Greetings from J-List October 20, 2001

Hello again on this fine Saturday morning in Japan!

Japanese marrying foreigners is at an all-time high, up nearly double from 10 years ago. In 2000, 31,900 international marriages took place, with about 22,000 Japanese men marrying foreign women (mostly from China, South Korea and the Phillippines), and the rest were Japanese women who married men from other countries, mostly America and South Korea. International marriage is very beneficial to Japan, and it helps society move forward in many imporant areas while providing diversity for Japan, which would otherwise be a very closed place.

On the other hand, many of Japan's institutions are very inflexible when it comes to dealing with non-Japanese, which causes frustration. One such system is the Family Register (koseki tohon), basically an official list of which people live in which households, that is maintained by every City Office around the country. If your daughter gets married and goes off to live with her husband's family (called "yome ni iku" or "going off to be a bride"), she is removed from your family's register and added to her husband's. Foreigners, however, don't "fit" into this system, and are never added to the family register (unless they take Japanese citizenship). As a result, it looks to the city we live in that my wife is a single mother with two kids, since I don't "exist" in the eyes of family registry system. (They've sent social workers around to our house a few times to see how this poor "single mother" was getting along.) Recently, the Japanese government has allowed foreigners to be listed in the "comments" section of the register to avoid this confusion.

When Japanese think of foreigners, they think of overly tall, blonde Americans with huge feet, trying to find their way to the right subway line. In actuality, the vast majority of foreigners living in Japan are not Westerners, but are from South Korea, North Korea, Brazil, Peru and China. Officially, 1% of Japan's population are foreigners living here, although that number doesn't take into account people who are here illegally, so the number is probably higher. The largest group, the Koreans, are very interesting because many of them were born and raised right here in Japan, and often don't even speak Korean unless they attended one of the Korean-only private schools that pepper thee country. To an American like me, this is quite confusing, as all children born in the U.S. get to be Americans without any problems, and this works for pretty much everyone. But the relationship of Korea and Japan is a very complex one, and more or less by mutual agreement of both sides, Koreans live for generations inside Japan, living and working but never allowing themselves to become culturally assimilated. Or is it the Japanese who keep the Korean population from becomming part of itself? I couldn't possibly say for sure. On the one hand, it's not difficult for anyone (even old gaijin me) to get Japanese citizenship as long as he meets the requirements, and Japan is always very sensitive to possible accusations of racism, so there are no groups that aren't "allowed" to take Japanese citizenship. One thing I must do is take a Japanese name. For many reasons, including the name requirement and the memories of Japanese attrocities during World War II, many Koreans living in Japan don't allow themselves to become Japanese.

Calendar season continues to pass us by, and we see that several of the calendars we got in stock during the week are selling well. It wil be quite hard for us to fill calendar preorders after the end of October, so if there are any interesting anime, JPOP, Japanese beauty or other calendars you're interested in, let us know. We'll get another shipment of calendars in within a week or so, so more preordered calendars can go out. One note: the images we've got posted to the J-List site leave a little something to be desired, since we have to scan the pictures of the calendars from tiny thumbnails. The real calendars are much nicer to look at.

The J-List site was broken for about 8 hours, two days ago, as our programmer was doing some work on the site. We're very sorry for the problem, but it's all fixed now. At some point in the next couple of days, we'll be making some more improvements to the J-List server, moving images to an image server. If you experience any problems with the page for any reason, please let us know right away. Remember that you can always order with the secure email form if our shopping cart gives you trouble. Thanks!

For fans of Japanese adult video, slashed many prices and put many items on the Discount Videos page -- get these great videos for cheap, and get free SAL shipping, too. Included in the discounted items are the popular Zenra (all nude sports) videos, Penis Study, and more!

For the pre-weekend update, we've got some extra-nice items for you, including:

• First, weve got a nice mix of new magazines for you, including the new Gal's Dee, just brimming with wonderful bust-fetish girls like Makoto, the lovely covergirl (93 cm bust, F cup), and many other newly posted items
  
• For fans of Japanese idols, we've got two items for you. In Hakkutsu Magazine, see old and embarassing pictures of Japan's famous idols like Yuka and Mami gotoh. Then in Video World CD-ROM, see startling (?) footage of Japan's idols performing AV before they were famous
  
• For lovers of Japan's unique kogals, check out Yes!! featuring a slew of kogals and Japanese female college girls
  
• We've got some excellent photobooks posted for you, including the new installment of the excellent Tennyo series, featuring the erotic nude of Ayumi Tahara
  
• Also for photobook fans, we've restockd the Yellows Angels and Yellows Americans photobooks, which catalog the nudes of beautiful women for posterity
  
• For Race Queen fans, limited stock of a nice item indeed, the Top GT Race Queen photobook
  
• For fans of Japan's high-end bondage pornography, we've got the popular DVD Video Cinema, featuring a magazine as well as a full 2 hour DVD with two complete bondage AV productions
  
• Our customers often ask us to get even more manga in stock, so we cheerful oblige -- we've got a major update to our hentai manga pages, with several new items as well as fresh stock of some doujinshi anthology books including the Electric Fighting Daughter's series
  
• For yaoi lovers, we've got the excellent Sony Magazine Comics "Rutile" (yes, Sony makes a homosexual comic, go figure), along with fresh stock of several of the popular Be Boy Zips
  
• If you love the erotic doujinshi themes known as "kemono" (beast), humans with animal characteristics like cat ears and furry tails, check out the upate to our doujinshi page, with several adult doujinshi posted
  
• We've got some great DVDs for you. For lesbian fans, we have a super *4 hour* all-lesbian megapack from Media Supply. Then, Nanami Nanase, star of the best-selling One Week with Only Semen, is back in a massive 200 minute product in which she answers "the flagrant requests of semen maniacs with a smiling face"
  
• In addition to the reduced-price videos, we've got a new video release from Soft on Demand's famous director "Dogma," the lovely Erika Nagai is a karate-wielding tornado who beats up guys then performs "tekoki" on them
  
• For anime fans, we've got a cool Card Captor Sakura Figure Clock that's just great, as well as lovely "angel and devil" figures for fans of the Japanese fashion doll Licca-chan
  
• For fans of Japanese bishoujo games, see the collectible cards for "Air," the popular game from Visual Art's
  
• We've got some new funny "Japanese buttons" with funny and bizarre pictures and images on them, and some excellent new Japanese "hachimaki" headbands
  
• We've got several new items on our Japanese snacks and food page, including a delicious new flavor of Shigekix, the popular super-sour "hard gummi," Japanese shreaded ika, and some chocolate gum that's really good
  
• We have fresh stock of several of the sold-out "ukiyoe" chopsticks on the "traditional things" page
  
• Our Wacky Things from Japan main page includes many new items, including rolls of beautiful Japanese "washi" paper, fresh stock of the always-popular "fude pen" (a pen that you can use to write Japanese calligraphy), a new item in the cheerful "Kitchen Hanako" line of cute things for your kitchen, a cute "door message" for your door with ridiculous English on it, and more
  
• Finally, if you've ordered from J-List before, you may have been surprised to find a packet of Japanese pocket tissue included in with your order. In Japan, a major way that companies get their message out to people is through printed advertising tissue, handy packets of tissue that are fun to receive and handy to use. J-List's pocket tissue is always popular when we bring it to anime conventions, but now, by customer request, we're making 12-packs of our handy tissue available at our cost, to J-List customers who want to carry a little piece of J-List with them wherever they go. You'll get 12 packs of our famous pocket tissue in a plastic protective case. Share them with your friends, we don't mind! (Of course, a free packet of tissue will still be included with every order).
  

For fans of Japan's bishoujo games, we're reducing the prices on our three Peach Princess hentai T-shirts, which feature images from Tokimeki Check in! and the upcoming Little my Maid. These shirts are beautiful, featuring excellent 4-color images and high quality, and now they're on sale!

Greetings from J-List January 19, 2001

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Greetings from J-List October 17, 2001

Hello from your friends at J-List!

There are some words that the Japanese are doomed to have problems with, due to the fact that Japanese is a rather phonetically impoverished language, with just 5 vowels and a limited repertoire of sounds produced normally. The sounds of L/R are not differentiated in Japanese, which makes some English words hard for them -- hence, jokes about the Japanese sending Viagra to the U.S. last November because we couldn't get an election. "Cone" and "corn" are impossible to separate in Japanese, and Japanese may be apt to think that cones for Ice Cream are made out of corn. I've lived in Japan for 9 years, but I've never seen a Japanese spell the word "flea market" correctly -- it's usually "free market" (as in, a market you don't need to pay to get into), and I've even seen "frea market" once. A curb is something by the side of the road, and a curve is a turn in the road, but don't ask a Japanese which is which. And finally, one of the most famous pizza chains in Japan is Pizza Hut, but 120 million Japanese all think it's Pizza Hat (as in Red Hat Linux).

