Greetings from J-List September 26, 2003

There was a big earthquake in Japan's northernmost island of Hokkaido this morning, setting some fires and injuring many people. Happily, there were no deaths reported. J-List is located near Tokyo, so we were too far to feel the shaking, although we get our share of jolts down here, too.

Because the Western names are rare in Japan, they can tend to become larger than life to the Japanese. You might know several people named Jason, but in Japan, there's only one: the famous killer from the Friday the 13th movies. If your name is Jason and you introduce yourself to Japanese people, they're likely to associate you with the films and laugh privately. While Japanese pop singer Seiko Matsuda was in New York trying to break into the American music scene during the mid 90's, she had an affair with a man she met in a restaurant named Jeff. The affair became public knowledge, and suddenly everyone in Japan knew about Jeff, to the chagrin of a friend of mine with the same name, who had to endure the giggles of high school girls for months whenever he mentioned his name. If your name is Bob, Japanese might think of Bob Sapp, the American K-1 fighter who appears on Japanese TV almost nightly. Even my own name is famous, thanks to an anime show from the 1970s, Heidi, Girl of the Alps. Heidi's friend is named Peter (although it's pronounced "Peh-tah" in the show, using the German pronunciation), so whenever I introduce myself, Japanese have the image of Heidi's friend in the back of their minds.

Japanese names are interesting to study, too. Japanese put their family names before their first names, so that Maria Takagi's name is Takagi Maria if you're speaking Japanese. It can be confusing, which is part of why we developed the J-List search engine to bring up the same results no matter what word order you use. Japanese female names often have "ko" in them (Keiko, Miko, etc.), which means "child." Boy's names, on the other hand, often reflect their status in the family. If a boy is the oldest son, he'll often have a name that indicates this, by having the number one in it, like Ichiro or Hajime (which means "to begin"). The second son in a family will often have a name like Koji or Kenji -- the "ji" character means second or next. The most "vanilla" sounding names in Japanese (i.e., the names that correspond to John and Mary Smith in English) are Taro and Hanako Yamada. Japanese names are nearly always written in Chinese characters (although they can be written in hiragana), and just as there are various spellings for Western names, there are often many ways to write a person's name in kanji.

When you order a taco in Japan, be careful: the Japanese word for octopus is tako. To differentiate the crustacean from the Mexican food, the Japanese use the plural word "tacos" (takosu) for referring to the food, even if they're talking about just one. One of the most popular snack foods in Japan is takoyaki, which is fried balls of batter with pieces of octopus inside -- it's very tasty on cold winter afternoons. Osaka is the world capital of delicious takoyaki, and if you ever get to that city, be sure to go to Otakoya, a takoyaki shop near the famous Glico neon sign in Osaka's Dotonbori area. Be warned though: you may have to stand in line for a couple of hours to be served -- that's how popular takoyaki is in Japan. Once in rural Japan we happened across a takoyaki vendor who decided to call his shop Tako Bell. My wife and I were completely floored with laughter at this unexpected sight.

Announcing the start of the 2003 Pocky Season! J-List sells hundreds of types of Japanese snacks, gum and traditional Japanese foods for you to try. One of our most popular items is Pocky, the chocolate covered pretzel treat from Glico. Customers love our Pocky selection, but unfortunately, Japan's summer months are very hot and humid, which causes the Pocky to melt -- so we have to stop carrying it during the hottest part of the summer. Now Pocky is back at J-List, with some great new flavors, including Sweet Pumpkin and Extra Chocolate Mousse Pocky, as well as your old favorite classic flavors. Yum! As always, you get discounts for buying 10 or more boxes of Pocky.

We're happy to see Phantom of Inferno, a great PG-rated interactive anime game you play on a DVD player, is proving to be a popular item. We had mistakenly stated that this was a region 1 DVD, playable on North American players only, but the disc is actually region free, so customers all over the world can try it out.

For the new update, we've got some excellent products from Japan for you. They include:

• First, for fans of the classic anime Urusei Yatsura, the hit manga and anime by Rumiko Takahashi, we've got a really special item: a series of extremely detailed PVC figures from Furuta, with full sets in stock (including full sets with the rare item)
  
• The Japanese don't really have Halloween like they have in America, but their tradition of cosplay is just as strong -- we've got some fun items for anyone wanting to dress up, including fake boobs, a sexy leopard's outfit and more
  
• In addition to the new Pocky, mentioned above, we've got great miso soup, tasty furikake (just sprinkle it over white rice for an instant meal), and traditional Japanese throat candy
  
• For fans of extremely cute stuff from Japan, enjoy cute Nyanko Restaurant stationary, featuring those super cute cats by SAN-X
  
• Also for Kitty fans, fresh stock of the ultra-cool Sanrio Columbus roly-poly toys, like the old Weebles that we played with back in the 1970s
  
• In the same vein, we've got Usako Friends shrinky-dinks -- so cool!
  
