Greetings from J-List November 27, 1997

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Greetings from J-List November 22, 1997

Well, I am off to Tokyo again on Saturday, this time to the illustrious Imperial Hotel, for another fun day of being a businessman in Japan. It beats teaching English conversation.

My, those new dojinshi didn't last very long, did they? Twelve hours after posting the new items, all but a few have been gobbled up. If you are interested in dojinshi, though, don't let that keep you from checking out the page. We reduced all prices on our stock yesterday, so that we can make room for new items.

New to the list tonight are several new items on the list, including a new issue of MPEG CD Soft Catalog and Windows 100% vol. 8. These are top-notch CD ROM items that are made even better by the buy-3-get-1-free sale that is going on this month. Buy three items from the CD ROM page, and get a fourth one free.

Let me pontificate about these CD ROM/magazine combo items for just a moment. Basically, items such as CD ROM Collection, All Pasocom CD Soft Catalog, Windows 100% and the MPEG CD Soft Catalog are "stiffened" magazines containing one or two CD ROMs in them, protected against bending or breaking. Great "sampler" items, they typically include dozens of adult Quicktime or MPEG movies -- often nearly an hour of footage on a CD ROM -- 200+ adult photographs in JPEG or BMP format (i.e., you can use one as your desktop wallpaper if you like), some sample "hentai" games (in Japanese), and more. Items of a slightly different genre, items like CD ROM Choice and the Fantajenne CD ROM Magazines give you hundreds of sample adult anime images from various popular adult anime games

Personally, I like these CD ROM items and make an effort to carry a large selection, because they provide such an excellent value. The latest MPEG CD Soft Catalog, for example, gives you a cool sampling of Japanese AV, an hour and 58 minutes of total footage, plus an all-color magazine, all for just $25 -- compare with J-List videos, which mostly sell for $45. The CD ROM Choice series gives you hundreds of current, top-quality images -- much better than spending hours downing hentai pictures off of Usenet and finding they were all from a game that came out in 1989.

Other items we have on the list in time for the weekend include a few new magazines, and (ta-da!) more 'b' videos! So make sure you browse through the new stuff.

Well, that's all for me. Got to get back to work.

Greetings from J-List November 21, 1997

Hi from Japan. I just got back from my favorite restaurant, Kawashima's, where I had a great meal of Chicken Katsudon Teishoku, a kind of fried breast-of-chicken fillet which you put on rice and eat with a delicious sauce that is called "sauce" (soosu) in Japanese.

It is, I am happy to say, Dojinshi Time around here. We have about 30 new dojinshi on the J-List dojinshi page today. These are, without exception, one shot dojinshi, items that I have only one of. There are many older items, dojinshi that you will likely not see around again, like classic Ah My Goddess adult comics, Ranma 1/2 items, Video Girl Ai stuff

When checking out the new dojinshi, be sure to scroll down to the bottom of the page, since we've slashed prices on almost all the remaining stock we have (some as low us $6!). We have literally hundreds of dojinshi, and they can all go out to you in a day, so check out what we've got, along with the new prices.

Other cool items include a Whole Big Bunch of new magazines and shashinshus, including the popular Super Mini-Skirt Deluxe large magazine, a mess of Photoshot issues, and many more. And make sure you stop by the calendars, toys, and VCD pages to see the stuff we put up yesterday if you missed it.

While I'm evangelizing about dojinshi, I should mention how much I like the Fusion "dojinshi anthologies" which you can find on the "adult manga" page. These are basically collections of great Evangelion, Sailor Moon, and other dojinshi that have been reprinted by the publisher. They are great ways to get a lot of dojinshi stories for cheap, and since they're published by a large company, we have tons available and can reorder them anytime we fun out. Finally, the depth of the stories found in these books are truly excellent, and I enjoy reading them myself -- those explorations of the Eva characters are really interesting. Now that J-List sells the Paradise Lost, Angelic Impact and Lunatic Party series in sets at reduced prices, it's a great way for you snap up a whole set.

Greetings from J-List November 20, 1997

Another week is speeding by, as we continue our fast-paced life in Japan. Can you believe we'll be done with 1997 in less than 6 weeks?

