Greetings from J-List February 28, 2003

Hello again from your friends in Japan!

Seen a certain way, the Japanese can appear quite superstitious. Certainly, there are many superstitions here that seem odd to foreigners, such as, don't cut your fingernails at night or you won't be able to be with your parents when they die, don't whistle at night or snakes will come and get you, and so on. Many of these beliefs come from Japan's death-oriented Buddhism -- it's bad luck to sleep with your head to the north ("kita makura"), as dead people about to be cremated are laid with their heads to the north. In this vein, there's a complex system of lucky and unlucky days according to a Buddhist calendar, with six different days that cycle throughout the month. It's good luck to get married or start construction on your home or take delivery of a car on the luckiest day (called Taian), but if you were to get married on the unlucky day (called Butsumetsu), you'd probably end up divorced and unhappy. Virtually all Japanese want to get married on Taian, and our own Kaori reserved the wedding hall of her choice over a year in advance in order to be able to get married on a Saturday that fell on this lucky day.

The six days, and their kanji meanings, are Sensho ("win first"), Tomobiki ("take away with"), Senpu ("lose first"), Butsumetsu ("Buddha's Death"), Taian ("Great Calm"), Shakkou ("Red Mouth"). Supposedly, it's lucky to do things in the morning on Sensho, but it's unlucky to do anything in the morning on Senpu -- wait til the afternoon instead on that day. Never have a funeral on Tomobiki, as the soul of the deceased will be taken away instead of staying near his loved ones. Butsumetsu is a general unlucky day, and virtually all Japanese avoid doing important things on this day. All of them, it seems, except my wife, who follows a totally different calendar, one that's part of Japan's Nichirenshu sect of Buddhism (don't ask me to tell you how this is different from other flavors of Buddhism, it's beyond me ^_^). In this alternate calendar system, Butsumetsu is often a very lucky day for her, and in fact Japanese are shocked to learn that my wife and I were married on "unlucky" Butsumetsu. It's been very lucky for us so far.

Japan has some interesting customs regarding the signing of official documents. When you sign a contract or other official document in Japan, you must remember to bring your name stamp ("hanko"), which is used in place of a signature as a way of verifying a person's agreement. In order to officially stamp something, you often need a "stamp proof of registration" paper which you get from the local city office, which proves that this specific stamp is registered to this specific person or company. The use of these stamps is somewhat puzzling to foreigners -- what's to stop someone from mugging you and stealing your stamp, then withdrawing all your money from the bank? For reasons that only the Japanese can probably understand, this nearly never happens. As the Japanese economy takes more queues from the outside world, credit cards are gaining in popularity; since the credit card system uses handwritten signatures as verification, the Japanese are of course familiar with western-style signatures, too.

We're about to do a server move for the J-List site. The server to be moved is the images server for the J-List site, so if there are any problems, images may stop displaying normally. We think things will go smoothly, but if you notice any problems please let us know right away. Thanks! The new server will bring more speed to J-List customers.

For the new update, we've got some excellent products from Japan for you. They include:

• First, we've got an extremely cool set of "Nostalgic SF Vehicle" toys, including the Eagle and Hawk from Space 1999, the submarine from Stingray, and other extremely cool toys from Konami
  
• For Gundam fans, we've got a really cool action figure of the original RX-78, loaded with accessories
  
• Also, for Eva collectors, a highly detailed Mass Production Eva from the End of Evangelion movie
  
• We've got a tremendously cool hardcover art book, Taccio the Angel, with artwork by Akira Toriyama, an acclaimed artists with lots of talent
  
• For fans of lovely Race Queens, see the superb MP Girls, a collection of nothing but the most beautiful and famous RQs in Japan today
  
• For fans of excellent anime from Japan, we have the new volume of She, The Ultimate Weapon (vol 4), complete with English subtitles! (region 2)
  
• We've got some great Japanese snack items in stock for you, including Japanese-style caramel corn, delicious traditional food items, and a rare treat, Cocoa flavored candies
  
• Also, we've gotten the last of this year's Melty Kiss chocolate fudge, a winter-only limited item, so if you wanted to order some, do so before they're gone
  
• We love the Blythe series from Takara, and have two new Pucchi Blythe dolls that are oh so fashionable
  
• We love to carry Star Wars items that aren't available outside the U.S., and we've got a great Young Jedi card series for collectors
  
• Hina Matsuri (Doll's Festival) is a day when girls are celebrated across Japan, complete with dolls that are displayed -- we've got some cute decorations to help you celebrate girl's day
  
• For Hello Kitty fans, some cute items including a Kitty portable phone that's very cute, as well as fresh stock of cool Kitty items such as the Hello Kitty USB hub (Kitty types on her little keyboard with you type on yours)
  
• For computers users, we've got a great "OA Brush" (OA stands for "office automation" in Japanese), great for cleaning your computer, keyboard etc
  
• We love wacky parody items, and have restocked a popular item, the Injection Ballpoint Pens, pens that look like injection needles
  
• Also, for those who want to try their hands at Japanese calligraphy, we've got a great set including everything you need
  
• The "Eki-ben" train station bento sold so well that we've restocked this popular item -- now you can own miniature versions of famous train station bento sold in Japan!
  
• Also, look for fresh stock of the very popular Japanese good luck charms, which bring general good luck, success in love, the ability to pass tests and more
  
• For Totoro plush fans, we've restocked the Large Totoro molded vinyl figure, as well as other Totoro related items
  
• Finally, find a super Japanese clothes hanger with 24 clips, fresh stock of Hamtaro items including fun foods for kids, Japanese origami paper, fresh stock of our "fude" Japanese brush pens, and more!
  

For our adult customers, we've got many new 18+ products. They include:

• First, we're fans of the photobook style magazines that are dedicated to one beautiful girl -- see the great Karami-style offering for fans of the lovely Eri Imai and go a lovely virtual date with her
  
• Also, we've got some great amateur magazines for fans of couples in love hotels, erotic cosplay and more
  
• We lovely the style of photography of kogals, the sexy, irresponsible generation of girls in Japan today -- see a great new magazine with DVD
  
• For photobook collectors, enjoy "Fantastico," a very erotic hardcover offering from Kyoko Tsujisawa (photographed by an Italian nude photographer)
  
• You will not believe the sexy body and legs of the models in "Playing," a sexy photobook filled with great shots of Japan's most famous Race Queens
  
• For fans of Japan's erotic manga, we've got some great new books for you, including the dynamite MIDARA, an erotic manga with lots of popular themes (including "naughty tentacles"), as well as a major restocking of popular manga volumes
  
• Also, we've restocked one of our own favorite items, the supremely erotic all-color manga Hanafuda, that is really cool
  
• For doujinshi collectors, look for fresh stock of doujinshi books based on She, The Ultimate Weapon and Tsukihime (Moon Princess)
  
• Also, for yaoi fans, we've got the superb "Rules" comic in stock, by Kana Miyamoto
  
• For our DVD fans, we've got some excellent items for you, starting with a super erotic DVD by Race Queen Akane Souma, a staggeringly beautiful woman (region free)
  
• Enjoy three complete video releases featuring the lovely Azusa Kyono, in a new "Blue File" DVD, three hours of her great sex! (region free)
  
• From Dogma, enjoy a festival of bukkake and sex starring the delightfully slutty Ami Nishimura (region free)
  
• From Soft on Demand, enjoy "I, Who Have Fallen into a Trap of Cock-Sucking," featuring four lovely AV girls who perform for you (region free)
  
• Natsumi Kawahama has been a huge star and very talented AV performer for nearly years -- she was at the top of her game when J-List started back in 1996. Now see a DVD featuring her best Soft on Demand works ever! (region free)
  
• The "Magic Mirror Bus" is Soft on Demand's mobile AV studio, and it features one-way mirrors so people can do anything with the outside world visible through the glass -- now see a great "Best of Magic Mirror" with many naughty amateur girls, courtesy of SOD's Deep's label (region free)
  
• For fans of expertly acted high-end lesbian sex, we recommend the Queer series, featuring some of the most dedicated lesbian sex to be found in Japan -- and we've got a great new volume for you (region free)
  
• Finally, fresh stock of several nice DVD items, including all Yuko Ogura titles!
  

Remember that J-List carries the really popular girls of Eastern Europe and Russia, including busty bombshell Yulia Nova, the girls of the Czech Republic, and one of the most popular items to come along in a while, Gold Bird, the nude gymnastics of Romania's actual Olympic Gymnastics team. (Supposedly this caused quite a stir back in Romania.) Check out all the great items we have!

Remember that J-List carries excellent magazine by our "reserve subscription." This means that you can get great anime, JPOP, fashion and other magazines sent to you as soon as the new issue is out in Japan -- a few days earlier than newsstands receive them here, in fact. We recommend great items like Young Magazine Uppers, a superb manga magazine that features Shirow Masamune's great posters in special issues as well as great comic art from some of Japan's best manga-ka (manga artists). Payment through any method is fine (credit card, Paypal, check or money order) and you can stop your subscription at any time.

Greetings from J-List February 28, 2003

Hello again from your friends in Japan!

Seen a certain way, the Japanese can appear quite superstitious. Certainly, there are many superstitions here that seem odd to foreigners, such as, don't cut your fingernails at night or you won't be able to be with your parents when they die, don't whistle at night or snakes will come and get you, and so on. Many of these beliefs come from Japan's death-oriented Buddhism -- it's bad luck to sleep with your head to the north ("kita makura"), as dead people about to be cremated are laid with their heads to the north. In this vein, there's a complex system of lucky and unlucky days according to a Buddhist calendar, with six different days that cycle throughout the month. It's good luck to get married or start construction on your home or take delivery of a car on the luckiest day (called Taian), but if you were to get married on the unlucky day (called Butsumetsu), you'd probably end up divorced and unhappy. Virtually all Japanese want to get married on Taian, and our own Kaori reserved the wedding hall of her choice over a year in advance in order to be able to get married on a Saturday that fell on this lucky day.

The six days, and their kanji meanings, are Sensho ("win first"), Tomobiki ("take away with"), Senpu ("lose first"), Butsumetsu ("Buddha's Death"), Taian ("Great Calm"), Shakkou ("Red Mouth"). Supposedly, it's lucky to do things in the morning on Sensho, but it's unlucky to do anything in the morning on Senpu -- wait til the afternoon instead on that day. Never have a funeral on Tomobiki, as the soul of the deceased will be taken away instead of staying near his loved ones. Butsumetsu is a general unlucky day, and virtually all Japanese avoid doing important things on this day. All of them, it seems, except my wife, who follows a totally different calendar, one that's part of Japan's Nichirenshu sect of Buddhism (don't ask me to tell you how this is different from other flavors of Buddhism, it's beyond me ^_^). In this alternate calendar system, Butsumetsu is often a very lucky day for her, and in fact Japanese are shocked to learn that my wife and I were married on "unlucky" Butsumetsu. It's been very lucky for us so far.