• For bento fans, a very special Hello Kitty bento box with two large compartments and a cool cloth carrying bag
  
• Got a portable phone? Keep it clean with special phone wipers that we've got in stock
  
• Then, from Dr. Ion, we've got a handy train pass/credit card/ID holder that emits what the Japanese call "minus ions" or negatively-charged ions, a great and wacky item from Japan
  
• Also, more Hello Kitty ice cube trays, a hit item!
  
• For fans of our miniature food toys, which are extremely details, we've added fresh stock of the Family Restaurant, Sushi and Japanese Food toys, with both individual items and full sets available
  
• Totoro and Ghibli fans, we've added fresh stock of several items, including Totoro stamps, Totoro and Catbus plush toys, and the ever-popular Bou Nezumi plushies from Sun Arrow
  
• For Race Queen fans, we've got more copies of the very cool Race Queen Hundred Costume Catalog
  
• Also, a restocking of many other nice photobooks, including popular works by Yuko Ogura, and more!
  

For our adult customers, we've got many new 18+ products. They include:

• For fans of incredibly beautiful Japanese kogals, we've got the new Urecco Gal, just loaded with the most beautiful girls you have ever seen
  
• For photobooks fans, we've got some great new items for you, including Kaori Shimamura's elegant new nude hardcover offering
  
• The lovely Haruka Nayuta is an incredibly beautiful "Cat Lady" from Japan, and we're sure you'll enjoy her sexy new photobook
  
• Also, we've got a very erotic "pop de cute" mini-photobook of the private love and sex of four fab girls from Tokyo, as well as fresh stock of many other great photobooks (Giri Giri Fish, Chinatsu Ride That Bicycle, and Smart Girls Remix)
  
• For hentai manga fans, we've got some great items for you, including SM Love Song by Onihime and the fantastic The Girl with Peek-a-Boo Breasts, by The Seiji, as well as a great new Love Hina/Please Teacher hentai doujinshi anthology manga
  
• Also, another large update of some really popular manga, including Pururun Seminar, See Through Angel, Lovea, and the dynamite Colors Anthology Comics
  
• Like erotic doujinshi? We have a half dozen or more new books for you, with great new items, Gundam Seed parody books, lesbian dick girl doujinshi and more, including the English-language Dirty Pair doujinshi Nostalgia
  
• We've restocked one of the most popular adult toys in our history, the cute and highly functional Rabbit Rotor, a compact little bunny that can do some amazing things
  
• For our DVD customers, we've got a great volley of new works for you, starting with more erotic late-night Japanese TV on DVD for you, with lots of fun sexual antics hosted by Nao Oikawa (region free)
  
• Then, for fans of Maria Takagi, who has become one of Japan's top AV stars almost overnight, we've got a super hardcore release by Calen (region free)
  
• See four beautiful girls in a major smack-down, in SOD's latest release in The Lesbian Fight series (region free)
  
• For fans of the old "Love and Ero Pop Magazine" by Soft on Demand, Lovers Pop, we've got a great SOD outlet release, featuring bold and fashionable sex in Tokyo's Yoyogi Park, and much more (region free)
  
• Then, fans of the busty Anna Ohura rejoice, as we've got a superb new DVD by this incredible woman, featuring four hours of her best busty sex! Enjoy some of her best sex ever, by customer request (region free)
  
• Then, for fans of dynamite hentai anime on DVD, we've got the new Let's Go Marine-chan, a fabulous Japan-released hentai anime title from PinkPineapple (region2)
  
• Finally, some great newly restocked DVD titles, including Masterpiece Concentation Outdoor Nude, Aoi Sora's super erotic Contrary Soap Heaven, Big Morkal's 4 hour sampler DVD and more Adult Video Wrestling for you to enjoy!
  

J-List has a lot of products, so it's not always easy to find what's new. You can use the easy "three day link" form, which we've re-enabled on the site, to easily find products that have been updated since you checked J-List last. Also, to see all products in J-List in order of when they were updated, just click the "view all products" in the upper left hand corner.

