Greetings from J-List February 22, 2002

Hello again from your own little window to Japan!

A very big change is coming for my family: my son is starting Elementary School, and that means that many things will be changing. Japanese compulsory education (Elementary and Junuir High School) is standardized on a national level, through the mighty Ministry of Education, and from the upper reaches of Hokkaido down to balmy Okinawa, Japanese schools are designed to one thing: output standardized, happy Japanese kids that can get along and be happy in Japanese society. To that end, the various elements of schools and learning, from textbooks to desks to what teachers do and how they do it, are made uniform throughout the country. My son must do exactly what everyone else does, starting with walking 1.2 kilometers (about 3/4 of a mile) to the school every morning, wearing an official school-approved school backpack called a "landoseru" (which comes from the German word Raenzel), writing with approved pencils and notebooks, wearing a school-approved bright yellow hat, and so on. It's not just my son who will need to conform to a whole new world of changes, though. My poor wife now has to interact with a whole new group of people, from teachers to other parents, and do everything expected of her as a mother in Japan. She will constantly be worrying (perhaps unnecessarily, but who can say?) about our appearance in the eyes of others, which is known as "hito no me" (hee-toh no meh) in Japanese. Among other things, she has to get up extra early and be a crosswalk guard, waving a yellow flag to alert cars that young children are walking along the road.

Recently we've been on a big hot springs kick, and every Sunday for the past few weeks we've gotten into our Mazda Bongo Friendee (similar to an MPV, but taller, and the roof opens to give you another compartment) and going to various onsen towns around us. Japan's various traditions of bathing are quite famous all over the world, and rightly so. Most Japanese take baths in the evening, although younger people replace this tradition with a shower in the morning. In Japanese homes, the actual bath-room is a bath and a separate tiled area outside the bath, with a drain for water to escape (Japanese are amazed that we refer to the toilet as "bathroom" since it's totally different). You always wash your body thoroughly before getting into the bath, and never use soap or shampoo inside the bath itself, as the water will be reused by other family members, and saved for several days. All baths here have heaters to allow you to re-heat the old water, and ours has a one-touch computer that will fill the bath to the pre-set temperature and level for you. If you're a parent living in Japan, you always take your kids in the bath with you and wash them. This warm concept of mother or father taking a bath with their children is called "skinship" by the Japanese, a Japanese term that serves its purpose well. Japanese are great fans of public baths (sento) and hot springs (onsen), too. Since the water is "everyone's water," everyone must wash thoroughly before getting into the baths, although I've seen quite a few old men who skipped this step. As a foreigner living in Japan, I consider myself an "ambassador of goodwill" and what not, so I make sure I follow the rules even if not everyone else does. The Japanese are famous for bathing with men and women together (kon'yoku), but this is actually very rare, and I've only encountered a combined bath once in all my years in Japan. If you are interested in learning more about Japan's hot springs culture, I recommend Peach Princess's excellent game Tokimeki Check-in!, which accurately captures the spirit of a traditional Japanese hot springs inn, from yukata to the ping-pong tables that seem to be required at all Japanese onsen hotels.

Unfortunately we continue to get a small per cent of customers with ordering problems. It seems that some users using the normal checkout (not the express checkout) make orders and receive the automated "thank you" email from the J-List database. Unfortunately, the orders never reach us on our end, and are thus never processed. If you have made an order through the J-List website in the past couple of weeks and never received updates about its status from us, please email us and we'll figure it out for you. Thanks!

For the new update today, we've got a very nice selection of new items for you, including:
o The excellent new issue of Gokuh, which is heavily laden with lovely photographs of the top AV idols in Japan today, Manatsu Hirose to Anna Ohura to Kurumi Morishita and beyond

For fans of models and idols popular in the early 1990's, some premium copies of Nowon, the "special photographic magazine"

We have fresh stock of some nice photobooks for you, including new hardcover nude and sexy photobooks

For fans of various fetish themes, see the newly posted "gouka bon" (high-end Japanese bondage and fetish photobooks)

For fans of erotic hentai manga, a special treat: we now stock the excellent adult comics of White Lightning Productions, including the English translations of the Blue Eyes manga series, as well as other titles. For ease in ordering, all titles will be stocked in San Diego

We have some excellent new erotic hentai manga for you, with not only new volumes but fresh stock of many very nice books

Also: for fans of yaoi comics (homosexual male/male comics that are drawn with incredibly skill) check out our new postings

For DVD collectors, we've got some nice items for you, start with a super item, Kyoka Usami Best Selection, featuring the best AV erotica from the lovely Indies AV (one of my favorites) (region free)

For fans of lesbian love and sex, the very deep and erotic Futari ~ Two, a new all-female production from SOD (region free)

We've got a great item from Big Morkal, featuring *4 hours* or incredibly hardcore sex with 19 different models (region free)

For Indies DVD lovers, see the very nice all-new production from Sally Yoshino (region 2)

From Attacker's Idea Pocket label, a great 2-in-1 Angel DVD featuring the famous Shiho Fujiwara, who is active in the U.S. under the name Sakura Sena -- we love her "body conscious cat girl" cosplay sex the best

We've got a dynamite new remake of "Dream Shower" for Waap by master adult video director Kazuhiko Matsumoto, of M's Video Group

Finally, Tomo has received a huge order of adult DVD titles from our distributors (as in, four huge boxes worth), so you can order these titles right away, without waiting

For fans of our very nice anime statues, see the newly posted cold cast recreation of Ai Amano from the popular manga and anime Video Girl Ai (one of Peter's all-time favorite manga series), a beautiful 1/6 scale cold cast figure

We have additional stock of the positively beautiful cold cast statue of Urd, from the Ah My Goddess universe, along with new photographs so you can see how beautiful and detailed this dynamite 20 inch high statue is

For AMG fans, we've got another treat: the new volumes of the Kodansha Bilingual Comics for you

We have fresh stock of several of our popular collectible card items, including Morning Musume, and the authentic Japan Sumo Wrestling collectible cards

We've seen a huge rise in Hello Kitty popularity over the past week, and have restocked many categories of Kitty-chan items, including Hello Kitty mayonnaise cups, Kitty straws, toilet paper, chopsticks, hotcake mix, and many more items

Yasu has been working hard to get more anime & toy items for J-List, and we've restocked many items, including the Hot Wheels that are only available in Japan, the cool Ichiro little baseball player figures, and the very popular My Neighbor Totoro tin toys, including the deluxe tin bus stop!

Also: fresh stock of one of our favorite Hello Kitty items, the culturally significant Hello Kitty Daruma and Kokeshi dolls, little Kitty-chan creations based on beautiful traditional wooden dolls from Japan

We've restocked our selection of authentic Japanese loose socks, those fun, baggy socks that high schools wear

For fans of Japanese food and snack items, look for a general restock of items there, with fresh stock of Sakura Drops hard candies, miso soup, dried salmon for making delicious onigiri (rice balls), and more

Finally, see cool ice cube trays that make wacky ice cubes, new elegant chopsticks from japan, Japanese socks for girls with smaller feet, fresh stock of our Japanese notebooks that have funny English written on them, and more!

J-List sells many nice bishoujo games from English, which have been licensed from the original Japanese companies, uncensored, and translated into English. Two of my favorites are Legend of Fairies and Fairy Nights, two "novel type" games for Windows or Macintosh (all versions of both) in which you work your way through an interesting tale of sexy fairies and "battle mahjong." These great story-based games are part 1 and 2 in a series.