I have some really nice things for you today -- starting with more high-quality Japanese anime toys. The newest line is a re-issuing of Macross toys and models by Bandai, Sega and some other companies. We have the first three in a series of Battloid "ready models" (really poseable, full-featured toys), and they are absolute must-haves for anyone who ever loved Macross or Robotech. Roy Fokker's Skull-1 is staring at me as I type this, and every once in a while I pick it up and reenact Roy's death in the Macross movie for Kaori's benefit.

Besides these Battloid figures, we also have models (two Macross and one Gundam so far) -- really excellent items that anyone interested in the genre should love. A word about the models. I have avoided breaking into pura-model (plastic models) up til now because, frankly, I know very little about the genre. Many great models exist, including models from various anime shows and more, and frankly, J-List will be able to provide them at quite reasonable prices. If you are knowledgeable in the world of Japanese model kits, I would appreciate some advice or comments -- thanks.

In addition to the above items, we have a bunch of new magazines and shashinshus, including more copies of that darned Erotic Flower hardcover photobook that keeps selling out within 24 hours of me getting more copies. There are also some new Video CDs on the VCD page.

Finally our Thursday update offerings include a massive reduction in prices on the calendars page. Not only have we slashed prices on the in-stock calendars $5-$15, but we'll pick up your shipping (an extra $5 savings) and even throw in a free mailing box if you get two or more. Why are we practically giving away calendars? Well, the main reason is that we love you all, but along with that is the obvious fact that no one wants a calendar that they can't enjoy looking at every month. Help us out and check out the calendars page -- thanks.

A brief note to California residents: J-List will no longer be collecting CA sales tax, and will be issuing refunds/credits for any sales tax collected since May 1. This is because we will be organizing J-List as a Japanese corporation, not as a California one, as we had previously planned. We have made an attempt to contact everyone who has a refund coming, but if you have not received an email from us, and/or have any questions, email us. Thanks.

Greetings from J-List November 18, 1997

Well, I have to get to bed tonight so I can get up and Do Tokyo again tomorrow -- I am really learning the trains and subway lines by heart these days.

My wife and I finally got around to seeing the "last" Miyazaki movie, Mononoke Hime (Princess of Hairy Beasts?). It was very nicely done, with a good story, excellently executed animation, and all the classic Miyazaki themes. Check it out at a theatre or video store near you. This movie has out-grossed even E.T., the previous #1 movie here in Japan, to become the biggest money-making movie, Japanese or American, here in Japan.

We have some nice new items, including some new magazines (the "new" issue of Suppin is really great), another copy of the Lewd Flower hardcover shashinshu, and ... anime and JPOP CDs! Yes, it's been a while, but we have about 12 new JPOP and anime CDs on the anime and JPOP pages. We still lack a supplier, unfortunately -- these are just some ones I came across. On the other hand, they items we got are great, including Gundam and Nadia soundtracks, and more cool stuff. As always

Other items of interest include calendars, in-stock videos, and anime toys, which we have tons of. Also, the buy-3-get-1-free sale on Japanese CD ROM & magazine combos such as CD ROM Collection, CD ROM Choice, and more, continues! Thanks, and enjoy your Tuesday.

Greetings from J-List November 14, 1997

Wow, I'm tired -- new updates to the J-List homepage, three days in a row. But I'm really happy today, because we've got some really great items for you today. As most long-time J-List readers hopefully know, I only carry items on J-List I can be personally excited -- even evangelical -- about, from the standpoint of spreading great Japanese stuff all around the world. This is why I am pleased to tell you about the new toys we have gotten in.

First, to commemorate the upcoming Christmas season, J-List has a whole slew of great Japanese toys available for you. Newly added items include Tsukuda Hobby's line of 1/6 scale Evangelion figures, the new Sentimental Graffiti issue, Sakura Wars potable "finished models, more Evangelion mecha toys, Rayearth figures, and the finale -- large, hard to find figurines for Nadia and Maison Ikkoku fans.