Do you love the anime films of Hayao Miyazaki? Remember that J-List stocks all the excellent region 2 DVD releases for Studio Ghibli movies like My Neighbor Totoro, Castle in the Sky Laputa, Princess Mononoke and his Lupin III classic, The Castle of Caliostro. These DVDs are released in Japan directly by the studio and include many features that make them great for collectors. All discs feature English subtitles and/or dubbed tracks and are great for fans who want the definitive versions of these anime classics overseen by Mr. Miyazaki himself. The only catch is, you need a region free DVD player to watch them -- and J-List humbly recommends the three excellent units we currently sell.

Greetings from J-List September 24, 2003

Hello again from the J-List team!

One thing you can say about Japan: driving here will make you a better driver. Between learning to park your car with less than 6 inches of space on either side to memorizing winding, narrow streets, driving in Japan can be a challenge. Although Japan has freeways connecting major cities, there's usually none between where you are and where you want to go, so almost all driving in Japan is done on normal city streets. Learning your way around a Japanese city is made more difficult by the fact that only the largest streets have names, and there's no way to refer to smaller streets other than "that one road with the beauty shop and the convenience store on it." This presented a challenge to me when I first came here: in order to learn my way around the city I loved in, I had to throw away American-style memorization-by-directions (e.g. "turn left on College Avenue") and had to instead envision where I wanted to go in 3-D in my mind. It was kind of a bizarre experience. Like the British, the Japanese drive on the right side of the road, so whenever I go back to the States I have to be extra careful to get my bearings straight before getting in the car. Watching which side of the road other drivers are driving on and doing what they do is usually enough to avoid problems.

Karaoke is, as you can imagine, quiet popular in Japan, and Japanese enjoy getting up and belting out their favorite songs in front of others. Invented by a musician named Daisuke Inoue back in the 1970's, karaoke machines are very popular throughout Japan, and today establishments from bars to restaurants to the public bath I take my kids to on weekends have machines so that customers can enjoy themselves behind the mike (at 200 yen per song). However, like many who try karaoke out for the first time, Japanese are uncomfortable singing in front of strangers, which is why the most popular way to enjoy this pasttime is the private karaoke box. Whenever the J-List staff goes out drinking to welcome a new staff member or have our year-end-party, we always go to a nearby karaoke box and belt out tunes -- Brent and me usually sing esoteric 80's anime songs in Japanese, which causes the Japanese staff to freak out a little. Unfortunately, the inventor of Karaoke didn't bother to patent his idea, and thus earned no money from one of the biggest technological booms to come along in decades.

2004 calendar sales are going great, and we're very happy with the response to the over 200 Japanese calendars we're offering for preorder. We've added some more calendars to our site, including Ryoko Yonekura, Ai Kato, and the lovely Korean star Yoon Son Ha, who has a big following in Japan. To help you choose lots of great 2004 Japanese calendars, we're giving 15% off any 4 or more calendars you buy! Just add them to your cart, and the discount will be applied at checkout. Of course we're applying the discount to preorders we've already received -- if you want to add to a current calendar order, too, just email us. Remember, these high-quality Japanese calendars make great Christmas gifts!

J-List has added a great new region-free DVD player to our lineup of products: the Lasonic DVF-982 Transportable DVD Player. With a smaller case that allows it to fit practically anywhere, this new player ads many features over the DVB-8092, including JPEG CD playback and a wireless audio transmitter feature, which allows you to listen to the DVD audio on any FM radio. It plays DVDs from all regions, and also features full PAL/NTSC conversion. Check out this great new player, in stock now in San Diego!

For the new update, we've got some excellent products from Japan for you. They include:

• First, for Street Fighter II lovers, we've got a very special series of figures from Capcom: pre-painted replicas of your favorite fighting characters -- trust us, these are really cool! (full sets are available)
  
• For Gremlins fans, we've got a very well made plush Gremlin by our friends at JUN Planning
  
• J-List has some cool items to make your Halloween special, including loose socks and school uniforms -- or how about a rubber Ultraman mask?
  
• Also, we've got fresh stock of the Hello Kitty kigurimi (full-head) mask and the cute Kitty plush bonnett
  
• We managed to sell out of the Alien Kubrick toys again in record time, but we've got more for you now, including full sets
  
• Sanrio fans can enjoy several only-found-in-Japan items, including a fun Kitty balloon set and a really cool Kitty not clipper (also use to keep potato chips fresh)
  
• Little Twin Star fans, enjoy a well-made Sanrio bento box, which we've got in stock for you now
  
• For fans of our Japanese snack foods, enjoy green bean snacks, tasty strawberry vitamin C candy, and a great item: Tiramisu pretzel treats, great for Pocky fans!
  