Japan has some interesting customs regarding the signing of official documents. When you sign a contract or other official document in Japan, you must remember to bring your name stamp ("hanko"), which is used in place of a signature as a way of verifying a person's agreement. In order to officially stamp something, you often need a "stamp proof of registration" paper which you get from the local city office, which proves that this specific stamp is registered to this specific person or company. The use of these stamps is somewhat puzzling to foreigners -- what's to stop someone from mugging you and stealing your stamp, then withdrawing all your money from the bank? For reasons that only the Japanese can probably understand, this nearly never happens. As the Japanese economy takes more queues from the outside world, credit cards are gaining in popularity; since the credit card system uses handwritten signatures as verification, the Japanese are of course familiar with western-style signatures, too.

We're about to do a server move for the J-List site. The server to be moved is the images server for the J-List site, so if there are any problems, images may stop displaying normally. We think things will go smoothly, but if you notice any problems please let us know right away. Thanks! The new server will bring more speed to J-List customers.

For the new update, we've got some excellent products from Japan for you. They include:

• First, we've got an extremely cool set of "Nostalgic SF Vehicle" toys, including the Eagle and Hawk from Space 1999, the submarine from Stingray, and other extremely cool toys from Konami
  
• For Gundam fans, we've got a really cool action figure of the original RX-78, loaded with accessories
  
• Also, for Eva collectors, a highly detailed Mass Production Eva from the End of Evangelion movie
  
• We've got a tremendously cool hardcover art book, Taccio the Angel, with artwork by Akira Toriyama, an acclaimed artists with lots of talent
  
• For fans of lovely Race Queens, see the superb MP Girls, a collection of nothing but the most beautiful and famous RQs in Japan today
  
• For fans of excellent anime from Japan, we have the new volume of She, The Ultimate Weapon (vol 4), complete with English subtitles! (region 2)
  
• We've got some great Japanese snack items in stock for you, including Japanese-style caramel corn, delicious traditional food items, and a rare treat, Cocoa flavored candies
  
• Also, we've gotten the last of this year's Melty Kiss chocolate fudge, a winter-only limited item, so if you wanted to order some, do so before they're gone
  
• We love the Blythe series from Takara, and have two new Pucchi Blythe dolls that are oh so fashionable
  
• We love to carry Star Wars items that aren't available outside the U.S., and we've got a great Young Jedi card series for collectors
  
• Hina Matsuri (Doll's Festival) is a day when girls are celebrated across Japan, complete with dolls that are displayed -- we've got some cute decorations to help you celebrate girl's day
  
• For Hello Kitty fans, some cute items including a Kitty portable phone that's very cute, as well as fresh stock of cool Kitty items such as the Hello Kitty USB hub (Kitty types on her little keyboard with you type on yours)
  
• For computers users, we've got a great "OA Brush" (OA stands for "office automation" in Japanese), great for cleaning your computer, keyboard etc
  
• We love wacky parody items, and have restocked a popular item, the Injection Ballpoint Pens, pens that look like injection needles
  
• Also, for those who want to try their hands at Japanese calligraphy, we've got a great set including everything you need
  
• The "Eki-ben" train station bento sold so well that we've restocked this popular item -- now you can own miniature versions of famous train station bento sold in Japan!
  
• Also, look for fresh stock of the very popular Japanese good luck charms, which bring general good luck, success in love, the ability to pass tests and more
  
• For Totoro plush fans, we've restocked the Large Totoro molded vinyl figure, as well as other Totoro related items
  
• Finally, find a super Japanese clothes hanger with 24 clips, fresh stock of Hamtaro items including fun foods for kids, Japanese origami paper, fresh stock of our "fude" Japanese brush pens, and more!
  

For our adult customers, we've got many new 18+ products. They include:

• First, we're fans of the photobook style magazines that are dedicated to one beautiful girl -- see the great Karami-style offering for fans of the lovely Eri Imai and go a lovely virtual date with her
  
• Also, we've got some great amateur magazines for fans of couples in love hotels, erotic cosplay and more
  
• We lovely the style of photography of kogals, the sexy, irresponsible generation of girls in Japan today -- see a great new magazine with DVD
  
• For photobook collectors, enjoy "Fantastico," a very erotic hardcover offering from Kyoko Tsujisawa (photographed by an Italian nude photographer)
  
• You will not believe the sexy body and legs of the models in "Playing," a sexy photobook filled with great shots of Japan's most famous Race Queens
  
• For fans of Japan's erotic manga, we've got some great new books for you, including the dynamite MIDARA, an erotic manga with lots of popular themes (including "naughty tentacles"), as well as a major restocking of popular manga volumes
  
• Also, we've restocked one of our own favorite items, the supremely erotic all-color manga Hanafuda, that is really cool
  
• For doujinshi collectors, look for fresh stock of doujinshi books based on She, The Ultimate Weapon and Tsukihime (Moon Princess)
  
• Also, for yaoi fans, we've got the superb "Rules" comic in stock, by Kana Miyamoto
  
• For our DVD fans, we've got some excellent items for you, starting with a super erotic DVD by Race Queen Akane Souma, a staggeringly beautiful woman (region free)
  
• Enjoy three complete video releases featuring the lovely Azusa Kyono, in a new "Blue File" DVD, three hours of her great sex! (region free)
  
• From Dogma, enjoy a festival of bukkake and sex starring the delightfully slutty Ami Nishimura (region free)
  
• From Soft on Demand, enjoy "I, Who Have Fallen into a Trap of Cock-Sucking," featuring four lovely AV girls who perform for you (region free)
  
• Natsumi Kawahama has been a huge star and very talented AV performer for nearly years -- she was at the top of her game when J-List started back in 1996. Now see a DVD featuring her best Soft on Demand works ever! (region free)
  
• The "Magic Mirror Bus" is Soft on Demand's mobile AV studio, and it features one-way mirrors so people can do anything with the outside world visible through the glass -- now see a great "Best of Magic Mirror" with many naughty amateur girls, courtesy of SOD's Deep's label (region free)
  
• For fans of expertly acted high-end lesbian sex, we recommend the Queer series, featuring some of the most dedicated lesbian sex to be found in Japan -- and we've got a great new volume for you (region free)
  
• Finally, fresh stock of several nice DVD items, including all Yuko Ogura titles!
  

Remember that J-List carries the really popular girls of Eastern Europe and Russia, including busty bombshell Yulia Nova, the girls of the Czech Republic, and one of the most popular items to come along in a while, Gold Bird, the nude gymnastics of Romania's actual Olympic Gymnastics team. (Supposedly this caused quite a stir back in Romania.) Check out all the great items we have!

Remember that J-List carries excellent magazine by our "reserve subscription." This means that you can get great anime, JPOP, fashion and other magazines sent to you as soon as the new issue is out in Japan -- a few days earlier than newsstands receive them here, in fact. We recommend great items like Young Magazine Uppers, a superb manga magazine that features Shirow Masamune's great posters in special issues as well as great comic art from some of Japan's best manga-ka (manga artists). Payment through any method is fine (credit card, Paypal, check or money order) and you can stop your subscription at any time.

Greetings from J-List February 26, 2003

Hello again from Japan, the home of tako-yaki, a delicious ball of batter with octopus inside.

Beer is the preferred drink for Japanese after a hard day of work, and the Japanese beer market is always a busy place, with market leader Kirin defending strong challenges by Asahi and Japan's smaller breweries. The market has undergone many changes since the emergence of happo-shu, a kind of beer that is made slightly differently than normal beer, although I don't understand the difference at all (happo-shu just tastes like beer to me, and the alcohol content is the same -- I think the amount of hops used is different). Because the taxes on happo-shu are much lower than on beer, it's much cheaper for consumers, and this has sparked a price war that has brought the prices of virtually all alcoholic beverages down to as much as half what they were a few years ago, contributing to Japan's ongoing deflationary spiral. Every few months a new "limited" beer is released, like Sapporo's "A Winter's Tale" beer (sold only in the winter) or Kirin's "Sakura Beer" (supposedly brewed specially for enjoying flower-viewing in the spring). The newest gimmick is "Sparking Beer" which contains extra CO2 for an extra fizzy taste. It's actually pretty good.

Although Sumo is the official national sport of Japan, receiving special status from the Japanese government, the hearts of Japanese sports fans belongs to good old American baseball. There are twelve teams in Japan, organized into the central and pacific leagues. Teams often carry the names of the companies that own them, such as Yomiuri Giants (owned by the Yomiuri Newspaper Company), the Seibu Lions (Seibu is a department store that has a big sale when their team wins), and Yakult Swallows (Yakult is a popular yogurt drink). The strongest team in Japanese baseball is the Giants, which was led by the most famous man in Japanese baseball history, Shigeo Nagashima, until he retired in 2001. One thing about the Japanese -- they are tickled to death when one of their own attains fame outside Japan, so they're very happy to see players like Sakaki, Ichiro and Matsui active in the U.S. If you go to a Japanese baseball game, you might be surprised to see how organized the fans are. At Swallows games, fans bring a blue umbrella and do a traditional dance called the Tokyo Ondo at the bottom of the 7th inning. At Tigers games in Osaka, fans blow up balloons and release them into the air at the same time, also at the bottom of the 7th. Japanese teams hire foreigners (usually scouted from minor leagues) to help their teams, but they're only allowed to play two foreigners in any game, a limit that teams honor to maintain the "Japaneseness" of the sport. Although Baseball was imported from the USA, it was considered "unpatriotic" to use English during World War II. As a result, virtually all the terms used in baseball are archaic kanji derivatives (i.e. "one death" in place of "one out").

Do you have a cat's tongue? If so, it means that you can't eat hot food or drink hot drinks, just like a cat. The Japanese say that anyone who avoids hot food has a cat's tongue (neko jita). What is you have lazy eye? If so, then you are "rom-pari" which is Japanese for "Rome, Paris" -- i.e. one eye is looking at Rome and the other is looking at Paris. If you're thinning on top, you might have "bar code hair," as the Japanese say. Opening a bag of chips along its spine, so that the bag is spread out with the chips sitting on top, is called "omanko ake" (oh-MAHN-ko AH-kay), which literally means "to open so that it resembles the female private region." And if you sneeze, the Japanese say that someone must be gossiping about you (this comes up in anime quite often).