Well, after 6+ years, Kaori and her boyfriend Hitoshi finally tied the knot, and they did it with style. The wedding was a big success, and all the J-List team was there to congratulate her. Kaori was beautiful -- actually, that my son Kazuki told me, "She's so pretty, I didn't know who she was." If you'd like to see the pictures from the wedding, along with short MPEG movies, they're at http://www.peterpayne.net/Merchant3/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=PP&Product_Code=KAORIWEDDING&Category_Code=PC

Well, the first calendars have come in, and we've dually processed them for those had had them preordered. If your calendars didn't come in yet, don't worry -- we'll get some more in next week or so. We've posted about 30 calendars that are now in stock -- everything from sexy idol to art to nude calendars, so you can buy them now with no waiting. Unfortunately, we received word that one of the most popular calendars this year, the 2002 Evangelion calendar, has been canceled by the publisher.

In addition to the calendars that have been posted, we've got a bunch of very nice new items for you, including:

• First, we've been bringing Japan's unique bishoujo games to you for years, and we've had great fun making them available to you. As a way of saying thanks, we're lowering the price of Virtual Reality Dating Simulator May Club to match Three Sisters' Story and Season of the Sakura, just $14.95
  
• We have some new magazines, including the new issue of the bold Shuffle (an amateur kogal hardcore magazine), and the new issue of Push!, a great Japanese hentai/bishoujo game magazine with CD-ROM
  
• We've got some very nice new soft- and hardcover photobooks for you, including Eri Kimura's solemn nude photobook, and a rip-off of the famous "Yellows" nude photobook series, as well as fresh stock of several popular items
  
• For fans of famous Japanese adult video idols, check out Body Shop, featuring the "photographic of 11 girls hair nude" including Ichigo Milk, Ami Ayukawa and my own fave, Manami Yoshii
  
• Also, we've got fresh stock of the very popular Tennyo photobook series (Ichigo Milk, Aoi Minami, and Hikaru Shiina), which features a different girl in each volume, photographed by Masaaki Miyazawa
  
• For lovers of Japan's highly developed bondage and S&M photography, check out the new issue of "the Most of Beautiful Slave" (we love these titles...), which features 16 different models
  
• We've got a major update of erotic manga for you, with many new volumes posted by some of Japan's most famous manga artists, as well as a major restock of popular manga by Chataro, Narise Ayumi, Yutaka Tanaka and more
  
• For yaoi fans, see the new manga works we've posted for you, too
  
• We've got new doujinshi, a selection of very nice erotic works that will probably go quickly again -- check them out as quickly as you can
  
• We've got some excellent items for DVD fans, including the Bunko Kanazawa Best Selection (see her best work at SOD), and a very nice new Zamen Gokkun ("Semen Swallowing") DVD with two complete productions on it
  
• Also for DVD lovers, we've restocked the hard-to-keep-in-stock Mai Hagiwara soft porn DVDs, and also the incredibly popular Anna Ohura "Heartful Summer"
  
• For lovers of Japan's ever-sexy Race Queens, be sure to see the new Pony Canyon Race Queen we've posted -- you get to view the girls from the angle of a dog, and more
  
• For anime/manga fans, we've reposted the sold-out Bilingual comics to the English manga and anime pages, and we'll get fresh stock of the English/Japanese Card Captor Sakura and Love Hina in soon
  
• Also for anime fans, we've got more stock of the very-cool Gatchaman Complete Figure series
  
• We have some new "wacky" Japanese signs for you, including "Please take off your shoes," and fresh stock of our popular Japanese emergency exit signs
  
• Also, more stock of our most popular Japanese "hachimaki" headband ever, "Watashi wa H" (I am a pervert), always a fun item to have around
  
• We've got some nice items on our "traditional things from Japan" page, including beautiful Japanese "Chouchin" lanterns made of paper, as well as fresh stock of our popular Japanese designer chopsticks
  
• For fans of silly English, we've got more of the beautiful notebooks with the "punch out" design on the cover
  
• An item we're quite excited about are the first collectible sumo trading cards we've seen, featuring wonderful photos of Japan's most famous sumo wrestlers (along with their names in English), great for sumo fans
  
• Finally, our Wacky Things from Japan main page brings you a nifty "rice shaper" for making Japanese or Thai dishes, a cool portable phone holder for your car, oversized boxing gloves that look ridiculous, a new set of brushes for those who want to try their hands at Japanese calligraphy, and more!
  

About a month ago, I posted some information on how Japanese is pronounced. At the time, my homepage was down, but now that the site is up again, anyone wanting a primer in how to pronounce Japanese can check out the site at http://www.peterpayne.net/Merchant3/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=PP&Product_Code=J-PAGE1&Category_Code=BJ

Greetings from J-List January 17, 2001

Greetings from Japan, where people inexplicably write last names in CAPITAL LETTERS.

In Japan, a meeting of friend for drinks near the end of the year is called a Forget-the-year Party ("bounen-kai"), and a party held after Jan 1 is a New Year's party ("shinnen-kai"). I had a New Years meeting with some friends in Shibuya, one of the three main "playgrounds" of Tokyo, and we had a great time. My favorite restaurant in Shibuya, an authentic Italian restaurant with the unlikely name of DJ's Bar & Grill, recently closed its doors, a victim of the Japanese recession, but we managed to have a great time anyway.

First, we had dinner at Anna Millers, a chain of restaurants known for having beautiful waitresses and the sexiest uniforms you've ever seen -- the rumor is that the girls' hourly wage goes up, the shorter she cuts her skirt. (See Kayama Juri's photobook on the photobook page for an example of the uniform.) Then, we we went to a restaurant called the Buttsu (Budda) Trick Cafe, a fascinating place where all the food is a hodge-podge of Asian food. from Vietnamese spring rolls to Thai-style chicken and hot sauce -- and everyone eats around a replica of the Giant Buddha of Kamakura. Be careful not to sit with your back to Buddha, or you may offend him. Finally, we headed over the Shibuya branch of TGI Friday's for one of the rarest treats in Japan -- frozen margaritas. It was fun to experience such unabashed Americanism for a change, but coming out of the restaurant to find myself on the streets of Tokyo kind of made my head spin.

For this evening's update, we've got a carload of cool items for you. They include:

• Some excellent magazines, including the new issue of the always-popular Gal's Shower, and a special "wide" issue of Urecco, called Urecco Super Beautiez, which features *18* of Japan's most popular AV idols
  
• We have a bunch of all-new photobooks for you, including several lovely new books in the Bishojo Memorial series, and Minami Masako's lovely underwater nude hardcover book
  
• Along with our new photobooks, we've got a great volley of some excellent sold out books -- including more stock of Ariga Mih's "Hommage" and several more
  
• We have another huge volley of excellent erotic manga, with not only all-new manga volumes, but many (more than a dozen) back in stock items -- Distance, Chattaro, Hit Comics, and many more
  
• We've got fresh stock of all issues of the very popular G-Taste, the excellent hentai illustration book series by Yagami Hiroki
  
• Also update, our yaoi page, with new yaoi manga, including some very hardcore books
  
• For our video customers, we have two brand new releases on the Videos (new releases) page: G-Cup Lesbians, and Hinano Tubame's lovely "Prime" erotic performance
  
• We have fresh discount videos for the discount page, with all videos receiving free shipping -- check them out
  
• Morishita Kurumi fans will love the excellent "Morishita Kurumi: AV Actress, a fantastic 120 minute erotic video that takes you go Kuru-Kuru's rural hometown, where you meet her mother and younger brother and hear what they think of Kurumi's AV career -- it's a fantastic video for you
  
• Also, we've posted Kurumi's first three AV releases, now available on DVD, on the region-2 code DVD page. Like all SOD's DVD releases, they're zoned for region two, but their high quality and bargain price (almost always cheaper than the video releases) make a strong case for looking into a region-free DVD player
  
• For anime fans, check out several items, including a cool Kubrish toy set featuring the famous Iron Man 28 robot figures
  
• We have fresh stock of several of our sold-out wooden signs, including my room, secret room, and It is forbidden to urinate here"
  
• Restocked items on our popular Wacky Things from Japan page include "hand of a grandchild" (mago no te), the excellent bamboo backscratchers, and those really cool Japanese eraser sets, featuring rubber erasers in the shape of sushi, curry rice, tempura, and other Japanese foods
  
• Finally, some all-new funny Japanese notebooks -- useful, high-quality "perfect bound" blank notebooks with lines that won't smear if you spill water on them, complete with ridiculous English printed on the covers. Enjoy!
  

We've posted a link to some excellent reviews of region-free DVD players, at the top of the region-2 DVD page, in case you're looking for information on which region-free players are the best for you.

Greetings from J-List October 15, 2001

Hello again from Japan, the land of strawberry and butter sandwiches...

