Greetings from J-List November 23, 2001

Greetings and salutations from your friends at J-List!

Our warmest Thanksgiving wishes to everyone on this American holiday weekend. Thanksgiving is a uniquely American event, and when you're an expat living outside of your home country, it's honestly difficult to remember it as I do when I'm at home. Tonight I will get Kentucky Fried Chicken -- there is no turkey to be had in Japan for love or money -- and we'll do our best to mark the occasion.

There is no American-style Thanksgiving in Japan, but today is a holiday. My chance of the calendar, Friday is Kinro Kansha no Hi, or Labor Thanksgiving Day. This is a pretty run-of-the-mill Japanese holiday in which we're supposed to give thanks to those who work hard to keep Japan running. As with all holidays added since the 1980's, it's a thinly disguised attempt by the Japanese government to stimulate the economy, since the assumption is that people spend more money on holidays. As far as I can tell, there are no special customs or events associated with the Kinro Kansha no Hi, except that manual laborers, such as those who do road construction, work extra hard on this day (they get higher pay for working on holidays).

A second cow has been found with BSE (mad cow disease), this time in Hokkaido. As if the Japanese economy needed any more problems, now they have to worry about consumers fleeing all domestic beef. The government is doing its best to reassure people, with many a Japanese politician eating platefuls of beef on TV to show that it's safe to eat, but Japanese consumers are very worried, and domestic beef consumption has dropped 30% after seeing images of cows in the U.K. falling over pathetically while trying to walk. Meanwhile, imported beef from the U.S. and Australia is soaring, and McDonald's is broadcasting a cute commercial showing a family taking their daughter to McDonald's, where all the meat served is "Aussie beef that you can trust."

Several customers had trouble accessing the J-List site around Thursday. We've tweaked the site, and think the problem has gone away, but if you experience any errors, please email us right away. Also, in an unrelated problem, several of the items we posted on Wednesday didn't show up on the site, including the new issue of Cream and Emily Yoshikawa's very lovely photobook. They're on the site now -- sorry about that.

A huge volley of calendars have come in, including the long-awaited Ah My Goddess, Love Hina and You're Under Arrest calendars. If you had preordered these items, we've already contacted you to let you know they're on their way. The extras we ordered are posted to the J-List site, although we already wish we had ordered more -- if you want these great 2002 Japanese calendars for your room, please don't wait to order them, as Japan is a very seasonal place, and once calendars are gone they will be gone til next year. Since most of the calendars we've ordered are in stock, Yasu and I undertook the arduous task of opening the calendars and taking pictures of the inside pages, so you could get a better idea of how nice they are than the small thumbnail scan we had posted before. Check out all the updated calendar images, on the site now.

For this special weekend update, we've got an extra-special lineup of products for you, including:

• First, the new issue of Gokuh is a very special one, featuring Anna Ohura and Nao Oikawa and all the most lovely Japanese AV idols and models
  
• For fans of Beppin School, we've got another excellent issue for you. As with the last issue, the back cover has been damaged and cut away, so we're selling the issues we have at a discount
  
• If you want to keep up-to-date on the Japanese bisujoujo ("pretty girl") gaming world, we've got an excellent hentai magazine, Push!!, which includes a CD-ROM filled with demos, sample images, computer wallpaper and more
  
• For those who love "hitozuma" (married women) and women over 30, we've got an interesting gouka-bon (high-end fetish photobook) featuring married women age 30-42
  
• For fans of magazines that come with sampler video CDs inside, we've got the new Club Indies EX vol. 3, which features 3+ hours of AV in MPEG format for your enjoyment
  
• We have a fistfull of excellent new photobooks, including the incredibly sexy Ran Enoki photographed by Garo Aida, and a rare photobook by Haruki Mizuno, shot on location on the elegant island of Bali
  
• For fans of Japanese "rape play," we've got the new K.O. in stock
  
• We have some great new manga volumes in stock by some of Japan's most popular manga studios, as well as a restock of some very popular "dick girl" books that
  
• For yaoi lovers, a very exotic "hard boys love" anthology of material from several yaoi artists -- highly recommended
  
• We've posted lower prices for most of the excellent Pure Beauties soft porn DVDs, which feature some of Japan's most lovely idols in super DVD format
  
• If you dig doujinshi, we've got a great volley of truly excellent new books for you, from the past summer's doujinshi, and all of excellent quality -- unfortunately we only have one of each book, so they will go fast
  
• For fans of the lovely new "indies" idol Nanami Nanase, we've got an extremly special item -- the First Nanami Nanase Fan Thanks Day, in which the slender, pretty Nanami-chan says "thank you" to her fans by sucking off 54 of them in one day. One lucky fan is even selected to receive much more...
  
• Also from Soft on Demand, a great new tekoki & lewd woman DVD by Kurumi Morishita, followed by a dynamite "2 in 1" tekoki DVD for fans of hand-job fetishism
  
• If you like DVDs that explore lesbian themes, we recommend a new DVD by Kitty High (this is a region 2 DVD)
  
• For fans of leg, nylon stocking, mini skirt and high heel fetish themes, we've got a very special DVD for you by SOD's Hamlet label
  
• We have restocked the delicious "limited release" dark chocolate Mousse Pocky. which is only available in the winter -- this is a delicious and fluffy treat from Japan
  
• For those who have some Japanese down already, we've got a handy kanji dictionary, for looking up Chinese characters by stoke order or radical
  
• We have a new Kubrick toy item for Evangelion fans, the mass-production Eva 05 unit with Kaoru figure
  
• Finally, we've got more zany items from Japan for you, including a great way to make drip coffee Japanese style, an all-purpose "cusion case" that you can use to protect many things (I use it to safeguard my Powerbook G4), and more!
  

The CM-Watch page has been updated with some new Japanese TV commercials. CM-Watch is just our way of saying thanks to our customers for allowing us to bring Japanese pop culture to you in all its many forms. You can access CM-Watch at http://www.cm-watch.com (Quicktime required). Remember you can support CM-Watch by buying a cool limited edition CM-Watch T-shirt at J-List, too!

Greetings from J-List November 21, 2001

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Greetings from J-List November 19, 2001

Hello again from Japan!

We continue to watch the events from Afghanistan as they develop. We've seen a great deal of reporting on the Northern Alliance and the four main races that make up the country of Afghanistan. Japan is very fortunate in that regard -- thanks in part to its history and to its isolation, Japan is able to think of itself as a "unified" country where everyone is the same as everyone else and, to a large part, there is no discrimination of Japanese by Japanese. I've never even noticed a tendency by some Japanese to think down on Japanese from another part of the country (although people from Ibaragi Prefecture sure talk funny). This unification is helped along by a social system that encourages inclusion in groups and treating of others as equals, and since the Meiji Restoration of 1868, when reformers kicked out the old Tokugawa Shogun to create a constitutional monarchy under the Emperor, getting Japanese to think of themselves as one large group has been a major goal. This unification of spirit is everywhere you look today -- although Japanese have a wide variety of income levels, fully 80% of Japanese think of themselves as "middle class."

Although foreigners living here tend to value individualism, there are many benefits to this "sameness" that Japan enjoys. It makes it much easier to shape national policies on things like education, and in fact, Japan's compulsory education is planned on a national level, not in cities and counties and school boards, as is done in the States. People seem to have a built-in unified "common sense," which is called "joshiki" in Japanese, which guides them in their lives. Kids all go to school and study (no homeschooling here), husbands are the "daikoku-bashira," the large black pillars that hold up the family. Wives either work a little to help support the household, or take care of the home as a full-time housewife. There's more harmony and less discord in Japan.

