Friday, September 07, 2001
Greetings from J-List September 7, 2001
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Wednesday, September 05, 2001
Greetings from J-List September 5, 2001
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Monday, September 03, 2001
Greetings from J-List September 3, 2001
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Friday, August 31, 2001
Greetings from J-List August 31, 2001
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Wednesday, August 29, 2001
Greetings from J-List August 29, 2001
Hello again from your good friends in Japan, J-List!
Japanese history is interesting to study, and one of my favorite periods is the Meiji Restoration, during which a handful of political radicals staged a coup against the Shogun-led government and create a constitutional monarchy under the Meiji Emperor. During the two decades after the 1868 restoration, the new leaders of Japan (who are considered the Forefathers of modern Japan today) wrought an incredible number of changes to the country, forcing the last Tokugawa Shogun to surrender his power and his vast holdings of land to the State, getting the samurai class, which received a welfare-like stipend of money from the government, to support the new changes and give up their birth-enabled entitlement, and creating Japan's first constitution. Japan was ashamed at its terrible weakness when dealing with Britain and the U.S., and its goal was to create a modern nation that could stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the powers of Europe. To that end, Japanese men like Yukichi Fukuzawa (founder of Keio University, his face is on the Japanese 10,000 yen note) traveled to Europe and U.S. to study how best to modernize their institutions. Now, these reformers are respected by Japanese in same way as John Paul Jones and Paul Revere are in the U.S.
Renaming everything was one important goal during this period. To make sure the old loyalties and political groups could not interfere with modernizing the country, all the old "han" (kingdoms) into which Japan was divided at the time were erased, and new "ken" (prefectures) were created along different lines. (The name in Japanese for the removal of the "han" and creation of the "ken" is "Haihan-chiken," if you ever want to impress a Japanese person with your knowledge.) Thus, every place you can go to in Japan has two names, the modern name and the "old" one. Gunma Prefecture's pre-Meiji name was Joshu; Hokkaido was known as Kozuke-no-kuni. The capital of Edo was renamed during this time, too: it became Tokyo.
An unimportant bit of trivia I've picked up about Japanese: when they have the radio on, they don't pay much attention to it. As a result, they don't care if the radio station features nothing but people talking, playing very little music, and as a further result, Japanese radio almost always consists of people talking about music and current events, rather than the actual music. Whenever we go to San Diego, we're absolutely overjoyed at the dozens of excellent radio stations available, playing interesting songs from the 80's, 90's, in a myriad of genres. The Japanese are far ahead of the U.S. in terms of chairs that massage your back while you sit in them, but the Japanese version of "radio culture" leaves much to be desired. On the plus side, NHK's AM radio station does have live sumo wrestling coverage all afternoon.
Since we've got so many hundreds of DVDs in stock at all times, we'd decided to add some categories to the DVD pages,
For today's J-List update, we've got some nice items for you, including:
Japanese history is interesting to study, and one of my favorite periods is the Meiji Restoration, during which a handful of political radicals staged a coup against the Shogun-led government and create a constitutional monarchy under the Meiji Emperor. During the two decades after the 1868 restoration, the new leaders of Japan (who are considered the Forefathers of modern Japan today) wrought an incredible number of changes to the country, forcing the last Tokugawa Shogun to surrender his power and his vast holdings of land to the State, getting the samurai class, which received a welfare-like stipend of money from the government, to support the new changes and give up their birth-enabled entitlement, and creating Japan's first constitution. Japan was ashamed at its terrible weakness when dealing with Britain and the U.S., and its goal was to create a modern nation that could stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the powers of Europe. To that end, Japanese men like Yukichi Fukuzawa (founder of Keio University, his face is on the Japanese 10,000 yen note) traveled to Europe and U.S. to study how best to modernize their institutions. Now, these reformers are respected by Japanese in same way as John Paul Jones and Paul Revere are in the U.S.
Renaming everything was one important goal during this period. To make sure the old loyalties and political groups could not interfere with modernizing the country, all the old "han" (kingdoms) into which Japan was divided at the time were erased, and new "ken" (prefectures) were created along different lines. (The name in Japanese for the removal of the "han" and creation of the "ken" is "Haihan-chiken," if you ever want to impress a Japanese person with your knowledge.) Thus, every place you can go to in Japan has two names, the modern name and the "old" one. Gunma Prefecture's pre-Meiji name was Joshu; Hokkaido was known as Kozuke-no-kuni. The capital of Edo was renamed during this time, too: it became Tokyo.
An unimportant bit of trivia I've picked up about Japanese: when they have the radio on, they don't pay much attention to it. As a result, they don't care if the radio station features nothing but people talking, playing very little music, and as a further result, Japanese radio almost always consists of people talking about music and current events, rather than the actual music. Whenever we go to San Diego, we're absolutely overjoyed at the dozens of excellent radio stations available, playing interesting songs from the 80's, 90's, in a myriad of genres. The Japanese are far ahead of the U.S. in terms of chairs that massage your back while you sit in them, but the Japanese version of "radio culture" leaves much to be desired. On the plus side, NHK's AM radio station does have live sumo wrestling coverage all afternoon.
Since we've got so many hundreds of DVDs in stock at all times, we'd decided to add some categories to the DVD pages,
For today's J-List update, we've got some nice items for you, including:
- Three Sister's Story, the best-selling bishoujo game from JAST USA, has been a huge hit over the years, with its rich story and interesting characters. We're a little overstocked on this title, so we're having a sale -- with $10 off on this great game. It's a great introduction to Japan's interactive adult adventures, so get it today!