One thing that's often a shock to outgoing, cheerful Westerners is the Japanese tendency of modesty. Try praising a Japanese person by telling them how good their English is, and they'll disagree with you, telling you "No, my English isn't good at all." If you compliment most American women on how pretty they look, they'll probably reply with a warm "thank you," but taking note of how pretty a Japanese women looks can be a confusing experience, as they shake their head and firmly disagree with you. In Japanese society, the concept of "kenson" (translated as humility or modesty) is an important quality for people to have in a land that's got so many more people per square kilometer (325 vs. just 26 in the USA). There are many stereotypes and silly notions about Japanese modesty, many which were inserted into American popular culture by novelists like James Clavell, but basically, the concept of "kenson" just means that people not be boastful but instead try to play down their own skills or abilities in a polite way. There are many phrases in Japanese that illustrate the tendency to show humility. For example, when you give someone a gift, you usually say "Here's something that's not interesting" (tsumaranai mono desu kedo...) or if you bake someone a cake, you say, "I'm not sure if it tastes good or not..." (Oishii ka dou ka wakaranai kedo).

Modesty is never more important than during a job interview, when you'll basically be asked various questions by the interviewer and must show your good character by how humble you are. It's very different than in the U.S., where interviewees must enunciate their skills in concrete ways in order to stand out from the pack. We did some interviewing last week, talking with several potential Japanese staff members, and it was a very interesting thing to partake in. One girl in particular boasted about how good her English was (it wasn't), and basically violated the idea of "humility" as a good thing to be. It wasn't hard deciding which girl we weren't going to hire...

I get a lot of questions from people who want to teach ESL (that's English as a Second Language in teacher-speak) in Japan. While there are tens of thousands of teachers teaching English in Japan at a variety of schools, the long Japanese recession has done a lot of damage to the "eikaiwa" (English conversation) industry, bringing salaries and general teaching conditions down. Teaching English is still a great way to get to see and live in Japan, and it's also a super way to meet some very nice Japanese people (including girls) who are interested in learning English -- but anyone interested in teaching in Japan (or in other countries in Asia) should know that teaching ESL isn't the stuff that satisfying careers are made of, for most people. Anyone who wants to teach in Japan, either on the JET program, or at one of the three major English conversation school chains, or at smaller private schools, would need a bachelor's degree from a four-year college (any subject will do, no one cares what you majored in here), an open mind about things like squid pizza (you think I'm joking, don't you?), and the desire to do right by your Japanese hosts -- e.g., learn a little humility. With the long string of Good Times in the U.S., most language teachers here come from Canada and Australia, so there's probably some demand for Americans to teach. Also, although female language teachers are always in demand, it seems that there are almost none here, so maybe there are some opportunities available (husband and wife teams can also find jobs together, too).

Five years ago this month, we started J-List. At first it was just Kaori and me as things slowly picked up and started to grow. Now Kaori-chan, J-List employee #1, is getting married to her fiancee, who she's dated since high school. Japanese take weddings seriously, and Kaori's been planning her wedding for months (she reserved the church over a year ago, to be sure she could have the wedding on one of the lucky days according to the Chinese calendar). The J-List team will be there in force to congratulate Kaori, and we'll bring our cameras. Oh, that reminds me, I've got to write a speech! As Kaori's boss, I have to give a speech to 150+ people, and in Japanese, too!

Well, that's all for now -- until our next regular update, we'll see you on the web!

Greetings from J-List October 13, 2001

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Greetings from J-List January 12, 2001

Hello, and Happy Friday from Japan, from your expat friends at J-List!

American companies must always strive to bring unique products that meet the tastes of other countries, and in Japan, companies like McDonald's and Burger King strive to do this. McDonald's is currently running a special on their new Salmon Muniel Deluxe sandwich, which is accompanied by a new limited edition pie, Pear and Cranberry, which are both quite good. Burger King has copied McDonald's popular Teriyaki Burger with a Teriyaki Burger of its own, which is definitely a taste improvement, but they really missed their target with this month's special, the Mexican Ravioli Burger, a fried large ravioli with spicy Mexican sauce inside on a bun.

Driving in Japan can be different from what you might be used to. First, while many people prefer to drive with their lights on during the day in the U.S. for extra safety, is never done here, and if you leave your lights on while you drive, it causes other drivers to stop you and tell you that your lights are on. While honking a horn at another driver can cause road rage in the U.S., here a short "beep" is the universal way of saying thanks and good-bye as you pull away. Most drivers turn off their car's headlights at intersections (leaving the parking lights on), as a courtesy to drivers who might be blinded by their lights on the other side of the intersection. In Tokyo, where drivers drive with consideration for others (unlike Gunma, where we live), a two-second flashing of the hazard lights is the correct way to say "thank you" when another driver gives you the right of way. And no matter how much I try not to

We like to have extra-special updates on Friday if we can, and today is no exception: we've got a bunch of great items.

• First, several new magazines on the magazines pages, including Subijin, for fans of busty amateur girls, and PC Dash, a nifty magazine + idol CD ROM
  
• For photobook fans, we've got a dynamite item: the often-requested "Flowers" hardcover photobook featuring Aoi Minori and Horiuchi Nana
  
• Also for photobook fans, many new and back-in-stock items on the photobooks page, including Sakura Makoto's "Cherish" photobook and limited stock of Yoshino Minami' angelic "Spring" photobook
  
• If you love Japan's very special let fetish books, check out the excellent items on the let photobook page, including fresh stock of "Cosplay Top Mode" and "Legs of Rich Girl 3"
  
• We've got fresh stock of the incredibly popular Crystal Card nude collectible cards (maybe because Ohura Anna is included in this set?)
  
• For manga fans, there are many cool items posted to the manga pages, including fresh stock of many of our most popular books, and more
  
• There are new items on the dojinshi page, including some very popular and much-requested dojinshi
  
• For fans of the popular Japanese genre known as "tekoki" (females giving hand jobs to men), another great item: Hayashi Yumika's very erotic "Do you want a hand job? 4" from the excellent Soft on Demand folks, including many interesting ways for an AV idol to jack off a man
  
• Also for AV fans, two very special and rare items: Ikegami Misa's lovely "Twinkling Apple" erotic performance, and the busty Sawaguchi Miki's "Huge Breast Aventure"
  
• We have two excellent and value-priced erotic DVDs zoned for "ALL" countries, including a double feature with Sakura Nana and Misaki Mao, on the DVD pages
  
• We've got an update to our fast-growing bishojo/hentai DVD page, with a DVD from the popular Dokyusei 2 anime
  
• For our anime fans, we've got several cool items, including more stock of the sold-out Gundam Mark II from Zeta Gundam (AEUG version) and a fantastic anime phone strap for Lupin III lovers
  
• We have fresh stock of two surprisingly popular items on our snacks pages -- Kuro-Ame Black Candy and Japanese sake candy -- as well as two cool new items (the classic Sakuma Drop hard candies as seen in Grave of the Fireflies, and Lotte's puzzling "Crunky")
  
• Our patented Wacky Things from Japan page has been updated again, with fresh stock of several nice items, including Hiragana and Katakana study notebooks and other funny Japanese notebooks with strange English on them, that nifty "relax pillow, and more Japanese onsen (hot springs) powder for your bath
  
• Finally, new items for the Wacky Things from Japan page include Megane Cleaner, a super way to clean the lenses of your glasses or sunglasses, and another version of our popular anti-germ masks from Japan!
  

Thanks to everyone who passed on advise on how to view region-2 DVDs. We've updated the top of the Region-2 DVD page with links to a nice code-free player for $299 that has many other extra features, along with various links to information on ways of getting around the region lockouts with your PC's DVD-ROM drive. We've also got a link to a useful program that lets you reset your region code if you're using a Mac.

Greetings from J-List January 10, 2001

Hello again from your friend in Japan! Pardon my typing tonight, I was up til 4 am watching the Macworld Expo keynote speech via webcast...

The Chinese language and writing system is to the Japanese very much what Latin and Greek are to the west: the source of all science and expression of ideas. Just as the words we use in English come from words in classical languages, kanji and the ways in which words are combined using Japanese characters to make new words are an interesting way to understand the language. Although now the Japanese have English to turn to when new ideas come along, needing words to label them -- resulting in words like "DVD player" and "illustrator" being used as-is in Japanese, albeit written in the katakana syllibery -- there are just as many cases where new names come from kanji, combined by joining kanji elements to make a new word.

