lot less than is done in the West. Part of this is just the culture -- strong feelings like love are not displayed openly since (I've been told) saying a thing over and over again can rob it of its real meaning. Instead, Japanese couples in love rely on a concept baffling to foreigners called 無言了解 mugon ryoukai, or "wordless communication," a kind of telepathic text-messaging that enables an idea to be perfectly understood by both parties even though it's never stated overtly. The concept of love can seem quite abstract in Japanese, and there are multiple Japanese words for the term. The word 恋 koi usually describes romantic love, while 愛 ai is a higher kind of love that is used for family or anyone who's very dear to you, or the steady, slow-burning love of marriage. These two words are combined into a compound word to make a general word for love that marries both sides, which is 恋愛 ren'ai.

The concept of "love" is rather deep in Japan.

Riding Trains in San Diego

I've been enjoying the last quiet weekend before the chaos of Comic-Con descends on us all, after which time I head back to Japan. One thing I like to do is play tourist in my own hometown, picking up coupon books intended for visitors and going on sightseeing trips like the bike-and-kayak tours they have in La Jolla, which really give me an appreciation for my own city that most San Diego locals never get. I realized I'd never ridden the San Diego Trolley, so I decided to take the train over to Old Town to do some sightseeing, though it was mostly of margaritas (funny how that tends to happen). On the train ride back, the trolley stopped for a few minutes, and my Japan-honed train riding instincts made me concerned. In Japan, when the trains stops suddenly it nearly always means there's been a 人身事故 jinshin jiko or "human injury accident," which is a polite way of referring to a person who decided to check out of the rest of their life by jumping in front of a train, usually during rush hour on Tokyo's busy Chuo line. Happily, the train had only stopped because of a traffic signal and got moving again after a few moments.

A train stopping in Japan is cause for concern.

Hot Summer is Hot

The poor staff of J-List is sweating in Japan this summer as temperatures climb above 40°C/104°F, with correspondingly yucky humidity. This year the high temperatures have claimed at least 12 lives, mostly elderly Japanese who didn't remember to drink lots of extra water and avoid doing extraneous activities outdoors. Happily, most homes and offices in Japan have strong air conditioning units to combat the hottest part of summer, though there are downsides to this, including the sore throats I always seem to get when sitting in an air conditioned room for too long, as well the "air-con wars" I have to have with my wife, as we battle to set the appropriate temperature for the living room. (Naturally, the closer to freezing, the happier I am.) If you want to enjoy summer Japan style, we recommend drinking authentic Japanese mugi cha (refreshing barley tea), using these various innovative ways to keep cool, plus authentic jinbei kimono-pajamas for keeping comfortable at night!

Japan is having a very hot summer this year.

J-List Is Coming to the San Diego Comic-Con

J-List at San Diego Comic Con

The San Diego Comic-Con has become the premier worldwide festival for celebrating all manner of nerd culture, from comic books to sci-fi to anime, and we love attending the show every year. We'll have lots of T-shirts, plush toys, horse head masks and English-translated eroge at the show for everyone, plus our trademark J-List pocket tissues and the new anime eyeglasses, too. Please note that this year we'll be in a new location, in booth 5028, rather than our normal spot in the dark recesses of the 100 aisle (we assume they moved the entire Anime Alley to the other side of the room). This is near the south end of the Convention Center, not against the north wall as in past years.

Tanegashima, Gateway to Japan

Japan, of course, is a volcanic archipelago made up of four main islands, which are Honshu, the largest, about the half the size of California; Hokkaido in the North, famous for dairy products and potatoes; Kyushu in the south, always first to be exposed to new ideas from the outside world, from Buddhism to Christianity to American movie theatre chains; and Shikoku, where Ehime pearls come from. Being an archipelago, there are thousands of smaller islands (6000+ actually), including Sado, where heretical Emperors were banished back in the day; Yakushima, the unspoiled tropical island that served as the basis for the jungles of Princess Mononoke; plus a few silly rocks that are causing much drama and rending of garments between Japan, China and South Korea.