• Also, for smokers, we've got a great gum called Nicodass, that both replenishes the vitamins that smoking takes out, as well as removes the smoke from your breath
  
• Japanese "noren" curtains help partition rooms and create privacy -- we have more attractive noren curtains in stock for you
  
• We've got a really fun game for fans of cute things from Japan -- a game with sony's popular PostPet pink bear character
  
• For Totoro fans, we've restocked the popular Soot Sprite keychain and magnet plush, two extremely popular items with J-List customers
  
• Also, we've restocked several popular Totoro and Ghibli music boxes, as well as plush Totoro toys that are so cool
  
• Shirow fans have bought all the Shirow Masamune poster books, although another 200 of each is coming soon (feel free to order from the site) -- in the meantime, we've got fresh stock of Jashin Hunter for you!@
  
• For Japanophiles who want to wear their love for Japan on their sleeves, or their heads, we've restocked our Japanese wacky headbands
  
• Finally, find more quality chopsticks, a handy all-purpose carry bag, more pocket "go" sets, and more!
  

For our adult customers, we've got many new 18+ products. They include:

• For fans of quality adult magazines from Japan, we've got the very cool new Best Video and Video Boy, two visual magazines for fans of Japanese adult video, overflowing with Japan's most famous stars!
  
• Then enjoy the deluxe double-thick Mini-Suka & Panst DX, featuring 40 delicious girls wearing panties, mini-skirts and stockings, a superb item for leg fetish fans
  
• For fans of Japan's beautiful hardcover photobooks, we recommend Usagi Aino's fabulous nude photobook offering, a beautiful collection of superb photographs for you
  
• Then, enjoy the superb photobook of Masa Sato, a woman so beautiful you could dash yourself against her like a ship against a rock -- her new photobook was shot in Paris
  
• Also, we've got the pure, natural nude of Masumi, the "Legendary Nude Idol," in stock for you
  
• For hentai manga fans, enjoy several great new books for you, including Giant Breast Princess, Kirara Moe's Lovely Girl, an erotic maid fantasy Kiss Cue, and more
  
• Also, enjoy a restocking of popular manga titles, such as Please Enjoy the Pretty Girl, Very Satisfied with Five Body Parts, Free as a Bird and mor!
  
• For doujinshi fans, another great selection of offerings of superb hentai books, Ah My Goddess, Stellvia in Space, game girl sex and more
  
• For our DVD fans, we've got some great new offerings for you, starting with Mai Sakashita's very erotic 4 Hours Special DVD (region free)
  
• Then, for fans of the delightful Sola Aoi (also written Sora Aoi), enjoy a super hardcore release from Samantha, with sci-fi virtual sex and Aoi's sweet erotic body (region free)
  
• Pro Wrestling fans, enjoy the new 2-DVD release of Adult Video Wrestling, with innovative and exciting sex in the ring, and many top names (region free)
  
• Japanese have a fetish for "announcers" (newscasters), and SOD explores this with a new bukkake DVD release for you (region free)
  
• Enjoy the hot return of Mai Hagiwara in Mirukuru Returns, featuring some of Maichy's most erotic on-camera work ever (region 2)
  
• Then, enjoy a great new Dream Shower bukkake title featuring Bunko Kanazawa, for fans who really want to see Kanabun get creamed (region free)
  
• Finally, restocked and price-reduced DVD titles including The Idol and No Cut!! DVD releases, featuring three hours of great hardcore AV for you!
  

Remember that J-List is the only place where you can buy the excellent Himeya Soft games from C's Ware and get them sent from inside the U.S. We stock all the very nice dating-sim game titles from Himeya as well as Peach Princess, JAST USA, G-Collections, and Hobibox, and recommend them very highly to fans and collectors of Japan's bishoujo games.

Greetings from J-List September 22, 2003

Hello again from Japan, the country with car names like the Suzuki Joypop and the Daihatsu Nude.

One thing about Japan: it's a very seasonal place. Spring is beautiful with its short-lived cherry blossoms, summer is hot and humid with many fun festivals, fall is filled with crisp brown leaves, and winter is cold and frosty. People are very attuned to each season, too -- for example, summer is the season for girls to wear tanktops and show off their belly buttons, but all this comes to an abrupt halt at the 1st of September, when fall unofficially starts in the minds of people here. I've met many Japanese who tell me with great pride that, unlike America, Japan has four distinct seasons, and they enjoy every one of them -- apparently these people haven't ventured outside of Southern California. In keeping with this traditional of seasonality, products sold in one part of the year are virtually impossible to find out of season. Want to find swimwear in the fall or winter? Stores won't stock it. Want to enjoy hiyashi chuka (a cold ramen dish) or Japanese barley tea out of season? You can only find them in the summer months. Japanese calendars are only sold a few months before the end of the year (e.g. now), but outside of this window, you can't find a calendar in Japan for love or money. Part of living in Japan is getting in sync with the seasons around you, even if it can seem odd to foreigners who are used to a different rhythm.

