Friday, March 14, 2003
Greetings from J-List March 14, 2003
This summary is not available. Please
click here to view the post.
Monday, March 10, 2003
Greetings from J-List March 10, 2003
Hello again from your friends in Japan!
My wife is a member of the Silver Age generation of Japanese animation, having grown up on the best anime of the 1970's. While anime shows like Space Cruiser Yamato and Gatchaman and Mazinger Z are quite famous outside of Japan, the shows that are most loved by many Japanese of the era were those based on Western works of literature. These include A Dog of Flanders (an incredibly moving Belgian story of a boy Nello and his faithful dog Patrache; the scene where they ascend into heaven will bring instant tears to your eyes), or Heidi, Girl of the Alps (my wife can quote the scene where Clara gets out of her wheelchair from heart), or The Rose of Versailles (a popular manga and anime based on the French Revolution). While I certainly approve of the acceptance Japanese animation has received in the past ten years, I have to say as a parent and that I really miss the "old days" of anime that enriched and moved children, taught them about the great artists and composers of Europe, and made them curious about the outside world -- you can't say that about Digimon or Yu-Gi-Oh. However, a new anime series may be here to save us: Ashita no Nadja, the show that has replaced Ojamajo Doremi (our old favorite on Sunday mornings). It's the story of a girl named Nadja, living in Europe at the beginning of the 20th century, on a mission to find her mother, and it's filled with beautiful imagery and classic "shoujo" romantic themes. We have high hopes for this new show! The Japanese site for Nadja is here: http://www.toei-anim.co.jp/tv/nadja/index2.html
Each country has what the Japanese call a "kokumin-sei" which could be translated as a "national personality." The Germans are good at efficiency and organizing, for example, while people from Italy generally adhere to a list of characteristics that make them inherently "Italian." One aspect of Japanese people is the tendency for them to shrug off difficult decisions or challenges by saying "Shikata ga nai," which means "It's can't be helped." (A more colloquial version of this is "Sho ga nai.") From national economic policy to the problem of men groping women on crowded trains to complaining about the price of lettuce this week, Japanese seem to be uniquely able to throw up their hands and say in effect, oh well, there's no way to solve that problem so I won't do anything about it. This is in contrast to Americans who (I have been told), are terribly optimistic about all things, always believing that a given problem can be solved if you just keep trying to find the answer, no matter what the problem may be. Living outside of your home country is fun, because you get to learn about your own "kokumin-sei" in ways that would be impossible if you never left home.
Remember we're having a great $1 sale on all bishoujo games this month, including all games from G-Collections, JAST USA, Hobibox and more. You can combine this with our 20% discount for buying 4 or more games, making for a really great reason to check out all the titles we've got in stock for you now. The just-released Do You Like Horny Bunnies? is included in the special offer. Also, remember that JAST USA Memorial Collection and Milky House Memorial Collection are going to come back from the duplicators any day now. Why not preorder them now if you haven't already?
For the new update, we've got some excellent products from Japan for you. They include:
For our adult customers, we've got many new 18+ products. They include:
We're constantly improving the J-List website these days, planning and implementing new features for you. As always, if you notice anything odd about site, something that doesn't work or works strangely, please email us right away. If there's ever a problem checking out, you can use the secure email form to contact us, give credit card details and so on.
My wife is a member of the Silver Age generation of Japanese animation, having grown up on the best anime of the 1970's. While anime shows like Space Cruiser Yamato and Gatchaman and Mazinger Z are quite famous outside of Japan, the shows that are most loved by many Japanese of the era were those based on Western works of literature. These include A Dog of Flanders (an incredibly moving Belgian story of a boy Nello and his faithful dog Patrache; the scene where they ascend into heaven will bring instant tears to your eyes), or Heidi, Girl of the Alps (my wife can quote the scene where Clara gets out of her wheelchair from heart), or The Rose of Versailles (a popular manga and anime based on the French Revolution). While I certainly approve of the acceptance Japanese animation has received in the past ten years, I have to say as a parent and that I really miss the "old days" of anime that enriched and moved children, taught them about the great artists and composers of Europe, and made them curious about the outside world -- you can't say that about Digimon or Yu-Gi-Oh. However, a new anime series may be here to save us: Ashita no Nadja, the show that has replaced Ojamajo Doremi (our old favorite on Sunday mornings). It's the story of a girl named Nadja, living in Europe at the beginning of the 20th century, on a mission to find her mother, and it's filled with beautiful imagery and classic "shoujo" romantic themes. We have high hopes for this new show! The Japanese site for Nadja is here: http://www.toei-anim.co.jp/tv/nadja/index2.html
Each country has what the Japanese call a "kokumin-sei" which could be translated as a "national personality." The Germans are good at efficiency and organizing, for example, while people from Italy generally adhere to a list of characteristics that make them inherently "Italian." One aspect of Japanese people is the tendency for them to shrug off difficult decisions or challenges by saying "Shikata ga nai," which means "It's can't be helped." (A more colloquial version of this is "Sho ga nai.") From national economic policy to the problem of men groping women on crowded trains to complaining about the price of lettuce this week, Japanese seem to be uniquely able to throw up their hands and say in effect, oh well, there's no way to solve that problem so I won't do anything about it. This is in contrast to Americans who (I have been told), are terribly optimistic about all things, always believing that a given problem can be solved if you just keep trying to find the answer, no matter what the problem may be. Living outside of your home country is fun, because you get to learn about your own "kokumin-sei" in ways that would be impossible if you never left home.
Remember we're having a great $1 sale on all bishoujo games this month, including all games from G-Collections, JAST USA, Hobibox and more. You can combine this with our 20% discount for buying 4 or more games, making for a really great reason to check out all the titles we've got in stock for you now. The just-released Do You Like Horny Bunnies? is included in the special offer. Also, remember that JAST USA Memorial Collection and Milky House Memorial Collection are going to come back from the duplicators any day now. Why not preorder them now if you haven't already?