This leads to the problem of the Tyranny of the Majority at times, though, which manifests itself in small ways. In Japan, there are almost no vegetarians, and foreigners who want to live vegan have trouble "getting along" in Japan, as nearly everything here contains something that was made from animals. In Japan, too, most people love milk with 3.7 per cent milk fat or higher -- it's thick and delicious, they say. When I came to Japan in 1992, it was very hard to find lowfat (1%) milk without searching several stores. Now, lowfat milk is generally available, but non-fat milk (which I prefer) is completely impossible to find. The "majority" just doesn't want it, so no one produces it. Caffeine is another problem -- the Japanese drink all kinds of tea, nearly all of which contains caffeine. If you're Mormon, as a friend of mine was, you are forbidden to drink caffeine, yet there was almost nothing for him that didn't have caffeine in it except water. In the end, he went home.

For the first update of the week, the J-List staff has assembled some extra-special items for you, including:

• First, some very nice new erotic magazines from Eichi Publishing, including the new all-purpose adult magazines, Best Video and Video Boy
  
• We have several new photobooks, too, including a new semi-nude from Garo Aida and the very sexy "visual queen" Yoko Naito
  
• For manga fans we've got a super selection of both new hentai manga (including the dynamite "Shell" from Harazaki Takuma), as well as another major restocking of our popular sold-out manga volumes
  
• For lovers of bondage and S&M, we have the superb "Abnormal Photography," featuring the truly beautiful bondage nudes of a dozen lovely models
  
• Also, fresh but limited stock of the DVD SM Collection, featuring a magazine with fully stocked DVD with 120 minutes of excellent material on it
  
• From SOD, we've got three totally excellent DVD releases for you: the long-awaited DVD release of "In those days, I have known 2 pretty nymphos" (love that English title) with Ai Nagase; followed by a dynamite Love Zamen "4-in-1" featuring the best bukkake fetish ever; and the new Masterpiece of Soft on Demand, with video from 59 titles
  
• One of the best-selling DVDs ever has been the Big Morkal DVD Anthology, which featurs *3 hours* of great sampler footage from their productions, for just $20. Now vol. 2 is out, with another 180 minutes of very special Japanese erotica for you, at a great price!
  
• For lovers of Japanese swimsuit idols, we've got another very nice swimsuit DVD with very sexy video of the lovely Haruka Igawa
  
• We have a new anime card game from Bandai and Cardass, the Magical Paradise Card Game 2, in stock now
  
• For dog lovers, we've got some beautiful metallic stickers with images of famous dog breeds and funny words in English -- good for owners of poodles, collie, American cocker spaniel, and afghan hound, on the Japanese headbands and stickers page
  
• We have a delicious new flavor of Hi-Chew, Lemon Squash, with real vitamin C (I'm eating some as I type this now, it's really good)
  
• Also for Japanese snack food loves, we have fresh stock of the most popular Japanese snack food, Pocky, with fresh stock of both original chocolate Pocky, and Tsubu Tsubu Ichigo (made with real strawberries)
  
• Also: fresh stock of our "looking for a beautiful woman" stickers
  
• For fans of Japanese fashion dolls, which is a big world unto itself, we have a very cute "Jenn"y" doll in he spring high school uniform -- great for displaying
  
• For fans of traditional Japanese things, we have a really cool new Japanese piggy bank in the shape of a Buddhist temple contribution box, as well as more attractive Japanese chopsticks
  
• Finally, our "wacky" page has a new bento item for Picky's Bear fans, a beautiful long head-band for Gunbuster fans, fresh stock of bizarre Japanese ear-cleaners with lights, and more.
  

Greetings from J-List November 16, 2001

Greetings from Japan, where "that's true" means "no" and people bow while talking on the phone (I do it too...).

Some things in Japan are beyond easy comprehension to those outside the country. One are "Yakult Ladies." Yakult (always pronounced "Yakuruto" in Japanese) is a popular "drinkable yogurt" that is sold in supermarkets and convenience stores. It's also sold direct by the company by an army of "Yakult Ladies" who ride around the town on their bicycles (outfitted with packs to keep the drinks cold) and sell their drinks directly. When a woman has pedaled her bicycle all the way to where you work to bring you something to drink, it's hard not to accommodate her and dig into your pocket for 100 yen -- they make great use of this "giri" (obligation) to make sales. The Yakult Ladies are a unique way to market products, and they're probably worthy of some study if you're ever writing a book on Japanese business practices. They all dress the same, wearing one standardized green uniform throughout all of Japan, and they have company songs and great pride in their work.

Japan and Korea are very close to each other, and much of Japan's culture is actually imported from Korea. A favorite dish of the Japanese is "yakiniku," Korean Barbecue, served both at home and at many yakiniku restaurants. Basically, you order a big plate of pieces of beef and chicken and vegetables, and fry it directly on a big hot plate in the middle of the table. It's fun to have everyone gathered around, picking pieces of meat out of the fire before they burn, dipping the meat into sauce and eating it with rice. I like another korean dish, kim chee, but the kimchee in Japan is never spicy enough (Koreans complain of this too).

Another food that is popular is "nabe" (NAH-beh) a word which means "pot" and which loosely describes any kind of food you make in a big pot and eat with everyone gathered around, talking while taking things from the pot (boiled fish, tofu, vegetables, miso, etc.). Chanko-nabe is the delicious food that sumo wrestlers eat to get so big, and kim chee nabe is also delicious. Sukiyaki is a form of nabe, and is both food to eat and a social event at the same time. Nabe is eaten in the winter -- I'm looking forward to eating some sukiyaki soon.

After years of faithful service, the game Season of the Sakura has sold out. We still have stock of Three Sisters' Story and May Club, the two games we're offering on sale for $24.95, but our stock levels won't hold out for long, so please pick these games up if you're interested in trying them.

For the pre-weekend update, we've got an extra volley of new things for you, including:

• First, we've got new magazines, including the new Urecco (Eri Yukawa is so cute at her "busty picnic"), a new "Otakara" (treasure) magazine with embarrassing and nude pictures of famous idols from years ago, and the new Gal's Shower, the #1 selling "wet" fetish magazine
  
• For photobook fans, some new and back-in-stock items, including the hardcover "comeback" photobook of Momo Aida (one of Peter's old faves from the 1990's)
  
• Also: be sure and check the new issue of Mini-Skirt Deluxe, a fantastic square-back magazine featuring the best leg-fetish photography in Japan
  
• Those enamored of anal themes should check out "Sweetie," which features ass-centric photos of some very erotic idols
  
• For fans of Japanese adult idol trading cards, we've restocked the Crystal Card 2000 vol. 2 series (we have three whole boxes of 20 cards each in stock now)
  
• For manga fans, we've got another great selection of new wide manga works, filled with some of Japan's most talented hentai artists for you, as well as a major restock of almost a dozen other books that had been sold out
  
• If you love G-Taste, the popular erotic art book series from Yagami Hiroki, we have fresh stock of volumes 2 and 3
  
• Also for manga lovers, a restocking of the Electric Fighting Daughters hentai game girl parody mangas
  
• For doujinshi lovers, check out Nyu-Gi-Oh, an erotic parody of Yu-Gi-Oh by the excellent doujinshi circle Kennix
  
• For DVD fans, we've got some excellent items for you, including DVD releases of Bukkake Circle vol. 1 (one of our most popular semen items), and good old Ball Breaker Erika (beautiful girl who kicks ass on would-be rapists)
  
• For fans of Ai Nagase and Mirai Hoshikawa, we've got a super "2 in 1" DVD featuring two complete releases for you -- great for fans of sailor uniforms
  
• Japan has many lovely swimsuit idols, and one of the most popular is Kaori Manabe, who takes time off from her career as a college student to make a super busty swimsuit idol DVD for her fans
  
• For Japanese toy fans, we've got a deluxe fully posable Mobile Suit Gundam toy that is very cool, followed by a super set of Ultraman and his most famous foe, Alien Baltan, two highly collectible figures similar to the Kubrick toy line
  
• On our "cute things" wacky page, we've got a new bento box and cute spoons and forks based on a cute Japanese character "Hamster Club"
  
• For anime fans and card collectors -- the very cool Yu-Gi-Oh "Struggle of Chaos" card series in stock
  
• We have restocked that old favorite, Japanese sake candy, a delicious hard candy made with real sake inside
  
• Also, we've got fresh stock of unique Japanese chewing gum, including Black Black (caffinated spicy gum to keep you awake), No Time (gum that brushes your teeth for you), and the ever-delicious Blueberry
  
• For those studying Japanese, we've got a nice new Campus Word Book (great for studying a language), and an improved version of our traditional Japanese writing paper (which sells very well, although we're surprised at this)
  
• Finally, we've got many new "wacky" items for you, including some nice Japanese chopsticks (you can never have too many chopsticks), Japanese shiatsu boards for your feet, more wacky Japanese signs with messages on them, and more bizarre items!
  