Another interesting Japanese island is Tanegashima, a 57 km long island south of Kyushu that's unique for several reasons. First, it's the site of the first contact between Japanese and Europeans, and it was here the first Portuguese trading ships landed from Macau to establish the nanban ("southern barbarian") trading network. I like to imagine what it must have been like when the two worlds touched for the first time -- something akin to a UFO landing, I'm sure. Since the Portuguese brought the first guns into Japan, the island's name became synonymous with firearms, and for centuries the Japanese flintlock rifle was known by the name of Tanegashima. The island is also the home of Japan's space program, which has caused it to enter popular culture as Japan got better at launching sattellites into space. At least two recent anime productions, the gorgeous 5 Centimeters Per Second and Robotics;Notes, have been made with Tanegashima as the exotic setting.

Tanegashima is an island with a fascinating history.

Tipping Culture in Japan

It's the calm before the storm as J-List gets ready for the San Diego Comic-Con next week, preparing the T-shirts, plush toys, horse head masks and English-translated eroge we'll be offering at our booth. We hope to see you at the show this year!

One of first cultural differences between Japan and the U.S. we encounter is the difference in tipping culture. While we're often expected to pay gratuities in restaurants, hotels and taxis in the U.S., there's no custom of tipping at all in Japan, despite the fact that the service you receive in shops and restaurants is nearly always excellent. There are times when I'd like to be able to leave a tip to reward especially helpful service in Japan, but if you tried to give tip a Japanese person they'd be confused and possibly even insulted, since it would feel dishonest for them to take any money other than their normal hourly wage. While giving a fair tip for good service is certainly reasonable, sometimes there can be problems. A couple years ago I took our Anime Expo booth staff out to a restaurant called Trader Vic's, and we all ate a pretty large meal. Not noticing the fine print on the bottom of the receipt that said "a 20% gratuity will be added for parties of six or more," I left a large-ish tip in cash for the staff, who seemed to be smiling more than usual for some reason. I noticed the automatic gratuity later and was saddened the restaurant staff hadn't had the honesty and integrity to tell us that a tip had already been added to the bill and nothing further was needed, which would have ensured that I return to the restaurant every year rather than boycotting them. The Japanese staff members who were with us shook their heads sadly, since restaurant staff angling to get a double tip would have been inconceivable in Japan.

Tipping culture is nonexistent in Japan.

Manga Sale on J-List This Month!

This month we're having a very nice promotion for you: a great 2x points sale on all manga on the site! This includes the gorgeous all-ages manga we have, from Evangelion to Yotsubato to Highschool of the Dead, as well as the ecchi manga products we have, with very genre you can think of and a few you can't. Click to browse all manga volumes on the site now!

Japanese vs. Gaijin

I'm often asked how Japanese view the gaijin that live in their midst, disrupting the harmony the country is so famous for. It's quite a complex subject, which reaches deep into the Japanese psyche and across Japan's 470-year history of dealing with these smelly, tall and hairy barbarians from across the sea. For the most part Westerners in the Japan of today exist in a special place where the rules don't apply, at least the same way they do for the natives. Western foreigners are mysterious, physically different from Japanese in obvious ways, and every time an American or a Brit or Australian enters an electronics store to inquire about a product, the Japanese staff get a little nervous. In addition to being fearful they'll be called upon to use English (even if we are speaking fluent Japanese to them), from the point of view of straight-laced Japanese people, we foreigners are awfully good at doing things no one expects, which is a source of stress for them. Often the first (and sometimes only) contact a Japanese person will have with a Westerner over the course of their lives is the happy, outgoing eikaiwa (English conversation) teacher they had in school, and often the image of Westerners is defined by this first cross-cultural exchange. As a result, the Japanese generally go through life expecting foreigners to be happy, energetic and positive, expressing their emotions openly...which pretty much matches my own personality.

Japanese feel some anxiety when it comes to dealing with gaijin.