For the new update, we've got some excellent products from Japan for you. They include:
- First, for fans of incredibly cute character goods from Japan, we've got some cute Japanese food plush toys from San-X, too cute to eat, believe us
- Also, an incredibly cool item, a deluxe diorama of Hello Kitty and Daniel, which comes with a rare Kitty watch for you to wear
- If you're a fan of Morning Musume, the super-cute JPOP idol group that defines much of Japanese music culture, we've got some mechanical pencils that come with cute pencil leads
- For fans of Japanese snacks, some great treats, including a super-delicious new flavor of Every Burger, little chocolate cookies that look like tiny hamburgers
- For fans of Studio Ghibli items, a fun Kiki's Delivery Service pouch from Sun Arrow, complete with funny English on it
- Also, delicious candy from Okinawa, as well as fresh stock of miso soup, delicious dried ika (if you have to ask what ika is, don't ask, just eat it), and real wasabi
- We're happy the Nostalgic SF Vehicle series is selling so well, and we've got another addition to this great set -- three new vehicles in a "Premium Pack" from Konami, and full sets are available from us
- We love Japan's pretty swimsuit idols like Sayaka Isoyama, and recommend her lovely hardcover photobooks, as well as other items
- For dog lovers, we've got several cute "doggie raincoats" that are so cute, and come in different sizes for your poochie
- Japanese usually prefer green tea to coffee, and we've got a great large-size ceramic cup perfect for your daily cup of healthy green tea
- For fans of the Japanese high school uniform, we've got fresh stock of the photobook that captures the charming uniforms from some of Japan's most famous schools, great for cosplayers or collectors
- For Star Wars fans who missed out on the super deluxe Darth Vader PVC model from Kotobukiya, we've got three more in stock, although these might be the last we will be able to order
- For fans of the incredibly soft and cute blankets that are sold in Japan, we've lowered our prices on all our stock -- we've got Hello Kitty, Totoro, Hamster Club and more in stock for you!
- For fans of Japanese anime figures we've got a super-cute Super Real Figure series of Rizel from Rizelmine, complete with stand and alternate faces
- Finally, find a fun denim pencil case, a funny Japanese sign that will keep Japanese salesmen away from your door, cute charms for your phone, fresh stock of sushi making sets and bento boxes, and more!
For our adult customers, we've got many new 18+ products. They include:
- For lovers of Japanese adult magazines enjoy several new magazines featuring great authentic couples in love hotels
- Also, a popular magazine + video CD sampler combo item, the new DVD Soft Catalog is in stock, with 2+ hours of top quality AV for you to sample
- For fans of the super busty AV star Marina Matsushima, enjoy her deluxe photobook, filled with her best erotic photos
- Also, Shino Harada's sexy hardcover photobook is really cute, but just sexy enough that we've got to list it on the adult photobook pages
- For Ran Asakawa fans, enjoy fresh stock of her must-see-to-believe erotic photobook, which is one of our favorites
- For fans of Japan's unique hentai artwork, enjoy great new erotic comics, including the reissue of Chosuke Nagashima's "Work of Angels" and the fabulous Starting Over hentai work from "Hiyo Hiyo"
- J-List carries many different kinds of personal massagers (vibrators) from Japan, all uniquely in tune with the Japanese sense of sexuality -- now we've got a cool new item, Cherry Bomb, a cherry-style personal massager for all ladies and couples!
- We've got some fabulous erotic DVDs for you today, including some super-long ones, starting with 4 hours of sweet sex from Ran Monbu, whose name sounds like the French pastry "Mont Blanc" when said in Japanese word order (region free)
- Japanese have an unending fetish for Race Queens and Campaign Girls, and now you can enjoy a whopping 7.5 hours of hardcore erotic action with these lovely creatures (region free)
- Asuka Sakamaki is an extremely erotic Japanese AV actress with a small body and hot sex, and she looks great in a new offering from Hayabusa Agency (region free)
- See the "24 hours bukkake" of Riho Nanase as she endures constant bukkake from men as she goes about her daily life (region free)
- From Soft on Demand and Deep's, a great lesbian hentai anime on DVD capturing the sex of nurses in the "Lesbian Hospital" (region free)
- For the growing fans of high-end lesbian AV from Queer, another great performance in a new offering with strong "yuri" themes (region 2)
- Finally, find fresh stock of many popular DVD titles, including the smash hit Gold Bird, Akira Watase's Dream Shower, Bukkake Angel and Gokkun Devil, Sena Sakura's popular DVD and more Endless Lesbian.
We're constantly improving the J-List website these days, planning and implementing new features for you. As always, if you notice anything odd about site, something that doesn't work or works strangely, please email us right away. If there's ever a problem checking out, you can use the secure email form to contact us, give credit card details and so on.
Friday, March 07, 2003
Greetings from J-List March 7, 2003
Hello from Japan, where the word for violence is "rambo."
Japan is a long country shaped like a reversed letter "L." Historically, most of the cultural development in Japan has taken place in the Kansai region (Osaka, Kyoto, Nara), or in the Kanto region, where Tokyo is. The Tohoku region of Japan, the northern 1/3rd of the main Japanese island of Honshu, is much quieter and less developed, lacking much of the clanging trains and freeways that can be found in areas closer to Japanese cities. In my days as a bachelor, I hitchhiked around Japan quiet a bit, and one of my favorite areas has always been northern Japan -- what it lacks in famous castles and battlegrounds and shrines it makes up in quiet rural charm. One place I enjoyed going to was Aizu-Wakamatsu, the scene of one of the last battles of the conflict between the feudal samurai and the pro-reform Restorationists, who were trying to modernize Japan. Rather than submit to becoming "modernized," the last remaining group of samurai chose to commit seppuku. It's a grim but fascinating place to visit.