The J-Mate site has been updated yet again, with new reviews of items you can get at J-List. We've got reviews of the very nice new Kyoka Usumi best selection DVD, as well as a nice review of the very interesting Black Bukkake DVD. The URL is http://www.jmate.com/

Greetings from J-List February 20, 2002

Hello again from your friends in Japan!

Japanese is a linguistically impoverished language -- there are only 5 vowels, all paired into syllables with consonants (ka, ki, ku, ke, ko, etc.). This is where the thick accent Japanese speakers of English sometimes have comes from. One of the vowel lines -- the "ta" line -- is missing a useful syllables, the sound "ti" (sounding like "tea") as well as the linguistically related "di" sound (sounding like "dee"). Without a way to express these sounds in Japanese, foreign words like "Disneyland" and "party" could not be correctly represented, and subsequently entered the Japanese language as "Desneyland" and "parteh," which sound strange to the English ear. A "patch" was introduced at some time in the last few decades, a way to write "ti" and "di" in katakana, but unfortunately for a generation of older Japanese, they learned a slew of foreign loan words with odd pronunciations. Now, pronouncing words like "panty" as "panteh" or the letter T as "teh" (rhyming with "way") instead of how they sound in English is the mark of an old fogey here (although, as a foreigner, it's kind of fun to do it on purpose sometimes).

Japan can seem a very digital place, full of little gadgets that make like easier (or sometimes more complicated). It can be a very analog place, too, though. While we work at J-List, with all our Macs in our own little corner of the ultra-democratic online republic that is the Internet, we often hear the local yaki-imo man driving around with his truck of hot, baked imo (sweet potatoes). Selling baked sweet potatoes is an old profession, going back to the Meiji Era, and the song they sing (or play through speakers, in this modern era) is a classic part of the background of living in Japan. We found a site that has a recording of the song here, if you want to hear it for yourself: http://www.kyoto-su.ac.jp/information/sounds/ishiyakiimo.html

J-List stocks all the best bishoujo games available in English, since we love these games and want everyone to try them. Often, older games go out of print and are no longer available. If you're interested in Three Sisters' Story or May Club, two very nice games we're running low on, you should pick them up soon, since our current stock could be ending very soon.

For today's update, we're got an extra-special collection of items for you, including:

• First, we've got some nice new magazines for you, including the lovely new issue of Aishite Ageru ("I'll love you"), a nice hardcore magazine from Japan
  
• For photobook lovers, we've got several very nice new photobooks, including the lovely new photobook from Mai Hagiwara (out of retirement at last), as well as the beautiful hardcover nude photobook of Aoi Toki
  
• Also fresh stock of several popular photobook items, including the popular U.S. Playboy's Eye, featuring famous Japanese AV idols who have been honored by being run in Playboy Magazine, as well as fresh stock of the Yinling Joytoy photobook
  
• For hentai manga fans, we've got yet another volley of titles for you, by Toen Comics, Shinyusha Comics and other popular manga studios, along with a big restocking of adult manga that had sold out recently (including Blue Shangri-la, get them before they sell out again)
  
• For fans of doujin (underground) CG, we've got some very cool doujin-soft CD-ROM titles, although they will go quickly
  
• For DVD fans, we've got a huge bunch of new titles for you, starting off with a great new Deep Kiss lesbian DVD from Soft on Demand -- which of the lovely women will be chosen as the Deep Kiss Queen? (region free)
  
• From Natural High, a division of Soft on Demand, a great bukkake DVD for you (region free)
  
• Emily Yoshikawa is unique because she's the first "Latina" AV idol, being half Japanese and half Dominican Republic. See her great new erotic video with great new sexual performances
  
• For fans of extremely unique Japanese indies adult video, enjoy the new Area of Waap, a very cool bukkake performance that's all the more special because it's directed by Kazuhiko Matsumoto of M'z Video Group (region 2)
  
• For fans of the high-quality hentai anime series by G-Taste creator Hiroki Yagami, we've got a great new one, featuring anime lesbian play and more (region 2)
  
• Finally, we've got a big restock of adult DVD titles for you, including Mai Hagiwara DVDs, Aika Love You, the long-running Go Go Kanabun (subtitled in English!) and more
  
• One of the fastest-selling products in the history of J-List has been the Hello Kitty vibrators, which have struck a cord with J-List customers as a cool icon of Japanese pop culture. We were in danger of selling out of our stock in just a few days, but we fortunately got more units in. If you want one of these cool items, get them before our distributors run out of stock
  
• Also, a cool follow-up to the Kitty-chan vibrating shoulder massages, a super new Doraemon Vibrator!
  
• Another spiffy item, we've got stock of the very cute Soot Sprites (aka Dust Bunnies) keychains from Hayao Miyazaki's anime masterpiece, My Neighbor Totoro
  
• For fans of our "cold cast" anime statues from Japan, we've got two new items for you, Mitsune Kanno and Shinobu Maehara, rendered in beautiful 1/6 scale resin "completed figures" for you
  
• If you love the Ah My Goddess bilingual manga, which let you read the series in English and Japanese, well, we've got a big restock of these books for you
  
• For fans of things for your kitchen, we've got new bento boxes and bento food shapes, fresh stock of the ever-popular sushi mold for making perfect nigiri-zushi, more of the popular Puchi Onigiri race ball maker, and more
  
• We've restocked the very nice hiragana practice notebooks, that help you teach yourself to write in Japanese
  
• We have some other cute items from Japan, including Hello Kitty cups, colored glue sticks, and a rare Hello Kitty reusable container filled with gum
  
• Finally, find cool Japanese "onsen" powder that turns your bath into a real Japanese hot springs, new wacky signs in Japanese, restock of delicious Japanese gum, and more!
  

The "About J-List" page has been updated with the image of Mayumi, the newest face around here at J-List. You can see her picture, as well as see pictures of all the J-List staff, as well as maps of where we live in Japan and other information. The link is at the top left of the J-List product pages.

Greetings from J-List February 18, 2002

Greetings from Japan. I am especially refreshed today, as I took the family on a trip to the town of Kusatsu on Sunday, one of the most famous areas in Japan for hot springs. It took so long to get there, we decided to find nice hotel and treat ourselves to some extra-long Japanese-style bathing, and come back in the morning. We feel great now.

One of the more interesting parts of learning Japanese are the many varieties of descriptive sound words, similar to onomatopoeia in English. There are two groups of these words, giseigo (literally "mimic-voice words") and gitaigo ("mimic-situation words"). Giseigo are words that mimic the sounds of animals -- the sound a small dog makes sounds like "kyan kyan" but a larger dog sounds like "wan wan." A cat says "nya nya" and a rooster "kokekokko." Pigs say "buu buu," and in the anime show Chibi Maruko-chan, there's a boy in Maruko's class who looks like a pig, and every thing he says ends with "buu." Just as foreigners like to learn the sounds that animals make in Japanese, Japanese think it's fun to study animal sounds in English, too.