We have more than just toys, though. There are new videos added to the Video Warehouse, including copies of the popular PER193 Perfect Collection video, in stock and ready for you to snap them up. Some of the videos we've gotten extra stock in of have begun to sell out, so if there is anything you want to claim, take some time and check out our video offerings.

Finally, there are new items on the Adult Manga page, great new issues of Fusion's excellent Evangelion Sexual Anthologies, Paradise Lost and Angelic Impact. If you don't know what Fusion's dojinshi anthologies" are, they are compilations of the best Eva, Sailor Moon and other adult manga stories, and they feature high-quality adult stories with great artwork and writing. If you like Fusion's stuff

Greetings from J-List November 13, 1997

Hello again from Japan. It's a real mess around here as we continue to sort through the mess cause by the sudden delivery of tons of stuff here at the J-List office. There just are not enough hours in the day to do what we need to do then tidy things up at the end of the day. In better news, I have gotten the official word that the X-Files premier video is speeding on its way to me right now. Hurry, X-Files tape!

We have a fistful of magazines and shashinshus for you today. In addition to new issues of Urecco, Cream, Beppin School, Photoshot, Be Back, and many more, we have some cool new shashinshu items for you, including more copies of an item we had on J-List about 8 months ago (the busty Hosokawa Shinobu's "Barefoot Girl"), new "mook" style shashinshus, and more. It's a nice way to enter a Friday

Be sure to look through all the magazines pages, as prices are falling all the time, and we're trying to push the last few copies of some of our books out the door to clear out our stock room and reduce load time for the pages. You can get some really good bargains. Also, I ask again that you take a moment to look through the calendars page (there are still many great calendars in stock, including Ozawa Madoka's excellent nude calenar) and CD ROMs page (buy three, the fourth is free).

Greetings from J-List November 12, 1997

Having a nice Wednesday? I am tired out from all the events in the week so far. Yesterday I had to dash to Tokyo on business, and today I had another "special lesson" in front of 20+ Japanese elderly people, in which I discussed life in Japan for a foreigner, my daily customs, and the like. Now that I have all those special projects out of the way, I can roll up my sleeves and cut through the backlog of email. Sorry if you were kept waiting for a reply from us.

We have some nice items for you, mostly replenishing the supply of magazines and shashinshus that were sold out. Chiasa fans should certainly check out the photobooks page, and we have some more magazines, too.

We did have one unpleasant surprise: the PER201 and MV133 videos have 75% duplicated content. I have notified everyone who has ordered both items, and removed PER201 (although some back ordered videos will no doubt come in). We've never printed an official policy on this because there have been so few cases, but in the even that two videos you buy from J-List ever did have the same content (it has happened 5-6 times in the past year, so the odds are low, but not zero) we will take care of it, since we stand by what we sell in all things.

Please check out the CD ROMs page! There are tons (well, hundreds of pounds) of great CD ROM magazines, like Windows 100%, CD ROM Collection, CD ROM Choice, and the All Pasocom CD ROM Catalog. These CD ROM & magazine combos, which frequently have hundreds of pictures and dozens of Quicktime movie clips of different AV models doing, well, what you'd expect them to be doing, already represented one of the best deals anywhere on J-List

Greetings from J-List November 11, 1997

Big changes here at J-List. First and foremost is the official division of our videos pages into two sections, the Video Catalog, offering a wide variety of excellent Japanese adult videos available through our Japanese distributor (read: it will take time to get your order in, but we have great selection); and the Video Warehouse, a large collection of in-house videos which can be snapped up immediately -- although, as always, quantities are limited to what we have.

I'd like to make a new paragraph to tell you how happy I am to so many copies -- dozens in many cases -- of some of the most popular videos we've ever had at J-List. Great videos, by the likes of Aika Miura, Fubuki Akira, Ozawa Madoka, and yes, we even have 20 copies of MV133 Chiasa Aonuma hard-core video (I have, ahem, verified that it is hard core after all, now that my wife has gone to sleep -- damn it's a trip seeing Chiasa do this). I am aware that the lameness of our current video distributor setup causes delays for many people that I consider unacceptable. Hopefully, our new "stock a lot" policy will prove to be convenient for everyone. Still

The other big news is that we have tons of new calendars on the calendars page -- the rest of the extras we had ordered have come in, and there are some great items available for you, including more Fubuki Akira and Ozawa Madoka posters, more beautiful models like Henmi Emiri and Sakai Noriko, Japanese JPOP and idol calendars, and more. In addition, many of the calendars' prices have been cut -- see the calendars page now.