- We've got some excellent new magazines, including the new issue of the popular Ok!, Sennin-giri (a nice amateur kogal magazine), and the very erotic Hit Parade vol. 2
- Also for fans of our unique adult magazine items from Japan, we've got a major restock of previous sold-out issues, with new items appearing on all three magazine pages -- including lots of back-in-stock $5 and $6 mags! Check new the top of each magazine page for the new items.
- For photobook fans, see fresh stock of many very nice items, including Garo Aida/Airi Kago's Strawberry Diary photobook, Cam-Girl Fetish (for fans of Campaign Girls, similar to Race Queens), Love Target and Weekend Party, and more -- all with lower prices, too
- Fans of Yellows, the erotic photography series by Akira Gomi, should see the Yellows 2.0 Photographs, the mini-photobook documenting 100 lovely nude Japanese women
- For doujinshi lovers, we've got another must-see update of new items for you, with some incredible new works for you, all from the recent Comic Market -- check out the new items before they're gone!
- In addition to the new doujinshi, we've posted a fresh slew of very high-quality 'doujin-soft' CD-ROMs, underground CG and other works made by doujinshi artists who publish on CD-ROM instead of in a book format
- Of course we have new erotic manga for fans of Japan's incredibly talented hentai manga artists -- see new works by Tachibana Seven, Persona, Fujimi Comics and more! We've also got a nice restock of other items, too, including fresh stock of many popular sold-out items
- For DVD lovers, we've got some nice new items, too, including a super new Idol Semen for bukkake fans, starring Rin Tomosaki, and Do Lesbian 2!, an excellent all-ladies lesbian DVD from Soft on Demand
- For anime and toy fans, we've got a super phone strap/keychain of E.T. (so cute), and a rare figure of Gizmo from Gremlins 2, as well as fresh stock of the sold-out My Neighbor animated alarm clock
- On the Wacky Stickers and Signs page, we've got more cute Japanese stickers, that wish "long life and happiness" and more -- great for gift-giving or sticking on letters or postcards
- For Japanse snack fans, we've got handy individual packets of delicious Japanese "sauce," a great new flavor of Shigekix, the extremely tart "hard gummi" treat (which I highly recommend, it is delicious), as well as fresh stock of Pucca (chocolate-filled fish-shaped crackers) and more
- Finally, on our Wacky Things from Japan pages, find two different authentic Japanese bento boxes, a nifty item to organize your cords and cables, Japanese study cards (for studying vocabulary), and a delicious "etiquette pipe" that will freshen your breath, containing aloe and lemon!
Monday, August 27, 2001
Greetings from J-List August 27, 2001
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Thursday, August 23, 2001
Greetings from J-List August 23, 2001
Hello again from Japan, the home of words like "virgin road" and "shutter chance."
Part of the Japanese sense of "joshiki" (unifying common sense) can be understood through the word "chanto." Meaning "properly," the Japanese use this word to grant a higher status to "the way things should be." When I went to pick up my daughter from her preschool, I watched the teacher showing the kids a "kami-shibai" (a story told to kids using sheets of cardboard with pictures on them) about the proper way to brush your teeth, the proper way to greet others, and so on. The word "chanto" was thrown around a lot. Of course teaching kids is one thing, but it's interesting to note that the concept of there being "one" correct way to do things is quite important to the Japanese. Almost without fail, those who don't follow that one path -- young people who drop out of school and play guitar in front of the train station for money, couples who live together without getting married -- are seen in a negative light.
One of the challenges for me as an American, living in rural Japan, comes from having no native speakers of English around me. It's amazing how much having other native speaks affects your own speaking. If I lived in New Zealand (as I in fact did for a year when I was a child), I'd naturally pick up a Kiwi accent. If I moved to India, I'd start talking like Apu from the Quik-E-Mart. Because there isn't much use for a gaijin who talks with a Japanese accent, or who goes around saying things like "Almost people in America drive a car," I have to constantly check my English to make sure it doesn't erode too badly. Another challenge: swearing. In Japan, English swear words carrying none of the shock or negative implications that they do in an English-speaking country. Thus, it's quite easy for foreigners living in Japan to lose the subtle mental checks and balances that govern the use of swear words, if they're not god damned careful.
Kaori's taking the day off today, to go to the new Disney Sea theme park that opened near Tokyo Disneyland (which isn't actually in Tokyo). Actually, it's not really open yet -- Kaori received a special invitation to go to the park before its official opening. She's been sending us digital images from her portable phone (which has a digital camera built into it). It looks like fun, but I detest all theme parks in Japan: the density of people in this country (320 per square mile, vs. 26 for the U.S.) guarantees that any day at a Disneyland-type theme park will be eaten up by waiting in lines.
Well, our air conditioning is back on -- yaay! If you want to see the charred motherboard that game out of our air conditioning unit, it's at http://www.jlist.com/b9/aircon.jpg .
For this afternoon's update, we've got another nice bunch of items for you, including:
We've updated the J-List glossary of terms again, with some suggestions from readers. We hope it's helpful! Also, Yasu will be in Tokyo tomorrow, so we've updated the week's "top 5" lists a day early.