Similar to giseigo are gitaigo, words that describe a situation, often with surprising clarity. For example, in English we have the words cry and sob which differ slightly in the meaning they carry. In Japanese, the latter is expressed as "shiku shiku naku" (with "shiku shiku" acting as a verbal representation of the hitching sound made while sobbing). Some other examples include "zaa zaa" (the sound of rain falling loudly, to denote the concept of "pouring with rain"), paku paku (the sound of someone eating quickly -- this is where "Pac Man" got his name from), and "shiiin" (the sound of no sound -- i.e., of perfect silence). Some others: peko peko (being so hungry you're going to faint), gasa gasa (having rough skin), tsuru tsuru (any smooth surface, or having smooth skin), bishi bishi (doing things quickly and efficiently, without delay), dara dara (doing things slowly, being lazy), pika pika (being sparking brand-new), boro boro (being old and dilapidated), and so on. There is an endless supply of these highly descriptive words, and they're quite fun to use.

President Bush is in Japan now, fulfilling a promise to visit the country that was interrupted by the World Trade Center attacks. He's talking with Prime Minister Koizumi about various ways in which Japan and the U.S. can cooperate on the economy, terrorism and some other issues. Happily, Mr. Koizumi is fluent in English and is able to talk directly to Bush on various issues, which I think is great. I think it does the Japanese people a lot of good to see their leader speaking English comfortably, and Japanese needs more role models like Mr. Koizumi for Japanese students learning English.

For today's new update, we've got a bunch of very nice items for you. For our adult customers, check out new magazines (the new issue of Bejean is especially nice), new hardcover photobooks, a very special bondage item for S&M photography lovers, excellent new hentai manga posted, and several superb new DVDs, including a new Holed Panty release from Soft on Demand that shows you more than you ever thought possible! We've also got cute new anime toy items, including a fluffy new Totoro from Sun Arrow, new Japan-only Matchbox toys, a cute item for Licca-chan fans, unique "sweet bean and green tea" flavored candies, strawberry milk mix enjoyed by Japanese elementary school kids, a major restocking of gum, Pocky and other snack products, many new wacky things from Japan, and much more!

Remember that J-List carries many items from Japan, which we group together as "wacky things from Japan." These range from unique Hello Kitty items to things you can use to help learn Japanese to other items that, while they might not be necessities, are just plain cool (Hello Kitty toilet paper comes to mind). A lot of the items we sell are perfect for gifts, and Mayumi works very hard to keep the Wacky Things categories well stocked. We love selling these fun items, since it gives us a chance to actually bring you something cool that you can buy and touch and use, rather than just telling you about the neat things they have in Japan. Check out our excellent and wacky things from Japan, today!

The J-Mate homepage (http://www.jmate.com) has been updated again, with a new interview with the lovely Airi Kago, as well as a super review of Hobibox's very nice Love Love Show, the first erotic puzzle-based bishoujo game in which you must solve puzzles to overcome your female opponents. Check out the great J-Mate site today!

Greetings from J-List February 16, 2002

Hello from Japan on a bright and sunny Saturday.

In Japanese, words are made from kanji, the Chinese characters that have meanings built into them. When modern hospitals came to Japan and a word for "operating room" was needed, they built a word out of the meanings in the Chinese characters. Sometimes, though, the meanings of words breaks down when their definitions change. The Japanese word for preschool teacher was "hobo" (literally "protecting mother"), but like words like fireman, stewardess and mailman in English, it needed upgrading to a term that didn't refer to a particular sex. The new "correct" is "hoikushi" (a professional-sounding word that means care-giver). A family with only one parent is called "boshi katei" which literally means "household of mother and child," but this word doesn't serve its purpose very well if the single parent is male. And Japanese who spent several years overseas then returned to Japan are called "kikoku shijo" or "girl-children who have returned to this country." The terms is used for males as well as females, despite the fact that the "girl" meaning is built into the word.

A fun part of learning Japanese is memorizing the "counters." In Japanese, you use different words for counting different objects depending on what shape they are. If you're counting sheets of paper, you count with "mai" (ichi mai, ni mai, san mai, and so on). For any long, cylindrical object, you use "hon" (which changes to pon or bon depending on the preceding word), e.g. ippon, ni hon, san bon, and so on. (Roppingi, if you want to know, means "six trees" -- roku plus the "pon" counter, and ki is Japanese for tree.) Small animals are counted with "hiki" (which changes to piki or biki), cows and horses are counter with "tou" (ittou, ni tou, san tou), birds with "wa," and any large machine like a car is counted with "dai." There are some difficult ones to get down -- for example, an umbrella is counted with hon/pon because it's long and cylindrical, but when it's opened, it's in a different shape. How do you count it? Does the Space Shuttle count as an airplane or a spaceship when counting. We used to bug my Japanese teacher, Higurashi-sensei, with questions like that.

We've reorganized our Anime & Toys page so that they're hopefully laid-out more logically for you. Now all anime & toy items are posted on each category, Anime Figures, Stuffed Animals and so on, as well as on a handy new "View all Anime & Toy Items" category, so you can browse everything we've got in stock at once. And speaking of stock, J-List has been able to make available the extremely cool and rare Totoro stuffed animal line from Studio Gibli, including the super-giant-massive Sleeping Totoro that is 32 inches high! Feedback on the new categories is always appreciated.

For the pre-weekend update, we've got a bunch of cool items for you, including:

• First of all, we have great new magazines for you, including the new Video Boy and Best Video issues, super "all purpose" adult video magazines with lots of information and pics, as well as new kogal and amateur magazines!
  
• For fans of Japan's beautiful Race Queens, check out the deluxe Cool Girls EX which we've got in stock for you, featuring the Mario Racing Team and more
  
• For photobook fans, we've got fresh stock of many popular items, including Race Queen Miki Munemasa, with lower prices on many of our photobooks
  
• For hentai manga fans, we've got another great selection of new items for you, with fresh stock of new volumes as well (including the incredibly popular High School Planet Prowler)
  
• For hentai art book collectors, we've been able to locate fresh stock of the popular Yui Shop books, but stock is limited so snap them up before they sell out again
  
• If you love doujinshi, we've got more fresh-from-the-Comic-Market works for you. Also, we've reposted some of our popular lower-priced doujinshi works, with new scans so you can see what they're like. Check them out!
  
• From Soft on Demand we've got a nice DVD: "Study of men's penis with innocent girls." It's interesting to see the reactions as a room full of inexperienced girls see and touch a penis for the first time
  
• Also from SOD, enjoy the "lewd talk and multi-angle" of Nanami Yusa, which features many scenes with multiple angels that you can change with your DVD controller
  
• We've got a new "Swimming Girl" fetish DVD for you, for fans of spandex and swimming pool sex
  
• For Anna Ohura fans, a great new large-breast fetish release on video, Complete Bust, featuring some superb erotic performing by this busty lady. As the cover says, "That's Excellent Big Bomb!"
  
• Finally a very special item from Waap Entertainment, a super bukkake release that's got to be seen to be believed. This rare work is very special because it was produced by M's Video Group, aka MVG, an indies video company so aloof and popular that their products are almost completely unavailable except through one retail store the company operates
  
• We've got more good news: it turns out that the DVD releases of the bold and interesting indies AV studio Aroma are region-free, so you can play them on any DVD player! We've posted some of very interesting fetish titles for you, and will get in more soon
  
• Finally, we've got fresh stock of many of our popular DVD titles, including several Aika Miura indies DVDs, and Bunko Kanazawa's excellent "Kageki" production which happens to be subtitled in English, Chinese and Korean!
  
• Borderline 3 ~ Frozen Beach was out of stock for a few weeks, but we're happy to report that it's back from the CD duplicators. Borderline 3 is a great collection of hentai parody CG from illustrator Sakaki Naomoto (who designed the J-List logo, hence we've got a soft spot for his works). Get free shipping on this and all doujin-soft CD works this month!
  