There are several amusing phrases that speak to the Japanese and their relationship with Chinese characters, kanji. In Sazae-san, the long-running anime that captures in calming, peaceful tones the happiness of a traditional Japanese family, for example, Sazae and her husband, Masuo, sleep on futons with their son, Tara-chan, sandwiched in between. This is called sleeping in "kawa no ji" or "like the character for river" since it imitates the three lines of the character for river. Also

For this evening's update, we've got some very nice new items for you, including:

• First, some great new stock of magazines, including the great Pink Gold, as well as several backissues from 1999
  
• If you love S&M photobooks and Japan's high-end fetish books, we have fresh stock of several items, including a cool issue of Slave Mania
  
• There are several very nice photobooks posted on the Japanese photobooks page
  
• For leg fetish fans, more stock of the sold-out deluxe "Mini-Suka Super"
  
• We have yet *even* more 2001 calendars, including the excellent Haruyo Morita works, the World of Soba noodles, and a wonderful nude calendar featuring "Kaori, on the calendars pages
  
• For erotic manga fans, we've got another major update, with a half dozen all new books posted, as well as many very cool back from the dead" books that had been sold out in the past (but which we have extremely limited stock of on hand)
  
• Monday's volley of dojinshi disappeared in record time, so we've got another for you -- a bunch of excellent new adult dojinshi which we picked up at the winter Comic Market
  
• Fans of the dynamite Morishita Kurumi have reason to be happy, with her super 90 minute "Kuru-Milk" video, featuring Kuru-Kuru decked our as a Japanese kogal, right down to the tanned skin -- it's all very erotic
  
• Also for SOD fans, a super item called Sperm Lesbian, a neat featuring with two lovely AV idols performing hetero lesbian sexual acts (sometimes at the same time)
  
• To help us lower our stock levles, we've got even more discount videos on the discount pages, all with free shipping
  
• Newly added stock to our Wacky Things from Japan page include another really lovely "Japanese congratulations envelope" (used for giving money at weddings, but you can find a dozen uses for it), as well as a nifty "trash net" that removes link and other trash from your washing machine as you wash your clothes
  
• For Speed Racer fans, we have fresh stock of the oh-so-cool die-cast Mach 5 car, complete with all the excellent features of the original car
  
• Finally, by customer request, we've created "sampler boxes" of our unique Japanese snack foods, featuring different selections of some of the snacks we love most, including Pocky, Hi-Chu Kids, Wata-Pachi (exploding pop rocks and cotton candy), and of course, Japan's wonderful varieties of gum. Three sets available, and all are shipped in special protective plastic cases.
  

While the vast majority of the Japanese adult and other DVDs J-List carries are zoned for "ALL" countries, meaning you can view them on any DVD player, we do our best to stock those discs that are zoned for region 2 (Japan and Europe).Virtually all anime DVDs, including our hentai DVDs, are coded for region 2, as are SOD's DVD line. The country lockouts are frustrating for people in North America and Asia trying to view code-2 discs, but remember, there are several ways to view these DVDs, most of which are outlined at the top of the region-2 DVD page. I personally keep my Mac's DVD drive set to region 2, and view all region-2 DVDs on my computer (you can change the code up to 5 times). Also

Greetings from J-List January 8, 2001

Hello again to all J-Listas from a very cold Japan!

We got a special present in Japan this morning: a massive dumping of snow, which turned the Kanto Plain into a winter wonderland and made it difficult for most of the J-List staff to come to work today. Being from San Diego, I don't have as much to do with snow as 'd like sometimes, so I welcome it whenever I can. Unfortunately, the Tokyo region doesn't get "real" snow very often, so winter is usually limited to cold, baiting "kara-kaze" wind from the mountains, with no snow to show for it.

Recently, I was fortunate to be invited to visit an adult video studio, and talk with some directors who had worked with several idols known to J-List fans (Yazawa Yoko, others). They were fascinated to hear that Japan's unique AV world had a huge following all over the world. While I was at the studio, I look through hundreds of "resumes" (a standard form showing their past work history and several nude photos) of girls who wanted to break into the AV world, which were sent to the studio from companies who manage these girls. Amazingly, an incredible number of women want to become AV idols, but can't break into the business due to fierce competition. In Japan, all AV girls are represented by "offices" (jimusho) that are similar to PR agents in the U.S. The world of singers and idols works in similar ways -- performers like Morning Musume are represented by a "jimusho" that take care of all negotiations and make arrangements for jobs.

For tonight's update, we've got some great items for you, including:

• First, an update to our popular Japanese adult magazines pages, including the new issues of Dela Beppin and Gokuh -- heads up, Hagiwara Mai fans (!)
  
• Also for magazine and photobook fans, a fantastic item -- the Body Poster Actress collection, a book filled with body poster erotica from virtually all popular AV actresses in Japan today
  
• There are several rare and premium issues of Nowon, on the Photobooks page, including some with actresses too famous to name here
  
• We have several other great new photobook items, including the "memorial nude" of the lovely Natsumi Rika
  
• If you love dojinshi, run, don't walk, to the dojinshi page, to see our newly added items, all of which are newly issued dojinshi from December's Comic market
  
• We have a major update of our adult manga pages, with many all-new volumes posted, as well as a dozen or more very special manga that are available in limited number now
  
• For lovers of the wonderful Morishita Kurumi (e.g. "Kuru Kuru"), we have a very special video from SOD -- her "best of early days" video compilation, including some of her best early work, as well as never before seen scenes
  
• Also for Kurumi fans, a super new DVD release from SOD, a great production never released on video -- Morishita Kurumi's "Violence." Like all SOD DVDs, it's region 2, and a great reason to consider getting a code free DVD player from eBay ^_^
  
• We have fresh stock of several of our most popular Wacky Things from Japan, including Hello Kitty chopsticks, our popular wooden signs that say "Now studying, and fresh stock of the popular Japanese shiatsu shoe inserts
  
• We have some cool new items for our Wacky Things page, including the ultimate rubber baby bib/apron (yes, we know it's not our usual forte, but it's so cool), new gauze face masks to keep your cold germs from spreading to others when you're sick, and more!
  
• Finally, a tasty snack that's very near the hearts of Tomo and myself, the delicious Baby Star dry ramen noodles. A package of delicious chicken-flavored ramen noodles, Baby Star's ramen are a crunchy, delicious snack you can enjoy anywhere. Another great item from the things we've wanted to sell on J-List for years" category!
  

Okay, thanks -- see you on the web!

Greetings from J-List October 7, 2001

Hello and TGIF from Japan!

With all that's different between Japan and the West, you can bet that there are some toilet-related differences, too. When Japanese women use a public toilet, they're very nervous about others hearing the sound of their tinkling, so some Japanese public bathrooms have machines to make white noise that drowns out the sound. My four-year-old daughter went into one of these restrooms and was too afraid of the sound to do what she had gone in there to do. Similarly, Japanese women don't want others smelling the toilet after they've used it, so they often carry portable cans of air freshener to spray the area and make it fresh and clear. Conveniently, we happen to have gotten some of these in stock for you today...

The words for things are also different. In Japan, the place where you do your thing is called a "toire" (to-i-ray), and Japanese aren't comfortable with the English euphemism of "bathroom" since the toilet has nothing to do with the bath. In most Japanese houses, the toilet is a small room (about one tatami mat in size), and the bath is next door, completely separate. I've lived in Japan so long that I often embarrass myself while in the U.S. by using the wrong word in English. For example, asking a clerk in a store where the "toilet" was, rather than the restroom -- and getting a funny look from her. My wife is always happy to tease and mock me for slipping up.

Japan's various traditions of bathing are quite famous all over the world. Most Japanese take baths in the evening, although younger people replace this tradition with a shower in the morning. In Japanese homes, the actual bath-room is a bath and a separate tiled area outside the bath, with a drain for water to escape. You always wash your body thoroughly before getting into the bath, and never use soap or shampoo inside the bath itself, as the water will be reused by other family members, and saved for several days. All baths here have heaters to allow you to re-heat the old water, and ours has a one-touch computer that will fill the bath to the pre-set temperature and level. If you're a parent, you always take your kids in the bath with you and wash them. This warm concept of mother or father taking a bath with their children is known as "skinship" to the Japanese. Japanese are great fans of public baths (sento) and hot springs (onsens), too (e.g. Tokimeki Check in!). Since the water is "everyone's water," everyone must wash thoroughly before getting into the baths, although I've seen quite a few old men who skipped this step. As a foreigner living in Japan, I'm an "ambassador of goodwill" and what not, so I make sure I follow the rules. The Japanese are famous for bathing with men and women together (kon'yoku), but this is actually very rare.

For the before-weekend update, we've got a very update for you. The newly posted items include:

• First, we have some new magazines, including the new issues of Best Video and Video Boy, the excellent all-purpose Japanese adult video magazines, filled with the hottest all-pro stars
  
• For fans of our popular bargain adult magazines, we have a bunch of newly added magazines, starting from just $5 -- see magazine page 3 for the reduced items
  
• Also for bargain fans, it seems we received some damaged copies of Beppin School, with the back covers cut off, probably due to some damage the books received during printing. The magazines themselves are in perfect condition, so if you don't mind a mostly-missing back cover, feel free to pick up a copy of Beppin School for a dirt-cheap price
  
• For hentai manga lovers, we've got some excellent new manga volumes posted, as well as a major restock of popular volumes that had sold out
  
• Also of note to hentai and doujinshi fans, we've restocked the popular hentai doujinshi anthology from Fusion Product, Lunatic Party. This is a thick manga-style collection of excellent Sailor Moon erotic parody doujinshi that's just great!
  