For the new update, we've got some excellent products from Japan for you. They include:

• First, we've got stock of an extremely cool item, the World Tank Museum series 3, featuring famous tanks, military vehicles and planes from World War II -- they're so small and fun to play with!
  
• for fans of Chobits, the anime and manga from CLAMP about a future where personal computers are really beautiful girl-robots, we've got a superb line of new trading cards
  
• We've got a great new hardcover photobook for Yuko Ogura lovers, filled with some of the cutest pictures of this amazing girl we've ever seen
  
• Also, be sure and check out the lovely new photobook offering of Yoko Matsugane, a very popular swimsuit idol with an H cup
  
• For Cutey Honey fans, a rare item: a great Cutey Honey Encyclopedia, with tons of information and pictures on the long-running anime
  
• If you love Shirow Masamune, we've got the new Ghost in the Shell anime TV series DVD in stock, vol. 3 (region 2)
  
• Also proving very popular, the pre-order for the Studio Ghibli movie Only Yesterday, which will be shipping on DVD March 7th, complete with English subtitles!
  
• For fans of Japanese snacks and food, we've got some great items for you, including delicious traditional fruit candies, dried salmon to put on your rice, and delicious melting wafers from Lotte
  
• Also, fresh stock of popular items including miso soup, Hiroshima style Ochazuke mix, and Mill Make coffee milk powder (which is drank by 100% of elementary school kids in Japan)
  
• Also, a dynamite toy + candy item from Glico capturing the toys and daily objects of the Showa period, a great item for fans of miniature toys from Japan
  
• For Godzilla fans, two great toys from the Godzilla 2003 movie, a beautiful classic Godzilla toy and Mecha Godzilla for him to battle with
  
• We stock lots of cute things from Japan, and we've got some new ones for you including super cute Hello Kitty items and cute things with funny English on them
  
• Also, for bento fans, we've got new and restocked bento and chopstick items for you, if you want to try out some authentic Japanese boxed lunch
  
• Studying Japanese? We recommend the excellent Love Hina Bilingual Comics, which we've restocked
  
• Also, we've got some great traditional items from Japan for you too, including a really nifty traditional Japanese soup bowl and mat set
  
• Finally look for a great way to clean your tongue, a cute "Peach Boy" string extender for lamps, a handy way to clean oil from your face, and more!
  

For our adult customers, we've got many new 18+ products. They include:

• For lovers of beautiful Japanese magazines, we've got the new issues of Penthouse Japan and Penthouse Special, which feature only Japanese gals photographed by Japanese photographers
  
• Also, we've got some great amateur magazines that feature real Japanese couples in love hotels
  
• For photobook fans, we've got some great items for you, which you should not miss, including fresh stock of Maiko Kazano's dynamite XTC photobook
  
• If you love the former Race Queen Manami Suzuki, who quit her former to career to act in adult films, enjoy her super sexy Diva photobook/magazine issue
  
• For hentai manga fans, we've got another excellent volley of erotic comics for you, including Takashi Kawakami's "Wait Until It's Dark"
  
• Also, enjoy a huge restocking of great hentai manga including the Pururun Seminar series, Slave White Paper, Jet Boss and more!
  
• Also, we've got a great treat for doujinshi lovers -- a great volley of erotic books, all brand new and just beautiful
  
• For DVD collectors, we've got lots of great items for you, starting with the lovely "lesbian bukkake" of Hitomi Hayasaka and Saori Kamiya (region free)
  
• Then enjoy 200 minutes of fabulous hardcore by one of our favorite AV actresses, the sultry Ran Asakawa (region free)
  
• For high-end leg and stocking fetishistst, we've got a superb new item which focuses on feet and stockinged toes (region free)
  
• SOD founder Ganari Takahashi has been the source of many of their most wacky and fun productions. Now you can see all his works on a new compilation DVD, from All Nude Sports to Female Cat Fight and more! (region free)
  
• AD (Assistant Director) Haruna of Soft on Demand's Chujitsudoh label shows the best lesbian kissing you will ever see, going up against big names in a new Lesbian Kiss Battle Royale (region free)
  
• Enjoy the erotic "Pussy and Hip" of Akira Watase in a dynamite new release from Moodyz (region 2)
  
• For collectors of hentai DVDs, see Let's Go Marine-chan! vol 1 and 2 in stock now
  
• For fans of the English-language hentai DVDs we carry from San Diego, enjoy a major restocking of some of our most popular titles, all in English and uncensored (region 1)
  
• Also, see many restocked erotic DVDs such as the popular Gold Bird and Euro Angel, fresh stock of Sally Yoshino and Bunko Kanazawa offerings, and more!
  

J-List carries many delicious snack items, and one of our favorites is Pocky. Pocky is basically a straight pretzel stick covered with delicious chocolate, strawberry, matcha cream, or just about anything else. It was introduced by the Glico food company and is a major "category killer" in the Japanese market, often imitated but never bested. J-List carries an excellent selection of Pocky flavors for you to enjoy, so please see our excellent selection (if you buy 10 or more boxes of one type, you get a 15% discount). Please note that we can't carry Pocky and similar chocolate products in the summer, due to the heat and humidity in Japan. We'll be closing out our selection of Pocky when it starts to get warm. Why not order some today?

Greetings from J-List February 26, 2003

Hello again from Japan, the home of tako-yaki, a delicious ball of batter with octopus inside.

Beer is the preferred drink for Japanese after a hard day of work, and the Japanese beer market is always a busy place, with market leader Kirin defending strong challenges by Asahi and Japan's smaller breweries. The market has undergone many changes since the emergence of happo-shu, a kind of beer that is made slightly differently than normal beer, although I don't understand the difference at all (happo-shu just tastes like beer to me, and the alcohol content is the same -- I think the amount of hops used is different). Because the taxes on happo-shu are much lower than on beer, it's much cheaper for consumers, and this has sparked a price war that has brought the prices of virtually all alcoholic beverages down to as much as half what they were a few years ago, contributing to Japan's ongoing deflationary spiral. Every few months a new "limited" beer is released, like Sapporo's "A Winter's Tale" beer (sold only in the winter) or Kirin's "Sakura Beer" (supposedly brewed specially for enjoying flower-viewing in the spring). The newest gimmick is "Sparking Beer" which contains extra CO2 for an extra fizzy taste. It's actually pretty good.

Although Sumo is the official national sport of Japan, receiving special status from the Japanese government, the hearts of Japanese sports fans belongs to good old American baseball. There are twelve teams in Japan, organized into the central and pacific leagues. Teams often carry the names of the companies that own them, such as Yomiuri Giants (owned by the Yomiuri Newspaper Company), the Seibu Lions (Seibu is a department store that has a big sale when their team wins), and Yakult Swallows (Yakult is a popular yogurt drink). The strongest team in Japanese baseball is the Giants, which was led by the most famous man in Japanese baseball history, Shigeo Nagashima, until he retired in 2001. One thing about the Japanese -- they are tickled to death when one of their own attains fame outside Japan, so they're very happy to see players like Sakaki, Ichiro and Matsui active in the U.S. If you go to a Japanese baseball game, you might be surprised to see how organized the fans are. At Swallows games, fans bring a blue umbrella and do a traditional dance called the Tokyo Ondo at the bottom of the 7th inning. At Tigers games in Osaka, fans blow up balloons and release them into the air at the same time, also at the bottom of the 7th. Japanese teams hire foreigners (usually scouted from minor leagues) to help their teams, but they're only allowed to play two foreigners in any game, a limit that teams honor to maintain the "Japaneseness" of the sport. Although Baseball was imported from the USA, it was considered "unpatriotic" to use English during World War II. As a result, virtually all the terms used in baseball are archaic kanji derivatives (i.e. "one death" in place of "one out").

Do you have a cat's tongue? If so, it means that you can't eat hot food or drink hot drinks, just like a cat. The Japanese say that anyone who avoids hot food has a cat's tongue (neko jita). What is you have lazy eye? If so, then you are "rom-pari" which is Japanese for "Rome, Paris" -- i.e. one eye is looking at Rome and the other is looking at Paris. If you're thinning on top, you might have "bar code hair," as the Japanese say. Opening a bag of chips along its spine, so that the bag is spread out with the chips sitting on top, is called "omanko ake" (oh-MAHN-ko AH-kay), which literally means "to open so that it resembles the female private region." And if you sneeze, the Japanese say that someone must be gossiping about you (this comes up in anime quite often).

For the new update, we've got some excellent products from Japan for you. They include:

• First, we've got stock of an extremely cool item, the World Tank Museum series 3, featuring famous tanks, military vehicles and planes from World War II -- they're so small and fun to play with!
  
• for fans of Chobits, the anime and manga from CLAMP about a future where personal computers are really beautiful girl-robots, we've got a superb line of new trading cards
  
• We've got a great new hardcover photobook for Yuko Ogura lovers, filled with some of the cutest pictures of this amazing girl we've ever seen
  
• Also, be sure and check out the lovely new photobook offering of Yoko Matsugane, a very popular swimsuit idol with an H cup
  
• For Cutey Honey fans, a rare item: a great Cutey Honey Encyclopedia, with tons of information and pictures on the long-running anime
  
• If you love Shirow Masamune, we've got the new Ghost in the Shell anime TV series DVD in stock, vol. 3 (region 2)
  
• Also proving very popular, the pre-order for the Studio Ghibli movie Only Yesterday, which will be shipping on DVD March 7th, complete with English subtitles!
  
• For fans of Japanese snacks and food, we've got some great items for you, including delicious traditional fruit candies, dried salmon to put on your rice, and delicious melting wafers from Lotte
  
• Also, fresh stock of popular items including miso soup, Hiroshima style Ochazuke mix, and Mill Make coffee milk powder (which is drank by 100% of elementary school kids in Japan)
  
• Also, a dynamite toy + candy item from Glico capturing the toys and daily objects of the Showa period, a great item for fans of miniature toys from Japan
  
• For Godzilla fans, two great toys from the Godzilla 2003 movie, a beautiful classic Godzilla toy and Mecha Godzilla for him to battle with
  
• We stock lots of cute things from Japan, and we've got some new ones for you including super cute Hello Kitty items and cute things with funny English on them
  
• Also, for bento fans, we've got new and restocked bento and chopstick items for you, if you want to try out some authentic Japanese boxed lunch
  
• Studying Japanese? We recommend the excellent Love Hina Bilingual Comics, which we've restocked
  
• Also, we've got some great traditional items from Japan for you too, including a really nifty traditional Japanese soup bowl and mat set
  
• Finally look for a great way to clean your tongue, a cute "Peach Boy" string extender for lamps, a handy way to clean oil from your face, and more!
  