• Finally, the first issue of AG, the Super Erotic Anthology Comic, is in stock, and we've already processed those with subscriptions. AG is a great idea from Icarus Comics, an English-language manga compilation magazine that will carry translated hentai manga from Japan and the U.S., and we hope everyone at J-List will support their efforts (we know we will -- look for articles by yours truly as well as other content J-List fans will enjoy)
  
• We have the above-mentioned Giant Totoro that is so cool we couldn't believe it when we saw it -- if you'd like a giant icon of Japanese pop culture in your room, we've got one for you!
  
• Also, we've got fresh stock of the very popular Totoro "tin toy" series, including the sold-out Totoro Bus Stop playset, which features many characters from the film in a wind-up toy
  
• For Oh My Goddess! (Ah Megamisama) fans, fresh stock of the sold-out PVC/soft vinyl figures of Belldandy, Urd and Skuld
  
• The only-released-in-Japan Hot Wheels toys have attracted interest, so we've posted more, authentic Hot Wheels recreations of some of the most famous Kamen Rider (Masked Rider) motorcycles + figures ever made
  
• If you love Morning Musume, the 13-member cute girl idol group, you can get their newest idol cards and enjoy their pretty faces
  
• For fans of the popular Bilingual Manga (in English and Japanese) from Kodansha, we've restocked the Love Hina and Oh My Goddess titles -- read them in English!
  
• If you love Japan's snacks and food, we've got many new items for you, including a delicious new set of "raw style" miso soup, a delicious set of dried salmon furikake that you sprinkle over rice, and the famous Mill Make, a delicious coffee-milk flavored powder you mix with milk, consumed universally by all elementary school kids in Japan (thus everyone says "natsukashii" when they drink it)
  
• For lovers of sweeter things, we've got a delicious "air in chocolate" from Lotte as well as a highly recommend item, Meiji "Poifull" sweet jellybeans
  
• Our authentic Japanese headbands (hachimaki) are very popular, and we've got a new one posted for you, "Will Power"
  
• J-List carries the only authentic Japanese "loose socks" (worn by high school girls) you are likely to find, and we've got fresh stock of "socks glue" which you apply to keep your socks up
  
• Finally, check out a cool Japanese way to remove oil from your face, a super set of pens that is really four pens, cute chopsticks and chopstick holders, fresh stock of our popular tofu storage box and best-selling Hamster Club bento box, and in celebration of the Olympics, a cool Gold Medal!
  

At J-List, we love all forms of Japanese pop culture, from Hello Kitty vibrators to beautiful Japanese things. We've got stock (although it's going fast) of the wonderful Gummi Sushi, individually wrapped packages of Japanese gummi candy in sushi shapes, perched atop marshmallow "rice."

Are you an anime fan in Canada? If so, be sure to check out Anime North, a great convention that you should be sure to get to. For more information, see their homepage at http://www2.animenorth.com:1080/

Greetings from J-List February 13, 2002

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Greetings from J-List February 11, 2002

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Greetings from J-List February 8, 2002

Hello and TGIF from your friends at J-List.

Japanese animation is famous all around, and it seems that in any country you go to now, kids will know about Gundam and Sakura-chan and Kero-Kero and CLAMP. A lot of anime doesn't gain much of a following outside of Japan, though, mainly because it's too difficult to understand for foreigners and isn't available translated into English. Two of my family's favorite anime shows are broadcast on Sunday night, and together they bringing the fun of the weekend to a close and serve as a beacon to a simpler age in Japan.

First, there's Sazae-san (sa-ZA-eh sahn), a show about the Isono family's weekly adventures, which always manage to teach some Japanese social moral in a reassuring way. The main character is Sazae, a 23 year old housewife, who lives with her husband Masuo and their extended family. It's set in the present, but it's kind of a simplified version of the present, where there's no decade-long Japanese recession, no bursting economic bubble, and everyone in the neighborhood knows everyone else. Everyone in Sazae-san has names that have to do with the sea -- Sazae's name means sea snail, Masuo's name comes from sea trout, and so on. This show has been on the air since 1969, with a new episode every week. In last week's episode, the Japanese practice of throwing beans at imaginary demons and shouting "In with happiness! Out with devils!" was taken up, with grandfather Namihei (whose name means "wave") explaining to the children: "No one believes that there are really devils running around. Instead, we embody all our fears about sickness and death in the form of devils, and feel better by chasing them away." Another lesson learned.

After Sazae-san, we watch Chibi Maruko-chan, another "feel good" anime that has been running for a mere 12 years. Instead of taking place in a simplified version of the present, it's actually based in the past, in the late 1970's. Maruko is in the 5th grade, and as she goes through her life, we're able to reflect on the simple days of two decades ago through Maruko's eyes while being taught a lesson about the present at the same time. In a recent episode, Mariko had to write an essay about what she thought the 21st century would be like, and what she wanted to do when she was grown. She decided she wanted become a manga-ka (a comic book artist), and thus it was revealed that Mariko herself was really drawing the world of Chibi Maruko-chan, and each episode was really taking place inside her mind. (For more information on these and other anime running in Japan, see http://www2.gol.com/users/mmcb/modall/TVAnime.html).

We've got some long-awaited good news for you: after over two years of delays and "final testing," we're pleased to announce that the long-awaited Transfer Student will finally be shipping soon, probably by the end of March. We've spent so much time trying to finish this title, we're almost sorry to see it ship (just kidding). A great multi-scenario game for Windows 95/98/Me/2000/XP, and for the first time, the Macintosh platform (OS 7.5-9 for now, but we will be updating this and all our Mac-compatible bishoujo titles for OS X in when we are able), we think this game will be worth the admittedly ridiculous long wait. You can pre-order the game and lock in free shipping when it is ready to go out. Thanks for your support and patience!

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

• First, since great new magazines, including the elegant and stylish Penthouse Japan and Penthouse Special, produced entirely in Japan and featuring only Japanese models shot by Japanese photographers
  
• Also some nice amateur magazines, including the very nice Amateur Girl's Data, and a new magazine for fans of "beautiful breasts" of just the right size
  
• For photobook fans, we've got some really nice new offerings, including a special item featuring Japanese AV stars like Jun Kusanagi, Maria Yumeno and many more who have appeared in the U.S. edition of Playboy (the photobook is a "scratch and sniff" photobook)
  
• From Cream, we've got a great new book, Bloomer Girl, featuring six possessively lovely models including Maiko Kazano, Yuri Sakurada and more
  
• Of course we have many new manga volumes posted for you, including some excellent erotic works by World Comics you won't want to miss
  
• For DVD lovers, we've got many nice items for you, starting off with the super new Zenra Sports DVDs (aka Stark Nakedness Sports Series), which gives you *200 minutes* of the best of the Zenra videos for a very good price (region free)
  
• There's a new fetish in town, "tall woman and small man," in a bold new AV from Deeps', in which men have sex with the extremely tall amazon Yumika Kitagawa, 6 feet tall (region free)
  
• For fans of the lovely Kurumi Morita, see the "private and sex life" of Kurumi-chan in a very nice DVD release for her fans (region free)
  
• See the best AV performances of Ami Ayukawa, the lovely professional AV actress with breasts of golden brown, n the new Complete Collection of Ami Ayukawa (region free)
  