J-List is the only place where you can find the Lunatic Party, Angelic Impact and Paradise Lost erotic parody doujinshi anthologies from Fusion Product. Each volume in the series is an excellent wide manga in B5 format, with the compiled works of a dozen hentai doujinshi artists. They offer excellent erotic parody of Sailor Moon and Evangelion, and are a great value, too, since each book has 160+ pages. They are out of print, so we're never sure when they'll stop being available to us.

Greetings from J-List November 14, 2001

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Greetings from J-List November 12, 2001

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Greetings from J-List November 10, 2001

Hello again from your friends in Japan!

I was hit by some kind of flu bug yesterday, so I took myself down to the nearby medical clinic so they could look at me. There I did what many Japanese people do to get well, get a "tenteki" (intravenous administration of medicine). Japanse swear by I.V.'s, and whenever they feel sick they will go to a nearby hospital or clinic for one. After my I.V. finished, the doctor gave me various medicines to help chase away whatever bug I had caught. I was pleased to see that each batch of medicine had a little slip of paper included, explaining what the medicine did and how it worked. In the past, Japanese doctors have been famous (among foreigners living here, anyway) for giving out medicine without the slightest explanation of what the medicine was for. In general, foreigners living here aren't too thrilled with Japanese medicine, as it never seems to have any effect -- I tend to prefer medicines from home, as most foreigners do, and fortunately for me, I brought back a cache of Nyquil, Alka-Seltzer, Contac and other medicines from the States.

If you ever come to live in Japan, you will probably gain a new appreciation for fish. The Japanese eat much more fish than most Americans do, which probably contributes to their overall good health. Before I came to Japan I liked sushi and sashimi, but didn't eat much in the way of "yaki-zakana" (fish slit open and fried). Now I love many kinds of fish, from shaké go aji to hokke. There's just one problem -- living here as I do, I never had the need to learn what most of the fish I was eating was called in English, so I only know the Japanese names.

Money is important, and no one should be frivolous with it. However, I must admit that when I have American change in my pockets in Japan, I sometimes toss pennies or quarters on the ground, wondering if some high school girl might pick it up and be somehow inspired to do something like go study English in the States or something. It's probably silly, but you never know how one event might affect others in some positive way.

A great moment of fatherhood has come for me -- my son is finally old enough that I can read The Hobbit to him. I've been a huge fan of The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings and have been waiting for this for years. Unfortunately I wasn't able to time our trip to the U.S. to allow me to be around for the Lord of the Rings movie premier. Maybe I'll get lucky and have to take a business trip to the States in January...

Remember that at J-List, we've got a wide variety of Japanese snacks and food products, from delicious Pocky (a chocolate covered pretzel stick) to "furikake" (a delicious food you sprinkle over rice) to wakame soup and more. Some of the items are very traditional, such as the Japanese "kuro-ame" ("black candy"), and others are just plain fun to eat, such as the super-sour Shigekix, or

Greetings from J-List November 8, 2001

Greetings again from the other side of the Pacific!

We're safely back in Japan now -- although it was really an ordeal, getting our massive boxes and suitcases back in one piece. Japan, like most countries, places limits on the amount of merchandise you're allowed to bring into the country without paying duty, but I'm quite good at squirreling my way through customs without paying anything. If you're ever coming into Japan with a lot of boxes, tell the man you're bringing in American cereal, pickles and other foods you can't buy in Japan -- apparently they're used to that and won't question it.

There are some things you just don't get used to. While I have gotten quite good at switching from the right side of the road to the left when going to and from the U.S. and Japan (you just make sure you look for other cars and go the same way they're going, it's only hard when there are no cars around you), I can't for the life of me seem to get in the correct side of the car on the first try. It's a great joke with all of us -- start to get in the wrong side of the car, then walk around to the other side as carefully as you can, so one notices your goof.

Because names in kanji have some meaning that's not necessarily present in Western names, it's usually interesting for foreigners to find out what those meanings. Many Japanese are made up of kanji for some of the simplest words -- ta (rice field, also read "da"), ishi (stone), naka (inside), yama (mountain) and so on. People who have names like Yamada, Tanaka and Ishida probably came from farming backgrounds, although somehow all Japanese will tell you that their ancestors were Samurai. The last names of the J-List staff are a little more complex: Tomo Fujita (fuji = wisteria flower, ta = rice field), Yasu Nieda (nie = victim, da = rice field), Harumi Shibuya (shibu = tasteful, ya = valley) and Chiharu Yanai (ya = arrow, nai = "inside"). Hmm, maybe their ancestors really were samurai after all.

For our first update to the J-List site after returning to Japan, we've got a bunch of excellent items for you, including:

• First, we're announcing a new category of DVD product for AV collectors, the Pure Beauties Collection from Asiaview Entertainment. These soft porn DVDs capture some of the most lovely AV idols Japan has to offer, like Akira Fubuki, Madoka Ozawa and Bauko Eichi. Because many of the models are retired, these DVDs are a great
  
• We've got some great new magazines, including the new Dela Beppin and Bejean, both brimming over with lovely girls
  
• For photobook fans, we've got some excellent new items, including the excellent Top GT Race Queen book with the top-RQ's (including Toko Ushikawa and the Chinese Race Queen Yinling)
  
• Also for photobook fans, fresh stock of most of the popular Tennyo erotic nude photobooks including Maiko Kazano, and fresh stock of Mami Gotoh's "Morning Baby"
  
• If you love hentai art books, check out the excellent erotic work, "The Science of Wet Girl," filled with some excellent
  
• Also: fresh stock of the long-selling Yui Shop erotic art books (both volumes)
  
• For manga fans, you know we've got some excellent new works for you, including a new erotic manga my Marshmallow Juubaori (creator of Alice First/Alice Second), the erotic tales of a sexy private investigator, and more -- as well as fresh stock of several popular sold-out books, too
  
• For SOD DVD lovers, we've got two great offerings for you: the new Do Lesbian, featuring lesbians who have sex with other girls they've just met, and Airi Kago's incredibly erotic Idol Semen vol. 4
  
• We've gotten many requests to carry the products of Ai Kurosawa, a lovely new busty AV idol whose star is rising fast. See her new DVD in stock now, too
  
• Anna Ohura is still queen of the busty AV world in Japan, and we've got a killer new DVD featuring the lovely Anna-chan in some seriously erotic video footage -- and it's uncensored!
  