When you go to Northern Japan for the first time, you may notice that many of the place names are really strange -- although they're written in kanji, the names have the impression of being part of another country altogether. The reason is that the Ainu were the inhabitants of the Tohoku area for centuries, and left their impression on the region even as they were pushed farther and farther north by Japan's growing feudal culture. The place names are so odd that if you write them down in kanji and asked Japanese from another part of the country to read them, very few would be able to do so.
Japan's cold northern region is home to enka music, the "country music" of Japan that has a very unique sound and is enjoyed by truck drivers. Filled with themes of one's wife running away to Hokkaido to marry another man, of images of the cold Tsugaru Straits between Honshu and Hokkaido, it plucks at the heart in ways few other kinds of music can. A popular song a few years ago captured the joy an old man felt at seeing his first grandchild. I fell in love with enka when I came to Japan and learned some of the songs -- there's nothing more fun than a gaijin getting up in a karaoke bar to sing a very traditional Japanese song. Two famous enka singers are Yoshi Ikuzo and Sen Masao. They both hail from Aomori Prefecture, at the very top of the main Japanese island of Honshu. One man is from the Tsugaru Peninsula, on the left side of the prefecture, and the other is from Shimokita Peninsula, on the right side. There's friendly feud between the two men about the intelligence and bathing habits of inhabitants from the other side.
J-List offers subscriptions to various magazines from Japan, with a wide variety of great titles available each month. We've made a change to our magazine subscriptions, eliminating the 6- and 12-month prepaid subscriptions in place of revolving "reserve subscriptions" that allow you to get the current issue sent to you automatically, until you ask us to stop. (People who have currently subscriptions will continue to get the rest of their issues.) The new subscriptions include great magazines like Urecco, Gal's Dee, Bejean and Gokuh, and there's a price break for subscribers, too.
For the new update, we've got some excellent products from Japan for you. They include:
For our adult customers, we've got many new 18+ products. They include:
Remember that J-List has some of the last stock anywhere of the popular Hello Kitty vibrating shoulder massager, which has been one of the most popular items in J-List history. Sadly, no more of these great items will be available in the future, as the company that made them got into a spot of trouble with the Japanese tax authorities, and Sanrio has revoked their license. Since our current stock is all we'll ever get, we recommend anyone who's interested in this great pop culture item to get one before they're all gone. Get 3 or more and save 15% -- they make really great gifts!
Japan is a long country shaped like a reversed letter "L." Historically, most of the cultural development in Japan has taken place in the Kansai region (Osaka, Kyoto, Nara), or in the Kanto region, where Tokyo is. The Tohoku region of Japan, the northern 1/3rd of the main Japanese island of Honshu, is much quieter and less developed, lacking much of the clanging trains and freeways that can be found in areas closer to Japanese cities. In my days as a bachelor, I hitchhiked around Japan quiet a bit, and one of my favorite areas has always been northern Japan -- what it lacks in famous castles and battlegrounds and shrines it makes up in quiet rural charm. One place I enjoyed going to was Aizu-Wakamatsu, the scene of one of the last battles of the conflict between the feudal samurai and the pro-reform Restorationists, who were trying to modernize Japan. Rather than submit to becoming "modernized," the last remaining group of samurai chose to commit seppuku. It's a grim but fascinating place to visit.
When you go to Northern Japan for the first time, you may notice that many of the place names are really strange -- although they're written in kanji, the names have the impression of being part of another country altogether. The reason is that the Ainu were the inhabitants of the Tohoku area for centuries, and left their impression on the region even as they were pushed farther and farther north by Japan's growing feudal culture. The place names are so odd that if you write them down in kanji and asked Japanese from another part of the country to read them, very few would be able to do so.
Japan's cold northern region is home to enka music, the "country music" of Japan that has a very unique sound and is enjoyed by truck drivers. Filled with themes of one's wife running away to Hokkaido to marry another man, of images of the cold Tsugaru Straits between Honshu and Hokkaido, it plucks at the heart in ways few other kinds of music can. A popular song a few years ago captured the joy an old man felt at seeing his first grandchild. I fell in love with enka when I came to Japan and learned some of the songs -- there's nothing more fun than a gaijin getting up in a karaoke bar to sing a very traditional Japanese song. Two famous enka singers are Yoshi Ikuzo and Sen Masao. They both hail from Aomori Prefecture, at the very top of the main Japanese island of Honshu. One man is from the Tsugaru Peninsula, on the left side of the prefecture, and the other is from Shimokita Peninsula, on the right side. There's friendly feud between the two men about the intelligence and bathing habits of inhabitants from the other side.
J-List offers subscriptions to various magazines from Japan, with a wide variety of great titles available each month. We've made a change to our magazine subscriptions, eliminating the 6- and 12-month prepaid subscriptions in place of revolving "reserve subscriptions" that allow you to get the current issue sent to you automatically, until you ask us to stop. (People who have currently subscriptions will continue to get the rest of their issues.) The new subscriptions include great magazines like Urecco, Gal's Dee, Bejean and Gokuh, and there's a price break for subscribers, too.
For the new update, we've got some excellent products from Japan for you. They include:
- First, for fans of Studio Ghibli's popular anime films, we've got the new release of Omoide Poro Poro ("Only Yesterday"), their classic story of Japan in the Showa era and of a girl growing into a woman -- complete with English subtitles!
- Everyone loves Totoro, and we've got two new Totoro music boxes by Sun Arrow in stock for you
- For fans of sexy Japanese swimsuit idols, Race Queens and so on, we've got some nice new photobooks, including Ai Ito's pretty photobook
- Also, we've got a new pocket sized "Chinkame" photobook for fans of the very lovely Kaori Manabe
- For lovers of Japanese snacks, we've got tasty furikake (salmon flavored, my favorite), a great "choco caramel" treat, and delicious Gummi Apples
- Also, for those who don't have enough "yogurt mint" gum in their lives, we've got some in stock for you today!
- If you've got a computer (and you probably do if you're reading this), you need a Flavor Mini Vacuums, which make it easy to keep your computer and keyboard free of dust and dirt, and they come in cool fruity colors
- We have fresh stock of the English DVD of She, The Ultimate Weapon, the special version that comes with a great PVC figure of Chise
- We love traditional Japanese things from Japan, and we've got a great set of erasers that look like Japanese classical sweets and green tea -- so cool!