Greetings from J-List November 4, 1997

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Greetings from J-List October 31, 1997

Happy Halloween, everyone, from Japan, which is 16 hours ahead of California (which is why my updates may always seem a day ahead if you're in the States). There is understandably not much Halloween spirit around here, being as we are in a country that doesn't care about Halloween. I was watching late-night Japanese TV with my wife last night, and a model named Hayami Yu was on TV making pumpkin pudding in commemoration of the American event. She mentioned that it was originally a day when spirits of the dead return home, and said that it was similar to the Japanese Obon holiday -- which caused my wife to nod our heads, as we had not thought of the two as being similar at all.

Some nice new items for you tonight on the magazines page. The new JoMag and Momo Creams are in, and they look very spiffing. Also, some new items have popped up on the videos pages (5) and elsewhere on the magazines/shashinshu pages. I see that I had the wrong picture for one of the Final Fantasy action figures on the anime page -- this error has been corrected, if you're interested in these toys.

I have closed the calendar orders because our distributor told us that the end of October would be the end of orders. If you're still interested in seeing some of our great calendars, don't worry -- we bought some extras, many of which are on the calendars page right now, as "b" calendars. These are in stock now and can be sent off right away, so let me know if you want one of then. I have updated the calendars example page with pictures of Akira Fubuki and others, since, well, they looked good.

I have updated my Newton Pre-Buyers' Guide again with some more screenshots of the Newton's web browser, and more. You can find a lot of information about the Newton portable computers at my site, so drop by if you have time. Thanks.

Well, that's all for now. Until next month, I'll see you later.

Greetings from J-List October 26, 1997

We're having a nice, quiet weekend here in Japan. It's cool, but not cold, and we're getting some shopping and relaxing done, and late at night I have been putting serious hours into Civilization II, recently released for the Macintosh (you can find it at http://www.cdw.com/. I will make a small update today, though.

Our deadline for ordering calendars has passed, although we're going to leave the calendar information up for a while, until the 5th of November or so. The reason we set the deadline early is that we wanted to be sure to get orders in in advance to allow the calendar company to get the calendars to us before they start becoming unavailable. Unless the calendar you want is extremely popular, we should still be able to order and get your calendar for you -- so let us know what you want. Note that payment by credit card is the best way to do this, since we don't have to inconvenience you if the calendar is not available.

I hadn't mentioned it before, but along with the two new Final Fantasy action figures, we have available three dolls in the Sentimental Graffiti Collection. These are soft vinyl dolls of high quality by Tsukuda Hobby, and they are nice, although without the very high attention to detail of the first vinyl dolls from Lyceen (the ones that came with the CD ROM, and have removeable cloth panties instead of molded plastic ones). These are much more reasonably priced, though. See these and other items on the toys page.
We're having a nice, quiet weekend here in Japan. It's cool, but not cold, and we're getting some shopping and relaxing done, and late at night I have been putting serious hours into Civilization II, recently released for the Macintosh (you can find it at http://www.cdw.com/. I will make a small update today, though.

Our deadline for ordering calendars has passed, although we're going to leave the calendar information up for a while, until the 5th of November or so. The reason we set the deadline early is that we wanted to be sure to get orders in in advance to allow the calendar company to get the calendars to us before they start becoming unavailable. Unless the calendar you want is extremely popular, we should still be able to order and get your calendar for you -- so let us know what you want. Note that payment by credit card is the best way to do this, since we don't have to inconvenience you if the calendar is not available.

I hadn't mentioned it before, but along with the two new Final Fantasy action figures, we have available three dolls in the Sentimental Graffiti Collection. These are soft vinyl dolls of high quality by Tsukuda Hobby, and they are nice, although without the very high attention to detail of the first vinyl dolls from Lyceen (the ones that came with the CD ROM, and have removeable cloth panties instead of molded plastic ones). These are much more reasonably priced, though. See these and other items on the toys page.