Anime Expo 2013 Wrap-up Post

Well, we're done with another Anime Expo, and this one was loads of fun as usual. We greeted many fans who stopped by our booth to say hello, sold a ton of our English-translated eroge and visual novels, moved more than a few pairs of shimapan striped panties ("for cosplay or other uses"), and sold a bunch of our popular anime grab bags. Our customers were happy to receive our trademark J-List pocket tissues, as well as the new J-List anime glasses, which you can also get when you make an online order shipped from our Japan or San Diego offices. Thanks to everyone who came by!

At the show, we had an official panel where we introduced our wonky little company to fans and also made some announcements of visual novels we'll be releasing in English. These included the future release of the Steins;Gate PC edition; the upcoming third volume in the Lightning Warrior Raidy yuri dungeon crawling series; Shiny Days, the gorgeous sequel (prequel actually) to the smash hit game School Days; the fandisc for My Girlfriend is the President; two very ecchi new games by Code Pink; and a gorgeous witch training game Little Witch Romanesque. The panel was a big success, except for a snafu with the convention staff that caused us to be given a much smaller room than in previous years (sorry again to the fans who were not able to get into the room). You can read the complete list of newly licensed visual novels on the JAST USA development blog, and if you want to get your hands on our newest game catalog, which features one of three new posters on the back, just make an order from our Japan or San Diego offices and we'll send you one with your order.

Anime Expo is my favorite fan event for various reasons. First, everyone is in the room is the same "tribe," largely on the same wavelength about anime and Japan despite the fact that some may be passionate about Touhou while others are off in an entirely different genre, cosplaying Attack on Titan. (Some of them might just be a little punch-drunk.) While I also love more general shows like the San Diego Comic-Con, the reality is that only a small subset of the attendees there are focused on Japan and its various forms of popular culture, and as a result many of the people who stop by our booth there have no idea what that "fat gray kitty" is (his name is Totoro, he's not a kitty). During the show I had some deep discussions with friends and fans who tagged along after our panel on the most existential of questions, how to properly pronounce names like Evangelion and Madoka Magica. In Japanese, both names contain a hard 'g' sound, Evan[geh]lion Madoka Ma[gi]ka, despite the tendency for the human brain to apply the rules of English spelling and soften the 'g' sound. This one reason it's a good idea to make sure you learn the hiragana and katakana writing systems, even if that's all the Japanese language you ever study: it will help you read and pronounce the Japanese you see more accurately, and it's also kind of cool to learn to read a writing system other than the English alphabet. We have great Japanese study tools like the Moekana and White Rabbit flashcard sets in stock if you want to browse them.

Anime Expo was a blast, with lots of cool fans; fans were happy to see Steins;Gate is coming.

Do You Want Some Anime Glasses?

Remember, we've got a new set of J-List Anime Glasses designs for 2013, which are free with any purchase! When we brought out the first set of fun cardboard glasses two years ago, our customers loved them, and now we've got a whole new set of glasses for you with awesome new designs. You'll receive one random set of anime glasses with each order (either shipping from the U.S. or Japan), while supplies last of course.

Greetings from Anime Expo 2013!

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Abe-san's Erection Success

Japan's upper house election concluded safely last week, and it resulted in a strong win for prime minister Shinzo Abe and his pro-business, conservative and ironically-named Liberal Democrat Party (LDP), an outcome that was being hailed as a good move for for political stability and the continuation of the LDP's "Abenomics" reforms. While Japan is a modern democracy that functions well in general, there are certain challenges that seem unique to the country. One big problem is the plethora of political parties, a total of 12 large and small parties which must by law be granted equal time for debating national issues. Most positions are widely duplicated among the various minor parties, like the Social Democratic Party or the People's Life Party of parties like Green Wind, yet they almost never combine forces to try to push a policy through. Another problem is that there are actually too many elections in Japan, and it seems that 2-3 times a year everyone is stopping what they're doing to campaign, which means driving around in an annoying loudspeaker car asking for everyone's support. Hopefully the strong win by Mr. Abe means he has a free hand to bring real reforms to Japan.