- We love the fun Kubrick and Be@rbrick toys, and we've got a funky new series, Kuma-Ku from Jun Planning
- For fans of Japanese Tomica die-cast cars, we've got a Mitsubishi Pajero Rally Type in stock -- very spiffy
- We've got some great anime toys, including a super-deluxe "full paint figure" from Azumanga Daioh that is unbelievably cool, as well as a fun bubble-blower for Ojamajo Doremi fans
- For fans of bilingual manga, which features both English and Japanese on each page, we've got a major update for you with fresh stock of Chobits vol. 1 & 2, as well as the popular Ghost in the Shell bilingual comic by Shirow Masamune
- The limited edition Shirow Masamune-designed mouse, which works perfectly with English Mac and Windows machines, is so popular it keeps selling out, but we've got more in stock for you!
- For fans of Sanrio character goods, we've got some nifty items for you including Pom Pom Purin cups and plates, a cool case to keep your Japanese name stamp, and more
- For all students, we've got fresh stock of the Zebra Check Set, which helps you memorize any information (also good for studying Japanese)
- Also, we've restocked the popular "Paper Stitch Lock" that "stitches" sheets of paper together, so you never need a staple
- Finally find many wacky things from Japan, including a portable ashtray that's great for smoking outdoors, a cute pencil case with insane English on it, great Japanese cotton swabs for removing make-up, some florescent ball-point pens, and more!
For our adult customers, we've got many new 18+ products. They include:
- For fans of Japanese adult magazines, we've got some nice amateur and love hotel magazines featuring very lovely girls and Japanese couples, including the new issue of the very detailed Do-Up
- Also, a magazine just for fans of "good girls" doing bad things called Miss Virginity's Secret Report
- We have a great magazine + sample DVD combo item, we've got DVD Wonderland vol. 3 in stock for you
- We've got some nice hardcover photobooks in stock for you including the lovely nude of Mayumi Sawaki, very lovely
- For Japanese hentai manga fans, we've got more in stock for you including the excellent AERO by Tenma Comics and vol. 2 of the Sinful Days hentai comic
- Also, look for freshly restocked items, including the Change! CD-ROM manga, the popular Fetish Doll manga series and more
- Also, we've posted several new doujinshi titles for you, although stock is limited (so check the site quickly before they sell out)
- For DVD fans, we've got some great titles for you, starting with a new Blue File offering for fans of Sanae Asou, with a whopping 4 hours of her best works (region free)
- We have another DVD for advanced leg fetishists, with a strict focus on stocked feet -- very erotic (region free)
- Fans of Akira Watase will enjoy her hardcore "Beauty Female Detective" in which she has many hard-boiled, hard-core adventures (region free)
- Enjoy a great "BBS Production" from SOD, based on a suggestion on SOD's fan BBS, a super "Lesbian Fight" in which four girls fight with sex to see who can make her opponent come the fastest (region free)
- We've got two great DVD releases from Wanz Factory, the best of their dynamite Hip & Vagina series, which features low-angle sexy AV featuring some of Japan's top sex stars (region 2)
- We've restocked several soft porn DVDs, including Maiko Kazano's Memories, Yuko Ogura's sweet DVD offerings and more
- Finally, Tomo has posted fresh stock of several popular titles that had been sold out before -- please see all the new items.
Remember that J-List has some of the last stock anywhere of the popular Hello Kitty vibrating shoulder massager, which has been one of the most popular items in J-List history. Sadly, no more of these great items will be available in the future, as the company that made them got into a spot of trouble with the Japanese tax authorities, and Sanrio has revoked their license. Since our current stock is all we'll ever get, we recommend anyone who's interested in this great pop culture item to get one before they're all gone. Get 3 or more and save 15% -- they make really great gifts!
Wednesday, March 05, 2003
Greetings from J-List March 5, 2003
Hello from Japan, the home of yogurt flavored butterscotch candies -- yum.
Japan has a new "muscle idol" these days: Bob Sapp, a former player with the Minnesota Vikings who is now a professional wrestler and fighter in K-1, has a huge following of fans in Japan and appears in dozens of TV commercials and on TV variety shows here. His combination of a big, scary body and teddy bear cute looks have caused fans to go gaga over him. The Japanese tend to have extra curiosity about black men, who seem "extra foreign" to them (compared with white and other gaijin), and this has no doubt helped Bob build his career in Japan. In one recent variety show, famous "talents" (that is, actors and singers) had to play rock, paper, scissors with him, but he kept making scary faces at the Japanese guests, causing them to run screaming off the stage. It was a fun spectacle to see. See some magazine covers featuring Bob here: http://www.prowrestle.tv/bobsapp/magazine-cover.html
In the U.S., the cornerstone of television has traditionally been the 30 minute situation comedy, although it seems like the networks plan to make it the reality show, if what I can tell from the videos of American TV my mother sends me is correct. The Japanese watch American sitcoms dubbed into Japanese (one of my wife's favorites was "Bewitched," shown in Japan as "My Wife is a Witch"), but there is no Japanese version of this American creation. In Japan, the core television show is the 1-hour drama, which traditionally is shown over 15 episodes, one per week, building up to an exciting and romantic climax. Japanese TV networks such as TBS and TV Tokyo and Fuji TV all compete to make the most interesting "trendy dramas" with famous Japanese stars such as Takuya Kimura (the "Brad Pitt" of Japan) or Nanako Matsushima (the pretty actress who starred in the Japanese version of The Ring if you've seen it). When I was a university student in San Diego, I learned Japanese partially by watching Japanese dramas on the Japanese channel. They're a unique and fun part of Japan pop culture, as full of repeated themes and inside jokes as Japanese animation. For some information on Japanese dramas (often called "doramas" by fans, in imitation of the way the word is pronounced in Japanese), here: http://www.nt2099.com/DORAMA/database.html
Japanese names are interesting to study. Japanese put their family names before their first names, so that Yuko Ogura's name is really Ogura Yuko if you're speaking Japanese. It can be confusing, which is part of why we developed the J-List search engine to bring up the same results no matter what word order you search with. Japanese female names often have "ko" in them (Keiko, Miko, etc.), which means "child." Boy's names, on the other hand, often reflect their status in the family. If a boy is the oldest son, he'll often have a name that indicates this, by having the number 1 or the word "first" in it. The most "vanilla" sounding names in Japanese (i.e., the names that correspond to John and Mary Smith in English) are Taro and Hanako Yamada. Japanese names usually use kanji, Chinese characters, and just as there are various spellings for Western names, there are often many ways to write a person's name in kanji. The government maintains a list of "accepted" kanji that can be used for registering the names of babies, and sometimes Japanese get into fights with the government when the characters they want to use for their child's name aren't on the list. Some years ago, a family decided to name their child "Akuma" (which means "demon" in Japanese). The government wouldn't allow them to use this name, so they settled on just the first character as the child's name.