For our adult customers, we've got many new 18+ products. They include:

• For lovers of beautiful Japanese magazines, we've got the new issues of Penthouse Japan and Penthouse Special, which feature only Japanese gals photographed by Japanese photographers
  
• Also, we've got some great amateur magazines that feature real Japanese couples in love hotels
  
• For photobook fans, we've got some great items for you, which you should not miss, including fresh stock of Maiko Kazano's dynamite XTC photobook
  
• If you love the former Race Queen Manami Suzuki, who quit her former to career to act in adult films, enjoy her super sexy Diva photobook/magazine issue
  
• For hentai manga fans, we've got another excellent volley of erotic comics for you, including Takashi Kawakami's "Wait Until It's Dark"
  
• Also, enjoy a huge restocking of great hentai manga including the Pururun Seminar series, Slave White Paper, Jet Boss and more!
  
• Also, we've got a great treat for doujinshi lovers -- a great volley of erotic books, all brand new and just beautiful
  
• For DVD collectors, we've got lots of great items for you, starting with the lovely "lesbian bukkake" of Hitomi Hayasaka and Saori Kamiya (region free)
  
• Then enjoy 200 minutes of fabulous hardcore by one of our favorite AV actresses, the sultry Ran Asakawa (region free)
  
• For high-end leg and stocking fetishistst, we've got a superb new item which focuses on feet and stockinged toes (region free)
  
• SOD founder Ganari Takahashi has been the source of many of their most wacky and fun productions. Now you can see all his works on a new compilation DVD, from All Nude Sports to Female Cat Fight and more! (region free)
  
• AD (Assistant Director) Haruna of Soft on Demand's Chujitsudoh label shows the best lesbian kissing you will ever see, going up against big names in a new Lesbian Kiss Battle Royale (region free)
  
• Enjoy the erotic "Pussy and Hip" of Akira Watase in a dynamite new release from Moodyz (region 2)
  
• For collectors of hentai DVDs, see Let's Go Marine-chan! vol 1 and 2 in stock now
  
• For fans of the English-language hentai DVDs we carry from San Diego, enjoy a major restocking of some of our most popular titles, all in English and uncensored (region 1)
  
• Also, see many restocked erotic DVDs such as the popular Gold Bird and Euro Angel, fresh stock of Sally Yoshino and Bunko Kanazawa offerings, and more!
  

J-List carries many delicious snack items, and one of our favorites is Pocky. Pocky is basically a straight pretzel stick covered with delicious chocolate, strawberry, matcha cream, or just about anything else. It was introduced by the Glico food company and is a major "category killer" in the Japanese market, often imitated but never bested. J-List carries an excellent selection of Pocky flavors for you to enjoy, so please see our excellent selection (if you buy 10 or more boxes of one type, you get a 15% discount). Please note that we can't carry Pocky and similar chocolate products in the summer, due to the heat and humidity in Japan. We'll be closing out our selection of Pocky when it starts to get warm. Why not order some today?

Greetings from J-List February 24, 2003

Hello again from your friends in Japan!

In general, when movies are released in Japan, there's a gap of a few months, which can be agonizing if you're a gaijin trapped in Japan, waiting for a movie you want to see that's being shown back home. The second Lord of the Rings film has finally opened here, so although I'd already seen it in December in San Diego, I took the family to see it again. Since it costs $18 for adults and $10 for children to see movies in Japan, you can tell I'm a pretty big Tolkien fan. When I was a child, I lived for a year in New Zealand, and have many fond memories from there. Perhaps that's part of why I enjoy the films so much...

The Japanese love movies, and many Japanese follow Hollywood and European films quite closely. Virtually all American films are shown over here, and they do very well (Titanic did 30% of its gross in Japan). American films must be translated into Japanese, and this can take time, which causes delays in the release schedules. Studios who want to have a successful film run in Japan make sure they get their films translated by the #1 movie transltor, Natsuko Toda, who is so in demand that she basically determines what movies Japanese people see and when, based on what movies she chooses to translate. In the case of Lord of the Rings, though (the Japanese title for which sounds like "Road of the Ring" to Japanese fans, unfortunately), the choice of Toda for the translation of the Rings movies may have been a mistake, because of her lack of familiarity with the books, either the English originals or Japanese translations. As a result, there are several mis-translations and errors in the movies. Japanese fans are really upset about the errors, and are taking their case to Peter Jackson directly. Even my wife said that she had to stop reading the subtitles and listen to the movie in English to follow the story line.

There's one problem for movies for kids in Japan -- Japanese children are too young to read the subtitles, so movies like Star Wars and Lord of the Rings are shown in two versions, one subtitled and the other dubbed. When we saw The Two Towers, my kids were the only children in the entire packed theater, since they can understand the English -- all the other kids were in the dubbed version next door. One interesting aspect of the Japanese watching a film via subtitles -- a Hollywood thriller and say, a French art film are both grouped together, since the Japanese are getting information through the subtitles and are not understanding the spoken lines in the film. Thus, films that might not get attention in the U.S. because they are "foreign" and have to be watched through subtitles, can have greater success in Japan.

At J-List, we love finding really cool thing to bring you from all over the world. One cool item we feel strongly about are the very bright LED lights that are so handy to have, and now we sell the best light ever made, the Micro Light X-Light. Featuring an excellent design, incredibly bright LEDs, a strong polycarbonate case and long battery life, we're happy to carry all four colors of these handy lights from our San Diego warehouse. I've personally used many of these lights and can truly say that the X-Light is the best that has ever been made.

For the new update, we've got some excellent products from Japan for you. They include:

• First, we've got a really cool miniature toy item that's guaranteed to make you feel "natsukashii" (nostalgic) about Japan even if you never lived here -- a meticulously designed school desk from the Showa era, with everything Japanese kids know from their childhoods
  
• For fans of fun Japanese snacks and food, enjoy many unique items today, including tandori chicken flavored Chip Star (like Pringles), delicious strawberry milk chocolate, and a great new flavor of Pretz -- milk & cocoa
  
• Also, an old favorite that goes great with beer, spicy rice crackers and peanuts, called "kaki no tane" in Japanese (which means "persimmon seeds" since they're the same shape)
  
• Japan's swimsuit idols are fabulous -- and the shining star of Japanese idols is Yuko Ogura, the super-pretty angel in a bikini. Now we've got a dynamite photobook + DVD combination item for her fans!
  
• Also, a superb hardcover photobook featuring Sayaka Isoyama, with incredibly beautiful photographs and printing
  
• Also, see fresh stock of several great Race Queen and idol items, including Yoko Matsugane's popular hardcover photobook
  
• We love the new crazy and funny Japanese TV that's being released on DVD, complete with English subtitles -- enjoy Grasshoppa vol. 1, a series of incredibly funny short films by some of Japan's top creators (region 2)
  
• For fans of the only-sold-in-Japan Hot Wheels, enjoy fresh stock of some of our most popular items, including the Delorean III from Back to the Future part III, the Night Rider Kitt 2000 and one of my favorites, the Mach 5 from Speed Racer
  
• Also, for Macross fans, we've got limited stock of the sold-out red and blue Valkyries from the 1983 series
  
• If you like Blythe, the excellent dolls from Takara based on the fashions of the 1970's, we've got fresh stock of the "Paisley Star" doll
  
• We've got some fun new Hello Kitty items for you, including a Kitty portable phone, a Kitty notebook, and fresh stock of some popular items
  
• For Tokyo Mew Mew fans, we've also got a fun "free notebook" in stock for you
  
• We love Japanese study items and stationary goods, and we've got a fun item for you -- wacky Japanese erasers that do things like change color when you erase when them!
  
• Something that's all the rage in Japan these days, we've got a Paper Stitch Lock, an advanced devices that "stitches" sheets of paper securely together so you never need to use staples -- it's fun and so convenient!
  
• For anime fans, see the beautiful cold cast statue of Serio from To Heart, just beautiful
  
• Also, for fans of Inuyasha, we've got a super cute character keychain/phone strap
  
• For bento fans, see fresh stock of several items, including the fish soy sauce bottles, chopsticks, and more
  
• Finally, look for super cute "Pop Animal" magnets for your refrigerator, a super handy wallet with key holder built into it, a fun way to keep your PET bottle cool, a cool Edo style coin bank, and more!
  

For our adult customers, we've got many new 18+ products. They include:

• For fans of Japan's excellent adult magazines, enjoy the new Gokuh, filled with fabulous adult AV idols from Japan like Nao Hirosue, Maiko Kazano, and Shinobu Kasagi
  
• Also, we've got some great hardcore magazines like Gotcha, which features beautiful Japanese girls in love hotels
  
• The beautiful Maiko Kazano is one of the most lovely nude idols in all Japan -- enjoy her fabulous new photobook offering featuring some incredible pictures of her!
  
• Also, see fresh stock of other popular photobooks, including the delicious Kyoko Ayana's "Delicious" photobook
  
• Look for MPEG Typhoon, a great magazine and video CD combo item loaded with sample "quickies"
  
• For fans of excellent adult manga from Japan, we've got several great new titles for you including Tag, a great story by Suehirogari about a girl who is "tagged" through magic, forcing her to go totally naked until she can "tag" another girl and remove the curse
  
• Also, a superb new offering from Kurenai Azuki, the Equation of the Immoral
  
• Also, a great treat for fans of hentai Evangelion doujinshi, a new Next Climax Magazine from Okachimentaiko, with 100+ pages of dynamite all-Eva material
  
• We just love Yui Toshiki's Yui Shop series, and we've gotten in a major restocking of all three volumes, including the very popular vol. 3!
  