• For indies fans, the slender and silky Kaori Shimizu has a great performance for you, in which she satisfies you desire to see many fetishes, from tekoki to glasses fetish and more
  
• We've got a new DVD from the G-Taste live-action sexy cosplay DVD, featuring the lovely and elegant Hikaru Kawamura dressing up in a variety of cute costumes
  
• Finally, we have a major restock of DVDs and videos by one of the most popular ladies in the Japanese AV world, Anna Ohura -- check out all the newly restocked items
  
• For fans of the 1960's sci-fi classic Thunderbirds, we've got a treat for you -- a deluxe figure + vehicle set from Tinibiz, similar to the popular Kubrick toy line
  
• Also: stock of several of the very cool Planet of the Apes figures based on the original movies, only made for Japan
  
• For fans of Neon Genesis Evangelion, we've got a new card series featuring nothing but lovely images of Rei Ayanami, a very cool item indeed
  
• For fans of cute things from Japan, we've got these Hamster-shaped figures and chocolate-filled Hamster cookies that are just great, as well as fresh stock of the sold-out Strawberry Chu-Hi
  
• We love Japan's lovely photobooks, which capture lovely Japanese girls in their glossy pages -- see the newly posted idol items on the Id
  
• We've restocked our trademark (?) Hello Kitty toilet paper
  
• For those who missed out on our popular Japanese calendars, we've got a few scattered items which we're selling below our cost -- see the photobooks page for more info
  
• We've got new study-related items posted, including a great new Japanese notebook with removable sheets and funny English on the front, and a beginning notebook for those who want to learn kanji
  
• Finally, look for a slew of other cool items on J-List, including new regional maps of Japan (Kyushu and Chubu), a nifty "herbal pad" that will take the tiredness out of your sore feet, a deluxe package of gauze masks which are used in Japan to guard against cold germs and pollen, a super "coffee dripper" for making coffee by hand, and more!
  

J-List sells many fun and unique things from Japan. One category of item we sell are Japanese snack and food items, including Japanese Pocky, Tomato Pretz, Japanese gum and many other items. All of these items are stamped with a freshness date, and everything we sell is well within that date. So you can be reassured that the wacky Japanese food items J-List sells are fresh and good to eat.

Just a second mention in case some missed it before -- we have had some the J-List shopping cart lose some orders over the past two weeks, so if you made an order but never heard from us (aside from the automated "thanks for your order" email that the J-List website sends out automatically when your order is completed), let us know and we'll look into it right away. We are closing in on the intermittent problem and hope to have it solved very soon.

Greetings from J-List February 6, 2002

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Greetings from J-List February 4, 2002

Hello from Japan, on this wonderful Monday evening.

Well, Goro-kun has finally returned to Smap. Smap is a famous team of five male "talents" (idols) who amuse Japanese each week with comedy, singing, dancing and gourmet cooking with a different special guest each time (they once presented George Lucas with a toy light saber as a joke). One of their number, Goro Inagaki, got into trouble with the police by trying to drive away from a police officer who was giving him a traffic citation (he hit the policeman in the leg with his car, resulting in a small injury). In the ensuing scandal Goro was removed from the hit show Smap x Smap, but now that the problem is behind him, he's back.

Japanese concepts of "love" can be a little complex. First of all, there are two words for love, "koi" and "ai" -- if you want to fluster a Japanese, ask him to explain the difference to you. Put simply, koi refers to romantic, sexual love you have while dating, and ai is a broader, more philosophical word which includes the love you feel for your wife/husband and family over the course of your life. Two words for lover are "koi-bito" and "ai-jin," both of which are written with the characters for love and person, but their nuance is very different since koi and ai have different meanings. I've been told by a Japanese friend that the reason Americans have a higher divorce rate than Japanese is that they expect the "koi" part of a relationship to continue forever, rather than recognizing that the passion and romance of the "koi" love is replaced by the cooler, longer-lasting "ai." Japanese rarely tell each other that they love each other directly (which would be "ai shiteiru" in Japanese), and images in movies and on TV of married couples who kiss often and say "I love you" seem very American to Japanese people, although younger people seem to be moving in this direction. When Japanese do confess love, they use the lower-key words "suki desu" (lit. "I like you").

One of the features of Japanese is that there are multiple words for "you" and "I" to choose from, and which word you choose says a lot about how a person perceives himself. The basic word for "I" is "watashi," and this is what is used in formal settings (also as "watakushi") -- this is the first word students of Japanese learn. Girls get a cute version of this word -- "atashi" -- and good boys are supposed to use "boku," a good all-around word for males to use in most any setting. Rough and tough boys, as well as men who want to project their manliness, will use the men's first-person pronoun, "ore" (oh-rey). Kenshiro, of Fist of the North Star, uses this term, and since I learned much of my early Japanese from reading Fist of the North Star manga, I overused it for several weeks and really embarassed myself. For "you," the formal word is "anata," but "kimi" (a familiar word for use among friends) is also popular with both men and women (however it's rude to use this word to someone older than you). The men's word "omae" is used by men who think they're pretty manly, or from a man talking to his girlfriend. A person's choice of what words he uses for "I" and "you" reveals much about his personality and self-image. A cute little girl will use the term "atashi" or "watashi" and play with Licca-chan dolls; young boys, such as my son, will experiment with acting tough by using the word "ore" and acting strong, like his father.

We've added a new sub-category to the Anime and Toys section, for the high-end anime figures that are so lovely. These figures are highly detailed anime statues, made with the "cold cast" method of manufacturing, and we're going to work hard to keep these in stock for you in the coming months. Right off the bat, we've got stock of the very nice G-Taste cold cast figures from Hiroki Yagami for you (check them out).

For the first update of the week, we've got another nice volley of items for you, including:

• First of all, new magazines for you, including indies, young wife and magazines for fans of older ladies, age 25-40
  
• For video CD fans, we've got the new Video CD and DVD Soft Catalog, which features two video CDs of sampler footage with a great magazine
  
• For photobook fans, we've got several new hardcover photobooks including the lovely nude of Rina Okada and An Sakurai's lovely first photobook
  
• Fresh stock of the sold out "Fascination" (anal photobook) which is always a popular seller
  
• We've got fresh stock of In-Gi, the very nice bondage magazine + DVD combo item
  
• Also: a bold parody of Akira Gomi's Yellows in which 100 women Japanese women show everything about themselves, in many interesting ways
  
• We have some very nice erotic manga for you, including many new works as well as fresh stock of some popular titles that we've been able to reorder
  
• For DVD fans, we've got several great new offerings -- from SOD we've got the DVD version of Natsumi Kawahama's very erotic "Tekoki Lewd Woman" (region free)
  
• Also from SOD, we've got the very interesting "Semen White Paper," a very detailed and dramatic erotic bukkake title (region free)
  
• If you love more mature and experienced women, enjoy the Jukujo Best Selection DVD from SOD, featuring the best over-25 AV work they've ever done
  
• For indies fans, enjoy an all-new VIP Shower, featuring bukkake and sperm-fetish erotica with three lovely and famous Japanese actresses
  
• A new release from Audaz in the Face series, this is the lovely performance of Lum Nagase (aka Ramu Nagase), who is the ultimate "virtual girlfriend" in this great new release
  
• Finally, from Momotaro Eizo, a charming new "girl next door" sexual performance from the lovely Kaori Shimizu (region 2)
  