After spending some minutes fawning over the Akira Fubuki and Ozawa Madoka posters, I decided to take some digital pics of the pages inside. They are at http://www.jlist.com/personalstuff/calendarspics.html. Note my camera is just a digital, but you can certainly see the great professionalism and high quality of the pictures inside. Let us know if you want to make an order.

I have some new screenshots of web browsing on the Newton Messagepad. See my Newton Pre-Buyers' Guide (http://www.jlist.com/peter/newtonrev.html).


After spending some minutes fawning over the Akira Fubuki and Ozawa Madoka posters, I decided to take some digital pics of the pages inside. They are at http://www.jlist.com/personalstuff/calendarspics.html. Note my camera is just a digital, but you can certainly see the great professionalism and high quality of the pictures inside. Let us know if you want to make an order.

I have some new screenshots of web browsing on the Newton Messagepad. See my Newton Pre-Buyers' Guide (http://www.jlist.com/peter/newtonrev.html).

Greetings from J-List October 21, 1997

Hello from Japan. We have been busy here, but now it's time to update the site and go out to one of our favorite restaurants, Miya, a steakhouse. (Yes, there is steak here in Japan...)

The first calendars are in! Yes, the first batch of 75 or so calendars are in, and customers whose calendars are ready have been notified by email. It was our first chance to see the insides of some of the calendars, and I really must say that the Fubuki Akira calendars, the Shin Bishojo Densetsu and the Madoka Ozawa items are all truly lovely, with the inside pages as good or better than the covers. I urge you to order your copy soon -- since the deadline for ordering is just a few days away. They are truly high-quality items.

J-List's email replies will be slow over the next few days, for two reasons. The first reason is, I am taking Kaori, Tomoe and my wife on a bunch-deserved "shain ryoko" (company vacation). We're headed to Kusatsu, on the other side of the prefecture from where we are, to a nice onsen (hot springs hotel). Usually onsens are very Japanese places, where you wear cotton yukata and eat very Japanese-style food, while drinking beer and sake and bellowing out songs on the karaoke machine. The place we are going to is a pension, actually, so the food is western. I will have a report for you all when we get back.

The second reason is, my grandfather has died, and my mother is flying from San Diego to Ohio for the funeral, so credit card processing will be delayed slghtly. My grandfather was 78, and died of a brain hemorrhage after a long chain of strokes, so we are all frankly glad he has finally gone on to a better place. Incidentally, he was the only member of my large family to oppose my marrying a "Jap" -- I never held it against him, of course, since he did fight in World War II, and everyone is entitled to a little narrow thinking sometimes.

Thanks for checking out J-List, and see you again soon!

Greetings from J-List October 24, 1997

Greetings from Japan on this Friday evening. My wife and I are going to go see the hit Miyazaki movie, Mononoke-hime (Princess of Beasts?). We always go on Fridays, since it's Ladies' Night at the big American-style Cinema-o-rama in Ota, and my wife can get in for just $10. I, of course, pay the full price of $18 for myself. Living in Japan has its drawbacks, but we're happy to have a theatre that has showings past 7 pm...

I have good news and bad news. The good news is that we have two new Final Fantasy action figures by Bandai, Legendary Soldier Sephiroth and Vincent Valentine, and they look really cool. The bad news is that we have received official word that the figures are out of production and will not be coming in. So everyone who ordered the Tifa Lockhard, Cloud and Aerith Gainsborough action figures and is waiting for our backorder to come in is going to be disappointed. Everyone who was waiting for the figures will have received an email from me, but if you have any questions, please let me know. I apologize for not being able to get these for you -- but that is Japan for you. FF was released here in Japan about 6 months ago, which is why the products for it are disappearing now. Eva fans should note that Evangelion toys and other items will start disappearing now, so if you like, say, the deluxe Ayanami Rei dolls we have on the anime/toys page

We have a lot of nice items in stock and on our various pages for the weekend, so please take a look at them and let me know how we can serve you. Remember to check out the calendars pages (as well as the anime, JPOP and magazines pages, where some of the specialty calendars have been put to reduce load time), since the official deadline is tomorrow!