• For DVD fans, enjoy many new titles, starting with a superb "The Idol" release featuring three complete releases with Yuki Kotono, a pure and lovely Japanese girl that we recommend (region free)
  
• We love the Adult Video Wrestling series from Kings Video, and now enjoy a new 120 minute AVW special featuring men and women who really put on a great show -- who will be the victors? (region free)
  
• Akira Watase has a huge following of fans at J-List, and now you can see her in another great release, the newest in Tohjiro's Restrictive Chair Trance series from Dogma (region free)
  
• For fans of the fetish known as "black bukkake" -- a Japanese girl being handled roughly by a roomful of big, black men from Los Angeles -- see the newest release with Aimi Yoshii (region 2)
  

Remember that two great love-sim game collections, JAST USA Memorial Collection and the Milky House Memorial Collection, are going to be shipping soon (they're at the duplicators being reproduced right now). The JAST Memorial title gives you JAST USA's three best-selling games -- Three Sisters' Story, Runaway City and my own favorite, Season of the Sakura -- on one CD-ROM, with a super updated engine that's fully compatible with Windows XP and 2000. The new features, like anti-aliased graphics and resampled music tracks, really add to these superb games. The Milky House Memorial set gives you Nocturnal Illusions, May Club and the original Borderline CG collection. Preorder them now and get free shipping when they're ready in a few weeks!

Greetings from J-List February 24, 2003

Hello again from your friends in Japan!

In general, when movies are released in Japan, there's a gap of a few months, which can be agonizing if you're a gaijin trapped in Japan, waiting for a movie you want to see that's being shown back home. The second Lord of the Rings film has finally opened here, so although I'd already seen it in December in San Diego, I took the family to see it again. Since it costs $18 for adults and $10 for children to see movies in Japan, you can tell I'm a pretty big Tolkien fan. When I was a child, I lived for a year in New Zealand, and have many fond memories from there. Perhaps that's part of why I enjoy the films so much...

The Japanese love movies, and many Japanese follow Hollywood and European films quite closely. Virtually all American films are shown over here, and they do very well (Titanic did 30% of its gross in Japan). American films must be translated into Japanese, and this can take time, which causes delays in the release schedules. Studios who want to have a successful film run in Japan make sure they get their films translated by the #1 movie transltor, Natsuko Toda, who is so in demand that she basically determines what movies Japanese people see and when, based on what movies she chooses to translate. In the case of Lord of the Rings, though (the Japanese title for which sounds like "Road of the Ring" to Japanese fans, unfortunately), the choice of Toda for the translation of the Rings movies may have been a mistake, because of her lack of familiarity with the books, either the English originals or Japanese translations. As a result, there are several mis-translations and errors in the movies. Japanese fans are really upset about the errors, and are taking their case to Peter Jackson directly. Even my wife said that she had to stop reading the subtitles and listen to the movie in English to follow the story line.

There's one problem for movies for kids in Japan -- Japanese children are too young to read the subtitles, so movies like Star Wars and Lord of the Rings are shown in two versions, one subtitled and the other dubbed. When we saw The Two Towers, my kids were the only children in the entire packed theater, since they can understand the English -- all the other kids were in the dubbed version next door. One interesting aspect of the Japanese watching a film via subtitles -- a Hollywood thriller and say, a French art film are both grouped together, since the Japanese are getting information through the subtitles and are not understanding the spoken lines in the film. Thus, films that might not get attention in the U.S. because they are "foreign" and have to be watched through subtitles, can have greater success in Japan.

At J-List, we love finding really cool thing to bring you from all over the world. One cool item we feel strongly about are the very bright LED lights that are so handy to have, and now we sell the best light ever made, the Micro Light X-Light. Featuring an excellent design, incredibly bright LEDs, a strong polycarbonate case and long battery life, we're happy to carry all four colors of these handy lights from our San Diego warehouse. I've personally used many of these lights and can truly say that the X-Light is the best that has ever been made.

For the new update, we've got some excellent products from Japan for you. They include:

• First, we've got a really cool miniature toy item that's guaranteed to make you feel "natsukashii" (nostalgic) about Japan even if you never lived here -- a meticulously designed school desk from the Showa era, with everything Japanese kids know from their childhoods
  
• For fans of fun Japanese snacks and food, enjoy many unique items today, including tandori chicken flavored Chip Star (like Pringles), delicious strawberry milk chocolate, and a great new flavor of Pretz -- milk & cocoa
  
• Also, an old favorite that goes great with beer, spicy rice crackers and peanuts, called "kaki no tane" in Japanese (which means "persimmon seeds" since they're the same shape)
  
• Japan's swimsuit idols are fabulous -- and the shining star of Japanese idols is Yuko Ogura, the super-pretty angel in a bikini. Now we've got a dynamite photobook + DVD combination item for her fans!
  
• Also, a superb hardcover photobook featuring Sayaka Isoyama, with incredibly beautiful photographs and printing
  
• Also, see fresh stock of several great Race Queen and idol items, including Yoko Matsugane's popular hardcover photobook
  
• We love the new crazy and funny Japanese TV that's being released on DVD, complete with English subtitles -- enjoy Grasshoppa vol. 1, a series of incredibly funny short films by some of Japan's top creators (region 2)
  
• For fans of the only-sold-in-Japan Hot Wheels, enjoy fresh stock of some of our most popular items, including the Delorean III from Back to the Future part III, the Night Rider Kitt 2000 and one of my favorites, the Mach 5 from Speed Racer
  
• Also, for Macross fans, we've got limited stock of the sold-out red and blue Valkyries from the 1983 series
  
• If you like Blythe, the excellent dolls from Takara based on the fashions of the 1970's, we've got fresh stock of the "Paisley Star" doll
  
• We've got some fun new Hello Kitty items for you, including a Kitty portable phone, a Kitty notebook, and fresh stock of some popular items
  
• For Tokyo Mew Mew fans, we've also got a fun "free notebook" in stock for you
  
• We love Japanese study items and stationary goods, and we've got a fun item for you -- wacky Japanese erasers that do things like change color when you erase when them!
  
• Something that's all the rage in Japan these days, we've got a Paper Stitch Lock, an advanced devices that "stitches" sheets of paper securely together so you never need to use staples -- it's fun and so convenient!
  
• For anime fans, see the beautiful cold cast statue of Serio from To Heart, just beautiful
  
• Also, for fans of Inuyasha, we've got a super cute character keychain/phone strap
  
• For bento fans, see fresh stock of several items, including the fish soy sauce bottles, chopsticks, and more
  
• Finally, look for super cute "Pop Animal" magnets for your refrigerator, a super handy wallet with key holder built into it, a fun way to keep your PET bottle cool, a cool Edo style coin bank, and more!
  

For our adult customers, we've got many new 18+ products. They include:

• For fans of Japan's excellent adult magazines, enjoy the new Gokuh, filled with fabulous adult AV idols from Japan like Nao Hirosue, Maiko Kazano, and Shinobu Kasagi
  
• Also, we've got some great hardcore magazines like Gotcha, which features beautiful Japanese girls in love hotels
  
• The beautiful Maiko Kazano is one of the most lovely nude idols in all Japan -- enjoy her fabulous new photobook offering featuring some incredible pictures of her!
  
• Also, see fresh stock of other popular photobooks, including the delicious Kyoko Ayana's "Delicious" photobook
  
• Look for MPEG Typhoon, a great magazine and video CD combo item loaded with sample "quickies"
  
• For fans of excellent adult manga from Japan, we've got several great new titles for you including Tag, a great story by Suehirogari about a girl who is "tagged" through magic, forcing her to go totally naked until she can "tag" another girl and remove the curse
  
• Also, a superb new offering from Kurenai Azuki, the Equation of the Immoral
  
• Also, a great treat for fans of hentai Evangelion doujinshi, a new Next Climax Magazine from Okachimentaiko, with 100+ pages of dynamite all-Eva material
  
• We just love Yui Toshiki's Yui Shop series, and we've gotten in a major restocking of all three volumes, including the very popular vol. 3!
  
• For DVD fans, enjoy many new titles, starting with a superb "The Idol" release featuring three complete releases with Yuki Kotono, a pure and lovely Japanese girl that we recommend (region free)
  
• We love the Adult Video Wrestling series from Kings Video, and now enjoy a new 120 minute AVW special featuring men and women who really put on a great show -- who will be the victors? (region free)
  
• Akira Watase has a huge following of fans at J-List, and now you can see her in another great release, the newest in Tohjiro's Restrictive Chair Trance series from Dogma (region free)
  
• For fans of the fetish known as "black bukkake" -- a Japanese girl being handled roughly by a roomful of big, black men from Los Angeles -- see the newest release with Aimi Yoshii (region 2)
  

Remember that two great love-sim game collections, JAST USA Memorial Collection and the Milky House Memorial Collection, are going to be shipping soon (they're at the duplicators being reproduced right now). The JAST Memorial title gives you JAST USA's three best-selling games -- Three Sisters' Story, Runaway City and my own favorite, Season of the Sakura -- on one CD-ROM, with a super updated engine that's fully compatible with Windows XP and 2000. The new features, like anti-aliased graphics and resampled music tracks, really add to these superb games. The Milky House Memorial set gives you Nocturnal Illusions, May Club and the original Borderline CG collection. Preorder them now and get free shipping when they're ready in a few weeks!

Greetings from J-List February 22, 2003

Hello from Japan, where a steak made with ground beef is a "hamburg" and a frankfurter out of its bun is a "frankfurt."

Although cities like Tokyo have excellent train and subway systems, in most parts of Japan the only way to get around is a good old car. Japan's version of "car life" is a little different from what is found in the U.S., though. First of all, there are almost no independent car dealers, and virtually all new cars are sold through retail locations operated directly by Japan's auto makers. You never drive away with a car the day you go in to buy it, but instead "order" it, and it's made to your specifications at the factory and delivered three weeks later. They drive on the left side of the street, which is difficult to get used to at first, but is not so hard as long as you just look at other cars and drive on the same side of the street they're on. In the U.S., some drivers leave their headlights on for safety during the day, but it's never done here, and Japanese will follow you to tell you that you've left your lights on if you keep them on during the daylight hours. While honking a horn at another driver can cause road rage in the U.S., here a short "beep" is the universal way of saying thanks and good-bye as you pull away here in Japan. Most drivers turn off their car's headlights at intersections (often leaving the parking lights on), as a courtesy to drivers who might be blinded by their lights on the other side of the intersection. In Tokyo, where drivers drive with consideration for others (unlike Gunma, where we live), a two-second flashing of the hazard lights is the correct way to say "thank you" to the car behind you when he lets you in front of him. In Japan, traffic lights have a 3 second delay between when one light changes to red and the next one changes to green. By unwritten rule, Japanese drivers universally make use of this time to speed their car through the intersection, despite the red light, since they know they've got several seconds before the other cars will be moving. For a poorly-understood reason, the color for "green" (as in a green light) is "blue" in Japan -- all Japanese use the word "ao" (AH-oh) for the color of a green light, although this word really refers to the color blue.