• For collectors, we've got the debut video of the lovely "Latin AV actress" Emily Yoshikawa, a truly beautiful girl who is half-Japanese and half-Dominican Republic (and she speaks Spanish)
  
• J-List offers "reserve subscriptions" which allow you to get the latest issues of a wide variety of Japanese magazines each month. Now we've added Animedia, a popular anime magazine that comes with lots of extras, and Roadshow, a magazine for fans of Western and Japanese film
  
• For fans of Licca-chan, the super-cute line of dolls, we've got two very cool "Neo Licca" PVC straps for your portable phone (or you can use them as a keychain, or a camera strap) featuring "kogal" (high school valley girls) versions of Licca
  
• On our English manga page, we've got fresh stock of the Love Hina Bilingual Comics, which feature English and Japanese side by side, along with the new volume, vol. 7
  
• On our popular Japanese snacks and food page, see fresh stock of Shigekix, the very sour "hard gummi" (very chewy gummi candy) in lemon and cola flavor, as well as a delicious Japanese mustard
  
• On our Japanese signs & stickers page, we've got fresh stock of some popular wooden signs with funny messages on them, along with very cute metallic cute pins, for fans of Hamu-Taro and Thunder Bunny
  
• For those studying Japanese, find fresh stock of our $4 E-J and J-E dictionaries, along with some very cool notebooks with funny English printed on them
  
• Finally, our Wacky Things from Japan main page includes a new way to scoop rice, Japanese document protectors that are great for protecting your bank book, passport and other important documents, date magnets that let you organize your life better, and more!
  

Sant to know why adult video actresses choose to go into their unique careers? Want to know what it was like for Kurumi Morishita or Rin Tomosaki their first time performing? Check out J-Mate, at http://www.jmate.com, the only place where you can read translated interviews with Japan's lovely idols, so you can find out their personal feelings and thoughts firsthand.

Greetings from J-List November 5, 2001

Hello again from your friends at J-List!

Well, our sojourn to the U.S. is at an end, and tomorrow we get on a plane back to Japan. As always, it's been incredibly fun coming home, spending time in the house here, and doing lots of shopping for things that an expat needs in Japan. The kids loved Trick-or-Treating, and we followed this American tradition up with a trip to Disneyland California Adventure, the brand-new amusement park on Disneyland, which we liked very much. Now that it's time to go home, the kids want to stay, but of course school and all their friends are waiting for them back home.

Whenever you go somewhere, you're required by unspoken Japanese tradition to bring back "omiyage" or souvenirs for those who didn't get to go. This little custom goes a long way to keeping the Japanese economy alive, as anyone who goes anywhere must bring loads of stuff back with them. Of the seven massively packed suitcases and boxes we're lugging home, much of what we're carrying is omiyage for our various friends and family, including beef jerky and Disneyland trinkets for the J-List staff, Ichiro T-shirts for jiichan (grandfather) who is a big baseball fan, Halloween treats for the students in our kids' classes, and so on. Well, we don't mind -- we figure we're doing our part for the American economy.

Have you ever been to a Recycle Shop? This is a Japanese word meaning a shop where you can find used TVs, vacuum cleaners, and other goods, and with the Japanese economy continuing its poor performance, these shops have become quite popular. The word "recycle" means to reuse natural resources in English, but it also means to get use out of things again. Actually, the Japanese word for recycle, saisei (literally "live again"), also means "play back" on VCRs, since the video is truly living again as it plays off the tape.

The top 5 list has been updated, belatedly. You can see what manga, DVD and other items other J-List customers are most interested in by clicking the links on the J-List front page.

For today's update, Tomo and Yasu have come up with tons of excellent new products for you, including:

• First, we've got some excellent new magazines for fans of Japanese adult magazines
  
• We've also got fresh stock of some nice new $5 and discounted magazines as well, on magazine page 3
  
• For fans of magazines with discs inside, we've got the very nice DVD Video Cinema, a 2 hour DVD of bondage and SM with a color magazine
  
• Also for fans of bondage themes, we've got fresh stock of the dynamite Hitomi Ikeno photobook "Tied-Up Angel"
  
• For those who love Japan's famous AV idols, check out the very erotic "Love Diary" featuring silky
  
• For leg fetish fans, be sure and see the limited stock of Panst Best, for fans of "panty stockings"
  
• We've got some new hardcover photobooks, including Akari's alluring "Himitsu," Kaori Shimizu's erotic nude photobook and more
  
• For hentai manga fans, be sure and check out the excellent additions we've posted, including new kemono works, manga with many forbidden themes including incest, and many more works
  
• Also: fresh stock of the popular Electric Fighting Daughters series, which offer erotic parody of popular game girls from games like Street Fighter II and more
  
• We've got more cool doujinshi, which we think you'll like -- although please note that we have only 1 copy of each
  
• Also for doujinshi collectors: a restocking of Nostalgia, the very special English-language doujinshi that features totally uncensored parody of Dirty Pair
  
• If you are a fan of yaoi manga, see the yaoi page for some newly posted unique Japanese homosexual comics
  
• If you love DVD, we've got some excellent items for you, including the new Study of Penis by Innocent Girls, the Sperm Angel series vol. 2, a super 4-hour "remix" DVD with Kago Airi (recommended for fans of Morning Musume), and more
  
• For adult video fans, see some excellent "Would you like Hand Job?" videos now posted, and more
  
• For anime fans, we've got some cool new items, including a deluxe die-cast metal toy of the VF-19A from Macross Plus, more Japanese professional wrestling, and some cool figures from Tokimeki Memorial
  
• The new trailer for Star Wars episode II is up on Quicktime.com, and to celebrate (well, not really, but the timing is good), we've got fresh stock of the Super-Deformed Star Wars figures
  
• We've got some new calendars posted, all in-stock, so check out those, too
  
• For little fans of stuff from Japan, we've got some play Japanese money, too -- that's just plain cool
  
• J-List carries various cool notebooks and study items, including notebooks with funny English on them (a long favorite of ours) -- see fresh stock of our unique Japanese flashcards and Japanese report paper as well as the Japanese ultimate correction pen
  
• New and restocked items on our "wacky things from Japan" category include fresh stock of our famous penguin wiener maker (which makes cute little penguins for your bento lunchbox), a handy Japanese outdoor plate and plasticware set, a special brush to clean your foot, fresh stock of Picky's Bear authentic Japanese bento boxes, and more!
  

J-List carries many useful things, but one of the most rare are our revolving magazine subscriptions. Each month, you can reserve your copy of some unique Japanese magazines, including anime magazines (Newtype, the poster-filled Megami Magazine, Animage), toy magazines like Hobby Japan, JPOP/J-Rock magazines including Uta-Bon, which features sheet music of popular JPOP tunes for musicians, the excellent Bomber, featuring lovely swimsuit idols, and more. See the magazine subscription pages for more information on what we have available.

Greetings from J-List November 1, 2001

Hello from your friendly neighborhood Japanophiles, J-List!

Japan can be a funny place. At the end of the day, Japan really loves Europe, and secretly wishes it could be a part of that continent. During the Meiji period, when Japan was looking to other nations as it modernized its institutions, they chose many elements from Europe to incorporate here. The French prefectural system, for example, was used as the model for Japan's internal organization; they modeled their military on Prussia's, and their Diet on Britan's Parliament, the Mother of Parliaments. In much the same was as British will jokingly pretend they're not part of Europe (since they're an island nation), the Japanese pretend they're not a part of Asia, and actually say "Asia and Japan" as if one were not part of the other. The fact that Japan and most of Europe are grouped in the same DVD region area speaks volumes about how Japan perceives itself.

In case you're not familiar with the French Prefectural System, I'll tell you about it (although I can't vouch for how French it really is, after the Japanese got through with it). Japan is divided into four kinds of prefectures, "to" (the special municipal area of Tokyo), "doh" (the northernmost island of Hokkaido, a special region of its own), "fu" (the areas around Osaka and Kyoto) and "ken" (normal prefectures). There are 47 of these prefectures in all, established in the national remapping that took place after the Meiji Restoration of 1868, when reformers reorganized the map of Japan to keep old loyalties and politics from getting in the way of modernization. Japanese Prefectures are divided into smaller sections called cities (shi), which contain smaller areas called "machi" (translated to English as "towns"). Areas with very low population are organized as "mura" (villages). Towns can update to "city" status when they reach populations of 100,000.