Part of the Japanese sense of "joshiki" (unifying common sense) can be understood through the word "chanto." Meaning "properly," the Japanese use this word to grant a higher status to "the way things should be." When I went to pick up my daughter from her preschool, I watched the teacher showing the kids a "kami-shibai" (a story told to kids using sheets of cardboard with pictures on them) about the proper way to brush your teeth, the proper way to greet others, and so on. The word "chanto" was thrown around a lot. Of course teaching kids is one thing, but it's interesting to note that the concept of there being "one" correct way to do things is quite important to the Japanese. Almost without fail, those who don't follow that one path -- young people who drop out of school and play guitar in front of the train station for money, couples who live together without getting married -- are seen in a negative light.
One of the challenges for me as an American, living in rural Japan, comes from having no native speakers of English around me. It's amazing how much having other native speaks affects your own speaking. If I lived in New Zealand (as I in fact did for a year when I was a child), I'd naturally pick up a Kiwi accent. If I moved to India, I'd start talking like Apu from the Quik-E-Mart. Because there isn't much use for a gaijin who talks with a Japanese accent, or who goes around saying things like "Almost people in America drive a car," I have to constantly check my English to make sure it doesn't erode too badly. Another challenge: swearing. In Japan, English swear words carrying none of the shock or negative implications that they do in an English-speaking country. Thus, it's quite easy for foreigners living in Japan to lose the subtle mental checks and balances that govern the use of swear words, if they're not god damned careful.
Kaori's taking the day off today, to go to the new Disney Sea theme park that opened near Tokyo Disneyland (which isn't actually in Tokyo). Actually, it's not really open yet -- Kaori received a special invitation to go to the park before its official opening. She's been sending us digital images from her portable phone (which has a digital camera built into it). It looks like fun, but I detest all theme parks in Japan: the density of people in this country (320 per square mile, vs. 26 for the U.S.) guarantees that any day at a Disneyland-type theme park will be eaten up by waiting in lines.
Well, our air conditioning is back on -- yaay! If you want to see the charred motherboard that game out of our air conditioning unit, it's at http://www.jlist.com/b9/aircon.jpg .
For this afternoon's update, we've got another nice bunch of items for you, including:
- Some very nice erotic magazine for you, including some amateur magazines for fans of authentic Japanese girls on the street
- For leg fetish fans, see the new Mini-Suka Deluxe, the very nice deluxe magazine for fans of silky, leggy Japanese ladies
- For fans of sailor uniforms, we've got the very cool Buru Mani, a Waffle Special issue featuring 14 sweet gals
- for photobook lovers, we've got many nice new items, including Garo Aida's Strawberry Diaries photobook vol. 3 with Honami Seki, a superb new photobook of the elfin Minori Aoi, Emi Kitani's lovely hardcover swimsuit photobook, and more
- We have positively wonderful all-new and back-in-stock manga for you, including the dynamite Explosive Breast Newscaster Anzai-san, fresh stock of Midnight plus two, as well as several more
- Since it's doujinshi season around here, we have fresh books for you, all brand-new items from the past Comic Market
- Also for fans of Japan's unique doujin-world, we've got some excellent CD-ROM compilations of "doujin-soft." These are CG collections put out by circles, who do computer graphics work instead of publishing book-format doujinshi comics. The quality of the CG is very high and very unique. Stock is limited, so check the doujinshi page fast...
- If you love DVD, we've got two new titles for you. First, see pure girls doing erotic things for the first time in a very erotic new DVD release from Glay'z. Then, see the cat fight of the century as three martial arts gals must fight each other. Whoever loses must endure...
- For lovers of unique Japanese snacks and food, we've got the delicious Tsubu Tsubu Strawberry Pocky, with bits of real strawberry inside, and one of my personal favorites, Tomato Pretz, a delicious tomato/salad flavored pretzel treat
- Also on the Japanese snack and food page, we've got fresh stock of a dynamite item for the summer, Japanese barley tea (mugi cha), a giant value pack of 50 mugi cha tea bags for just $5
- If you love Japan's sexy Race Queens, we've got a very nice photobook on the photobook and idol pages, capturing the beauty of the lovely Team Autobacs RQ's
- For fans of the very cute Gremlins toys by Jun Planning, we've got two different lovable incarnations of Gizmo, available only from Japan
- We have some new items on the Wacky Things from Japan "cute things" page, including little fragrant tags that smell sweet and have funny messages on them -- use them as air fresheners or as super-cute tags for gifts
- For fans of ukiyoe, we've got fresh stock of the surprisingly popular ukiyoe stickers, two different sets featuring ukiyoe reproductions by Utamaro, Hokusai and Sharaku
- Finally, other bizarre and wacky things from Japan include a real Japanese kendama (ball and string toy), a deluxe onigiri maker (makes rice balls in the shape of hearts, stars and bears), a very cute way to separate sushi from other foods, and more!
We've updated the J-List glossary of terms again, with some suggestions from readers. We hope it's helpful! Also, Yasu will be in Tokyo tomorrow, so we've updated the week's "top 5" lists a day early.
Tuesday, August 21, 2001
Greetings from J-List August 21, 2001
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Friday, August 17, 2001
Greetings from J-List August 17, 2001
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Wednesday, August 15, 2001
Greetings from J-List August 15, 2001
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Tuesday, August 14, 2001
Greetings from J-List August 14, 2001
Greetings again from a very humid Japan!
The Japanese recession continues, but some parts of the Japanese economy are still doing well. House construction is up, for example, as people take advantage of the "0% interest" strategy the government has pushed for the past two years, making the real rate about 1.9% (before you ask, no, we can't arrange a Japanese loan for anyone ^_^). Cars are also selling well. This year's selling cars are Toyota Corolla, Honda's new "Fit" (a very small, cute car for women to drive), Honda's Step WGN (pronounced "step wagon"), and Toyota Estima (Toyota's "ingenious egg" according to their commercials). Sales of foreign cars are also up, with Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz and BMW being the major beneficiaries. Volkswagen leads the foreign car market here, with 14% of the foreign market.