Thanks for supporting J-List. We'll see you on the web page!

Pete

Greetings from J-List October 17, 1997

Greetings, programs. We have some nice items for you just in time for the weekend.

Fans of high-quality Japanese erotic items have a lot of celebrate today. Yuki Maiko's new shashinshu, Idol, is not available at J-List on the shashinshus page. Also, fans of the lovely Fubuki Akira will be happy to see we have more copies of her great hardcover shashinshu, Impressive, available as well. Other new items include more copies of the excellent CD ROM Choice Deluxe CD ROM, the new Second Half of 1997 Fantajenne CD ROM Forever Version, and other assorted goodies.

I have a friend coming up from Shizuoka Prefecture tonight. We studied for the Japanese Ability Test (the Japanese text that corresponds to TOEFL or TOEIC in the U.S.) together. We're going to drive into Maebashi and go to our favorite restaurant, Yukara. This is a sort of cult among college students in Maebashi -- it's open from 11 pm to 5 am, and serves the most delicious, fattening Chinese food. Despite the odd hours the store keeps, the Master never has a shortage of customers, we have waited hours to get in. I think I will have the Sweet n Sour Pork tonight.

Well, enjoy the new items on the page, and have a nice weekend!

Greetings from J-List October 16, 1997

Nice little update for you today. You can find some great new items on the magazines and shashinshus pages -- principally the latter -- as well as new dojinshi and more. Fans of Aonuma Chiasa or some of the classier Japanese AV gals should certainly take note. Also, Aika Miura is in the new Nessha Boy, on the videos page (page 1).

We also have, for fans of Japanese adult videos, lots of new "b" videos on page 5 of the videos, items that were never paid for or that we ordered extras of. There are tons of videos that are ready right now, and all have free SAL shipping. Please check out the page if you think you're interested in some great Japanese AV action.

The videos recently added to the page (page 1) are selling very well, and Aonuma Chiasa's AV video "High School Chiasa" has broken the J-List single-day sales record. Be sure to swing by and see the new offering we have for you.

Greetings from J-List October 14, 1997

It's a great day for Chiasa Aonuma fans. Thanks to the efforts of two readers bringing it to our attention, J-List has secured her video, High School Chiasa, for our videos page. This title represents Chiasa-chan's debut into the world of real AV -- in other words, she's gone from being a beautiful nude model to being a full-scale AV figure. Some might balk at watching Chiasa doing something that would make her father cry with with strange men, but I for one look forward to seeing her in action.

We have a ton of great stuff for you today. In addition to *29* great new videos on page one of the videos pages (including two by Ms. Aonuma, new entries by Fubuki Akira and Madoka Ozawa, a bizarre and interesting title for Miura Aika fans, and much more), we have new magazines (Sakuranbo Tsushin. Gal's Dee and more) and a new deluxe All Pasocom CD ROM soft catalog, which features three CD ROMs packed with photos and Quicktime movies. Lots of neat stuff, so check it all out.

We've had a lot of activity here at J-List today, with tons of videos going out daily. I'll be in Tokyo on Tuesday, Japan time, following up on a new distributor lead (it's a secret, but let's just say it has to do with something J-List is always selling out of). If you're waiting for an email reply from us and it doesn't come right away, hold tight, we'll get to you.

Remember, the deadline for ordering calendars is drawing near. You can still order past the deadline date, but the chance that you won't get that Ultraman calendar you've got your heart set on will go up.

Thanks, and have a nice day!

Peter

Greetings from J-List October 11, 1997

J-List is happy to present one of the finest items I've ever seen -- Akira Fubuki's newest shashinshu, Impressive. It's a good word to describe the soft beauty and erotic colors used by photographer Yamagishi Shin to record the many faces of Ms. Fubuki, who is fast becoming the No. 1 AV actress in all Japan. Sexy and sensuous, Akira-chan is one of the hottest women to enter the business. I imagine the 10 copies we currently have in stock will go very quickly.