I've lived in Japan for a long time, and one thing I've enjoyed observing is Japanese Democracy at work. Although young people don't take an interest in politics, older Japanese are quite interested in elections at all levels and can be very active in supporting their favorite parties and candidates. (I have volunteered to work on the staff of a political candidate in the past, which was not something a lot of gaijin do here.) There are many elements to Japanese politics that are confusing to my American mind, such as why so many smaller political parties can exist without melding into a larger, more effective minority party (as we have in the U.S. and U.K.), and why people allow cars to drive around their neighborhood blasting political messages from loudspeakers, but all in all, it's quite interesting to watch.

Halloween has ended, and we're stuffed with candy, chocolate and what-not. It was a great experience, seeing the kids enjoying their first Trick-or-Treating ever, and there was a strong showing by neighborhood kids, who weren't letting anything get between them and their candy. Another American tradition continues.

For today's update, the J-List staff have a bang-up update for you, with a bunch of great new items, including:

• First, we've got some nice magazines, including fresh stock of the popular Cotton, and more
  
• We've got some nice all-new soft- and hardcover photobooks for you, including Mio Okazaki's very sexy "Bed Rooms" photobook, the sultry photobook of Shizuko Satoh, and more
  
• Also: more stock of several Tennyo series erotic photobooks, more excellent photobooks from Aida Garo, and fresh stock of Flowers, the excellent lesbian photobook featuring Aoi Minori and Nana Horiuchi
  
• For fans of Japanese "SM," we've got the DVD Video Cinema SM Collection in stock -- a magazine with a 2 hour bondage DVD, free
  
• If you love erotic DVDs, we've got several really nice new ones, including the Minimomo Manten Sex -- Fuck da Pyon! DVD (great for Morning Musume fans)
  
• Can a man endure a hand job for 60 minutes? Find out in the DVD version of this popular title by Soft on Demand (if he is able to endure being fondled for 60 minutes, he gets $3000 cash)
  
• Also, for fans of Japanese adult videos, a rare treat, an erotic performance by debuting idol Rinka Yaguchi
  
• For manga fans, we've got several nice new volumes in stock for you, including Breast-Colored Temptation, a super breast-fetish comic, The Female Teacher Collection, and many more as well
  
• Also: a restock of many popular erotic manga volumes, including the Wonderful Feeling series by Azuki Kurenai, and more
  
• For yaoi fans, check out the very nice new offerings for you too, including new anthology manga which present hundreds of pages of homosexual comic artwork by Japan's pop yaoi artists
  
• If you love doujinshi, check out the limited stock (as in, one copy of each) of very nice erotic doujinshi which parody many popular anime shows
  
• For fans of bishoujo games, Legend of Fairies, the first part of the Fairy Gods bishoujo game series for Mac and PC, is back in stock (it had been out of stock for several weeks)
  
• If you love Japan's sexy Race Queens, check out the nice new Race Queen 2000 The DVD, with 160 minutes of some of the best Race Queen footage we've seen!
  
• Japanese love bathing, and we've got some cool Japanese onsen powder for you -- enjoy the feeling of an authentic Japanese hot spring!
  
• On our "traditional Japanese stuff" page, we've got some cool items, including a Japanese calculator (abacus), more cool Japanese chopsticks, and more
  
• We've got a *bunch* of 2002 calendars have come in, including some extremely popular items like the Japanese Hot Spring nudes, Kimono beauties of Japan, Japanese beautiful gardens, and more. Please note that the current stock of calendars we've got will be the last of these we get in, so please get them while we've got stock -- these calendars are extremely unique and very cool, so please check them out!
  
• We have fresh stock of wacky Japanese signs, including the ever-popular "please don't let your dog crap here" plastic signboard
  
• For anime fans, we've got a very cool "completed figure" (PVC) of Yurika Maru, from Martian Successor Nadesico, rare and out of production
  
• Also: you asked for it, so we got a restock of the damn-cool Ah My Goddess Urd cold-cast figure, featuring *the* coolest detail and beautiful painting we have *ever* seen in an anime figure like this -- but we've only got a few in stock of these great items
  
• We've restocked our popular Japanese chewing gum, including popular flavors like "No Time" (for when you have no time to brush your teeth), Black Black (spicy gum laced with caffeine, our best-selling gum), and more
  
• For fans of Japanese snacks, fresh stock of the delicious Hi-Chew soft candies, in banana shake and cola flavors
  
• Finally, our "wacky" Japanese item main page includes fresh stock of our surprisingly popular Japanese onigiri (rice ball) makers, new maps of various regions around Japan (fun to display on your wall!), a killer new "fude pen" (Japanese calligraphy brush pen), and more!
  

Remember that J-List offers revolving subscriptions to some of Japan's most popular magazines, including anime magazines (Animage, Newtype), toy magazines (Hobby Japan), manga magazines (Coro Coro and Afternoon), and more. These magazines will be sent to you as soon as they're available each month, before they're even sent to the newsstands here in Japan. See the magazine subscription pages for more information.

Greetings from J-List September 30, 2001

Hello and Happy September from your friends at J-List!

Because names in Japanese are written in kanji, Chinese characters, they have meanings that are always interesting to foreigners. Western names have meanings, too -- my name, Peter, comes from "rock" in Greek, and "Payne" supposedly comes from the French "pain" (bread), similar to the English last name Baker. (I've probably a French baker in my ancestry.) Many names in Japan are written with the most elementary kanji, and reflect farming ancestries (despite that all Japanese insist their ancestors were samurai). Some characters used in many Japanese last names include:

Yama = Mountain
Ta (or da) = Rice field
Naka = Middle
Matsu = Pine
Uchi (or Nai) = Inside
Kawa (or Gawa) = River

Incidentally, having the kanji for "gold" (Kanai, Kaneko) indicates Korean ancestry (Kim in Korean).

Something else that foreigners living in Japan are always obsessed with is writing their own name in kanji. There are several ways to write Western names in Japanese, mainly by approximating the pronunciation and choosing some characters you like. If your name is George you can choose two characters with the readings of "jo" and "ji" which will come out pretty similar to George. I wanted to write my name in kanji, but there are no characters that are read "pe" or "pi," so I broke the rules, and put a circle next to the kanji I wanted to use (which is only done for hiragana). I accidentally registered that bizarre, 6-character name as my official name in Japan, too, so that now, when mail comes from the City Office, it's addressed to - which is read "Piitaa Pein." My wife groans every time she has to explain why her American husband has such a bizarre officially-registered name...

Japan has some interesting customs regarding the signing of official documents. For example, when we went to fill out the forms for our Bongo Friendee, we had to make sure we had our dually registered name stamp ("hanko"), which is used in place of a signature as a way of verifying a person's agreement. In order to officially stamp something, you often need a "stamp proof of registration" paper which you get from the local city office. Only stamps that are registered with the city are legally binding. The use of these stamps is somewhat puzzling to foreigners -- what's to stop someone from mugging you and stealing your stamp, then withdrawing all your money from the bank. For reasons that only the Japanese can probably understand, this nearly never happens. As the Japanese economy takes more queues from the outside world, credit cards are becoming carried more and more; since the credit card system uses handwritten signatures as verification, the Japanese are of course familiar with western-style signatures, too. Incidentally, you can now custom order real hanko stamps from J-List with virtually any last name you could want -- see the Wacky Things from Japan page for more info.

We're still trying to make sure the list is working correctly. If you find any lines or paragraphs being cut off in your mailbox, or any other weirdness, please reply to this message so we can get things working for everyone.