Abe's mentor is Taro Aso, the former otaku Prime Minister. Which makes us happy.

Japanese People I Have Met

I went to Japan in 1991, happy to finally put all the Japanese I'd studied at SDSU to some use and sure I'd be there "about a year or so" (ha-ha). While running J-List since 1996 has been an amazing experience, I also enjoyed the years before that when I was a simple ESL teacher. One good thing about teaching English is, you tend to meet a lot of different people each year, and I taught everyone, from children who were learning how to introduce themselves in English (and moreover, how to not fear the language) to a few outstanding high school age students who I was able to steer to more serious study in university, and even some interesting elderly students, like the wife of the former president of the Sapporo Ramen Company, who lived in a house nicer than a temple in Kyoto. Then there was this cool old barber who used to cut my hair. He was 85 years old, and liked to tell me stories of the "old days" during the Allied Occupation of Japan, when kids would run up to GIs and ask for chocolate and chewing gum. He loved talking to me, no doubt because no one else wanted to hear about life back then.

I had a cool old guy as my barber who told me about the old days.

Buddhist Altars and Grave Sales in Japan

Last time I talked about some of the more famous superstitions one encounters in Japan. Quite a few of these are related to funerals, for example, don't sleep with your head pointed north (called 北枕 kita-makura or "north pillow") as this is done with bodies the night before cremation, don't pass food from chopstick to chopstick (known as 渡り箸 watari-bashi), as the final stage of a funeral is when family members remove the bones of their loved ones and pass them to each other with large chopstick-like tongs, and so on. It's not uncommon for the first impression of foreigners who have just arrived in Japan to be about "death," and this is reinforced when you go for a drive through any Japanese city and come across a 仏壇屋 butsudan-ya or a shop selling Buddhist altars and gravestones. (One toy store I used to frequent went out of business and was taken over by a grave-and-Buddhist-altar store, which seemed quite ominous to me.) One of the most ironic things about living in Japan, from my point of view as an outside observer, is opening the newspaper and finding a large glossy insert advertising a big sale on these products. "It's the Buddhist altar and gravestone sales event of the season this weekend -- everything must go!"

One of the most bizarre sights, a "sale" on gravestones.

Yumina the Ethereal has Golden Master!

J-List has been involved with licensing and translated great eroge and visual novels as well as full RPGs. One game we've been hard at work on for several years is Yumina the Ethereal, one of the most involved and fantastic RPGs ever released in English. Created by the staff that created Aselia the Eternal, the quality is incredibly high. We're happy to report that the game has gone "Master Up" (e.g. Golden Master), and should be shipping within a few weeks. Preorder now if you haven't yet!

New Anime Glasses from J-List!

Then we've got more great news: new J-List Anime Glasses designs for 2013, which are free with any purchase! When we brought out the first set of fun cardboard glasses two years ago, our customers loved them, and now we've got a whole new set of glasses for you with awesome new designs. You'll receive one random set of anime glasses with each order (either shipping from the U.S. or Japan), while supplies last of course. (We'll also give you a free pair with any purchase at Anime Expo.)

* Do not pilot giant robots while wearing J-List anime glasses.

J-List is Going to Anime Expo!!

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Japanese Superstitions and "Youkai" Magical Creatures

One thing you learn about the Japanese people pretty quickly is that they can be quite superstitious, believing that if you cut your fingernails at night you won't be able to be with your parents when they die, or that if you sneeze twice, it means someone is gossiping about you, or that you should never write a person's name in red ink or they'll die, etc. Even after 20+ years in Japan, I still run into this in my daily life: if I should happen to whistle in the evening my wife will plead with me to stop, lest I summon snakes into the house. While sprinkling salt over your body when returning from a funeral, lest the spirits of the dead enter your home and dwell there, is all very harmless, there are a few "really big" Japanese superstitions. One is yakudoshi, the "unlucky year" that's said to be the age of 33 for women and 42 for men, and nearly all Japanese will avoid doing things like getting married or starting construction on a house during these years lest disaster strike. Another big one is Hinoeuma, an odd belief that girls born in the Year of the Fire Horse (the last one was in 1966, and the next one is 2026) will be headstrong and unable to find husbands, and the Japanese birth rate always takes a big dive during these years.