For the new update, we've got some excellent products from Japan for you. They include:
For our adult customers, we've got many new 18+ products. They include:
J-List has a new category on the left-hand side of the website, a "View All Products" link, allowing you to view all the products on the J-List site (there are quite a few of them...). Items are listed in most-recently-updated-first order, so the most recently updated items are always at the top. You can also click the "view items updated in the last three days" link located on the main J-List page to see the latest products.
Japan has a new "muscle idol" these days: Bob Sapp, a former player with the Minnesota Vikings who is now a professional wrestler and fighter in K-1, has a huge following of fans in Japan and appears in dozens of TV commercials and on TV variety shows here. His combination of a big, scary body and teddy bear cute looks have caused fans to go gaga over him. The Japanese tend to have extra curiosity about black men, who seem "extra foreign" to them (compared with white and other gaijin), and this has no doubt helped Bob build his career in Japan. In one recent variety show, famous "talents" (that is, actors and singers) had to play rock, paper, scissors with him, but he kept making scary faces at the Japanese guests, causing them to run screaming off the stage. It was a fun spectacle to see. See some magazine covers featuring Bob here: http://www.prowrestle.tv/bobsapp/magazine-cover.html
In the U.S., the cornerstone of television has traditionally been the 30 minute situation comedy, although it seems like the networks plan to make it the reality show, if what I can tell from the videos of American TV my mother sends me is correct. The Japanese watch American sitcoms dubbed into Japanese (one of my wife's favorites was "Bewitched," shown in Japan as "My Wife is a Witch"), but there is no Japanese version of this American creation. In Japan, the core television show is the 1-hour drama, which traditionally is shown over 15 episodes, one per week, building up to an exciting and romantic climax. Japanese TV networks such as TBS and TV Tokyo and Fuji TV all compete to make the most interesting "trendy dramas" with famous Japanese stars such as Takuya Kimura (the "Brad Pitt" of Japan) or Nanako Matsushima (the pretty actress who starred in the Japanese version of The Ring if you've seen it). When I was a university student in San Diego, I learned Japanese partially by watching Japanese dramas on the Japanese channel. They're a unique and fun part of Japan pop culture, as full of repeated themes and inside jokes as Japanese animation. For some information on Japanese dramas (often called "doramas" by fans, in imitation of the way the word is pronounced in Japanese), here: http://www.nt2099.com/DORAMA/database.html
Japanese names are interesting to study. Japanese put their family names before their first names, so that Yuko Ogura's name is really Ogura Yuko if you're speaking Japanese. It can be confusing, which is part of why we developed the J-List search engine to bring up the same results no matter what word order you search with. Japanese female names often have "ko" in them (Keiko, Miko, etc.), which means "child." Boy's names, on the other hand, often reflect their status in the family. If a boy is the oldest son, he'll often have a name that indicates this, by having the number 1 or the word "first" in it. The most "vanilla" sounding names in Japanese (i.e., the names that correspond to John and Mary Smith in English) are Taro and Hanako Yamada. Japanese names usually use kanji, Chinese characters, and just as there are various spellings for Western names, there are often many ways to write a person's name in kanji. The government maintains a list of "accepted" kanji that can be used for registering the names of babies, and sometimes Japanese get into fights with the government when the characters they want to use for their child's name aren't on the list. Some years ago, a family decided to name their child "Akuma" (which means "demon" in Japanese). The government wouldn't allow them to use this name, so they settled on just the first character as the child's name.
For the new update, we've got some excellent products from Japan for you. They include:
- First, for Sailor Moon fans, we've got three dynamite PVC figures of Usagi, Ami and Rei in their classic poses -- very cool
- Also for anime fans, a really fun coloring book for Tokyo Mew Mew fans
- Jiji, the black cat from Kiki's Delivery Service, has always been a huge favorite at J-List, and everything we get in stock for Jiji fans seems to sell well -- now we've got a really cool Jiji soft doll from Sekiguchi
- For Hello Kitty fans, enjoy some great new items, including a fun "Catch de Pon!" game (play catch with a Kitty ball)
- For fans of cute Japanese idols, some great new hardcover photobooks, including Kaori Koshi's first cutie photobook and a new offering from the very popular Yoko Matsugane
- For fans of Asian bathing, we've got two Korean style items for removing dead skin cells from your body in the bath or shower
- J-List carries dozens of DVDs of Japanese films that have English subtitles, and we've got a new title for you, Ping Pong, an exciting film of ping pong and life (region 2)
- For fans of Japanese snack foods, we've got some nice items, including Morinaga Hi-Chew soft candies, Anpan Man fruit candies, kimchee flavored seaweed snacks and the enigmatic "yogurt butterscotch candy" by Chelsea
- Also, we've got stock of Lotte's delicious Mint Blue, a chewing gum as fresh and minty as the sea -- complete with packs of gum that say "Yes, Chewing!" on them
- For collectors of teddy bears, we've got a great new items from Japan -- a series of very detailed soft vinyl antique teddy bears based on the famous teddy bears past
- For Blythe fans, we've gotten in fresh stock of the Every Blythe cute figures from Takara
- Chobits is the top anime and manga in Japan today, and we've restocked the red-hot Chobits trading cards that sold out so fast last week
- We've got fresh stock of DVDs and photobooks by the lovely Yuko Ogura, on her way to becoming one of the most famous Japanese idols outside Japan
- We've done a major update of our popular bento boxes and related items, with fresh stock of several deluxe bento box sets and more
- We love wacky signs in Japanese, and we've got one for your room ("Post no bills")
- Finally, look for traditional Japanese miso soup bowls, a cute pencil case with funny English on it, a cute tote bag from Japan, fresh stock of chopsticks and more!