The new Ureccos and Creams are going quickly, although there are a lot left in stock. Be sure to check them out, and remember about our sale. You can save yourself some money and get a nice bunch of magazines in the process. Enjoy our very large selection.

There is a big change in the J-List homepage files today, even though you may or may not notice it -- it's one of those technical "under the hood" HTML things. The graphics images that J-List uses now have their sizes referred to directly in the HTML text, rather than before, when they used the "UseImageHeight" and "UseImageWidth" tags. The end result is that the J-List pages should feel much speedier to users of browsers such as Netscape, which require the image sizes to be specified before they can load in the surrounding text. Many thanks to K.G. for his help and to Marc Boon, creator of GifScan 2.2. As with any change to the J-List's pages, I welcome feedback from you.

I have to plug the Mac, here. A very nifty system-wide scripting tool called Applescript was used to enable Filemaker Pro to talk ask GifScann to poll the 8500 graphics files we've got in the J-List database and get the height, width and size properties. It was accomplished in less than two hours, once I had the script set up. If we tried to run J-List with Windows PCs, we would not have access to any of this great stuff. Long live the Mac for being so easy to use. (Applescript is also used for the creation of all email here at J-List.)

Today was a holiday in Japan, so we took Kazuki to Kezoji Park, a large amusement and park that we happen to live near, for the annual Open Air Concert. It's put on by a local company that rents studio time to bands, and was a chance for small bands to play in front of an audience. (Note: some of them were awful.) We had fun, and Kazuki got to play to his heart's content. October is a nice time for sitting back with a beer, talking with friends, in Japan.

Greetings from J-List October 10, 1997

Today was a Good Day. First and foremost, my Powerbook G3 show up -- ah, the joy of being "edge, even if for only a few months. The speed and power of this thing is incredible, though, consdiderably faster than all the 200 mhz 604e desktop Macs here at J-List.

But today was a Good Day for one other reason. For the past eight months, my wife and I have been working hard to get permission to build on a patch of land my Japanese family owns. The land was previously zoned as agricultural use" land, in an area that, for reasons of tradition and silly local politics -- could not be built upon. Finally, though, after many months and pulling of strings, permission to build on the land has been granted. This means that J-List will be moving out of our current small three rooms and into a medium-sized two-story office building sometime around May of next year -- a welcome change for all of us. This step has been the dream of my wife and I for most of the life of J-List, and we're taking everyone here out for sushi on the weekend. We couldn't be happier.

We have some nice new items for you today, mostly on the anime/toys page, where you'll find the GERWALK version of the great Macross "completed model" (really a detailed, moveable toy). Three different versions of the GERWALK Valkyrie are on the page. Also, you can see a slew of new models from Gundam, Macross and Macross 7.

Also new to the page are -- more magazines and shashinshus. We've got two new issues of Girls, a Big-4-style high-quality magazine, as well as a few Beppin Schools and more. Also, the cat-like Kitahara Rina has a softcover "mild mook" nude shashinshu on the photobooks page -- enjoy them.

Greetings from J-List October 9, 1997

Well, tomorrow is another holiday here in Japan -- "Taiku no Hi", aka Sports Day. Alas, the Internet knows no holidays, so I'll be here tomorrow working on the email, although we're taking half a day off to take my son Kazuki to the zoo in Kiryu (where Japanese singer Shinohara Ryoko happens to be from, if you follow Japanese pop music).

We have some nice items for you this evening. First of all, the new Ureccos and Creams are in -- and they are great, so go grab your copy now. Since we're still having the buy-3-get-1-free sale, you can get a nice little bargain. The other new items are dojinshi, about 15 one-shots on the dojinshi page. There are some excellent Sailor Moon dojinshi as well as many others, so check out our offerings. In general, tons of magazines remain, so take a look and let me know if there's anything

Remember that the deadline for ordering calendars is only two weeks away. The first batch of calendars should start coming in by the end of October, and rest will come in in November. Don't forget that these unique calendars would make great gifts for that Japan-loving friend of yours (especially Fubuki!).

Well, that's all for now. Take care!