One fun aspect of Japan's tradition of superstition are 妖怪 youkai (yoh-kai), a pantheon of traditional Japanese "folk spirits," some of which have existed since the Edo Period. I say "spirits," though ghosts, demons, monsters and fairies might be just as accurate a translation, as the term is rather fluid. Here are some of the more famous youkai creatures:

• テケテケ Teke Teke, the horrific upper torso of a girl whose body was cut in two, who roams the Japanese countryside cutting people in half to get revenge.
• 雪女 Yuki Onna, a female ghost who appears in snowstorms to freeze travelers as she searches for her lover.
• トイレの花子さん Toire no Hanako-san or Hanako of the Toilet, said to be the ghost of a girl who died because she didn't hear the air raid sirens during a bombing in WWII. If you knock three times on the farthest door of the girl's bathroom on the third floor of any school and ask, "Hanako-san, are you there?" she will answer you.
• 口避け女 Kuchi-sake Onna, the monstrous spirit of a woman whose mouth was cut from ear-to-ear. Also the universal nickname of Julia Roberts in Japan.

Many of these spirits clearly came about from parents wanting to scare children into being good, like 亜要 Akaname, a foul monster who comes to lick bathtubs that haven't been scrubbed properly, or 九十九神 Tsukumogami, good spirits which reside in any object that has been used for 100 years, which teaches children to value their possessions. These youkai folk spirits are popular in Japanese pop culture and crop up all the time in anime and games, including Touhou, Inu x Boku and GeGeGe no Kitaro.

(If you want to learn more about these magical Japanese creatures, we've got the Youkai Encyclopedias in stock now.)

Youkai, the magical "folk spirits" of ancient Japan.

Toshiba "Gaijin" Commercial

Well, my trip to the middle of America and back is finally done. I managed to put 3200 miles (5150 km) on my 2002 Miata, the distance from San Diego to Maine, and I got to see some of the most beautiful parts of the U.S. Now that I've rested, I'm fully ready for all the fun we're going to have at Anime Expo this week!

Toshiba got some unwanted buzz this weekend when a commercial for its SuiPanDa, a home bakery machine that can bake both traditional bread from flour as well as "rice bread" using white rice, caught the eye of bloggers. The commercial was interesting because it featured a Japanese woman in a blonde wig with a fake nose (the Japanese perceive the noses of foreigners to be especially large, even when they're not) speaking outrageously accented Japanese. While some are calling the commercial racist (and Toshiba has removed the video from its website and YouTube), occasional TV commercials poking harmless fun at Westerners are just another aspect of living in Japan, and I rather like them because of what they teach us about the Japanese. In this commercial, the cultural connection of "foreigners = bread" is an interesting concept, and many Japanese do imagine that Westerners eat a big basket of bread with every meal, as the Japanese do with white rice. The girl speaks in a hilarious "gaijin" accent, essentially using the overly-emotional inflection of English while speaking Japanese, and saying phrases like "Oh no!" which foreigners are famous for. While people who want to be offended by this will be, it's also true that the performance was spot-on -- we really do talk like that. So, what do you think about Japan's stereotypes of foreigners?

An amusing look at Westerners through the Japanese.