For our adult customers, we've got many new 18+ products. They include:
- For fans of great adult magazines, we've got some nice ones in stock for you, starting with Gal's Dee, the magazine for fans of beautiful busty Japanese gals (D cup or higher) including the lovely Kyoko Ayana
- Also, see other great items like a special issue of Suppin Evolution, a great issue of Let's Do Good Things (hardcore love hotel sex) and more
- For fans of Japan's beautiful hardcover photobooks, some great items in stock, including Imoto Alpha vol 2 featuring the lovely body of nude model Sayaka
- Also, see many restocked photobook items including the popular Minori Aoi "Beyond the Blue Sky," Kaoru's Private Collection photobook, and the Yellows photobooks
- For fans of Japan's bondage themed AV, enjoy the new MPEG Aido Club, featuring a magazine and DVD packed with fun bondage samplers (region free)
- Enjoy some of Japan's most beautiful and elegant busty idols in a super Giant Breast Idol, including Nao Oikawa, Chihiro Inoue and many more
- For hentai comic fans, enjoy the excellent artwork and erotic stories of Japan's top hentai artists, including vol. 1 of Michael Plan by Distance and a super anthology of the best hentai works of the Zero Shiki comic company
- For fans of excellent erotic doujinshi, amateur comics that parody famous anime characters, we've got a superb all Gundam issue of Next Climax Magazine
- Also, we've got a nice new yaoi comic in stock for you about romantic love and sex
- Also, for fans of the incredibly well-known hentai artist U-Jin, we've restocked his best-selling "Candy" erotic illustration book for you
- For erotic DVD fans J-List has some great new items in stock for you, starting with a new The Idol series by Kuki, this time featuring 3 hours of the lovely sex of Miyuki Kasuga (region free)
- See the super-erotic Ran Asakawa as an erotic "Queen & Slave" in an erotic new offering from Alice Japan (region free)
- In a new Soft on Demand "Magic Mirror Bus" DVD, female friends are challenged to do things for money -- $50 to show your bra, $100 to show your panties, $400 to have sex in a car, and more (region free)
- Also from SOD, enjoy "Everything about Kyoko Ayana" in a superb DVD offering compiling her best performances (region free)
- Madoka Ozawa is one of the sexiest and most venerable AV stars in Japan today -- now see this special woman in a super-erotic cosplay release from Moodyz (region 2)
- Also very cool, a "Catalog of 15 Beautiful Girls" documenting their beauty and charm, similar to the Yellows series by Akira Gomi (region 2)
- Finally, look for freshly restocked items including Ganari Takahashi's works, Minori Aoi's lovely "Love Theory," Lesbian Max 4 hours and more "clothed sex" fetish!
J-List has a new category on the left-hand side of the website, a "View All Products" link, allowing you to view all the products on the J-List site (there are quite a few of them...). Items are listed in most-recently-updated-first order, so the most recently updated items are always at the top. You can also click the "view items updated in the last three days" link located on the main J-List page to see the latest products.
Monday, March 03, 2003
Greetings from J-List March 3, 2003
Greetings from Japan, where people bow while talking on the phone (I do it too...).
There are a lot of words that the Japanese invent that are fun to learn. One word that most fans of anime learn pretty quickly is the "H" (the letter H), which when said with a Japanese accent sounds like "ecchi" (also written "etchi"). Said by some to stand for the first letter of the word "hentai" (which means "sexually perverted" in Japanese), the word "H" is basically used to describe any kind of sexual situation or person. If a person thinks about sex too much, he is "ecchi," and a euphemism for having sex in Japanese is "H suru" (literally "to do H"). Whatever its origin, "H" (ecchi) is a part of Japanese culture and language, be it in anime, manga, television dramas and so on. For a rather deep discussion on the word "H" and related words, see this page: http://home.attbi.com/~kagamix2/H_does_not_mean_hentai
Studying the names of Japanese companies can be interesting. For example, I'll bet you never knew that Kyocera is short for "Kyoto Ceramics." The number one car company in Japan is Toyota, which is located in Toyota City, Aichi Prefecture (near Nagoya) -- but the company came first, and the city changed its name to Toyota City in 1959 "to reflect its bright prospects to develop and prosper as an automobile city." The number two Japanese car company is Honda, founded by Soichiro Honda to make motorcycles after the end of World War II. Mazda, which is more than half owned by Ford now, is really called Matsuda in Japan, but they came up with the name Mazda so they could sound less Japanese in foreign markets. Datsun's name has an interesting story -- DAT were the first letters of the names of three founders, and they considered the company they were founding to be their son, thus DATSON. However, "son" (with a long vowel, so that it rhymes with bone), means "loss" or "disadvantage" in Japanese, so they changed it to "sun," a much more cheerful word. Datsun was later bought out by one of its distributors, Nissan (which means "Made in Japan" -- if you said "America-san" it would be "made in America"). Subaru, based near J-List, is the Japanese name for the star cluster we called the Pleiades. Some popular beer companies are Asahi ("morning sun"), Kirin (named after a magical Chinese dragon), and Suntory (the president's name as Tori-san, so he reversed it to come up with the name of his company).