For the first update of the month, we've got a very nice selection of excellent items for you, including:

• First, we've got the excellent new issues of Bejean and Gokuh, two excellent oversized adult magazines from Eichi, featuring some of the best girls Japan has to offer
  
• If you love the wonderful Mai Hagiwara, we've got a major restock of all of her previous sold out photobooks: Maichy, Tennyo and I Mai Me
  
• Also for photobook fans, the lovely photobook of busty idol Ai Nakayama
  
• If you're a fan of amateur sex and kogals, we've got a very nice item: Raw Gachinko Video, with 2+ hours of amateur AV for a very good price
  
• For fans of golden showers themes, there's a new photobook featuring very lovely AV idols in very pretty dressing peeing
  
• If you love doujinshi, we've got new doujinshi posted for you, both one-shot doujinshi purchased at the summer Comic Market as well as several new books that we have good stock of
  
• For our erotic manga fans, we've got a major restock of many of our most popular books, with many of our popular works back in stock -- check them out before they sell out again
  
• We've got some great new DVDs in, including Shy Deluxe 2001, featuring eight different popular actresses on one 120 minute DVD, and Sperm Angel 3 & 4, issued by Soft on Demand onto one great "coupling" DVD
  
• Also for DVD fans, fresh stock of some great items, including Akira Fubuki's only DVD release, Kaoru Tsunoda's "Twice" and the very nice Stress Actress Collection
  
• For overs of "anicos" or anime costume play, the lovely Honey Morimura dresses in a great variety of erotic costumes for you, including Cutey Honey, Cameraman Honey, and Stewardess Honey
  
• For fans of the excellent hentai game and anime Shusaku, we've got the Shusaku Animation Version Trading Collection, in stock!
  
• On our anime & toys page, we've got fresh stock of the Evangelion Kubrick EVA-02 Production Model, as well as the ne Evangelion Kubrick EVA-00 Prototype with Rei
  
• On our Wacky Things "Cute" page, we've got some cute Hello Kitty items from Japan, including Hello Kitty cupcake holders and some very cute Kitty-chan chopsticks
  
• We have new Japanese ukiyoe stickers on the Signs and Stickers "Wacky" page, as well as wacky astrological stickers for all piesces out there
  
• For our Japanese snack fans, see a popular item, Koala no March, or March of the Koalas, featuring little koala cookies that are filled with chocolate
  
• Finally, we have some very nice new "Wacky" things for you, including a device that removes humidity from your closets, the ultimate way to brew a cup or pot of coffee, Japanese style, and a line of very cool organizers for your desk that will hold your pens, mail, remote controls, business cards, and, for those who want to put their stamp on things, the aforementioned Japanese "hanko" stamps, available for custom order through J-List!
  

Greetings from J-List September 27, 2001

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Greetings from J-List September 20, 2001

Hello again from your friends in Japan!

There's been some concern that some of the terrorists responsible for the World Trade Center attack might have snuck into Japan, and might possibly be trying something. It honestly wouldn't surprise me -- sadly, Japan has a bit of a complex about foreigners, and aside from checking their entry documents carefully when they enter the country and occasionally hassling a gaijin about the ownership of the bicycle he happens to be riding, foreigners living in Japan are not watched very closely. In Japan as a whole, about 1% of the population are foreigners, mostly from Korea, Peru, Brazil, and Pakistan (gaijin from America or Europe are actually quite rare). In Isesaki, where we live, the foreign population is much higher, at 3%. Before the attack, it was quite common to see foreigners walking together, often (in the case of those of Muslim religion) wearing the traditional clothing of their countries. If some unsavory terrorists have managed to get inside Japan, I think it would be rather easy for them to do damage to the country in some way. Considering that almost no police officers here even speak English, getting information on suspects speaking another language would be very difficult.

In Japan, the new rice crop is it. New rice is supposed to taste much better than last year's crop, although I doubt if I could tell the difference. With the new rice, Japanese makers of home electronics are trying to capture consumer's dollars with new high-tech rice cookers. Zojirushi ("Mark of the Elephant") has a new model that uses a special iron pot to distribute heat to the cooking rice more smoothly. Mitsubishi is counting with a model that sends supersonic sound waves into the rice as it cooks, to make better-tasting rice, the company says. The staple of all Japanese people, Japanese eat rice with two or three meals a day. The bes rice comes from Niigata Prefecture, the "rice basket" of Japan, and the best-selling brand of rice is called Koshi-Hikari. After living in Japan for nine years, I eat rice and all other Japanese foods all the time, and couldn't live without them. I've also adapted some of my old favorites: Chef Boy-ar-dee Ravioli is really good on rice -- try it sometime!

We've been working hard to bring you some of Japan's best bishoujo (hentai) games in English for some years. During that time, we've made a lot of games with a lot of genres in it. Still, one of my favorites of all time is Season of the Sakura, a year-long romance simulation game in which you must choose which of 8 girls you want to have fall in love with you. It's extra fun, because all the characters are blatantly stolen from three famous anime shows: Evangelion, Magical Knight Rayearth and St. Tail. Watching Evangelion was great fun -- I got to get all the wacky inside jokes that were put in by the game designers. Now I've just gone done watching the Rayearth anime series, and I get to enjoy a whole new slew of new puns that the game offers. Since this is such a great game, and since we're a bit overstocked, we're lowering the price to by $10. If you haven't played this very enjoyable game, why not give it a try?

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

• First, we've got some nice new magazines, including the new Cream, for fans of lovely young Japanese women, a new Idol Hakkutsu Magazine with embarrassing and rare shots of Japanese idols, Namper, and more
  
• For hentai game fans, we've got some single issues of Bug Bug with lots of screenshots and information on Japan's latest games
  
• For fans of magazines that come with video CDs filled with sampler footage, we've got the new DVD Perfect Guide, featuring 3 VCDs from 216 titles -- 200 minutes of footage for a super low price
  
• If you love Japan's unique panty stocking and let fetishism, check out the new Panst Best, a dynamite softcover photobook of Japanese women in high skirts shot from a low angle, with sexy panty stockings, high heeled shoes and more
  
• For photobook fans, we've got new hard- and soft-cover photobooks, including Akari's "Himitsu" nude hardcover photobook, a great item for race queens, and more
  
• We have a major update of doujinshi, with many nice new books for fans of hentai Evangelion, Love Hina, Nadesico, Air, Kanon and more -- and with good stock of all books
  
• We also have a very nice update to our erotic manga pages, with several all-new offerings by Tsukasa Comics, Mujin Comics and more
  
• For yaoi fans, we've got two new volumes in the b-Boy Zips series, dealing with many interesting classic yaoi erotic themes
  
• For fans of our DVDs, we've got some nice new ones. The new Semen Gokkun Series features excellent bukkake and sperm-eating fun as only SOD can bring it to you. For fans of sexy panty stockings, we've got the great Panty Hose Lovers DVD from Atlas 21
  
• For fans of SOD's excellent video offerings, see The First Cock Suckin' and Finger Shakin' Contest, a great battle of fellatio and tekoki (hand job) to determine which girl is the Queen! This item was requested by many J-List customers so we think you'll like it
  
• If you love Japan's lovely swimsuit idols, and who doesn't, we have fresh stock of one of the most often-requested items in recent memory: Bururun Club vol III, which features tons of cards signed by the models, and even special cards that contain pieces of the actual swimsuit used in photography
  
• For fans of traditional Japanese chopsticks, we've got some nice items for you, posted to the Wacky Things -> Traditional page, as well as fresh stock of the popular traditional Japanese tray
  
• If you love the cute "super deformed" Star Wars toys we offer, we've got fresh stock of several of them -- Darth Vader, Boba Fett, and the Stormtrooper
  
• On our Japanese snacks & food page, we've got many nice items, including all-new traditional Japanese hard candy varieties, Cupie mayonnaise, tart Japanese dried plums, and more
  
• We've got a new wacky Japanese headband on the Signs & Stickers page: "Now in training" (Shugyo-chu), good for anyone trying to reach a goal, as well as fresh stock of our "Do not throw trash away here" and more
  
• On our Study Items, we've got some high-quality Japanese pencils and new notebooks with silly English on them
  
• Finally, new and updated items on our Wacky Things from Japan pages include a cool new way to clean your ears, Japanese style, a nifty machine to take length measurements, fresh stock of our popular no-stick rice scoop (with case), more Hello Kitty chopsticks and toilet paper, new onigiri makers, and more!
  