The Mechanics of Humility in Japan

Last time I talked about how 謙遜 (ken-sohn, with a long vowel on the end), meaning humility, is considered an important quality for people to have, and group dynamics depend on it, whether members in a university circle (club) or co-workers in a company. Essentially, this just means people will generally be self-effacing and avoid boasting in social situations. One thing about humility: in keeping with the uchi/soto (in-group/out-group) system that pervades Japanese thinking, humility extends to members of your own group (your family, company etc.) when you're talking with others (members of another group). A good example of this is Japanese middle-aged women who will praise the studiousness of their neighbor's children when talking with other mothers while pointing out how baka (stupid) their own children or grandchildren are, reading manga all day instead of studying. I once heard my mother-in-law doing this, talking negatively about my son to other ladies in the neighborhood for reasons of self-effacing politeness, and I took her to task over it. We don't need that kind of negativity in our house.

I looked for an image of a grandmother to put here. I found this.

Foreign Loan Words in Japanese

One interesting aspect of Japan is the many ways its language has changed since the 1868 Meiji Restoration, which abolished 265 years of rule by the Tokugawa Shoguns and "restored" power to the Emperor, allowing Japan to become a Western-style Constitutional Monarchy. During the Meiji Period foreign loan words like 珈琲 ko-hi (coffee) were introduced, archaic enough to have kanji assigned to them; then came the Allied Occupation, when words like ドンマイ don'mai and オーライ oh-rai, Japanese approximations of "don't mind" (nevermind) and "all right," entered the lexicon; and today, hundreds of English words related to computers, politics, fashion and more are imported every year. Because of this, virtually any Japanese over the age of 50 feels stress at encountering English words they aren't familiar with, and there are actually katakana dictionaries to help these people learn what "manifesto" or "innovation" or "nothing venture, nothing win!" mean. Now a disgruntled viewer has sued NHK, Japan's clone of the BBC and presumably the last bastion of "proper" Japanese. The individual, who is 71 years old, got tired of hearing words like "compliance" and "initiative" and "globalization" in katakana English in news broadcasts, and is suing for $14,000 dollars in damages.

Japanese get stressed when encountering too many foreign words.

Peter's Trip 2013 Update

I'm on the final leg of my pre-Anime Expo trip around the U.S., and finally headed towards home. After visiting Mt. Rushmore (or "Rushmore" as the locals call it) and the old west town of Deadwood, I stayed in a place called Hot Springs, South Dakota, no doubt drawn there by my long time in Japan. (The hot springs turned out to be a river made slightly warm by underground springs, but I was warned, "Be careful if you go in, there are leeches.") Now I'm in Colorado, drawn to the state's image of cool, frosty mountains...so naturally they're having the worst heat wave in 100 years or something. I'm staying at the 104-year-old Stanley Hotel, the original inspiration for The Shining, and when I'm done with this update I'll be exploring the place to see if I can find any of the ghosts that are supposed to be hanging around the hotel.

My trip around the U.S. continues. Now in Colorado!

Cool Products Thursday, June 27, 2013

Great news: the new all-ages visual novel If My Heart Had Wings (Japanese title この大空に翼を広げて Kono Oozora ni Tsubasa o Hirogete) is shipping Friday! It's a great story about youth, love, and dreams of flying in the wide blue sky, with absolutely stunning artwork with higher resultion than ever seen before in a similar game!

Humble Hokkaido

One thing textbooks don't tell you about becoming bilingual in a language is the way you'll naturally come to internalize the values of the language group over time. This is why I'll tend to take Japan's side when blogging about, say, the historical background of the island disputes with South Korea and China, though I always do my best to research the issue and present the other side's viewpoint as well. Two things that are important to the Japanese are 謙遜 ken-son or personal humility, and 調和 cho-wa, which means getting along harmoniously with others, and I learned a hard lesson related to these concepts back when I was in university at SDSU. The city of Hakodate, at the southernmost tip of Hokkaido, wanted to hire eight native speakers to teach English and act as goodwill ambassadors during city events for two months, and I jumped at the chance to go to Japan for free. I'd studied Japanese for two years at that point, and thanks to learning with manga and translating Japanese songs I could speak the language pretty well...although I had not yet internalized the important concepts above. When it came time to select who would go, the interviewer was impressed with my language skills, but he sensed my pride and headstrong nature, and I wasn't one of the candidates chosen. Not being picked for the program was a bitter pill for me back then, but it introduced me to the concepts of ken-son and cho-wa, as well as 反省 hansei, which means to reflect on your own shortcomings rather than blame others when something goes wrong. Looking back, I'm really glad I was able to learn that lesson.