There's no doubt about it -- the Japanese really love their tea. While in a 7-11 recently, I counted no less than a dozen brands of bottled or canned tea for sale, mostly variations on Japanese green tea and Chinese oolong tea. In addition to the normal Western canned tea like Kirin's Afternoon Tea, which are the only teas with sugar added, many brands competed for shelf space, including Kirin's Nama-cha (lit. "fresh tea"), Sapporo's Kyo-ryoku-cha (Kyoto-style green tea), Asahi's Marocha ("mild tea"), the popular Soukenbi-cha by Coca-cola, various blends of jasmine tea, and a new tea that labels itself as the traditional tea of Okinawa. As Japanese get older, teas to help control blood sugar are also experiencing a "tea boom." As the market for bottled tea products heats up, manufacturers come up with ways to get you to buy their products, offering larger or smaller packages, keychains that you get free with the bottle of tea, and so on. Unlike the U.S., where adding sweetener to products is an unfortunate requirement in most cases (bottled green and oolong tea we've bought in the U.S. even contained honey to sweeten it, something inconceivable in Japan), all Asian teas are completely unsweetened, and the unaltered, slightly bitter taste is really delicious. In the summer, the Japanese love to make mugi-cha (a tea made from barley), and we'll be there, making it available to everyone in teabag form.
At J-List, we love Japan's interactive love-sim games, and we carry virtually every English hentai game in existence. We're happy to announce the $1 shipping sale on all hentai games this month, which makes it a great time to complete your collection of great games! Don't forget that we give a 20% discount with any four or more games, and you can use this discount on top of the $1 shipping sale. All titles are included in this great sale, including G-Collection's newest title, which we've posted to our site today.
For the new update, we've got some excellent products from Japan for you. They include:
For our adult customers, we've got many new 18+ products. They include:
Remember that J-List is the only place you can get the excellent and authentic high school uniforms from Matsukameya of Nagoya. These are extremely well made uniforms that are famous all over Japan, and they're just beautiful. They're not cheap, unfortunately, but we know that you will be totally satisfied with the high quality of Matsukameya's products. The company prides themselves on offering a huge variety of sizes for customers, so no matter what size you are there's a uniform for you. Please browse the great Japanese high school uniforms we've got for you!
There are a lot of words that the Japanese invent that are fun to learn. One word that most fans of anime learn pretty quickly is the "H" (the letter H), which when said with a Japanese accent sounds like "ecchi" (also written "etchi"). Said by some to stand for the first letter of the word "hentai" (which means "sexually perverted" in Japanese), the word "H" is basically used to describe any kind of sexual situation or person. If a person thinks about sex too much, he is "ecchi," and a euphemism for having sex in Japanese is "H suru" (literally "to do H"). Whatever its origin, "H" (ecchi) is a part of Japanese culture and language, be it in anime, manga, television dramas and so on. For a rather deep discussion on the word "H" and related words, see this page: http://home.attbi.com/~kagamix2/H_does_not_mean_hentai
Studying the names of Japanese companies can be interesting. For example, I'll bet you never knew that Kyocera is short for "Kyoto Ceramics." The number one car company in Japan is Toyota, which is located in Toyota City, Aichi Prefecture (near Nagoya) -- but the company came first, and the city changed its name to Toyota City in 1959 "to reflect its bright prospects to develop and prosper as an automobile city." The number two Japanese car company is Honda, founded by Soichiro Honda to make motorcycles after the end of World War II. Mazda, which is more than half owned by Ford now, is really called Matsuda in Japan, but they came up with the name Mazda so they could sound less Japanese in foreign markets. Datsun's name has an interesting story -- DAT were the first letters of the names of three founders, and they considered the company they were founding to be their son, thus DATSON. However, "son" (with a long vowel, so that it rhymes with bone), means "loss" or "disadvantage" in Japanese, so they changed it to "sun," a much more cheerful word. Datsun was later bought out by one of its distributors, Nissan (which means "Made in Japan" -- if you said "America-san" it would be "made in America"). Subaru, based near J-List, is the Japanese name for the star cluster we called the Pleiades. Some popular beer companies are Asahi ("morning sun"), Kirin (named after a magical Chinese dragon), and Suntory (the president's name as Tori-san, so he reversed it to come up with the name of his company).
There's no doubt about it -- the Japanese really love their tea. While in a 7-11 recently, I counted no less than a dozen brands of bottled or canned tea for sale, mostly variations on Japanese green tea and Chinese oolong tea. In addition to the normal Western canned tea like Kirin's Afternoon Tea, which are the only teas with sugar added, many brands competed for shelf space, including Kirin's Nama-cha (lit. "fresh tea"), Sapporo's Kyo-ryoku-cha (Kyoto-style green tea), Asahi's Marocha ("mild tea"), the popular Soukenbi-cha by Coca-cola, various blends of jasmine tea, and a new tea that labels itself as the traditional tea of Okinawa. As Japanese get older, teas to help control blood sugar are also experiencing a "tea boom." As the market for bottled tea products heats up, manufacturers come up with ways to get you to buy their products, offering larger or smaller packages, keychains that you get free with the bottle of tea, and so on. Unlike the U.S., where adding sweetener to products is an unfortunate requirement in most cases (bottled green and oolong tea we've bought in the U.S. even contained honey to sweeten it, something inconceivable in Japan), all Asian teas are completely unsweetened, and the unaltered, slightly bitter taste is really delicious. In the summer, the Japanese love to make mugi-cha (a tea made from barley), and we'll be there, making it available to everyone in teabag form.
At J-List, we love Japan's interactive love-sim games, and we carry virtually every English hentai game in existence. We're happy to announce the $1 shipping sale on all hentai games this month, which makes it a great time to complete your collection of great games! Don't forget that we give a 20% discount with any four or more games, and you can use this discount on top of the $1 shipping sale. All titles are included in this great sale, including G-Collection's newest title, which we've posted to our site today.