For one reason or another, some phrases in English have burned themselves on the collective consciousness of the Japanese, and are quite famous here. When an American named Dr. Clark (universally known as "Clark-hakase" HA-KA-say) went to Sapporo to help establish what would become Sapporo University, he left the following advice to his Japanese hosts: "Boys, be ambitious!" (i.e., strive to achieve excellence in all that you do). These three words are studied by all Japanese, and somehow manage to pop up all over the place in one form or another. (There's a manga and anime called "Boys Be..." that is based on this phrase.) When pop singer Momoe Yamaguchi retired from singing, she sang a song to her fans that went "Thank you for your kindness...thank you for your tenderness" and as a result, virtually all Japanese over 30 know this famous phrase. Famous speeches by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Abraham Lincoln ("Government for the people, by the people, and of the people") are studied in school the same way we studied Shakespeare in the U.S., too.

"You've been in Japan too long when you're speaking English with your gaijin friends, but all references to money are in Japanese." This is a funny phenomenon, but true: even when speaking English, gaijin living in Japan will tend to use Japanese for numbers and yen money amounts. The reason is that the Sino-Japanese numeric system, which came from China, is clunky when converting to the Arabic numeric system. The number system used in Japan revolves around the unit 10,000 ("man," pronounced "mahn"), rather than 1,000; thus, the number 10,000 is "1 man" (ichi mahn), 20,000 yen is "2 man" (ni mahn), 100,000 is "10 man" (juu mahn) and so on. The conversion from one numeric system to the other is just frustrating enough that most foreigners will be happy to leave their numbers in Japanese, as long as the person they're talking with understands the words. Thus a gaijin living in Japan is likely to say, "I bought a new cellular phone, but it cost me 2 mahn en" (20,000 yen), or, "My car broke, and it's going to cost 10 mahn en to fix it" (100,000 yen).

For the new update, we've got some excellent products from Japan for you. They include:

• First, for anime and toy fans, we've got a great figure in the Super Excellent Series, Cammy from Street Fighter II
  
• Also, a super cute character keychain set for the One Piece TV animation
  
• Japan's toy maker Tomy has a great line of die-cast cars, and we've got a limited edition set of three classic Toyota cars in a cool package for you (including the popular Prius)
  
• Also very cool, a series of Choro-Q cars and figures for Lupin III fans
  
• For bento fans, look for two great new bento boxes that come with their own chopsticks and secure straps, along with some great all-purpose bamboo chopsticks that are extra-easy to eat with
  
• If you love Gundam and robots, don't miss the excellent Tokyo Robot News, featuring tons of fan information and artwork for fans of all robot anime
  
• For fans of our Japanese snacks, look for many new items, including delicious rice cracker and fish snacks, crunchy Japanese almonds, and two great new flavors of Pretz (spicy curry and hotcakes n' syrup)
  
• For Sanrio fans find many cool items, including a Kitty photo album and Kitty bath salt, for an authentic hot springs experience
  
• We love Hamtaro, and have been selling cool Hamtaro goods for years -- see a deck of Hamtaro character cards in stock, now
  
• We've got fresh stock of some popular items that had been sold out, including cool Totoro items, Edward Scissorhands Kubricks, and only-sold-in-Japan Hot Wheels
  
• Also, don't forget to check for fresh stock of the popular Studio Ghibli music boxes, which are of very high quality and fun to collect -- we've got Totoro, Kiki's Delivery Service, Princess Mononoke and other music boxes in stock
  
• Also, for fans of our very soft and warm My Neighbor Totoro blankets, we've gotten the last of the stock we'll have this winter
  
• Finally, find many cool "Wacky Things from Japan" including an all-purpose soft case, a great Japanese wind chime, more dissolving onsen tablets for your bath, and the best toilet brush you've ever seen!
  

For our adult customers, we've got many new 18+ products. They include:

• For fans of beautiful Japanese nudes, we've got the new Bejean, the oversized magazine that is filled with beautiful adult video actresses, like Mai Hagiwara, Maiko Kazano, and many more
  
• Also, the new issue of Aishite Ageru, or "I'll Love You," a great hardcore magazine featuring real couples in love hotels
  
• Also very lovely, the new issue of Panst Best, featuring 45 lovely, leggy girls including the sizzling Akira Watase
  
• For fans of huge, beautiful photobooks enjoy the great hardcover offerings of Sachi Asaoka as well as the huge glossy photobook of Kaori Shimamura
  
• For fans of Japan's unique hentai comics, we've got some great new volumes in stock for you, including a super all "cute ears" anthology manga featuring lovely girls with cat ears, Chobits-type ears and more
  
• For Sailor Moon hentai fans, enjoy a major restocking of the Paradise Lost doujin anthologies, which parody the characters of this great anime
  
• For yaoi fans, we've got a great 2-volume yaoi work of science fiction that's beautiful to look at
  
• Also for fans of the excellent hentai doujinshi of Okachimentaiko, we've got a great new book in stock
  
• For fans of Peach Princess's bishoujo games, we have fresh stock of the excellent Yuri of the Imperial City wall scroll
  
• For DVD collectors, some great items, starting with a really "natsukashii" (nostalgic) 3-in-1 by Mari Misato, the former AV legend from the late 80's and mid-90's (region free)
  
• From the excellent Dogma and director Tohjiro, see a "Lewd Women Battle" between Ran Asakawa and Kurumi Morishita -- just beautiful! (region free)
  
• The lovely Rina Takase stars in The New Secret Semen Club, in an elegant bukkake release from SOD (region free)
  
• See the lovely Ai Nagase enjoy a little "reverse soap" as she becomes the client at Tokyo's most famous soaplands, on the receiving end of the fun this time (region free)
  
• A new "inexperienced girls penis study" concept from Moodyz, enjoy the new "Clothed Female Naked Male" DVD release! (region 2)
  
• Finally, look for various newly restocked items for DVD collectors and fans!
  

We love bringing you the most wacky Japanese T-shirts imaginable. Our shirts are all 100% cotton and are printed in the USA, and all sizes are full U.S. sizes. We carry a full range of sizes, from size small all the way up to 3XL, to serve nearly any customer. And now, we're happy to offer 4XL sizes for our black and white shirts (which we call our "Yokozuna Special"), for those customers who should need the larger size.

Do you love the anime films of Hayao Miyazaki? Remember that J-List stocks all the excellent region 2 DVD releases for Studio Ghibli movies like My Neighbor Totoro, Castle in the Sky Laputa, Princess Mononoke and his Lupin III classic, The Castle of Caliostro. These DVDs are released in Japan directly by the studio and include many features that make them great for collectors. All discs feature English subtitles and/or dubbed tracks and are great for fans who want the definitive versions of these anime classics overseen by Mr. Miyazaki himself. The only catch is, you need a region free DVD player to watch them -- and J-List humbly recommends the two excellent units we currently sell.

Did you used to watch Land of the Lost? We found landofthelost.com to be quite an interesting website. Check it out!

Greetings from J-List February 22, 2003

Hello from Japan, where a steak made with ground beef is a "hamburg" and a frankfurter out of its bun is a "frankfurt."

Although cities like Tokyo have excellent train and subway systems, in most parts of Japan the only way to get around is a good old car. Japan's version of "car life" is a little different from what is found in the U.S., though. First of all, there are almost no independent car dealers, and virtually all new cars are sold through retail locations operated directly by Japan's auto makers. You never drive away with a car the day you go in to buy it, but instead "order" it, and it's made to your specifications at the factory and delivered three weeks later. They drive on the left side of the street, which is difficult to get used to at first, but is not so hard as long as you just look at other cars and drive on the same side of the street they're on. In the U.S., some drivers leave their headlights on for safety during the day, but it's never done here, and Japanese will follow you to tell you that you've left your lights on if you keep them on during the daylight hours. While honking a horn at another driver can cause road rage in the U.S., here a short "beep" is the universal way of saying thanks and good-bye as you pull away here in Japan. Most drivers turn off their car's headlights at intersections (often leaving the parking lights on), as a courtesy to drivers who might be blinded by their lights on the other side of the intersection. In Tokyo, where drivers drive with consideration for others (unlike Gunma, where we live), a two-second flashing of the hazard lights is the correct way to say "thank you" to the car behind you when he lets you in front of him. In Japan, traffic lights have a 3 second delay between when one light changes to red and the next one changes to green. By unwritten rule, Japanese drivers universally make use of this time to speed their car through the intersection, despite the red light, since they know they've got several seconds before the other cars will be moving. For a poorly-understood reason, the color for "green" (as in a green light) is "blue" in Japan -- all Japanese use the word "ao" (AH-oh) for the color of a green light, although this word really refers to the color blue.

For one reason or another, some phrases in English have burned themselves on the collective consciousness of the Japanese, and are quite famous here. When an American named Dr. Clark (universally known as "Clark-hakase" HA-KA-say) went to Sapporo to help establish what would become Sapporo University, he left the following advice to his Japanese hosts: "Boys, be ambitious!" (i.e., strive to achieve excellence in all that you do). These three words are studied by all Japanese, and somehow manage to pop up all over the place in one form or another. (There's a manga and anime called "Boys Be..." that is based on this phrase.) When pop singer Momoe Yamaguchi retired from singing, she sang a song to her fans that went "Thank you for your kindness...thank you for your tenderness" and as a result, virtually all Japanese over 30 know this famous phrase. Famous speeches by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Abraham Lincoln ("Government for the people, by the people, and of the people") are studied in school the same way we studied Shakespeare in the U.S., too.

"You've been in Japan too long when you're speaking English with your gaijin friends, but all references to money are in Japanese." This is a funny phenomenon, but true: even when speaking English, gaijin living in Japan will tend to use Japanese for numbers and yen money amounts. The reason is that the Sino-Japanese numeric system, which came from China, is clunky when converting to the Arabic numeric system. The number system used in Japan revolves around the unit 10,000 ("man," pronounced "mahn"), rather than 1,000; thus, the number 10,000 is "1 man" (ichi mahn), 20,000 yen is "2 man" (ni mahn), 100,000 is "10 man" (juu mahn) and so on. The conversion from one numeric system to the other is just frustrating enough that most foreigners will be happy to leave their numbers in Japanese, as long as the person they're talking with understands the words. Thus a gaijin living in Japan is likely to say, "I bought a new cellular phone, but it cost me 2 mahn en" (20,000 yen), or, "My car broke, and it's going to cost 10 mahn en to fix it" (100,000 yen).