I lost the chance to go to Hokkaido.

Japan Loves Awards

I happened to see that popular actress Ayame Gouriki, famous for her energetic nature and boyish short-cut hair, was awarded this year's "E-Line Beautiful" award by the Japan Association of Adult Orthodontics, which essentially means she got an award for having an extremely beautiful face when viewed in profile. If you think this is a pretty silly thing to give an award for, you're right: it's just one of dozens of awards given in Japan for purely PR purposes. There's the Nail Queen Award for the woman with the most beautiful fingernails, one for models with beautiful legs, the Nice Couple Award for the most congenial married couple, plus the Japan Megane Best Dresser Award, given to the most fashionable female who wears glasses. There are hundreds of literary awards, too, so many in fact that only a few of them are worth receiving. Virtually every publishing company has established a line of "prestigious" awards to dole out to writers each year, though the really important award for Japanese literature is the Akutagawa Award, or the Tezuka Award for manga. There's even a local version of the Academy Awards called...the Japan Academy Awards, where Japanese actors and directors win awards for Japanese films made during the year.

Ayame-chan won an award for having a beautiful profile.

Peter's USA Trip, Part 2

My pre-convention season trip across the U.S. continues, having taken me from Utah to the other side of Wyoming, where I visited the beautiful Devil's Tower National Monument, which has been on my bucket list since seeing Close Encounters of the third Kind (Japanese title: 未知との遭遇 michi to no souguu or "Encounter With the Unknown") as a child. It was a breathtaking sight, though I couldn't find any aliens no matter how hard I looked. My Japanese wife and I are quite strange: she's always been more fascinated by the U.S. than her home country of Japan, while I've been more focused on Japan. As a result, I've been all over Japan but my wife has only been to a few places like Kyoto and Osaka, and on the flipside, she's visited several parts of the U.S. (Florida, Wisconsin, New England, Mt. Rushmore) that I'd never been to. So I'm happy to be catching up with her just a little on this trip.

There were no aliens. Apparently Haruhi hasn't summoned them yet.

J-List Anime Figure Sale Almost Ended

Just a note, our 2x points sale on all anime figures will be ending soon. The sale covers all prepainted figures, the amazing super-posable Figma and Revoltech action figures, the super-kawaii Nendoroid line, plus "cast off" (naughty) figures. Preorder figures are also included, so preorder the figures you want now! Click to browse all anime figures, ranked in order of awesomeness by our intelligent, attractive customers!

Japanese Tourists Abroad

I once saw an interesting thread on Japan's ubiquitous BBS 2ch entitled, "Things Japanese people do abroad that mark them as Japanese," and I thought I'd talk about this topic. The list included things like, being extremely detailed about giving exact change or stressing about leaving an accurate 15% tip, or waiting quietly for the rear door of a taxi to open automatically for you. (Taxis in Japan have a hydraulic lever that allows the door to open automatically.) Back in my university days you could go assume that a person wearing highly evolved fashions with Engrish phrases like "I feel happiness when I eat a potato" was Japanese, but the fashion landscape has changed a lot since the 80s, and most really strange English comes from China these days. Of course the body language of Japanese people is somewhat unique, from indicating "me?" by pointing at the nose instead of the chest, or making that ubiquitous "peace" sign (though that's become quite accepted all around Asia by now). Another way to tell Japanese people from other Asians is to listen to their speech. Japanese is (thankfully) not a tonal language language at all, unlike Mandarin or Cantonese (which have 4-9 different ways to pitch a given syllable). If the speech sounds "flat" to your ear then it might be Japanese.

There are some interesting things Japanese tourists do when travelling.