• If you like doujinshi, we've got an excellent "doujin-soft" hentai work, a CD-ROM collection of erotic images from Sakura Wars -- and these are uncensored
  
• If you love the popular Maiko Yuki, one of the most popular AV idols at J-List over the years, she's got a great new anime cosplay DVD out -- the Bondage Costume Play
  
• Fans of Soft on Demand and "tekoki" (hand job) themes will love the new "coupling" DVD featuring two productions for the price of one
  
• If you like small-bodied Japanese idols with deep, brown eyes and pure, white skin, check out the 'debut video' of the lovely new Rinka Yaguchi
  
• For fans of our unique and wacky Japanese T-shirts, we're happy to announce our final two new shirts for you -- with the all-new "Watashi wa H" (I am a Hentai, e.g. I am a pervert) T-shirt, updated with a literary twist with a little help from 19th century Japanese author Soseki Natsume
  
• Also for wacky T-shirt fans, we're happy to announce the official CM-Watch T-shirt, for those who want to support CM-Watch's efforts to bring you funny Japanese TV commercials. The shirt sports the color logo of CM-Watch on the front, with a super spoof of Pocari Sweat on the back
  
• By request, we've got more wacky "traditional Japanese stuff," including various bowls for drinking miso soup. Made of simulated plastic but with the look and feel of expensive Japanese lacquerware, we think they're great
  
• We have a major restocking of our Japanese snacks and food page, with fresh stock of the super-tart Shige-Kix candy, Pocari Sweat powered drink mix, delicious Roasted Coffee candy, Peko-chan milk caramel (yum), Kaori's favorite Strawberry Milk candy, and more
  
• Finally, various odds and ends on our general Wacky Things from Japan page include a "Picky's Bear" cup to go with the bento boxes that have sold so well, more cute cutters to turn sausages into cute animal shapes, a nifty batch set so you can take a Japanese-style bath at home, the only Hello Kitty soy sauce dish you're likely to find, and the above-mentioned "My Handy Private Toilet Spray" for women (or men) who don't want to leave a toilet smelling bad.
  

Greetings from J-List January 5, 2001

Hello, and TGIF from your friend in Japan, J-List!

The other night, my wife and I found an interesting TV show where a panel of politicians and writers debated until dawn what Japan needed to do to survive and prosper in the 21st century. The panel included many Japanese-fluent foreigners from the U.S., Canada and several other countries, who offered their own interesting viewpoints. Japan is a country with a lot of problems, from an economy lacking energy and "genki" to growing social problems, and they think quite deeply about what can be done about it.

One of the biggest problems Japan faces is a total lack of inflation -- amazingly, a package of boil-in-bag curry costs only a little more today than it did 30 years ago! Aside from very moderate train fare increases, and one telephone rate increase, I can't think of a single product that costs more today than it did when i came to Japan in 1992. This lack of price growth is one of the key reasons why Japan's economy can't get any real forward motion and start growing again.

The Internet is a wonderful convenience for everyone, but even more when you're an expat living in Japan. While Japan has a lot of comforts of home, from Pringles to Kellogg's cereals to Ally McBiel (albeit in Japanese), I don't know what I'd do without Outpost.com and Amazon.com to supply me with books, U.S.-release DVDs and more. Saturday night is my designated DVD-watching night, since we have to set up the VCR to tape Kamen Rider Kuga and Ojamajo Doremi (my kids' favorite shows) on Sunday morning.

For this weekend's update, we've got some great items prepared for you. They include:

• First, a great big 2001 calendar update, with items that had been held on reserve now made available on the site -- there are over a dozen idol, anime and JPOP calendars newly posted to the calendars pages
  
• We have some great new magazine issues for you, including the dynamite new Beppin School, a cool issue of Namper (for fans of "nampa" or picking up Japanese girls and taking them to hotels), and another cool Idol Digging Magazine
  
• We've got several great new photobook items in, including the truly excellent Fukuda Miho 1st Photobook, one of the most beautiful glossy photobooks I've seen
  
• Also for photobook fans, fresh stock of several out of stock items, including Takamatsu Ai's very pretty "Cosmos"
  
• We've got a bunch of excellent new erotic manga posted, including the excellent From the Bucho with Love by artist Distance (see Manga -> New releases), as well as fresh stock of some very popular manga that had been out of stock (on Manga -> Classics)
  
• For fans of SOD's ever-cool erotic videos, we've got vol. 2 of the "Insert vibrator into the hole of panty" video series, featuring the patented Love Gun
  
• If you love Japanese AV DVD, check out AV 2000, an excellent 120 minute collection of super erotic themes and cosplay performances
  
• For those who join Tomo and myself in loving the beautiful and angelic Aoi Minori, see her excellent Best Collection DVD "Hidden Treasure" (on the Region code 2 DVD page)
  
• For anime fans, check out the latest issue of AX, a super character-centric anime magazine that comes with a great CD ROM for Mac or PC
  
• For fans of delicious Japanese snacks, see one of my favorite snacks, Choco Flake Bits on our snacks pages
  
• On our Wacky Headbands and Signs page, see several new items, including an authentic Japanese "emergency exit" sign, and another of our popular Japanese wooden signs with funny messages on them
  
• We've got a major restock of several sold out items on our Wacky Things from Japan page, including Japanese notebooks, traditional writing paper, and our handy J-E and E-J dictionaries (just $5)
  
• Finally, a cool item for anyone interested in learning or brushing up on hiragana and katakana -- children's workbooks, on the Wacky Things page!
  

Remember that J-List offers current newsstand issues of a wide variety of magazines from Japan, from anime magazines to JPOP to hentai. Check out these items on the "reserve subscription" pages!

Greetings from J-List October 3, 2001

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Greetings from J-List January 3, 2001

Hello, and "akemashite omedeto gozaimasu" (lit. "congratulations on opening the new year") from your friends in Japan at J-List.

2001 arrived in Japan a few hours before the U.S., and everything was as it should be: the soft sound of Japanese bells and hope for the new year, people enduring the cold to do their new year's prayer right after midnight, the calming presence of NHK watching over the nation, keeping us safe. New Years' Day is a day to relax, spend time with family, put your feet in the kotatsu (a kind of low table with a heater inside, which has a blanket over it to keep your legs warm), and of course eat lots of mikans (mandarin oranges).

After the usual happy-new-year TV shows ended on Jan 1, my wife and I found an interesting TV show where a panel of politicians and writers debated what Japan needed to do to survive and prosper in the 21st century. The panel included many Japanese-fluent foreigners from the U.S., Canada and several other countries, who offered their viewpoints to the others. Japan is a country with a lot of problems, from an economy lacking energy and "genki" to growing social problems , and they think quite deeply about what can be done about it.

One of the biggest problems Japan faces is a total lack of inflation -- amazingly, a package of boil-in-bag curry costs only a little more today than it did 30 years ago! Aside from very moderate train fare increases, and one telephone rate increase, I can't think of a single product that costs more today than it did when i came to Japan in 1992. This lack of price growth is one of the key reasons why Japan's economy can't get any real forward motion and start growing again.

For our first update in the new year, we've got some really special items prepared for you, including:

• First, we're happy to announce that all our JAST USA and Milky House adult anime CD-ROM titles that cost $34.95 have been reduced in price to $24.95 -- a $10 savings for these great uncensored English language hentai games
  
• We have excellent new magazines, including new issues of Video Boy, Best Video, and the popular Cho Very Good (kogal sex magazine)
  
• We've got a bunch of excellent and all-new photobook items posted to the Photobooks page, including a truly breathtaking item: Sweet Trap, featuring the fantastic nude photography of Japan's five hottest AV actresses
  
• For our bondage and S&M photobook fans, see a new issue of the popular Slave Mania
  
• We've got even more popular past issues of the excellent Nowon from the early 1990's
  
• We've posted another half-dozen all-new adult manga volumes, including some really excellent works by Angel Comics and Do Comics and AV Comics -- many back-in-stock classic issues, too
  
• We've lowered prices on our stock of the excellent Viper series erotic parody manga, on the Parody Manga page
  
• For Yaoi fans, we've got some new manga for you as well -- see the new items posted now
  
• For fans of Japan's excellent adult videos, we've got great new offerings by Morino Izumi, as well as Nakanishi Sayaka's "Mejiri"
  
• Also, we've got even more greatly reduced priced adult videos posted to our Videos (discount) page
  
• We love Japan's dynamite code-free adult DVDs, so we've got two killer titles in -- Nagase Lum's wonderful "Sexual Excitement" and the slender, stylish Honjoh Sayuri's "Premium"
  
• For our newly christened Hentai DVD page, we've got two new items: Soft on Demand's Fragile Hearts (vol. 2) and Kakyusei vol. 2 (the *director's cut*)
  
• We've got several JPOP CD singles posted to the Anime & JPOP Magazines page (on the Anime master category)
  
• On the Anime & Toys page, an authentic Japanese kendama, and the perfect item for the Cutey Honey fan in you
  
• Even lower prices on our remaining stock of calendars
  
• For fans of Japanese tea, we've got a delicious new variety, healthy and delicious Genmai-cha, a green tea with toasted unpolished rice in it
  
• On the Wacky Things from Japan, another wacky dictionary for those who read or are studying Japanese: a "four character word" dictionary, filled with four-character compound Japanese words similar to our wacky T-shirt messages
  
• We've got new wacky Japanese stickers on the Stickers & Headbands page: "No Smorking" (sic) and "I'm Safety Driver"
  
• Other cool items on the Wacky Things from Japan page this time include more handy Japanese traditional cloth bags (for carrying just about anything), and an instant trash holder -- a nifty plastic arm that holds a trash bag for you just about anywhere!
  