Well, it's not the best time to think about flying right now, my my neice is getting married in San Francisco, and my wife and I are off tomorrow to attend the wedding. Like many in America, we're determined to make sure barbaric acts by people outside our World Society don't change the way we live or act. While we're gone, Tomo, Yasu, Kaori and Harumi will make sure things run smoothly.

Greetings from J-List September 18, 2001

Hello again from Japan! This is just a quick update to let you know that the rest of the 2002 calendars have been posted to the J-List site. Since we love these large size glossy calendars that are only available from Japan, we've worked extra hard today to get the calendars ready for ordering. Writing the descriptions for 200+ calendars is no easy thing, I can tell you! In case you're not familiar with the large size high-quality calendars that are published in Japan around this time, please browse the newly posted items on our site.

As always, we love to see which calendars will be included each year. This year, popular singer and fashion icon Ayumi Hamasaki snagged the coveted CL-1 position again, the same as last year, a reflection on the active year Ayumi has had in music and TV commercials. "Mo-musu" (teeny bop idol group Morning Musume) bagged the #2 slot. In general, each calendar season is a snapshot of the past year, and shows how Japan has grown or changed in the past 12 months -- or how some things have stayed the same.

As usual, our selection of calendars is massive, since we want to give as much choice to everyone. We've got calendars with sexy Japanese swimsuit idols like Haruka Igawa, dozens of anime calendars, JPOP calendars, with everything from idols to Japan's "visual rock" represented. Stars of Japanese baseball? Beautiful contemporary Japanese artists? Cute Japanese characters like Afro Ken (Afro Dog)? A My Neighbor Totoro calendar, with a "Bondage Nude" on the side? Our selection of very nice Japanese calendars mirrors We've got them all available for preorder right now.

For information on the sizes of calendars, please see the top of each calendar category page. For protection, all calendars will be shipped in protective tubes that we have sent especially from the U.S. Tubes are $3, and two calendars can fit inside one tube. Preorder four or more calendars, and your mailing tubes are free. The mailing window for calendars is always frustratingly small -- we ask that you get your preorders in as soon as possible, so we can guarantee that your calendar will be available. Orders made past mid-October will start to get hard to fill. A note about the scans that we've posted: in some cases, they're not very good. The reason for this is, we're scanning very small thumbnail images that we're provided with. The actual printing on the calendars themselves is beautiful and top-notch.

In addition to the newly posted calendars, we've got a few other newly posted items tonight. First, we've got a huge restocking of some of our most popular manga, with about two dozen items, some of them very popular manga items. We've got fresh stock of several of our wacky Japanese T-shirts, including "Proud of my Big Root" and "Dirty American Devil" (we'd sold out of size M and XXL, but we have them back in stock now). We've got fresh stock of some backordered photobooks, too, with many nice items in. Please check out the new items!

In other news, the Japanese Pentagon has been destroyed, but not by terrorists. The Japan Self-Defense Forces General Headquarters, which corresponds to the Pentagon in the U.S., has been located in the heart of Roppongi for the past fifty years. The land around the buildings had become some of the most valuable in the world, so the Japanese government decided to move the operations of the military to a cheaper location and sell the land. It fetched a cool $6 billion. The land is being cleared now, and will be developed with apartment buildings and more of the drinking establishments for which Roppongi is so famous for.

For those interested in learning more about the bishoujo gaming world, there's an interview with Dave Endresek of Peach Princess at Gamers' Press. See it at http://www.gamerspress.com/article.php?sid=659&mode=nested&order=0 . It's quite interesting...

Greetings from J-List September 17, 2001

Greetings from Japan, where a man's fly is referred to as his "shakai no madow" (or "window of society")...

The events of last week continue to shock everyone here in Japan. Over the weekend, families of Japanese still missing flew to New York on the first available planes. Executives of Fuji Bank also went to New York to help in whatever way they could. The Japanese stock market has down, and up, and down again, as investors wait to see what will happen when the U.S. stock market opens. Based on the strong orders we got at J-List over the weekend, I believe that the American economy will continue to be strong. And if stocks do drop when the U.S. market opens, I, for one, will go shopping...

In local Japanese news, fears of Mad Cow Disease have seized consumers, with the discovery of the disease in a cow in Chiba Prefecture, near Tokyo. Authorities are investigating problems with the feed the animal was given as the most likely cause. As a result of the scare, Japanese are turning to American and "Aussie" beef, which is causing prices to go rise sharply. And in Tokyo, a 16 year old high school girl was working in a convenience store, when a man came in and made a purchase with a counterfeit 10,000 yen note. She noticed that the bill was odd, and when she happened to see the man on her way home, she decided to follow him. He went into another convenience store, where he passed another fake note. He tried to leave, but the girl said "Stop!" and with the help of some people on the street, she was able to catch him while authorities were called. Brave girl!

We're happy to report that all mail flights have been resumed, and all backlogged packages that had been waiting to be sent are safely on their way to their destinations. We thank all customers for their understanding during this trying time for everyone. We're making sure that all orders go out to customers in a timely manner.

Calendar season is here! Every year, hundreds of beautiful calendars are made published near the end of the year. Extra-large and printed with very high quality, these glossy calendars cover virtually all possible areas of Japanese pop culture, from anime to JPOP to beautiful swimsuit models and race queens and more. Since J-List's mission is to introduce as much of Japan to people living around the world, we make these beautiful calendars available to everyone. The first 2002 calendars are ready for posting to the J-List, so please check them out. The rest of the calendars, including anime, JPOP and more, will be posted as soon as we get the data into the computer. (I can hear Kaori typing now...)

In addition to the calendars we've posted today, we've got some nice items for you, including:

• We've gotten in some new magazines, including the new EX CD-ROM, and one of my own favorites, the new Amateur Girl's Data
  
• If you like the popular magazines with video CDs inside them, see the new Internet Paradise, with some very nice international AV collected for you
  
• For fans of O.K. magazine, we have a super O.K. photobook, called K.O., filled with great girls for you
  
• For photobook fans, some extra-special items, including a new Strawberry Diaries photobook by Garo Aida featuring "Nanami," and more
  
• For fans of Japan's unique doujinshi, we've got a great update for you, with both very rare single-issues of new doujinshi recently obtained at the past Comic Market, but good stock of several very nice books -- including a new Girl Power and new Sailor Moon hentai books!
  
• Since we love Japan's erotic wide manga, we've got new erotic manga volumes for you, with many all-new volumes posted in additional to fresh stock of several popular works as well
  
• Also for manga fans, a special treat -- an *all* Azuki Kurenai issue of Angel Club
  
• For fans of Japan's bold yaoi manga, we've got two new books for you as well, very nice yomi-kiri (individual self-contained manga volumes, not part of a set)
  
• For DVD lovers, check out the excellent Neo Uniform Collection, featuring excellent and rare AV with Sena Wakana, Mizuho Kanoh (aka Jun Kusanagi), and more
  
• For lesbian fans, we've got a great DVD item for you: a new Deep Kiss series production, featuring 8 lovely Japanese girls who agree to try lesbian "deep" kissing and much more. Who will win the SOD kissing contest?
  