Abenomics and Japan's Women

One of the stated goals of Prime Minister Abe's "Abenomics" is to make sweeping changes that empower Japan's women to help revitalize the economy, though this isn't going to be an easy job. Japan ranks 101 out of 135 countries on the Global Gender Gap Report, which compares the economic and political participation, education attainment and health and longevity. This is a number I've taken issue with before because it places Japan only slightly ahead of Cambodia (103), India (105), and the UAE (107) and implies that Japanese women are unable to live their lives as they choose, which couldn't be farther from the truth. The situation of women in Japan is a complex one, and frankly not one easily understood by self-important Scandinavians coming up with rankings that they can put themselves at the head of. While the list of problems that need to be addressed is long -- waiting lists for daycare, a lack of understanding in company environments when a female employee has to take a day off because of a sick child, a troublesome law that gives married women a tax incentive to earn less then $10,000 per year, which obviously limits the potential she can achieve -- the idea that Japan's women are being actively repressed just because 50.0% of them aren't running for political office is not an accurate view of "life on the ground." One aspect of the country that was hard for me to comprehend was the way many Japanese women (more out in Gunma where J-List is located, fewer in Tokyo) actively want to be housewives and raise their children at home, often quitting careers they prepared for for many years before returning to work when the kids are older. While there is still plenty to fix in male-dominated Japan, the fact that women usually have this option available to them is a huge social achievement in my book.

Some thoughts on Japanese women and "Abenomics."

Utah, the Harem State

Since I've got another couple weeks before I get busy with the anime conventions, I decided to throw a suitcase into my 2002 Miata convertible and head out for a part of the U.S. I've not been to yet, starting with Utah. I've had a great time so far, spending the weekend hiking and riding horses through Zion Canyon National Park and taking pictures of breathtakingly beautiful mountains. I'm not used to experiencing culture shock in my own country, but I've encountered some in this somewhat unique U.S. state: last night I was in a pizza restaurant, mildly disappointed that the restaurant didn't serve beer...while a family sitting next to me was miffed that the restaurant offered no caffeine-free drinks other than water. When I brought this up with my Twitter followers, a Utah-born Japanese person pointed out that she experienced a similar kind of culture shock while visiting Japan, so I guess it goes both ways. Utah residents seem to have a good sense of humor about things, such as the locally brewed beer called Polygamy Porter (motto: "Why have just one?") or a restaurant that sold an ice cream treat called Never On a Sundae.

I'm having lots of fun in Utah.

Random Snacks from Japan @ J-List

J-List sells hundreds of fun snacks from Japan, some of which are almost guaranteed to make you say "What??" (which is kind of our goal). from do-it-yourself Pudding to famous March of the Koalas cookies to unique flavors of Cheetos from FritoLay Japan and Moko Moko Toilet Candy, our Japan snack lineup is always fun. Click here to see the top snacks from Japan today, as ranked by our customers!

Foreigners and First Names in Japan

One day I took my son out for a bowl of gyudon, steamed beef over rice, the most popular form of fast food in Japan. The restaurant was crowded, so I added my name to the list, writing "Peter" in the katakana writing system that's generally used for foreign names and loan words, and sat down to wait. "Everyone else wrote their last name," my son observed. "Why did you write your first name?" This was an interesting question, and I didn't have an answer for him right away. Ostensibly, names in Japan are written in family name, given name order, so someone named Taro Yamada in English would be Yamada Taro in Japanese. But by unwritten rule, Westerners always continue to use their name in the same order as they do back home. When I was a teacher, I was universally known as "Peter-sensei" by my students, never "Payne-sensei" as you'd expect. This probably has something to do with the innate "fun" of teachers of English (conversation) , since we're native English speakers and teach enjoyable lessons and don't give tests on grammar and vocabulary, unlike teachers of English (the actual academic subject). My students were basically on a first-name basis with "Peter-sensei," something that would be unthinkable for any of the other Japanese teachers, and this made it easier for me to reach them, I thought.

Foreigners in Japan often end up being called by their given name quite often.