• For fans of lovely Japanese idols, be sure and see the sweet and charming Yoko Mitsuya and Mao Miyaaji starring in Mix Juice, a very enjoyable Japanese sexy idol DVD featuring these two girls (region 2, shot in wide screen)
  
• On our newly christened High-end Anime Figure page, we've got two newly posted beautiful figures in Hiroki Yagami's G-Taste series, and they are really beautiful to behold. We have only one of each figure and expect to sell out quickly, so more will be on the way soon
  
• Also, we've gotten in stock of the brand-new Ah My Goddess figures from Hobby Base -- Urd, Belldandy and Skuld -- these are very nice PVC figures with bases
  
• We have many nice "traditional" items for you, including a very nice Japanese flower pot, a large rice bowl, and a very nice sake bottle with matching ceramic cups
  
• Speaking of sake, we've restocked our Japanese snack and food page with two very popular items, sake candy and Kuro Ame (black candy)
  
• Fresh stock of many popular items, including the Hamster Club bento box (our best-selling Japanese lunchbox by far), more Japanese "socks glue" for your loose socks, and limited fresh stock of the very nice sushi gummi treats
  
• Also, a delicious "kimchee fried rice mix" that's a popular dish in Japan (and Korea)
  
• Finally, look for super cute metallic Hamster pins, funny Japanese dictionaries, a beautiful Japanese tattoo, kit, a great sushi-making bamboo roller, an all-new Hello Kitty onigiri maker, and more.
  

Do you have a retail shop or online business? J-List sells some of the products on our site on a wholesale basis, and maybe we can help you out. For more information, see the wholesale link on the J-List page, below the product categories.

Greetings from J-List October 30, 2002

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Greetings from J-List January 30, 2002

Greetings from Japan, where the "silent E" in English is known as "mahou no E" (Magic E).

Japan is quite nippy in the Winter, especially when the kara-kaze, the famous "empty wind" that blows through Gunma in the colder months, kicks up. Most gaijin from warm places like me (San Diego) either learn to dress warmly or go home after a year. It's not just a matter of dressing in layers like my mother always told me -- because Japan lacks some core comforts like central heating, Japanese houses are usually colder than God's Icebox. When relaxing at home, it's quite common to stick your legs inside the kotatsu, a table with a blanket over it and a heater inside. Rooms are heated using small kerosene heaters called "stoves" (suto-bu in Japanese). When these heaters are turned on or off, they release a smell which is quite unpleasant at first, but eventually grows on you as all part of going through Winter in Japan, and you become "natsukashii" (nostalgic) whenever you smell it. For someone from San Diego like me, long underwear is a serious requirement for living in Japan.

It sometimes seems to outsiders living here that Japan is a very death-oriented society. Don't give gifts in multiples of four because the number four is read "shi" in Japanese, which also means death. Don't put you chopsticks straight up in your rice, since that's only done as part of a ceremony for the dead. Likewise, don't sleep with your head facing north, as bodies about to be cremated are laid facing this direction. Yes for all the customs that have to do with death, nearly all of which spring from Japan's various versions of Buddhism, the Japanese have almost no concept of estate planning. As far as I can tell, virtually all the things we do in the States to prepare for the event of one's death, from writing wills to making living trusts to investigating how to avoid death taxes are not practiced here in Japan at all. Since my parents have some land that will be transferred to my wife's name at the time of their death, I brought the topic up with them, but it seem like something you just don't talk about. Likewise, I asked our accountant to recommend some options we might want to keep in mind, but he said no one really did anything to prepare for death estate-wise. Even the concept of drafting a will is not really practiced here. Because all Japanese have strong "common sense" built into them, a natural sense for the "way things should be," wills are not as necessary here. If I were to die, common sense dictates that my wife and children would receive my property, and this logic is rarely contested here.

At J-List, we carry all English-language bishoujo games in the world, including JAST USA, Peach Princess, Hobibox Europe and Himeya Soft. A highly stylized genre of interactive "love simulation" game from Japan, we've worked hard to help make these games available in English to fans. And, our games are uncensored. We received quite a few questions about compatibility with Windows XP, so we've gone through and updated all our bishoujo game product pages with XP information. The good news is that most games will work with XP, either as-is or with by running them in Windows 95/98 compatibility mode. Three Sisters' Story and some of the older Himeya games are among the few that won't load in XP. Also: we've finally gotten in stock of the last of the Himeya Soft games which we had not carried before, Love Potion. Great for fans of the classic games from Himeya!

For the mid-week update, we've got a bunch of very nice new items for you, including:

• First of all, some great new magazines posted, including the new Gal's Dee, the magazine for fans of Japanese women who are all size "D" cup or larger
  
• Also posted are some new kogal magazines, for fans of amateur sex in love hotels
  
• We've got some rare items, some collections of some issues of Dick and Up! You, two magazines that specialize in American and European pornography -- it's quite interesting to see this world through the eyes of the Japanese
  
• For photobook fans, check out the new items, including a new erotic photobook by Aida Garo, and fresh stock of many nice books, including the "A Trip Of Beautiful Russians" photobook that sold out so fast last time
  
• For those interested in harder core items, we've got fresh stock of the Aika Miura bondage photobook and DVD combo item
  
• For hentai manga fans, we've posted new books for you, including very erotic manga volumes by LE Comics, Angel Comics and other studios, as well as a good restocking (a dozen or so volumes) of previously out of stock manga books
  
• Also, a treat for doujinshi collectors -- another volley of all-new recently released hentai doujinshi works from the past winter Comic Market
  
• We've got a bunch of very nice new DVDs for you, starting with "My First Experience," a fascinating lesbian DVD with three girls who engage in "penis band" (strap-on dildo) fucking through holed panties, thus there is no mosaic on this DVD (region free)
  
• For fans of the lovely and pure Rin Tomosaki, enjoy her very nice new Soft on Demand DVD project (region free)
  
• Those who remember Fumie Hosokawa, the Big Breast Queen from Gilgamesh Night, check out her very nice erotic DVD release (region free)
  
• We love the Let Fetish World series from Wanz Factory, and the latest release starring Manami Yoshii is great for all leg, foot, stocking and mini-skirt fetish lovers (region 2)
  
• The popular Dream Gakuen orgy series continues, with two new releases for a total of 360 minutes of killer action (region 2)
  
• Volume 5 of the very erotic Night Shift Hospital hentai anime is in stock, and is highly recommended for nurse fetish and hentai DVD fans (region 2)
  
• We've got a big restock of DVDs, too, with fresh stock of Black Shower, Aika Miura Perfect Eternal Edition, SOD 5 1/2 Year's Special and much more
  
• Finally, Tomo has gone through and discounted a bunch of DVD items for you, so you can get them and save some money -- check out the newly reduced items
  
• For anyone who's ever loved the incredibly cool Captain Harlock characters from animator Leiji Matsumoto, we've got the Captain Harlock Saga toy series, 7 different figure/toys created with the direct oversight of the creator
  
• For lovers of beautiful Japanese swimsuit idols, we've got the hardcover photobook of Yoko Mitsuya, one of the most beautiful busty idols to appear in Japan in years
  
• For those who like our unique Japanese snack and food page, we've got melon-flavored carmels (yes, you read right), fried udon snacks, and the famous Sakuma Drops, which appeared in the happy anime film Grave of the Fireflies
  
• Also, delicious Japanese senbei (hard rice cracker), and for babies, very delicious milk-flavored Hello Kitty baby senbei (it's for babies, but Kaori loves to eat these)
  
• For lovers of Japan's very sexy Race Queen idols, chec out the new Gal's Paradise Super Graphic cards we've posted
  
• Lovely "traditional Japanese" items include a "faux" lacquerware bowl, plate and spoon set, Japanese coasters, and some nice crane food decorations
  
• Many new cute Japanese items, including a cardboard box for Hello Kitty fans (you can put anything it, it's very stylish), a Hello Kitty lunch box/food container, and new Hamster Club cute items
  
• For toy fans, we've got a very nice new soft vinyl figure set based on the Sunrise Heroine toy line from Yujin, and a beautiful Kimono Licca-chan doll from Takara
  
• Finally, see funny Japanes signs, handy protective bags that you can keep your laptop in, a cool Japanese world map, several new bento boxes for those in love with Japanese bento culture, and much more. Check out all the newly posted items!
  