For the new update, we've got some excellent products from Japan for you. They include:

• First, for anime and toy fans, we've got a great figure in the Super Excellent Series, Cammy from Street Fighter II
  
• Also, a super cute character keychain set for the One Piece TV animation
  
• Japan's toy maker Tomy has a great line of die-cast cars, and we've got a limited edition set of three classic Toyota cars in a cool package for you (including the popular Prius)
  
• Also very cool, a series of Choro-Q cars and figures for Lupin III fans
  
• For bento fans, look for two great new bento boxes that come with their own chopsticks and secure straps, along with some great all-purpose bamboo chopsticks that are extra-easy to eat with
  
• If you love Gundam and robots, don't miss the excellent Tokyo Robot News, featuring tons of fan information and artwork for fans of all robot anime
  
• For fans of our Japanese snacks, look for many new items, including delicious rice cracker and fish snacks, crunchy Japanese almonds, and two great new flavors of Pretz (spicy curry and hotcakes n' syrup)
  
• For Sanrio fans find many cool items, including a Kitty photo album and Kitty bath salt, for an authentic hot springs experience
  
• We love Hamtaro, and have been selling cool Hamtaro goods for years -- see a deck of Hamtaro character cards in stock, now
  
• We've got fresh stock of some popular items that had been sold out, including cool Totoro items, Edward Scissorhands Kubricks, and only-sold-in-Japan Hot Wheels
  
• Also, don't forget to check for fresh stock of the popular Studio Ghibli music boxes, which are of very high quality and fun to collect -- we've got Totoro, Kiki's Delivery Service, Princess Mononoke and other music boxes in stock
  
• Also, for fans of our very soft and warm My Neighbor Totoro blankets, we've gotten the last of the stock we'll have this winter
  
• Finally, find many cool "Wacky Things from Japan" including an all-purpose soft case, a great Japanese wind chime, more dissolving onsen tablets for your bath, and the best toilet brush you've ever seen!
  

For our adult customers, we've got many new 18+ products. They include:

• For fans of beautiful Japanese nudes, we've got the new Bejean, the oversized magazine that is filled with beautiful adult video actresses, like Mai Hagiwara, Maiko Kazano, and many more
  
• Also, the new issue of Aishite Ageru, or "I'll Love You," a great hardcore magazine featuring real couples in love hotels
  
• Also very lovely, the new issue of Panst Best, featuring 45 lovely, leggy girls including the sizzling Akira Watase
  
• For fans of huge, beautiful photobooks enjoy the great hardcover offerings of Sachi Asaoka as well as the huge glossy photobook of Kaori Shimamura
  
• For fans of Japan's unique hentai comics, we've got some great new volumes in stock for you, including a super all "cute ears" anthology manga featuring lovely girls with cat ears, Chobits-type ears and more
  
• For Sailor Moon hentai fans, enjoy a major restocking of the Paradise Lost doujin anthologies, which parody the characters of this great anime
  
• For yaoi fans, we've got a great 2-volume yaoi work of science fiction that's beautiful to look at
  
• Also for fans of the excellent hentai doujinshi of Okachimentaiko, we've got a great new book in stock
  
• For fans of Peach Princess's bishoujo games, we have fresh stock of the excellent Yuri of the Imperial City wall scroll
  
• For DVD collectors, some great items, starting with a really "natsukashii" (nostalgic) 3-in-1 by Mari Misato, the former AV legend from the late 80's and mid-90's (region free)
  
• From the excellent Dogma and director Tohjiro, see a "Lewd Women Battle" between Ran Asakawa and Kurumi Morishita -- just beautiful! (region free)
  
• The lovely Rina Takase stars in The New Secret Semen Club, in an elegant bukkake release from SOD (region free)
  
• See the lovely Ai Nagase enjoy a little "reverse soap" as she becomes the client at Tokyo's most famous soaplands, on the receiving end of the fun this time (region free)
  
• A new "inexperienced girls penis study" concept from Moodyz, enjoy the new "Clothed Female Naked Male" DVD release! (region 2)
  
• Finally, look for various newly restocked items for DVD collectors and fans!
  

We love bringing you the most wacky Japanese T-shirts imaginable. Our shirts are all 100% cotton and are printed in the USA, and all sizes are full U.S. sizes. We carry a full range of sizes, from size small all the way up to 3XL, to serve nearly any customer. And now, we're happy to offer 4XL sizes for our black and white shirts (which we call our "Yokozuna Special"), for those customers who should need the larger size.

Do you love the anime films of Hayao Miyazaki? Remember that J-List stocks all the excellent region 2 DVD releases for Studio Ghibli movies like My Neighbor Totoro, Castle in the Sky Laputa, Princess Mononoke and his Lupin III classic, The Castle of Caliostro. These DVDs are released in Japan directly by the studio and include many features that make them great for collectors. All discs feature English subtitles and/or dubbed tracks and are great for fans who want the definitive versions of these anime classics overseen by Mr. Miyazaki himself. The only catch is, you need a region free DVD player to watch them -- and J-List humbly recommends the two excellent units we currently sell.

Did you used to watch Land of the Lost? We found landofthelost.com to be quite an interesting website. Check it out!

Greetings from J-List February 20, 2003

Good evening from Japan, where calories are always corrected labeled as "kikocalories."

First of all, sorry for the problems with our mailing list. Due to a glitch with our ISP, the list went out a day late. Also, the non-adult list contents were sent out to the 18+ list members, making some think that they were on the wrong list. Sorry about that!

No study of Japan is complete without mention of two major themes, tatemae and honne (TAH-tay-MAH-ae and HON-neh). These are two difficult concepts, which are woven into the fabric of Japan as a nation. Tatemae could be translate as the ideas expressed in public or the way we pretend society is, while honne is the way we really feel, or the way the world really is. Often tatemae are the things you say to people in certain social situations, even though you don't feel that way inside. When I see my wife, who has mastered English and lived in the U.S., talking with the other mothers in the neighborhood who have never been outside of Japan, I can see some tatemae in action: she has to hold her own real opinions back much of the time. Tatemae can also exist in the society at large. For example, gambling is illegal in Japan, so you win "prizes" at Pachinko parlors, which you "sell" for money at small shops located conveniently next door. Prostitution is also illegal, yet there are "soaplands" where a beautiful girl will give you a "full body wash" in a bath (including one in Shibuya, located right behind a police station). And on Tokyo's busy Kan-Nana Bypass, the speed limit is a meager 40 kph (24 mph), but anyone actually going that speed would surely cause an accident -- so everyone speeds along at 90 kph (55 mph).

As time goes by, younger Japanese become more and more dissatisfied with the "little white lies" of tatemae around them. They become more direct and less subtle, which causes frustration in the generation of older Japanese who like their social relationships to be a little fuzzy. Japanese students, who learn six years of English while in school, often have a fixation about English speakers, that they "always say exactly what they think, no matter what." In a situation where you might reply in a very vague manner in Japanese, you'd often reply with a straight "yes" or "no" in English, and they think that directness applies all the time. The truth is that we have plenty of tatemae in English too -- times when it's improper to say something to someone even though it may be the truth. My wife has a Japanese friend living in Los Angeles who really goes overboard, always saying whatever's on her mind no matter what, including comments on the weight and eating habits of people she hardly knows. We don't invite her over very often.

It is the winter of our discontent in Japan right now, with roads everywhere blocked by sudden road construction that materializes around this time of year. Japan's fiscal year ends on March 31st, and as in the U.S., government bodies that have money left in their budgets have to give it back at the end of that time, so they work hard to spend the money instead. It's said that the construction industry is to the Japanese government what the military is to the U.S. -- construction of roads and housing is core of the Japanese economy, and most Japanese don't have a problem with road crews tearing up perfectly good roads to fix a pipe that wasn't broken, if it's for the common good. Throughout the past decade of off-and-on recession in Japan, the government has embraced public works as a way to kick-start the economy, spending endlessly on roads and bridges that are largely unnecessary, spending enough to build the Panama Canal each year. This deficit spending has not helped the economy and has only succeeded in lowering Japan's credit rating with Moody's (not Moodyz) to below that of Botswana.

For the new update, we've got some excellent products from Japan for you. They include:

• First, for we've got some great Sanrio and Hello Kitty items that are only sold in Japan
  
• If you love Japan's anime video game world, we've got a super art book of .hack // TheWorld, a smash hit fantasy video game featuring all the anime and characters of the Playstation 2 game
  
• We love Shirow Masamune's great manga works, and we're happy to have stock of the *bilingual* manga to Ghost in the Shell, which features both English and Japanese text as well as beautiful full color printing
  
• I am a big fan of Ultraman and am happy to be able to sell a new toy + candy series, featuring the famous monsters of the original Ultraman series, each very detailed and complete with base for displaying and ramune candy inside
  
• Also very cool, we've got a new Large and Medium Totoro keychain from Sun Arrow
  
• For fans of Blythe, the eerie but fascinating-looking doll from Takara, we've got more Pucchi Blythe figures, fashionable and really fun to collect
  
• For fans of cute anime girls, enjoy the Figure Maniacs soft vinyl figure of Mei Uzuki from Gao Gaiger Final
  
• Sailor Moon fans have something special: a super-cool Sailor Moon headset with microphone, so you can sing karaoke just like a Japanese idol singer (comes with a video too)
  
• For fans of our unique Japanese snack foods, we've got delicious Meiji "Precious Milk" chocolate squares, fun Anpan Man chocolate lollipops, some really funky (but delicious, trust us) dried squid, and for Kitty fans, delicious filled marshmallow balls that are really fun to eat
  
• Also, some delicious strawberry chewing gum with Xylitol, an ingredient popular in Japan that aids the health of your teeth and fights cavities
  
• Look for restocked items, such as miso soup (always a hugely popular item at J-List), furikake (food which you sprinkle over white rice), and more
  
• For anyone looking for something wacky from Japan, enjoy "gum erasers" that erase pencil marks normally, but they're soft like chewing gum and smell great -- we've got cola and jasmine in stock
  
• We love Japanese pens and stationary, and are happy to have some really handy Japanese pens in stock -- they come in beautiful color and the pens look like crystals when you write
  
• For those who like wacky Japanese messages, we've got some nice wooden signs with amusing messages on them
  
• Finally, look for super-cute Japanese happy face reflective stickers, a great way to relieve stress from your feet, more cool Hamtaro dress-up dolls, Japanese origami paper, and more!
  