Well, the existence of God has been proven once and for all: we have an actual Starbucks in Gunma Prefecture. It opened at the single most metropolitan spot in our fair prefecture of 2 million, inside the train station of Takasaki, the largest city in Gunma. We'd love to go enjoy a frosty Frapachino some time, but unfortunately, everyone else in Gunma has the same idea, and you can't get into the place without waiting 45 minutes or more.
We continue to limp along without our air conditioner, hoping it will be fixed soon. Meanwhile, summer is always an interesting time to be in Japan, mainly to enjoy the "usugi" or thin, revealing clothes that girls wear. This year's fashions includes bras that use clear plastic for the shoulder straps, making them appear "invisible." The effect is rather nice.
For this evening's update, we've got some excellent items for you, including:
The Japanese recession continues, but some parts of the Japanese economy are still doing well. House construction is up, for example, as people take advantage of the "0% interest" strategy the government has pushed for the past two years, making the real rate about 1.9% (before you ask, no, we can't arrange a Japanese loan for anyone ^_^). Cars are also selling well. This year's selling cars are Toyota Corolla, Honda's new "Fit" (a very small, cute car for women to drive), Honda's Step WGN (pronounced "step wagon"), and Toyota Estima (Toyota's "ingenious egg" according to their commercials). Sales of foreign cars are also up, with Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz and BMW being the major beneficiaries. Volkswagen leads the foreign car market here, with 14% of the foreign market.
Well, the existence of God has been proven once and for all: we have an actual Starbucks in Gunma Prefecture. It opened at the single most metropolitan spot in our fair prefecture of 2 million, inside the train station of Takasaki, the largest city in Gunma. We'd love to go enjoy a frosty Frapachino some time, but unfortunately, everyone else in Gunma has the same idea, and you can't get into the place without waiting 45 minutes or more.
We continue to limp along without our air conditioner, hoping it will be fixed soon. Meanwhile, summer is always an interesting time to be in Japan, mainly to enjoy the "usugi" or thin, revealing clothes that girls wear. This year's fashions includes bras that use clear plastic for the shoulder straps, making them appear "invisible." The effect is rather nice.
For this evening's update, we've got some excellent items for you, including:
- First of all, we've got several great new magazines for you, including the lovely new issue of Dela Beppin, a new issue of Haay Gachinko Musume, and more!
- For photobook fans, see the wonderful hardcover photobook of Hitomi Hayasaki, and more
- For hentai magazine fans who like the popular magazines we carry, we've got several in-stock issues of Bug Bug and E-Login for you, and all issues come with a demo CD-ROM inside
- If you love Japan's erotic manga, we've got some great new products for you, with super new manga by Mujin Comics, Hit Comics, Angel Comics, and more -- also, fresh stock of many sold out books, including the runaway bestseller Puri Puri Mermaid
- Also: we've got doujinshi! We've posted over two dozen nice doujinshi for doujinshi fans, so check out the new items, as these single issues will go fast
- For Japanese adult video and leg fans, check out the new Mini-Skirt Street, a fun video featuring three lovely, leggy Japanese women and high heels
- For DVD fans, some nice new items, including the lovely erotic performance of Kaori Shimamura, as well as a super Zamen Gokkun Best Selection DVD from Soft on Demand, for bukkake lovers; for those with region-free DVD players, a dynamite erotic DVD featuring Aoi Minori
- We've also gotten fresh stock of many of our popular adult DVD titles, including Mai Hagiwara's "The Secret of Mirukuru," Emily Yoshikawa's "Poison," and the very cool Kuki 20th Anniversary sampler DVD titles
- If you love Japan's colorful anime magazines, we've got some issues of Animage from a couple of months ago, complete with all posters inside
- For fans of the Ultraman TV characters, we've got one more box of the very cool Ultraman Hero cards
- We've got a new flavor of delicious Xylitol gum, a sugarless gum that tastes great (Kaori especially recommends it)
- If you love the delicious snacks from Japan, see our snacks page: we've got fresh stock of Pocky, the original chocolate covered pretzel, and Toppo, a delicious baked chocolate snack
- If you love bizarre messages in Japanese, we've got several nice items for you, including fresh stock of a popular Japanese headband, new "Looking for a beautiful woman" stickers, and the totally insane Buddha Man (so stupid, he's cool!) -- see these on the headbands and stickers page
- Finally, for fans of things with funny English on them, we've got a handy little spiral notebook with insane English printed on the front, as well as a nifty train map of Japan showing all train routes, and more!
Sunday, August 12, 2001
Greetings from J-List August 12, 2001
Hi again, from the land where soft-serve ice cream is known as the much more delicious-sounding term, "soft cream."
Lightning strikes! Last summer, the J-List office was struck by lightning, which caused our big air conditioner (which we informally refer to the Giver of All Life and Happiness) to die for a week during the hottest part of the summer. After a freak lightning storm on Friday night that made national news, the J-List office has been hit again -- and we have lost our air conditioner again! Hopefully it will be a minor repair, as it was last time, but the timing is really terrible, as it happened on Friday night before the week-long Obon holiday. Doh! The lightning also managed to kill our phones, and knock out our internet connection (the one we use from Japan, not the one the J-List site is served from). This has been a hell of a day. Now if we can just get that air-con fixed before it heats up again.