Remember that you can find things on the J-List site using the handy "quick search" function. The search searches for any items containing the words you enter, in any order -- thus you can search for actress' names in Japanese word order (e.g. Nagase Ai) or English order (Ai Nagase). The search engine is smart, too, and snows that "bishoujo" and "bishojo" are the same thing, although some names that have multiple spellings (such as Yuna Akimoto, whose first name can be written as Yuna, Yuuna, or Yuhna) won't come up if searched. Since J-List has 1500 products in stock at any given time, there should be something for everyone!

Greetings from J-List October 28, 2002

Greetings and salutations from your friends in Japan!

First, notes on the site. J-List may be experience some minor problems with some users, who try to view adult items on the site (but are unable, they are stuck in "PG" mode), and with some other users, who are unable to view product images. If you have any problems with our website, please email us right away and we'll help get on of the problem.

When you become bilingual in a language, you learn a lot about how your own brain works, what processes go on when you learn new vocabulary words (every act of learning involves a physical change in your brain, the creation of a new synapse from one cell to another), and so on. It makes you think about the nature of language in general and consider deeply parts of your own native language that you've taken for granted all your life -- in short, it's really cool. The act of translation from one language to another is really something, too: it takes place deep inside your brain, on a level below your conscious thoughts, like a process in a computer that's running in the background. You place some English in the "buffer," and then something happens in your brain, and in a few seconds Japanese is waiting for you to retrieve it. You can almost hear the "ding" in your mind as the translation "cooks" and is done, without any conscious awareness, at least as far as I've experienced.

When it comes to translation, though, there's one direction to go: from your second language to your native language. If I am translating from Japanese to English, I'll be able to do it just fine; but woe is me if I try to translate from English to Japanese. I know this because I tried it once. My father, who was a nautical engineer who built advanced hydrofoils, had to get a patent of his translated into Japanese, so he asked his Japanophile son to do it for him. Wanting to impress my Dad, I agreed, and two months of hard labor later had produced what had to be the most tear-jerkingly hilarious patent translation ever seen in Japan. I learned my lesson and now politely refuse any requests for translations into Japanese. I believe that 90% of the "wasei eigo" (literally "made in Japan English"), the silly English words the Japanese come up with, are inadvertently created by Japanese asked to translate from Japanese to English -- they are doing their best but are basically translating the wrong direction.

We've mentioned some things that are especially nice in Japan before, including the extra-soft and very warm acrylic blankets they have here. Well, we've finally got some for the list, very nice Hello Kitty half-blankets (or lap blankets) that are very soft and warm and are also very cute. See them on the page! If there's interest in these items, we'll get more in the future.

For the new update, we've got some great items from Japan for you, including:

• For fans of lovely swimsuit idols, we've got several nice items including the very lovely hardcover photobook of "Chisato" and more
  
• For fans of wacky Japanese signs and other items, we've got some more for you, with Japanese plastic sign plates with many uses
  
• Show your love of Japan or of your home country with the cute cloth flags (Japan, USA, Germany, France, Canada) we've got in stock
  
• We restocked some of our favorite items, the only-sold-in-Japan Sesame Street pens and mechanical pencils, very cute and great for collectors (or those who just want something special from Japan)
  
• Also, fresh stock of another popular item, the cute plush Totoro magnets
  
• For fans of the Dirty Pair, we've got extremely limited stock of the Dirty Pair figure sets (including a complete set)
  
• We've restocked many fun Japanese items for your kitchen, including onigiri makers and several new bento sets with everything you need to enjoy Japanese bento
  
• For fans of our Japanese snacks, some nice new items, including Every Burger (chocolate cookies that look like little hamburgers, fun to eat), gummi pizza, fresh stock of Japanese miso soups, and more!
  
• For Japanese toy fans, we've got a great Ultraman item, the cool Kubrick Green Hornet and Kato set, and more
  
• For Hello Kitty lovers, a great Kitty item for your car, some fun Kitty stamps and magnets with bobbling heads, Kitty chopsticks, and more
  
• Also: the really soft acrylic blankets (mentioned above) with cute images of Kitty on them
  
• Finally, find more Japanese fude pens (which let you write as if you were writing with a Chinese writing brush), a handy "package opener," a super-fun dress-up-doll set for Hamtaro lovers, and more!
  
• For our adult customers, we've got many new 18+ products. They include:
  
• For magazine fans, we have more excellent magazines from Japan posted, including new issues of Let's Do Something Good and I'm Sure I Love Married Women After All (we just love these titles)
  
• For fans of kogals, those lovely Japanese bad girls, we have the new Cho Mach, filled with lovely girls in love hotels for you
  
• We have more great hardcover photobooks from Japan for you, including a new Garo Aida work that's lovely, and the super sexy leg fetish photos of Aki Mizuki
  
• For bondage fans, don't miss the excellent Maiko Yuki photobook we have -- it's wonderful
  
• For hentai manga fans we have even more great works for you, including Muchan ga Kitayo, about an sexually active little animal who has many adventures with beautiful women, and more
  
• For doujinshi lovers, we've got a great new book by Kenix, Orange Pie 2 (great One Piece hentai!)
  
• For adult DVD fans, find many nice items in stock, including a new Big Morkal Cosplayers release featuring Sayaka Hagiwara as super-cute Japanese game girls (region free)
  
• Ryoko Mitake is a red-hot Japanese nude idol who recently began career as an AV performer, and we've got her newest hardcore work -- it's great! (region free)
  
• Nao Oikawa is a "virgin hunter" who hunts inexperienced boys and steals their virginity in a new SOD release (region free)
  
• There's a nice new Man's Juice release from SOD featuring Mayumi Yoshida in a great festival of bukkake (region free)
  
• From Moodyz, enjoy the hardcore debut of the lovely An Namba, a sexy new AV actress who's eager to please you (region 2)
  
• A great lesbian offering from Wanz Factory, two card-carrying lesbians show the secret of lesbian sex to Kyoka Usami in a great "lesbian training" production (region 2)
  
• Finally, a big restocking of DVDs, including new No Cut!! titles, Sora Aoi's Happy Go Lucky, The girl scouted in the Cake Shop, lesbian kissing DVDs and more!
  

J-List carries many cool things. One item we like are the bilingual manga which feature Japanese comics (Ah My Goddess, Cardcaptor Sakura etc) with both English and Japanese in them. They're great for anyone wanting to pick up some Japanese, and also fun to read. We're closing out our stock so our prices are great, check out what we've got for you (try searching for "bilingual").