We're looking for an experienced webmaster who can help us run and update a new site which will offer interviews with Japanese AV idols and more. Interested persons should submit examples of past or current work and let us know what kind of background they've got. Thanks!

Greetings from J-List December 27, 2000

Hello again from Japan, on this, the last Wednesday of the millennium. It sounds silly, but if you think about the fact that there were 52, 142 Wednesdays over the past millennium, and this happened to be the last one.

There are certain phrases in English that Japanese will always know. Some English phrases always find their way into kids' anime, with "foreign" characters who spout words like "Oh my God!" and "Unbelievable!" until Japanese kids learn these phrases. The most elementary sentence in English, according to the Japanese sense of things, is "This is a pen." This is the sentence that all Japanese start learning English from. Another favorite is "Boys, be ambitious, the parting words of Dr. Clark, an American professor who helped found Sapporo University. One way Japanese can be English-ized" is to keep Japanese words in place but replace the words "you" and "me" with English. This is how Jar Jar Bink's strange mode of speaking was communicated in the subtitles in Star Wars Episode One, in case you've ever wondered about it. Whenever a character in anime is supposed to be speaking English, this is usually how it's expressed in Japanese, too.

The Japanese do do some funny things with English. There was a rock band that called themselves the Piss Kids, which seems like a shocking and disgusting thing to call yourselves, until you realize that the name comes from the famous statue in Belgium of Cupid peeing into a fountain, which is called "shonben kozo" or "piss kid" in Japanese.

We've added a new section to our DVD category -- Hentai and Bishojo DVDs! On this page we'll add some of the wonderfully erotic adult anime DVDs from Japan, which are wonderful, and highly collectible. They're admittedly expensive, but their high quality makes them worth it. See the great new items on this new page -- your feedback on these new anime DVDs is appreciated!

In addition to our new Hentai DVD page, we've got a veritable cornucopia of cool things from Japan for you, including:

• First, we've got one final last-minute Japanese calendar for you -- a wonderful wall calendar from Uchu Kikaku featuring six of Japan's loveliest AV girls including Minori Aoi. The calendar is free, but if you get any of our remaining stock of calendars, we'll give you this excellent calendar FREE as our way of saying thanks for helping us reduce our stock of calendars
  
• Our video sale was so successful, we've decided to post another big volley of videos to the discount videos page! All of these videos are heavily discounted, and come with free SAL shipping (or half price on airmail). Among the videos posted are Aoi Minori, Kawashima Azumi, and Asaoka Kaori and more -- but our stock is limited, as we're closing these items out
  
• We have several excellent new magazines, including the excellent new issues of Penthouse Japan and Penthouse Special, featuring some very lovely models, as well as new issues of the excellent OK and Do-Up!
  
• We've got another volley of excellent magazine back-issues, including new issues of Boyes and some classic Gokuh's -- including books featuring Miura Aika, Aida Momo, and more
  
• We've got fresh stock of the excellent DVD & Video CD Soft Catalog, a magazine & dual-VCD combo that gives you up to 2 hours of AV footage for a fantastic price
  
• See new photobooks on our photobook pages, including the lovely and charming nude of Tanami Mari
  
• Leg fetish fans, see the hot new issue of Minisuka Deluxe, but stock of this issue is limited -- get it fast, if you want it
  
• We've got some "gouka-bon" format books posted to the high-end S&M page, including a new issue of Anal-ko Hip & Anal, and by customer request, the latest issue of New Half, for fans of pretty transsexuals
  
• If you love hentai, bag the latest issue of Fantasienne, a huge magazine filled with wonderful H game artwork and images from Japan's newest games
  
• On our newly created Hentai and Anime DVD page, see several all-new items, including the latest in the G-Taste erotic DVD series -- the Morimura Nana chapter -- as well as Soft on Demand's debut in hentai animation -- Otaky Sasaki's story of an erotic android maid, Fragile Hearts
  
• We have a great new update to our dojinshi page, with many wonderful erotic dojinshi -- see the Dojinshi and Yao pages for these items
  
• Also very cool -- master hentai illustrator "Linda" has released a fantastic erotic manga that has to be seen to be believed -- see "Sadist" on the manga (new releases) page
  
• For anime fans, see several classic issues of Animage from years gone by, featuring Gundam Wing, Rayearth, Evangelion and more
  
• We've got a nifty item, a Totoro deck of playing cards, posted to the anime & toys page as well
  
• On our signs and stickers page, we have some amusing new message stickers -- Japanese "push" and "pull" stickers, as well as an odd message asking your guests no to splash urine on the floor when they use your toilet
  
• Several useful new items on the Wacky Things from Japan homepage, including stylish wood and bamboo chopsticks that are extra-easy to eat with
  
• Finally, the national food of Japan isn't sushi or sashimi, it's really curry rice. Based on British versions of India's curries, curry rice arose as one of the most important Japanese foods in the 19th century, and now there are dozens of varieties on the market. Boil-in-bag curry is a favorite staple of Japanese, since it's incredibly easy to make -- just boil the curry bag and pour it over rice. Now one of the most popular brands of curry rice -- Bon Curry -- is available from J-List, for your eating pleasure -- see it on our Japanese snacks page!
  

Okay, that's all for now!

Greetings from J-List December 25, 2000

The warmest Merry Christmas and holiday wishes from all of us at J-List!

Christmas in Japan is very different from in the U.S.. First of all, it's a normal day like any other -- kids go to school, people to go work, and if there're Christian, they attend mass in the evening. Far more important in Japan is Christmas Eve. This is the the day that the family gets together to have a special dinner, and eat their Christmas cake, which they must reserve in advance. It's easily Kentucky Fried Chicken's busiest night, but we discovered last night that sushi shops are also do very good business, when we tried to order sushi without reservations -- so we ended up with supermarket sushi instead. Bandai and Toys R Us (which recently opened it's 100th store in Japan) are slowly building American-style commercialism when it comes to kids wanting toys for Christmas, and by now

Christmas Eve also has a special meaning to couples as an important "date night, second only to Valentine's Day. Fine restaurants and love hotels are jammed with couples enjoying private time together, and Christmas Eve is the most popular night for a girl to throw away her virginity" (to borrow a Japanese term). It's also a good night for married couples to put the kids to bed early and enjoy some time together, maybe a bottle of Champaign.

For this evening's holiday, we've got a bunch of very special products, including:

• First, several new magazines, including not one but *two* issues of the excellent Mecha-E, a great hardcore magazine with lots of excellent "bukkake" themes
  
• We've got some extremely rare back-issues of Japan's best adult magazines, including Gokuh, Boyes and Beppin, featuring some really cool AV models who are long-retired -- see these items on magazine page 2
  
• Speaking of rare, we managed to score some extremely limited stock of NoWon vol. 13, a fantastic issue of this most excellent glossy "special photograph magazine, featuring a host of extremely rare AV and nude idols -- including Ikegami Misa and Tohno Natsuko!! (see the photobooks page 1)
  
• We've got several excellent new hardcover photobooks, including swimsuit idol Otsuka Ryoko's Fragile"and the sexy idol pair "Puni Puni, and more,
  
• For our leg fetish fans, fresh stock of "Day and Night of Rich Girl OL" and "Costume & Lingerie, on the leg photobooks page
  
• Two new in-stock adult videos for breast fans -- The Paradise of Huge Boobs" (amateur) and the latest sexy performance of the F-Cup Kawai Azusa
  
• We've got another big volley of new and back-in-stock manga, including some very popular items
  
• The latest issue of Zettai Reido, the "Slave & Master comic for girls" (according to the cover) on the yaoi page
  
• Finally, just when you're sure you won't see any new Japanese calendars from J-list, we've got not one, but three excellent AV CD desktop calendars, featuring some J-List's most popular AV idols (including Anna!) -- see these on the Adult calendars pages
  
• If you dig Zeta Gundam or NHK's oddly shaped "Domo-kun, check out the Anime Toys page for some newly added items
  
• On our snack pages, we've got more dried, shreded ika (shrimp) -- mm, it's so good
  
• More stock of our sold-out Looking for Beautiful Women" florescent sticker
  
• We've got fresh stock of many items on our Wacky Things from Japan pages, including the surprisingly popular extra-long Japanese cooking chopsticks, fashionable black Buddhist beads that you can wear as jewelry to show your spiritual side to others, Hello Kitty wooden chopsticks, vocabulary study cards, and Japanese-style ear cleaners with tiny lights inside (so you can learn the joy of eat-cleaning fetishism, Japanese style)
  
• Newly added to our Wacky Things pages are several new items, including two new handy varieties of Japanese "kairo" heating pads, which really do keep you warm for hours, indoors or out -- I depend on these handy thing to get through the Japanese winters and recommend them to anyone who doesn't like cold
  
• Finally, a totally new item for J-List: dictionaries. We've got two handy dictionaries (J-E and E-J) on the Wacky Things page, which are quite useful for finding Japanese meanings. Our dictionaries are cheap, too, at only $5 each!
  