Speaking of heat, by the time you read this, I'll be basking in it. Comic Market 60 is going on in Tokyo, at the Tokyo Big Sight convention center (you can see the famous inverted pyramid as it gets destroyed in Godzilla vs. Destroyer), and Yasu and I will be making the pilgrimage on Sunday to talk with doujinshi circles about letting us sell their works on J-List. A massive doujinshi convention in which about 50,000 fans line up to spend hundreds of dollars on these extremely popular amateur-printed comics, Comic Market (or "Comiket" as its called) is held twice a year, in the summer (sweaty, dripping hell) and in the winter (blessedly cold and refreshing). Inside Big Sight, there are four large halls jam-packed with doujinshi circles selling doujinshi (comics) as well as CG collections on CD-ROM, cute hand-made tributes to their favorite anime character, and more. We try, but I never have time to get through more than two of them before the event is over. Because there is no air conditioning in any of the halls, our bodie will be completely drenched in sweat by the time we're done, despite the towels I bring with me to stuff in my clothes. Yasu and I will do our best.
I'm a big fan of video games, and have loved them ever since the days of Berserk and Star Castle. Whenever my son and I go to our favorite public bath ("Furo 21"), we stop off and play a few games at the Sega ge-sen (Japanese for "game center"). We can only afford to play a few, since video games cost 100 yen here in Japan, which is roughly $1 per game, compared to a quarter or 50 cents in the States. Actually, many of the really exotic games are $2 to play. But the extra income from the higher video game prices comes back to consumers in the form of some really cool games. Of course there are the ones that show up all over the world, the Virtua Fighter 4's, the shooting games, and so on. One of my current favorites is a Japanese taiko drum game, in which you have to hit the Japanese drum (either the face of the drum or the rim around the drum, which produce different kinds of sounds) in tune with the song you're playing. There's also a funky "photographer game" out, in which you're a photographer with a camera on a wire, trying to catch great shots at sporting events. Every game center in Japan has a large amount of floor space devoted to "UFO catcher" (crane games) as well as "puri-kura" (print clubs, i.e. those cute machines that take your picture and print it onto stickers), which are solid money-makers here in Japan. Another major trend in video game entertainment is the rebirth of "retro" games that were popular in the 80s and early 90's, like Crazy Climber, Donkey Kong, and the original Street Fighter II. Some of them are cool, but at $1 per pop, I'll stick to Mame.
Everywhere I look, I see more and more signs that Japan really is in a deflationary spiral. We're all used to prices going up a little bit as time goes by, but in Japan, the rule is "Japan's prices are high to begin with, but the rate of inflation is low." This seems odd, but somehow it accurately describes the movement of prices here in Japan -- actually, during the nine years I've lived in Japan, I can't think of a single thing that went up in price, except for train fare to Tokyo (which was raised fro, $16 to $18 a few years ago). Now, signs that prices are actually coming down are everywhere. Beef bowl (that all-important economic indicator) now costs just $2.80, $2 less than it did a few months ago. Many food items that were $1.20 are now under $1. You can even find the 500 ml PET bottles of tea, which usually go for $1.50, for $1 if you look. More than just certain prices dropping, I feel there's a new attitude of "cheapness" present in Japanese consumers, who were known in the past for spending money on all sorts of silly things (like toilets that clean and dry your butt, complete with remote control). Now, consumers want value and low prices, even if it means shopping at Fresay instead of Shimizu Supermarket because their instant coffee is 68 yen instead of 88 yen. This is a good thing in some ways, but if Japanese housewives are being extra-stingy with their pennies, it will make it that much harder for Japan's economy to grow in the future. At the Comic Market on Friday, I watched a huge line of people wait for 30 minutes in the hot sun to ride the free bus to Tokyo Statin, rather than pay the 400 yen to ride the Yurikamome train (a very pleasant train line that takes you up and over Tokyo bay).
Well, we hope you are having a great weekend -- hopefully cooler than Japan is right now!
Lightning strikes! Last summer, the J-List office was struck by lightning, which caused our big air conditioner (which we informally refer to the Giver of All Life and Happiness) to die for a week during the hottest part of the summer. After a freak lightning storm on Friday night that made national news, the J-List office has been hit again -- and we have lost our air conditioner again! Hopefully it will be a minor repair, as it was last time, but the timing is really terrible, as it happened on Friday night before the week-long Obon holiday. Doh! The lightning also managed to kill our phones, and knock out our internet connection (the one we use from Japan, not the one the J-List site is served from). This has been a hell of a day. Now if we can just get that air-con fixed before it heats up again.
Speaking of heat, by the time you read this, I'll be basking in it. Comic Market 60 is going on in Tokyo, at the Tokyo Big Sight convention center (you can see the famous inverted pyramid as it gets destroyed in Godzilla vs. Destroyer), and Yasu and I will be making the pilgrimage on Sunday to talk with doujinshi circles about letting us sell their works on J-List. A massive doujinshi convention in which about 50,000 fans line up to spend hundreds of dollars on these extremely popular amateur-printed comics, Comic Market (or "Comiket" as its called) is held twice a year, in the summer (sweaty, dripping hell) and in the winter (blessedly cold and refreshing). Inside Big Sight, there are four large halls jam-packed with doujinshi circles selling doujinshi (comics) as well as CG collections on CD-ROM, cute hand-made tributes to their favorite anime character, and more. We try, but I never have time to get through more than two of them before the event is over. Because there is no air conditioning in any of the halls, our bodie will be completely drenched in sweat by the time we're done, despite the towels I bring with me to stuff in my clothes. Yasu and I will do our best.