Greetings from J-List January 28, 2002

Hello again from Japan, the birthplace of canned coffee.

Although Japan's version of Christmas is slightly different from other countries, many customs related to the giving or receiving of gifts abound in Japan. First of all, there are two gift-giving seasons, in July and December, when you give gifts to various people who are "sewa ni natteiru," a phrase which describes people who are helping you out in some way (professors, teachers). Companies exchange gifts in these seasons, too, and J-List exchanges gifts with the distributors and other companies that we deal with -- it's always fun to see what this or that company will give this year. In many cases when you receive a gift, you're supposed to give an "o-kaeshi" or a gift in return, which is supposed to be equal to half the value of the gift you received. At weddings, all guests bring about $200 in cash as a wedding gift, and the leave with about $100 in gifts in a big bag -- rice with red beans, katsuobushi (similar to furikake), and other items. Similarly, at funerals, well-wishers arrive with a cash gift in an envelope; they leave with small gifts such as green tea. In years past, it was customary for people to give a gift (cash or some other valuable item) to doctors when their loved ones were in the hospital, although this has been banned by the Japanese medical board within the last decade.

Sometimes you can get yourself caught in a "gift war" with Japanese people -- they give you something, you give something back, intending it to be an "o-kaeshi" (oh-KA-eh-shi), but the next thing you know they've gone and given you another gift. For the first few years of my marriage, my mother and my wife's mother would engage in this kind of gift battle, each trying to get the last word in. My mother finally gave up, I think, resigning to let the balance of gift giving go in favor of my wife's mother. When my wife and I went to Spain, we brought back some salt from the Mediterranean to a couple who run one of our favorite restaurants. They showered us with wine and other gifts in return, despite the fact that the salt cost less than $1, but we knew not to get into a gift-giving war. If you do want to give a gift to a Japanese person and avoid the embarrassment of return gifts, just tell them up front that you don't need an "o-kaeshi"

Tokyo is an interesting place, although I tire of all that concrete when I'm there on businss, and am happy to get back to quiet old Gunma at the end of the day. Some of the more interesting points to check out if you're ever in Tokyo would include Ameyoko, an interesting collection of alleyways full of small street shops selling interesting clothes, food and accessories. It grew out of a major black market that flourished during World War II, and it's quite fun to wander around and see what you can see. Another popular spot with tourists is Akasuka, a large shrine that has many interesting shops around it. If you like electronics, and what gaijin visiting Japan doesn't, be sure and hit Akihabara, home of the "Electric Town" where there are hundreds of shops selling just about anything you can want, and if you've got your passport you can get it tax-free, too. To check out "kogal" culture, just take the Yama-no-te (the loop line that goes around Tokyo) to Shibuya and get off at the Hachiko exit (Hachiko is the famous dog who waited faithfully for his master to return every day, until one day the master died, yet the dog continued to wait faithfully until he, too, died). You'll find a vibrant area of street musicians as well kogals and men trying to hit on them around the famous "scramble intersection" (called this because you have to move your butt quickly to get across in time). For night action, go to Kabikicho, although gaijin should watch themselves as it can be a little rough, and some establishments won't let foreignrs in at all. Tokyo Tower and the massive Tokyo Municipal Government Office are also good to hit if you want a view of the city from above, or find one of the companies that will take you up for a helicopter tour.

For the first update of the new week, we've got a very nice selection of new products for you, including:

• First, the new Urecco is in, and it's a very nice issue, capturing lovely Japanese models like Ichigo Milk and Natsuki Abe in startlingly beautiful photographs
  
• If you're interested in discount magazines, we've got a bunch posted for you, starting at $5-6 (see magazine page 3 for all discount magazine items)
  
• The very nice Gal's Shower Live, a combination bukkake magazine and dual-Video CD combination item, is in stock
  
• For photobook lovers, we've fresh stock of some great items, including leg and stocking fetish photobooks, as well as the beautiful new hardcover photobook of lovely swimsuit idol Yui Ichikawa
  
• If you like hentai manga from Japan, we've got a very large update for you, with a half-dozen newly posted books as well as fresh stock of many popular books (including the best-selling Fetish Doll dick girl manga series)
  
• Also for doujinshi fans, good stock of three excellent hentai doujinshi for you -- a new Girl Power, featuring Dirty Pair, Gundam and other themes (including naughty tentacles), and two new game girl books from Kenix featuring the best Capcom vs. SNK hentai (all very nice)
  
• For DVD fans, we've got some nice new products for you, including an interesting "Couple Kiss" DVD in which male/female couples step inside the Magic Mirror Bus and demonstrate their kissing style, then an experienced "kissing girl" comes and kisses both the man and the woman to show how it's done (region free)
  
• A busty and lovely new face in the indies AV world, Reiko Matsushima, appears in her first AV release ever, a very nice DVD from Deep's (region free)
  
• For bondage fans, we've got "A Moisten Maid Sisters," the story of two sisters who works as French maids, who have very interesting sex lives (region free)
  
• For Madoka Ozawa fans, we've got a great all-new AV release showing the "private sex" of Madoka-chan, what she doesn't show to the camera (region 2)
  
• Finally, for loves of lesbian DVDs, check out Mami Gotoh and Milk Asakura in a very erotic lesbian and hardcore sex release from Waap Entertainment (region 2)
  
• If you love cool Japanese toys from Japan, we've got a really elegant anime figure of Fujiko Mine from the Lupin III TV series (complete with cloth kimono and 34 points of articulation in her body), as well as limited stock (as in one each) of the very cool Macross transformable Valkyrie toys
  
• Also: limited stock of the very nice "You're under Arrest" cards
  
• For fans of our Japanese snacks and food page, we've got fresh stock of the delicious Strawberry "Tsubu" (bits of strawberry) Pocky, as well as fresh stock of delicious slightly spicy rice crackers with peanuts
  
• We have some health-related items, including fresh stock of the excellent Japanese hand warmers, a very nice brush to clean your feet in the shower or bath
  
• Japan is the birthplace of "cute" and we've got more Hello Kitty toilet paper (they make a great for anyone who either loves or hates Kitty-chan), new stickers for Hello Kitty fans, and even more stock of our #1 selling authentic Japanese bento box, Hamster Club
  
• We've restocked many sold-out sizes of one of our most popular T-shirts, the white "Looking for a Girlfriend" shirt -- now all sizes are in stock, size M to XXL
  
• We've got fresh stock of our popular wacky Japanese signs, including a sign that says "Please take your shoes off" in Japanese, as well as a Japanese emergency exit sign
  
• New "traditional Japanese items" include some of those classic sushi erasers, self-inking Japanese stamps, and more Japanese "happiness beans" that you can throw at your doorway in Japanese tradition to chase away devils
  
• Finally, see Japanese "days of the week" magnets, cool regional maps of Japan (Shikoku, Hokkaido, Northern Japan), fresh stock of our blank vocabulary cards so you can study like Japanese students, and more! Lots of fun stuff for you!
  

We're happy to see the Hello Kitty vibrators that we got stock of selling at a fast clip -- we sold 20 of them in two days! We have about a hundred in stock, which is a lot, but if they continue to sell at that rate we might run out in a few weeks. If you want your own Hello Kitty mock vibrator, be sure to get yours before they are gone. We just love bring able to bring wacky stuff like this to you!