We'll be taking our stock of calendars down soon and posting them on some auction sites, but we'll hold off a little longer to let J-List customers have first grabs at them. As another Christmas present to you, we've hacked down prices on our stock of calendars yet again, $2-8 per calendar. Please check out these excellent items!

Greetings from J-List December 20, 2000

Greetings from Japan, a country where, in the words of a wise friend of mine, You know no one is horcking in your food."

Well, the Japanese recession is officially over, with the third quarter of growth reported by the Japanese government. It wasn't much growth -- 0.2% -- but it's something. Still, a new report stating that Japan could lose its position as the world's third largest economy by the year 2015 to China is causing consternation here. Japan has great pride in being the #3 economy, after the U.S. and European Union, and is concerned about future competition from the rapidly growing China and India. Still, after doing business in Japan for four years and seeing the inefficient, black underbelly of Japan's distribution system, and how quickly it withers at the slightest outside competition (e.g. Toys R Us), I can say that Japan has a lot to be afraid of. A lot has changed over the past few years

Thursday, the J-List crew is taking the afternoon off and heading for Ikaho, a nearby city that's known for its onsen (hot springs). We try to take our annual onsen trip in the autumn, but got around to it later than usual this year. At the onsen, we'll take long baths, eat Japanese style food while wearing yukata (cotton kimonos) and sitting on tatami, take more baths, drink, and eat Haagen Daaz ice cream from a vending machine late at night, then wake up in the morning with hangovers and curse the hotel for only serving green tea

For this evening's update, we've got some excellent items for you, including:

• First, new magazines, including the new Dela Beppin (alert fans of Kawai Azusa and the delicious Kumano Pooh-ko) and Peach Water (great bikini and swimsuit sexual fetish)
  
• We have several excellent new photobooks, including Aoki Eri's Progression and Sakurai Fuka's Missing -- both excellent for fans of Japanese high school uniforms
  
• For leg fetish fans, a new item -- volume 3 of the excellent Rich Daughter's Legs series
  
• We've got some excellent new adult manga posted to the manga
  
• For our manga and dojinshi fans, we've got several new items added to the "Bargain Basement" page -- over-stocked and close-out manga and dojinshi, starting from just $5
  
• The hottest Japanese AV idol of 2000 is shaping up to be the dynamite Ohura Anna, the incredibly gorgeous and busty AV queen -- see her latest AV video offering on the New releases page!
  
• Soft on Demand has turned five years old, and to commemorate their stellar rise -- they've achieved sales of $55 million in that short time -- they've released a fantastic 2-video (and 2-DVD, for the DVD version) with 240 minutes (!) of the best performances in their history. A fantastic selection of AV idol (Miura Aika, many more), theme videos (tekoki, cosplay, and more), this is a wonderful item for Japan AV fans!
  
• For anime fans, we've got the new issue of Megami Magazine, an incredible anime and game-girl focused magazine that gives you tons of great stuff, including two large posters, 14 pin-up posters, and more
  
• We've got more wacky shining stickers with Japanese messages on them, on the Japanese signs and stickers page
  
• We have fresh stock of our popular Japanese T-shirts, including more of the popular "Looking for a Japanese girlfriend" (red circle) version
  
• For our Japanese snack fans, we've got fresh stock of many popular items, including Mouse Pocky (delicious!), Kuro-Ame traditional candy, sake candy (with real sake in it!), and Lotte's "Green Gum" and "Black Black"
  
• Speaking of Lotte, we've also posted an all-new flavor -- Lotte's "La France" (pear) flavored fruit gum
  
• For those (like me) who hate the cold of winter, we've got a new version of Japanese hot pocket (kairo), specially designed to go in your shoes and warm your feet for hours
  
• Finally, a super cool item -- Japanese sushi erasers! These delicious erasers closely resemble Japanese sushi, with individually molded rubber pieces for extra realism. So good, we could eat them -- see these wacky items on the Wacky Things from Japan page.
  

Remember that J-List has the world's only Wacky Japanese T-shirts, funny T-shirts with bizarre messages in Japanese on them. The #1 selling T-shirt we offer is far and away the red circle version of "Looking for a Japanese girlfriend, followed closely by Hen na gaijin" ("I'm a strange foreigner"). "Philosophy of Hentai" and the basic "Watashi wa H" ("I'm H" or "I'm a pervert"). Guaranteed to get strange looks and laughs from Japanese, and in the experience of at least one J-List customer, even more!

Greetings from J-List December 18, 2000

Greetings from Japan, the country where cars have curtains.

One concept related to Japanese politeness is "enryo, which means hesitation." Basically, if a group of Japanese is eating a pizza, it will take some time for one of the members to get around to taking the last slice, because of the tendency for each individual to defer to the others in the group -- until everyone is deferring to everyone else, and the pizza is getting cold. If you watch a group of Japanese people, it's interesting to see how this comes into play. The concept of enryo rears its head when trying to make a decision among a group, too. Say a large group of people is trying to decide on a restaurant to go to. Each member of the group will put out some feelers, trying to nudge the collective opinion of the group in one direction or another. If even one person in the group is inconvenienced by the collective decision, you can be another decision will be made.

The Japanese sometimes take an English word and change its meaning. One example is the word "corner, which means area" in Japanese usage. A smoking area in a train station is known as a "smoking corner." Similarly, a room for breast-feeding babies is called "junyu (giving of milk) corner." But the one I like best is the Japanese word for ATM, or automated teller machine: "cash corner." Words are alive, of course, and their meaning are changing constantly. I do love the spin the Japanese give to English.

For this evening's update, we've got some excellent items for you, including:

• First, excellent new magazines, including the super Gal's Dee (featuring Yamasaki Akari!), and the great new issues of Video Boy and Best Video -- superb magazines that offer snapshots of the entire Japanese AV world in one great issue
  
• We've also got some of our popular single shot magazines, as well as more $5 magazines on our discount magazine page (magazine page 3)
  
• Photobook fans should check out the excellent new additions, including Inoue Harumi's dynamite "Foxy" photobook, and a hardcover offering from swimsuit idol Katsumura Mika
  
• If you love Japan's AV world, check out the new in-stock videos, on Videos (new releases) -- Mitsumoto Ami's "Heart Throb of Woman" and Takemoto Rio's "Wet & Messy"
  
• We have more great AV DVDs than anyone else in the world, and we've updated our selection: Yuki Hitomi's Gallery offering from Video Bank, and a super DVD featuring a woman near to my heart, the dynamite Ms. Aida Momo (!)
  
• We've got a bunch of fresh adult manga posted, with many previously sold out and popular manga volumes by Hit, Mujin, and more
  
• By request, we've added stock of the latest excellent "Crystal Card" collectible AV trading card series --see it on the photobooks page
  
• For our yaoi fans, there are two excellent new yaoi manga posted to the yaoi page, including the latest issue of the popular B-Boy Zips
  
• We've got a classic for Noripii fans -- Sakai Noriko's "Lovely Times" photobook, photographed in London, on the Idol DVDs and More page
  
• For fans of the lovely idol group Morning Musume, we have a lovely item, a "photograph card" that shows the lovely members of Morning Musume in great poses -- and each photo card is only 50 cents!
  
• We've got fresh stock of our wacky wooden signs with funny Japanese messages on them
  
• On our Wacky Things from Japan page, we've got fresh stock of the extremely handy and useful Japanese Hot Pockets (Kairo), hideously useful little pouches that warm you for up to 24 hours; and fresh stock of our patented Japanese origami paper
  
• Finally, a really esoteric New Year's decoration from Japan, Shinto "Kadomatsu" or "gate pine" decorations, little bamboo and straw assemblies that bring a fresh, new feeling of renewal around New Years. A wonderful item -- see it on the Wacky Things page!
  