I'm a big fan of video games, and have loved them ever since the days of Berserk and Star Castle. Whenever my son and I go to our favorite public bath ("Furo 21"), we stop off and play a few games at the Sega ge-sen (Japanese for "game center"). We can only afford to play a few, since video games cost 100 yen here in Japan, which is roughly $1 per game, compared to a quarter or 50 cents in the States. Actually, many of the really exotic games are $2 to play. But the extra income from the higher video game prices comes back to consumers in the form of some really cool games. Of course there are the ones that show up all over the world, the Virtua Fighter 4's, the shooting games, and so on. One of my current favorites is a Japanese taiko drum game, in which you have to hit the Japanese drum (either the face of the drum or the rim around the drum, which produce different kinds of sounds) in tune with the song you're playing. There's also a funky "photographer game" out, in which you're a photographer with a camera on a wire, trying to catch great shots at sporting events. Every game center in Japan has a large amount of floor space devoted to "UFO catcher" (crane games) as well as "puri-kura" (print clubs, i.e. those cute machines that take your picture and print it onto stickers), which are solid money-makers here in Japan. Another major trend in video game entertainment is the rebirth of "retro" games that were popular in the 80s and early 90's, like Crazy Climber, Donkey Kong, and the original Street Fighter II. Some of them are cool, but at $1 per pop, I'll stick to Mame.
Everywhere I look, I see more and more signs that Japan really is in a deflationary spiral. We're all used to prices going up a little bit as time goes by, but in Japan, the rule is "Japan's prices are high to begin with, but the rate of inflation is low." This seems odd, but somehow it accurately describes the movement of prices here in Japan -- actually, during the nine years I've lived in Japan, I can't think of a single thing that went up in price, except for train fare to Tokyo (which was raised fro, $16 to $18 a few years ago). Now, signs that prices are actually coming down are everywhere. Beef bowl (that all-important economic indicator) now costs just $2.80, $2 less than it did a few months ago. Many food items that were $1.20 are now under $1. You can even find the 500 ml PET bottles of tea, which usually go for $1.50, for $1 if you look. More than just certain prices dropping, I feel there's a new attitude of "cheapness" present in Japanese consumers, who were known in the past for spending money on all sorts of silly things (like toilets that clean and dry your butt, complete with remote control). Now, consumers want value and low prices, even if it means shopping at Fresay instead of Shimizu Supermarket because their instant coffee is 68 yen instead of 88 yen. This is a good thing in some ways, but if Japanese housewives are being extra-stingy with their pennies, it will make it that much harder for Japan's economy to grow in the future. At the Comic Market on Friday, I watched a huge line of people wait for 30 minutes in the hot sun to ride the free bus to Tokyo Statin, rather than pay the 400 yen to ride the Yurikamome train (a very pleasant train line that takes you up and over Tokyo bay).
Well, we hope you are having a great weekend -- hopefully cooler than Japan is right now!
Monday, August 06, 2001
Greetings from J-List August 6, 2001
Hello again from your good friends in Japan, J-List!
Summer is here in a big way, and that means heat and humidity in Japan. Companies always compete during the summer to capture the extra dollars consumers are spending on exotic drinks. Coca Cola is doing their usual "summer upgrade" of cans from 350 ml to 500 ml (that is, from a 12 oz. can to a taller can with more cola inside), while Pepsi is back with Pepsiman bottle caps (this series shows Pepsiman doing various sports). Kirin has developed a "bottle can," a steel can with a resoluble cap, as a way of attracting consumers to its teas and other drinks. McDonald's, meanwhile, is onto a new idea, selling its "Fruche" frozen drinks -- just frozen fruit in a vanilla shake, but it's really good.
It's said that Japan is 25 years behind the U.S. in terms of social development, or 10 years behind, depending on who you ask. Seen from a certain viewpoint, there does seem to be a "society gap" between Japan and the rest of the world, from the Internet to attitudes about women and men and more. When I came to Japan, I was amazed to see that there was no child carseat law, and you could regularly see kids standing up in the front seats of cars driving around town. Embarrassment as being "behind" the West, though, caused Japan to enact a child seat law two years ago. We sometimes wonder if anti-smoking sentiment will take root here as it began to do a decade ago in the U.S. It would be nice, but we don't think it will happen -- Japan Tabacco (aka JT) is a massive tobacco interest, and until a few years ago was actually operated directly by the Japanese government before it was privatized, so that, like NTT, it still enjoys semiofficial status. Even the message printed on packs of cigarettes here -- "There is concern that smoking too much can affect your health" -- is an obvious concession to the tobacco companies due to the massive tax revenues cigarettes generate here.
For this special Saturday update, we've got some very nice new items for you, including the following (see below for clickable link that will show all new items at J-List):
This is your *last chance* to pre-order Tokimeki Check in!, which is in transit from the CD duplicators even as I type. If you like Japan's excellent bishoujo games, please stop by the Peach Princess BBS (http://princess.cybrmall.net/ubbcgi/Ultimate.cgi). This is a great place where you can talk about all things Bishojo from anime to manga to games, so please stop by and say hello.