For the new update, we've got some excellent products from Japan for you. They include:
- First, for fans of Hayao Miyazaki's films, we've got a super plush "Kitsune-risu" (Fox Squirrel), sidekick of Nausica of the Valley of the Wind and also seen in Castle in the Sky Laputa -- it's really soft and great to touch
- We've got a great selection of snack items, including McVitie's chocolate cookie balls, dried squid (it goes really good with beer, trust us), tasty salmon furikake, and more
- For fans of Japanese gum, we've got Dakara gum, a delicious flavor similar to Pocari Sweat (it helps replenish your body's minerals, great for athletes)
- Also for fans of Japanese gum, we've got an item that isn't gum at all -- but sticky notes that look like famous brands of Lotte gum!
- For fans of great anime toys from Japan, we've got a lot of items, including a cool figure from Ruroni Kenshin
- Also, a great series of Robot Animation Heroines from the famous anime shows of the 1980's by Sunrise
- We love Blythe more and more as we see her fans find J-List -- we've got a deluxe Pucchi Blythe that comes with a hand-knit sweater, jeans, and many fun accessories
- For Gundam fans, a line of "Haro Capsule Toys" that come with a cute capsule shaped like the robot Haro, each containing a beautiful statue from the Gundam universe
- For fans of cool figures from Japan such as the Kubrick line, we've got a really rare series of "architectural character" shaped like animals -- a rare item you should check out
- Tomy takes pride in the die-cast metal cars they make in their Tomica line, and we've got a great series of four classic Honda cars, a great item for collectors
- For Hello Kitty fans, we've got some beautiful items including two Hello Kitty "Hina doll set" that capture Kitty and Daniel in traditional Japanese poses
- If you're a fan of the Japan-only Hot Wheels we've got fresh stock for you, including the hard to find Thunderbird Hot Wheels, fresh stock of the original Back to the Future Delorean I, and more
- For bento fans, look for a deluxe large bento box we've got for you, as well as a handy package of chopsticks for those embarrassing moments when you don't have enough chopsticks
- For fans of authentic Japanese sailor uniforms that we sell, made by Matsukameya of Nagoya, we've got a new light blue color uniform available for order
- Finally, look for restocked items, such as real Japanese incense, sushi making molds, delicious miso soup, Hello Kitty bag sealers and more!
For our adult customers, we've got many new 18+ products. They include:
- First, for fans of great Japanese love-sim games in English, a new title: G-Collections' Do You Like Horny Bunnies? -- a game with an odd name but really cute hentai bunny girls, and lots of superb uncensored action
- For fans of Japanese adult magazines, we've got some nice ones, including bukkake and amateur magazines in stock
- If you're a fan of Bachelor, the magazine that follows super-busty idols from Japan as well as all over the world, we've got their great 25th anniversary special issue in stock
- For fans of beautiful Japanese models in panty stockings, mini-skirts and high heels, enjoy the super erotic Panst Flash, featuring 208 satisfying pages!
- We love the beautiful Aoi Sola (ala Aoi Sora), whose name means "blue sky" in Japanese -- see her erotic new hardcover photobook
- If you're a fan of Japan's highly developed bondage culture, don't miss Bunko Kanazawa's all-bondage photobook, which we've got in stock for you
- For fans of silver age Japanese AV, a new photobook featuring the hottest "Diamond Girls" including Kimiko Matsuzaka (!)
- For fans of the Viper series, a great official art book for Viper RSR, filled with superb art, sketch work and character designs
- For hentai manga collectors, see the excellent new volumes we have in stock for you, including Past Princess, a superb wide manga of fantasy and sex by Angel Comics
- Also, we've got a great restocking of popular hentai comics including Queen Bee, Saint Costume Play School and more
- Also for yaoi fans, we've got a new issue of Love Me in stock for you, as well as restocks of other items for you
- If you love doujinshi, don't miss the excellent Suki Suki Lum-chan, a superb Urusei Yatsura erotic doujinshi we've got for you
- If you love Japan's adult video world, enjoy some great DVDs, starting with Hitomi Hayasaka's "2 in 1," and including her first on-camera anal sex (region free)
- We love Ami Ayukawa for her sleek and elegant body and great sex -- see a superb *4 hour* collection of her erotic performances in a new Blue File DVD release (region free)
- For fans of adult video pro wrestling, which is taking Japan by storm, a great DVD you won't want to miss, with a sup 300 minutes of footage (region free)
- We're big fans of Sally Yoshino and have carried her works ever since she debuted back in 1996 -- now see the very best of Sally's works with Soft on Demand on one disc (region free)
- Enjoy the sweet sex of Kirari Koizumi, as captured by Soft on Demand, in a new release for you (region free)
- For fans of the huge fetish of "black bukkake," watch as Akira Watase and Miyoshino take on a whole bunch of black guys and American AV star Jessica in a new release from Moodyz (region 2)
- Finally, a variety of newly restocked DVD titles from Japan's best studios, for you!
Remember that J-List is the only place you can get the excellent and authentic high school uniforms from Matsukameya of Nagoya. These are extremely well made uniforms that are famous all over Japan, and they're just beautiful. They're not cheap, unfortunately, but we know that you will be totally satisfied with the high quality of Matsukameya's products. The company prides themselves on offering a huge variety of sizes for customers, so no matter what size you are there's a uniform for you. Please browse the great Japanese high school uniforms we've got for you!
Friday, February 28, 2003
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:
For our adult customers, we've got many new 18+ products. They include:
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.
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:
For our adult customers, we've got many new 18+ products. They include:
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.
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.
Wednesday, February 26, 2003
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:
For our adult customers, we've got many new 18+ products. They include:
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?
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:
For our adult customers, we've got many new 18+ products. They include:
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?
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?
Monday, February 24, 2003
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:
For our adult customers, we've got many new 18+ products. They include:
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!
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:
For our adult customers, we've got many new 18+ products. They include:
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!
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!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)