For our adult customers, we've got many new 18+ products. They include:

• First and foremost, we've got the dynamite new issue of Urecco, chock full of positively beautiful Japanese gals like Akira Watase, Kaede Matsushima, Ryoko Mitake as a cosplay angel, and lovely covergirl Masa Sato
  
• For fans of lovely hardcover photobooks, see the erotic offering of Shien (photos by Seiichi Nomura) and the lovely pure nude photobook of Yui Asahina, with the odd title of "Shoot Up!"
  
• Also, another "Chinkame" format photobook, which features incredibly sassy photos of kogals in true Tokyo style
  
• For lovers of erotic manga, find many new excellent books, including the fantastic "A Married Woman as Mitsue" and Fujimi Comics' "Shiri-Chiri" that is just incredible
  
• For DVD lovers, we've got more dynamite European girls for you, with two new titles featuring French and Russian girls -- this is an incredible series that we really love (region free)
  
• The Adult Video Wrestling series by Kings Video features really excellent and realistic action in the ring, with real dedication shown by all participants towards putting on a good show -- enjoy a new 2 hour AV pro wrestling release today (region free)
  
• Japan's fetish for "panty stockings" (known as "panst" in Japanese) is quite famous -- see a delightful all stocking, leg and toe fetish DVD for you (region free)
  
• We love Kuki's No Cut!! series, which gives you 3 hours of superb AV action on one low-price DVD -- enjoy the super sex of Sakurako Kaoru (region free)
  
• For fans of extremely high-end Japanese lesbian DVDs, we hope you'll try out the new offering from the Le-Zu-Bian series, featuring a memorable performance by Yukari Kano and Yuka Kato (region 2)
  
• Finally, look for fresh stock of other DVD titles including the sold-out Czech and Hungary DVDs, sure to be runaway hits, as well as Mourning Dress Sisters, Endless Lesbian, All Nude Challenger, Akira Watase's Lewd Woman Kiss & Sex, and more!
  

Remember that J-List stocks many items for fans of "cosplay," the Japanese hobby of dressing up like your favorite anime or other character. From actual items you can buy and wear (including the line of excellent high school uniforms from Nagoya's Matsukameya, sold exclusively through J-List) to a full line of comics, DVDs and dating-sim games that cater to cosplay fans, we know we've got something for you.

Recently overheard: "I am the Lorax. I speak for Hello Kitty for Hello Kitty has no mouth."

Greetings from J-List February 12, 2003

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Greetings from J-List February 10, 2003

Greetings from J-List!

Want to know a Japanese joke? In Japanese, the word for Prime Minister is "sohri," which sounds like the English word "sorry" -- kind of like the English phrase "don't touch my mustache" sounds like "dou itashimashite" (you're welcome) in Japanese. "Sori," a similar-sounding word, means razor. Japanese kids say stupid things like, "I'm sorry, hige sori [beard razor], jori jori [the sound of rough, unshaven whiskers]." The word for Prime Minister is also sohri (written with different characters, of course, but the pronunciation is the same), so you can add the name of Japan's current PM, Koizumi-sohri. If you're ever talking to a Japanese person, and they apologize to you for something, come back with "Koizumi-sohri, hige sori, jori jori!" and watch them jump out of their shoes. (Pronunciation is koi-ZOO-me SOH-ree, hee-GAY SOH-ree, JOE-ree JOE-ree.)

Has a Japanese ever told you are "good head"? If so, it's a complement, although it might not sound like one. In Japanese, the phrase for "smart" (intelligent) is "good head" (atama ga ii), which sometimes gets carried over into English by Japanese still learning the language. The English word "smart" is used in Japanese to mean slender, well proportioned (as in, "That girl is very smart and stylish"). Other words are used in English in interesting ways. For example, when a man wants to win a woman's love, he prepares to "attack" her -- the English word attack is used to mean "to go out and win the love of another" and doesn't carry the violent connotations it can in English.

In Japanese, the word "sake" (SAH-kay, remember never to say "saki") refers to all alcohol, as well as the famous rice wine from Japan. Alcohol is a big part of Japanese society, a lubricant that allows people to remove stress and deal with the pressures of this vertical society (with many levels above and below you). The Japanese have some great unwritten rules when it comes to alcohol, too. For example, if you're out with your co-workers drinking, it's perfectly permissible to get anything off your chest about your boss, and be critical of him -- if you overstep the normal bounds of what is okay to say, it's dismissed the next day because alcohol was involved. If you make a fool out of yourself in front of your female co-workers, it's also generally forgiven the next day, too.

We've added a new toy category for J-List, for Kubrick toys (those cute figures that are so popular), Blythe and other dolls from Takara, and also the small toy + candy items we sell, such as the Godzilla figures that come with delicious ramune candy. You can also check out all toy items with the "View all toys" category too, of course.

For the new update, we've got some excellent products from Japan for you. They include:

• First, for fans of the incredibly popular Shirow Masamune in particular and great Japanese manga in general, we've got a "reserve subscription" available for Young Magazine Uppers, which often includes extremely rare posters and other items inside
  
• For Hello Kitty fans, we've got one of the coolest things you'll ever see -- five beautiful Kitty statues in a classic kimono, performing a dance
  
• If you love Japanese film on DVD, we've got a new one for you: Battle Royale, a hilarious story of a fight to the death among Japanese junior high school students (region 2, subtitled in English)
  
• Also, fresh stock of the excellent Ghost in the Shell vol. 2 and The Color of Life, which features incredibly bold Japanese TV (including Oh! Mikey).
  
• If you love Chobits, the popular manga of a future in which the PCs of the future are beautiful girl-robots, we recommend the new Kodansha Bilingual Comics that we've got in stock now
  
• Takara's popular Blythe dolls are really getting popular -- we'd sold out of all the ones we posted last week. Now we've got some cool new ones for you!
  
• Also for fans of rare toys, we've got a super figure of Lupin III with a Laputian robot from the famous episode of the show directed by Hayao Miyazaki -- really cool, and really rare
  
• Parody goods are popular in Japan right now, and we love to carry them -- see a parody of Canada Dry band-aids, some authentic cigarette erasers, and more in stock now
  
• For fans of Japanese snack foods, find Meiji's delicious Fran chocolate sticks, two kinds of great furikake, and more
  
• Also, fresh stock of popular items such as Choco Q (the delicious chocolate eggs with meticulously sculpted plastic animals inside), more popular Lotte chewing gum including Black Black, more miso soup, and more
  
• For students of Japanese, we've got a cool rewritable kanji practice notebook, with many easy characters for you to learn
  
• For fans of bento and related items, we've got a great two-tiered bento box, a set of high-quality disposeable chopsticks, and more
  
• Finally, look for an authentic Japanese abacus, a super pin set for Tokyo Mew Mew fans, Hello Kitty business card holders, and more!
  

For our adult customers, we've got many new 18+ products. They include:

• If you love Japan's erotic love-sim games, aka "hentai games," we've got a special treat for you: Tsuki ~ Possession, a great new title from G-Collections, is available for ordering now! (remember you get 20% off 4 or more games, too)
  
• For fans of rare Japanese adult magazines, enjoy some rare titles, like the lovely Senningiri ("Over 1000 Men"), a nice magazine for fans of jukujo and married women, and more
  
• Also, a great magazine + 4 hour DVD item, we've got the great Good DVD 4 Hours, featuring tons of famous AV stars performing in quickies for you
  
• For fans of Japanese photobooks, we've got some great items, including the "Finale" of the lovely Kaori Shimamura, a delicious all-leg fetish photobook with 40 models in it, and more
  
• Also, we've got a new "chinkame" format small photobook with ten positively lovely AV stars in a book you can carry with you anywhere
  
• For fans of Japan's highly developed "new half" (aka Mr. Lady) photography, we've got a new "sexy shemale" photobook in stock
  
• For hentai manga fans, enjoy excellent erotic new offerings from Tsukasa Comics, Hit Comics, and more, including an erotic ghost story from Tomohiro Kouda, Triple Sunshine
  
• Also, fresh stock of many popular hentai manga works, such as the popular Cat Life, Change, and Jet Boss
  
• Also, we love the excellent AG, the magazine of "art, sex and CG culture" and have restocked several backissues for you -- they're all in stock in our San Diego location
  
• Also, another volley of great doujinshi for you, all very new releases with great artwork (but they will go fast, as always...)
  
• For collectors of Japan's adult DVDs, we've got some new items that will knock your socks off, starting with Ran Monbu (whose name sounds like the French dessert Mont Blanc when you say it in Japanese name order) in a wonderful *4 hour* erotic offering from Million (region free)
  
• Enjoy the erotic lesbian kissing of real Japanese amateurs in a new work from SOD's AV director Hajime (region free)
  
• Yukari Sakurada is a beautiful, experienced woman who appeals to fans of "jukujo" (more mature women) themes -- enjoy 2 hours of her best works in a new DVD release (region free)
  
• Enjoy traditional themes of bondage, lesbian sex and mature women themes, in a new release from Cinemagic (region free)
  
• For fans of bold erotic Indies AV, enjoy a super erotic performance by Miyuki Hourai, featuring lots of fun cosplay (including Anna Miller's uniforms), bondage play and more (region 2)
  
• Finally, look for more restocked DVDs, including fresh stock of the "How to Perfect" series by Wanz Factory (one of my favorites), more lesbian kissing and other DVDs, and more!
  

Are you a fan of Japan's love-sim games? If so we hope you've preordered JAST USA Memorial Collection and Milky House Memorial Collection, two excellent sets of three complete game products which will be shipping soon. We're especially proud of the JAST Memorial, which accurately recreates the original three JAST USA games Three Sister's Story, Season of the Sakura and Runaway City in perfect detail, but with many extra features and compatibility with modern Windows. Preorder now and get free shipping, as well as previous $5 off if you've bought one of the originals before (via mail-in coupon). Both games are golden master and are on their way to the duplicator's now!

Remember that J-List carries a full line of Japanese snack foods, with many rare cult favorites in stock for you, like Pocky (all flavors), Black Black caffeine gum, and also the delicious and popular Felix the Cat bubble gum, which is famous all the world over (we're not sure why, but based on the mails we get from customers, it is). Remember that all chocolate and Pocky items are only sold in the cooler months -- they melt in the summer so we can't carry them at all. If there's something you'd like to get, we've probably got it in stock for you!