Want to learn Japanese? We recommend Yes Japan, a very cool online course that allows you to study through your computer. Online flash cards, downloadable sheets for practicing hiragana and kanji, and pronunciation are all available. The URL is http://www.yesjapan.com/
Summer is here in a big way, and that means heat and humidity in Japan. Companies always compete during the summer to capture the extra dollars consumers are spending on exotic drinks. Coca Cola is doing their usual "summer upgrade" of cans from 350 ml to 500 ml (that is, from a 12 oz. can to a taller can with more cola inside), while Pepsi is back with Pepsiman bottle caps (this series shows Pepsiman doing various sports). Kirin has developed a "bottle can," a steel can with a resoluble cap, as a way of attracting consumers to its teas and other drinks. McDonald's, meanwhile, is onto a new idea, selling its "Fruche" frozen drinks -- just frozen fruit in a vanilla shake, but it's really good.
It's said that Japan is 25 years behind the U.S. in terms of social development, or 10 years behind, depending on who you ask. Seen from a certain viewpoint, there does seem to be a "society gap" between Japan and the rest of the world, from the Internet to attitudes about women and men and more. When I came to Japan, I was amazed to see that there was no child carseat law, and you could regularly see kids standing up in the front seats of cars driving around town. Embarrassment as being "behind" the West, though, caused Japan to enact a child seat law two years ago. We sometimes wonder if anti-smoking sentiment will take root here as it began to do a decade ago in the U.S. It would be nice, but we don't think it will happen -- Japan Tabacco (aka JT) is a massive tobacco interest, and until a few years ago was actually operated directly by the Japanese government before it was privatized, so that, like NTT, it still enjoys semiofficial status. Even the message printed on packs of cigarettes here -- "There is concern that smoking too much can affect your health" -- is an obvious concession to the tobacco companies due to the massive tax revenues cigarettes generate here.
For this special Saturday update, we've got some very nice new items for you, including the following (see below for clickable link that will show all new items at J-List):
- Many new adult products for our adult customers
- If you love Japan's race queens, we have fresh stock of the very hard-to-find (even for us) Gal's Paradise 2000 cards
- We have fresh stock of Japanese oolong tea on the Japanese snack page, as well as a great for fans of traditional Japanese sweets (or for anyone who wants to try some Japanese candy with hundreds of years of history)
- For anime fans, we've got an extremely cool new item: a superbly crafted figure set of Science Ninja Team Gatchaman, aka G-Force/Battle of the Planets in the U.S. that will surely sell out fast
- On our various Wacky Things from Japan pages, we've got a new fashionable wooden sign for when you want privacy in the bath, and a collection of positively zany funny "message buttons" in Japanese.
This is your *last chance* to pre-order Tokimeki Check in!, which is in transit from the CD duplicators even as I type. If you like Japan's excellent bishoujo games, please stop by the Peach Princess BBS (http://princess.cybrmall.net/ubbcgi/Ultimate.cgi). This is a great place where you can talk about all things Bishojo from anime to manga to games, so please stop by and say hello.
Want to learn Japanese? We recommend Yes Japan, a very cool online course that allows you to study through your computer. Online flash cards, downloadable sheets for practicing hiragana and kanji, and pronunciation are all available. The URL is http://www.yesjapan.com/
Saturday, August 04, 2001
Greetings from J-List August 4, 2001
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Monday, July 30, 2001
Greetings from J-List July 30, 2001
Hello from the New J-List! We're happy to take the wraps off the all-new J-List homepage!
The new J-List site represents many months of hard work, and it includes some features we've wanted to incorporate into the site for years. First and foremost is the #1 request from customers -- full product search -- allowing you to search for just products with the keywords you want. The search is smart, too, allowing you to search for either "Bunko Kanazawa" (English name order) or "Kanazawa Bunko" (Japanese word order). Similiarly, you can search for "bishojo" or "bishoujo" and get the same results. When you add an item to your shopping cart, the new J-List site will make suggestions for other items you may also be interested in. By popular demand, we've brought back the thumbnail, full size and text viewing options while viewing, and now they're "sticky" -- choose one viewing option, and that option stays "on" while you view items. The way you view the various categories and sub-categories has been improved, too, and we've done away with the frames as well. Your address information is saved for you, allowing you to check out quickly without typing your address after the first time, and when you check out, you'll be presented with accurate shipping charges for SAL, Airmail, EMS and seamail. As we created this new site, we tried not just to add new features, but to keep things that should be kept the same untouched. While the new site is being tested and put through its paces, we've left the old site up, in case you ever try to access the new page and find it inaccessible (say, because we're recompiling the shopping cart program). You can access the old J-List pages from the index page at http://www.jlist.com/ . Please let us know how we've done!
Well, the textbook issue continues to cause tension between Korea and Japan, with a few in Korea calling for the severing of relations with Japan. The relationship of Japan and Korea is an incredibly complex one, that can't be easily understood by outsiders. I've always thought the two countries were quite similar to England and Ireland in many ways -- the power in the East tries to colonize the weaker country to the west, trying not just to conquer it, but to erase its native language and replace it with Japanese. If you'd like to read up on the individual issues that Korea and China have objected to in Japan's latest history textbook, see this article from the Korean Herald: http://www.koreaherald.co.kr/textbook/textbook.shtml .
Since we love DVD but hate the anti-globalistic efforts of DVD machine makers to divide the world into exclusive DVD regions, we've
For this first official update of the All New J-List, we have some very nice items for you. They include:
Okay, come see us on the web!