Just another plug for calendars! We still have many excellent JPOP, anime, idol and nude calendars in stock, and we'd like your assistance in getting rid of them. L'Arc~en~Ciel, lovely Race Queen Suzuki Fumika, computer generated sexy idol Terai Yuki, Evangelion, the very sexy Asakura Megumi. We've knocked prices down yet again, as we try to get our stock moved out. We thank you for helping us by checking out our excellent oversize, glossy Japanese calendars!

Greetings from J-List December 15, 2000

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Greetings from J-List December 13, 2000

Hello from J-List, now officially banned in all Santa Cruz city facilities and Saudi Arabia!

One interesting aspect of the Japanese people is their developed sense of humility. If you've ever complimented a Japanese person and had them deny the compliment (most likely with an accompanying gesture of waving their hand back and forth in front of their face, meaning "no"), you've run into the Japanese habit of "kenson" or humility. It shows itself in many forms, but one of the most odd and interesting is when a Japanese person gives someone else a gift. They'll often say "This is an uninteresting gift, or if it's food, they'll say, I'm not sure if this is delicious or not." I remember the first time I was complimented on my Japanese. I was happy, and thanked the person, but I should have disagreed with them.

If you've ever been to Japan and used a toilet here -- either a Western one or a Japanese-style "no seat" toilet (which is a shock to use for the first time), you may have noticed the Chinese characters for "small and "big" which are and respectively. The toilet handle moves two ways: if you've done just a little "number one, turn the handle towards small" and hold it for a few seconds while the water flows. If you've done the other thing, push the handle towards "big" for a full flush. It took me a few months of living in Japan to figure out that these characters stood for the words for "number one" (shoben, or "little toilet") and "number two" (daiben, or "big toilet"). Another mystery solved.

For this evening's update, we've got some very special items for you, including:

• First, to help you help us move our remaining stock of excellent 2001 Japanese calendars, we've done two things: one, made one final round of price cuts, dropping the prices on all remaining in-stock calendars; and two, we've taken digital shots of the insides of all remaining calendars, so you can see a little better how good the inside photos are -- so please check out our dwindling stock of calendars, as they are going fast!
  
• We have many excellent new magazines on the J-List site, including the excellent new Sennin Giri (kogal erotica) and "Go! Go! Delivery Busty Girls" (love that English)
  
• For hentai lovers, we've got several items for you, including the new Bug Bug (very nice!) and the excellent current issue of Kairakuten, the wonderful erotic manga magazine
  
• For our photobook customers, we've got several new items, as well as fresh stock of several of the "Bishojo Nude Photo Gallery" series photobooks that have such high quality photos inside
  
• For our leg fetish customers, the Day and Night Lives of the Rich Girl OLs (gotta love that)
  
• Speaking of manga, we've got a wonderful new volume in by the highly talented and stylized artist Doman Seiman, by our favorite adult manga publisher, Hit Comics
  
• Yaoi fans should check out Dear Plus, a super 500+ page yaoi manga anthology for fans of "boy's secret love"
  
• For Japan's erotic adult video fans, we've got the Distinguished Private Girls' School of Adult Video, a super offering with nine lovely cosplay lovelies playing out an erotic fantasy -- on the videos (new releases) page
  
• Also new, we've got a super new "tekoki" (hand job) video in from Soft on Demand, featuring seven lovely nurses in the "Tekoki Clinic"
  oFor Japan's erotic DVD fans, a super item -- a 110 minute anthology of the best moments in the "Give Up Human Being" erotic series, featuring Kano Mizuho, Miura Aika, Yazawa Yoko, Komuro Yuri and Wakana Sena! On the DVD Main page
  
• For those looking for beautiful Japanese girls, make your message seen with our latest wacky Japanese sticker -- on our Stickers & Signs page
  
• We've got several new items on our Wacky Things from Japan page, including a super new version of our popular Buddhist Beads, which are useful as cool jewelry, too!
  
• Finally, a super cool new item -- Lotte's delicious Japanese "umeboshi" flavored gum, with the tart and tasty zest of pickled plum. It's a delicious and uniquely Japanese taste, available now on J-List's snacks and gum pages!
  

Kaori is taking the day off to go to "Nezumi Land" tomorrow. This is a joke in Japanese -- "nezumi" means "mouse" or "rat, and Disneyland is home to the most famous mouse in the world, ergo the nickname for Tokyo Disneyland. We hope she has a fun date with her boyfriend.

Greetings from J-List December 9, 2000

Hello again from Japan, the country where a car's turn signal is known as a "winker."

There are many things that Japan has that I'm sure would be a big hit if introduced outside the U.S. One are little faucets at the top of toilets, which allow you to wash your hands with the clean water flowing back into the tank after flushing. Then there are these spring-loaded toilet paper holders, which allow you to remove them by just lifting up when the roll is spent. But one business model I'm sure would be a hit are "daisha" or "replacement cars." Basically a taxi with a second driver, daisha are the people you call when you've had a little too much to drink, but don't want to leave your car. One call to a daisha company, and the taxi with the spare driver will come and get you. You ride hope in the taxi, while the second driver drives your own car home. it's a great way to improve road safety, and might be a workable business model outside of Japan, too.

Japanese anime is famous throughout the world, but there are many shows which don't make it out of Japan, or which are shown in some parts of the world, but not the U.S., perhaps because they didn't seem "right" for the U.S. market according to someone. While the anime they make today is very good, sometimes it seems that something wholesome has been lost as anime has gotten as popular as it has. Nearly all Japanese in their 30's watched and cried during the sad and moving ending of Flanders no Inu (The Dog of Flanders), when Nello and Patrasche ascend into heaven amid the angels. (Note: Amazon.com has this on DVD if you want to check it out.) Then there was Haha wo Tazunete 3000-ri (3000 Leagues in search of Mother), a touching story of an Italian boy March who travels to Argentina to find his mother. There's a touching scene when March finds a dying old woman who thinks he is her son; to comfort the woman, he lets her believe this. But of course the most popular anime from this period has to be the anime version of Heidi, which won the hearts of girls all over Japan.

For this weekend's update, we've got some truly excellent items for you, including:

• First, lower prices on our great stock of 2001 calendars, and to help you help us get rid of our stock in time for 2001, a new offer -- buy any two or more calendars, and get your mailing tube free!
  
• We've got a great magazine that's new to J-List -- Do Pink!, a wonderful "sperm and soap girl" fetish magazine with dozens of lovely gals
  
• Also very cool, the new issue of Multi Boy, which features a full color magazine and Video CD filled with all-pro Japanese AV footage and more
  
• Hentai fans will want to see the new issue of Colorful Pure Girl, the Digital Cute Girl Magazine, on the Magazines (hentai) page
  
• For our photobook fans, we've got several back-in-stock items, including more stock of the "Wonderful" series, Toyama Maiko's popular "Fairy Girl" hardcover nude photobook, and more
  
• We have a bunch of great erotic manga volumes posted to the manga pages, with new and recently added items on the Manga (new releases) page and back-in-stock classics on the Manga (bestsellers) page
  
• For fans of Soft on Demand's fantastic approach to eros, we've got two new videos in the "Stark Nakedness Sports Series, including the very cool 64 all-naked girls in rock-paper-scissors contest" -- see who will be the last one wearing clothes!
  
• For DVD & cosplay lovers, we've got a new Costume Play Perfection series DVD, this one featuring erotic anime cosplay featuring Yamato, Captain Harlock, Gundam Wing, Galaxy Express, and more!
  
• For JPOP fans, in-stock issues of Zappy, the super JPOP and J-Rock magazine with photos, music and messages from Japan's hottest stars (on the included CD
  
• On our Anime Toys page, several new trinkets, including fresh stock of the Alien "face hugger" keychain, and a hopelessly cute "rolling eraser" that picks up eraser chunks after you use the eraser -- nice and neat!
  
• On our Japanese snacks page, we've got fresh stock of a favorite of mine, dried, shredded ika (squid)
  
• On our Wacky Things from Japan pages, we've got more of the cute "Hello Kitty mayonnaise cups" (but you can put anything in them you like), and fresh stock of the traditional Japanese oil-removing paper
  
• Finally, another really special item from Japan I've loved for years, and am now happy to be able to bring to everyone: Japanese hot pockets. A truly magnificent invention from Japan, this is a wonderful little cloth bag that gets hot when you open the plastic wrapping. It gets hot, and stays hot, for up to 18 hours, actually, and is a wonderful way to warm up if you're cold. Being from San Diego, I find the Tokyo winters uncomfortably cold, and use these great heating pads to warm myself during the day. Great for skiers
  

The J-list shopping cart was experiencing some difficulties on Thursday evening, California time, but everything is fixed now. If you ever have any problems with the shopping cart and your browser, remember that you can submit orders via the secure email link on the J-List site, too. Thanks!