• Also for lesbian aficionados, a new video from SOD's Deep's label explores the deep lesbian love between Chie and Mayu, two cousins who share a private summer together
  
• If you love anime, check out the anime page for a cool "completed figure" set based on the new Miyazaki movie, Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi
  
• On our "wacky" stickers and signs page, we've got fresh stock of two popular traditional Japanese headbands, "Goukaku" (for those striving to pass some sort of test), and "Hisshou" (Certain Victory, for those trying to overcome an enemy in a battle)
  
• Also on our Wacky Signs page, fresh stock of some popular wooden signs, including "thank you" "now hiring" and "please don't throw away your trash here."
  
• On our popular Japanse snacks & food page, we've got several great new items, including two delicious new flavors of Toppo, a baked pretzel with chocolate inside, and a line of butter cookies from Japan in the shape of animals -- they have the animals names written in English, right on the cookies
  
• For fans of our unique Japanse gum, we've got not one but two new flavors of Lotte chewing gum, a bold new coffee gum, and a delicious "lemon tea" gum that is right on the money
  
• For those studying Japanese, either the hiragana/katakana syllibery or kanji, we recommend the Pokemon Japanese study notebooks we've gotten in more stock of
  
• On our "traditional" wacky things page, look for a nifty Japanese air pillow, but one with a traditional covering of igusa, the straw that tatami mats are made from
  
• Finally, we've gotten some cool new items on our general Wacky Things from Japan pages, including a delightful Japanese flowerpot, fresh stock of our best-selling Japanese wall maps, Hello Kitty clips to keep anything closed, and more stock of one of our most popular authentic Japanese bento boxes.
  

The J-Mate site at http://www.jmate.com/ has been updated with new reviews and English interviews with Japanese AV stars. New reviews of X-Change and Hentai Anime Poker are posted, as well as a photobook of Kyoko Fukada. For Nao Hirosue fans, read a great new interview with her, in which she discusses her nervousness about having small breasts, and more!

Greetings from J-List September 15, 2001

Hello again from your friends in Japan, at J-List!

The sad and shocking events of this week continue to unfold, and of course we are watching them on Japanese television and on the web. There is some good news to report, however: of the estimated 500 Japanese who were reportedly inside the WTC buildings during the attack, all but 24 have been confirmed safe. The missing Japanese included twelve employees of Fuji Bank, three from Chuo Mitsui Bank, and two from Nomura Securities. One Japanese was also on United Flight 11, a 2nd year student at Waseda University who was vacationing in the U.S. Despite the tragedy, we're glad that so many were able to escape to safety.

Many J-List customers were affected by the events of September 11, being either physically close to the World Trade Center or affected in other ways. One customer's cousin, Paul "Pauly" Stamper, was the fire captain of the 113rd Batallion in New York, and was one of the first rescuers to arrive at the scene of the attack. Paul stuttered when he spoke, and he was described as a somewhat unlucky man, who had two cars stolen in the space of a week; but he had a heart of gold. He is missing and presumed dead at this time, lost when the first building crumbled. We pray that a mircle can somehow happen and Paul and others can be found safe.

The Japanese government swiftly reacted to the attacks, and Prime Minister Koizumi gave full support to the U.S. stance against terrorism after a 10 minute phone conversation with Presiden Bush. It was a good speech, although it lacked the emotion of Prime Minister Tony Blair's, with sympathy for "our friends, the Americans." Unfortuately, while Japan wants to help in any way possible, they are forbidden against using any military force outside of their borders by the Japanese constitution, but they will help in other ways. The Japanese stock market fell 400+ points the day after the attacks, going under the 10,000 mark for the first time in 17 years -- $1 invested in 1984 would now be worth exactly $1, ouch -- but has been stable since then.

With air flight disrupted, shipping delays are unfortunately unavoidable. We're making sure all packages are prepared for quick shipment as soon as mail to the U.S. resumes. In some cases, mail already sent will be returned to our offices in Japan, and we'll resend it as soon as we are able, at no extra charge. Mail to Asia and Europe is not disupted, and we're making sure to get all packages out to those regions on a daily basis, too.

If you've tried to get any work done this week, I'm sure you know how hard it's been. In the aftermath of all this, it's very difficult to care about business at all. However, we find our minds screaming to get back to some kind of "normalcy." So, we're updating the J-List site with new products as we try to move forward as best we can -- we sincerely ask your forgiveness if this seems improper. We're trying to post items we have a lot of stock of this weekend, so that the items will still be waiting for you if you want to take some more time. Thanks for your understanding.

So, for this first update, we've got some nice new items added to J-List, including:

• First, we've got two very nice new issues of Penthouse for you, both Penthouse Japan and Penthouse Special, with very nice models inside, including the lovely Megumi Yasu, one of our new all-time favorites
  
• Other new Japanese magazines include the very nice Mini-Teen, and the ever-popular Gal's Shower, which always manages to sell out quickly
  
• For fans of Japanese idols like Yuuka and Wakana Sakai and Maki Gotoh, we've got Hakkutsu Original, which features embarrassing and early shots of these girls from before they were famous
  
• Some nice new photobooks for you, with new items posted as well as fresh stock of some of our popular items -- including Mami Gotoh's "Morning Baby" and Aoi Minori's popular "Juice" photobook and more
  
• We've got another popular magazine + disc combo item, this time a magazine with a super DVD, filled with 138 minutes of Japanese AV footage for you -- a very nice sampler, and a great bargain, too
  
• For our manga fans, we have several all-new volumes, including new books by Tsukasa Comics, AV Comics and more
  
• In addition to the newly posted manga, we had a major order of hentai manga arrive, including long back-ordered books as well as recent additions, so we've posted our new stock for you
  
• We got tired of the G-Taste series, the excellent line of erotic art books by Hiroki Yagami, selling out all the time, so we made a massive order -- we now have *all* the G-Taste books in stock for you
  
• For yaoi lovers, see the new volumes of b-Boy Zips , new featuring very innovative "yomi-kiri" (single story) dramatic m/m stories
  
• We have an excellent doujinshi for fans of Yumiko Takahashi's classic anime, with super hentai parody of Urusei Yatsura, Maison Ikkoku and Ranma 1/2
  
• We have a new adult video from Soft on Demand's "Natural High" label, part 2 of the best-selling Bukkake Circle in the Blue Sky
  
• For SOD DVD fans, check out "Global Girl Fighter of Sea, Wind & Earth" (three fighting girls who fight evil -- you can toggle them from costume, underwear or nude using the multi-angle feature on your DVD remote)
  
• Also for DVD lovers, see the very nice Night Blue Gal's 2001, featuring 120 minutes of very nice performances by four Japanese AV idols, including the lovely Koharu Tohno
  
• We've made a major restock of our popular Japanese gum, including Black Black (the caffeinated spicy gum recommended for truck drivers and college students), La France gum (delicious pear-flavored gum), and Ume gum (Japanese plum)
  
• Also, fresh stock of several popular Japanese snack items, including traditional Pocky, our ever-popular sake candy, and Japanese kuro-ame (a classic Japanese hard candy)
  
• Were have some nice "traditional" items on the Wacky Things (traditional) page, including a beautiful new Japanese "congratulation" envelope, and a Japanese "kabe-kake," a wall hanging based on how they used to cover open windows back in the Edo period
  
• We have a new "wacky" wooden sign for your bathroom, and fresh stock of the eternally popular "it is forbidden to urinate here" wacky sign
  
• Finally, our "wacky things from Japan" page includes some new items, including an all-new non-stick rice scoop, a cool storage item modeled after a steel paint bucket, which would look great on your desk, fresh stock of Hello Kitty toilet paper and chopsticks, and by request, more of the very cool Japanese "tube squeezer" that allows you to squeeze all the toothpaste, make-up, etc. out of tubes. Very wacky!
  

Just in case you've gotten the "Nostradamus" mails that have been bouncing around the net, please note that they are bogus. For more information, please see this page: http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/hoaxes/predict.htm