The new J-List site represents many months of hard work, and it includes some features we've wanted to incorporate into the site for years. First and foremost is the #1 request from customers -- full product search -- allowing you to search for just products with the keywords you want. The search is smart, too, allowing you to search for either "Bunko Kanazawa" (English name order) or "Kanazawa Bunko" (Japanese word order). Similiarly, you can search for "bishojo" or "bishoujo" and get the same results. When you add an item to your shopping cart, the new J-List site will make suggestions for other items you may also be interested in. By popular demand, we've brought back the thumbnail, full size and text viewing options while viewing, and now they're "sticky" -- choose one viewing option, and that option stays "on" while you view items. The way you view the various categories and sub-categories has been improved, too, and we've done away with the frames as well. Your address information is saved for you, allowing you to check out quickly without typing your address after the first time, and when you check out, you'll be presented with accurate shipping charges for SAL, Airmail, EMS and seamail. As we created this new site, we tried not just to add new features, but to keep things that should be kept the same untouched. While the new site is being tested and put through its paces, we've left the old site up, in case you ever try to access the new page and find it inaccessible (say, because we're recompiling the shopping cart program). You can access the old J-List pages from the index page at http://www.jlist.com/ . Please let us know how we've done!
Well, the textbook issue continues to cause tension between Korea and Japan, with a few in Korea calling for the severing of relations with Japan. The relationship of Japan and Korea is an incredibly complex one, that can't be easily understood by outsiders. I've always thought the two countries were quite similar to England and Ireland in many ways -- the power in the East tries to colonize the weaker country to the west, trying not just to conquer it, but to erase its native language and replace it with Japanese. If you'd like to read up on the individual issues that Korea and China have objected to in Japan's latest history textbook, see this article from the Korean Herald: http://www.koreaherald.co.kr/textbook/textbook.shtml .
Since we love DVD but hate the anti-globalistic efforts of DVD machine makers to divide the world into exclusive DVD regions, we've
For this first official update of the All New J-List, we have some very nice items for you. They include:
- First of all, we're happy to announce that the third bishoujo game release from Peach Princess, Water Closet, is now shipping! This is a great exploration of various fetish themes, with a hilarious story in which you play from the point of view of one of five female characters (including the first-ever Canadian bishoujo game character). We think Water Closet is a great game!
- We've got some excellent magazines, including the new Urecco, with one of the most lovely cover models we've ever seen -- Megumi Yasu
- Also popular with J-List customers, the lovely new Cream, featuring sweet Japanese sailor uniform models and more -- this issue is extra special because it features the "first nude" of Yuina Mizuki, age 18, and more
- For fans of classic magazines, we've got some mid-1990's issues of Urecco posted for you (see magazine page 2)
- If you like Japan's hentai games, see the new issue of Push, which is extra-cool because it features a CD-ROM with game images and demos to play with
- Also a popular item: fresh stock of the August 2000 DVD & Video CD Soft Catalog, a nifty magazine + dual VCD magazine that gives you up to 2 hours of cool AV fun for a very low price
- For photobook fans, we have a super item, Back Yellows, featuring 47 lovely amateur Tokyo girls exposing their nudity for you, as well as some classic issues of Nowon
- G-Taste is a fantastic series of erotic color art books by Hiroki Yagami, and feature his wonderful and highly erotic characters. We've restocked most of the G-Taste books for you!
- We have a rare and cool erotic ukiyoe photobook, filled excellent 19th century erotica (we only have one copy though)
- If you love our manga selection, we hope you'll like the new search features, which make it easier than ever to find the manga you want. We've also posted some great new volumes, as well as fresh stock of a dozen popular (but previously sold out) items, just for you
- For yaoi fans, we've got some nice items, including Be Boys Zips 26 and Slave & Master (wow, such interesting titles)
- If doujinshi is your true love, we've got the new TGWOA manga ("The Great Work of Alchemy"), filled with great hentai doujinshi themes
- We've got some nice erotic videos for you: Sanity or Insanity (an exploration of masochism among Japan's female college students), and Junna Shiina's great "Lovely Days" video
- For DVD lovers, we've got some excellent items for you too: Miho Fukada's wonderful sexual performance in 5.1 Dolby surround with super multi-angle, as well as Manami Yoshii's super cosplay performance as "Heart Captor Manami"
- Also for fans of rare hentai DVD from Japan, we've got vol. 1 of the Night Shift Hospital hentai anime by the former doujinshi artist Tachibana Seven
- If you love Japan's wonderful anime characters, we've got two excellent magazines available by monthly revolving subscription. Megami Magazine is a fantastic anime magazine that is literally overflowing with fantastic presents for you -- 13 double-sided color posters, stickers, punch-out desktop characters, and more. Then, Ultra Jump is a super monthly manga magazine with 450 pages of great manga for all manga fans, including the popular Bastard!! series, and more
- By customer request, we've gotten in fresh stock of the Love Hina "bilingual" manga, which feature both English and Japanese -- a great way to enjoy these great manga stories
- We've organized the Wacky Things from Japan into several sub-categories, for your browsing convenience. If you love Hello Kitty, check out the very cool Watercolor Set we've got on the Cute Things from Japan page
- Finally, announcing the Wacky Things from Japan $1 sale! We've gotten some really bizarre and wonderful Wacky items over the years. We're having a super $1 sale to allow you to get some cool things from Japan and help us make room for even more Wacky stuff.
Okay, come see us on the web!
Thursday, June 28, 2001
Greetings from J-List June 28, 2001
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Monday, June 25, 2001
Greetings from J-List June 25, 2001
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