One concept that enters into Japanese social interactions a lot is "enryo" (EN-ryoh), which means to exercise restraint or to defer to others. Basically, if a group of Japanese is eating pizza, it will take some time for one of the members to get around to taking the last slice, because of the tendency for each individual to defer to the others in the group -- until everyone is deferring to everyone else, and the pizza is getting cold. The concept of enryo rears its head when trying to make a decision among a group, too. Say a large group of people is trying to decide on a restaurant to go to. Each person will put out some feelers, trying to nudge the collective opinion of the group in one direction or another. If even one person in the group is inconvenienced by the group's decision (say, everyone wants to go for Indian food except one person, who wants Italian instead), the group will go back to the drawing board until they come up with an option that everyone can agree to.

Announcing the Closeout T-Shirt Sale! J-List carries many unique and funny T-shits, with bizarre messages in Japanese on them. There's one problem: having so many cool shirts in stock takes up a lot of room in our San Diego office. In order to clear out some of the older shirts and make room for new designs, we've discounted the close-out shirts. In order to help you help us move them out even faster, we're declaring a $1 shipping sale on the discounted shirts. Get a cool 100% cotton T-shirt printed in the U.S., and shipping on the shirt is just $1 ($4 outside of US/Can)! Note that sizes are subject to availability, and they will start to go fast. If you wear a larger size, it's a great day for you, since we've still got plenty of stock in XXL and XXXL for most of these shirts. Some of the shirts being closed out include Hiragana Man, I'm a Strange Foreigner, and the Akira parody shirts, After shirts are gone, we invariably have people asking if they can buy them again -- avoid this by getting your shirt now!

For the special Monday update, we've got some great items for you, starting with:

• First, Shirow Masamune fans rejoice: we've got our order of the Shirow poster-and-trading-card books in stock, so if you didn't order your copies yet, you can do it now
  
• For Domo-kun lovers everywhere, we've got another "really big Domo" for you, a 24 inch tall super-huggable Domo plush pillow that will dominate any room you put him in
  
• Also, for fans of Tezuka Osamu, we've got Astro Boy and Jungle Emperor Leo (aka Kimba the White Lion) anime throw pillows -- so cool!
  
• My wife and I are fans of Takara's Licca dolls, a cute fashion doll that is the "anti-Barbie" because she's a demure Japanese school girl -- we've got stock of the very cool Kogal Licca doll, one of our favorites
  
• Also, see a very cute figure from Yujin's Figure Maniacs series, Lune Cardiff
  
• For Totoro fans, we've restocked the best-selling My Neighbor Totoro DVD release, which features both English and Japanese soundtracks and subtitles as well as many extras added by Hayao Miyazaki
  
• Also, look for fresh stock of the very detailed PVC statues of Totoro and Laputa, by Cominca
  
• For swimsuit idol fans, enjoy the super-cute photobook offering of Asaki Yoshida, as well as fresh stock of Yuko Ogura's delightful photobooks
  
• If you love Japanese snacks, we've got some great items for you, including Mitsuya Cider hard candies (these are really good), and Astro Boy hot chocolate
  
• Also, by customer request, we've got the delicious cola flavored bubblegum made by Marukawa, a popular gum with Japanophiles all over the world
  
• If you remember Speed Racer, we've got a treat for you: the only-sold-in-Japan Speed Racer Hot Wheels car, with great detailing and full Hot Wheels quality
  
• For students of Japanese, we recommend the Canon Wordtank electronic dictionaries, which is a superb way to find any Japanese word quickly -- we've restocked the best-selling IDC-310 and IDF-4600 for you
  
• We've got some soft all-purpose bags which are great for carrying anything, popular with young Japanese girls in Japan these days
  
• For Hello Kitty fans, we've got more Kitty goods you can't find outside of Japan, like a cool contact lens case set, cute Kitty notebooks, the Kitty toy camera and cash register, and more
  
• For Blythe fans, we've restocked the Cinnamon Girl and Hollywood Returns doll sets, very stylish and sleek
  
• Finally, find more adult length chopsticks, a restocking of bento related items, and more!
  

For our 18+ customers, we've got some great products for adults. They include:

• For fans of the excellent Penthouse Japan and Penthouse Special, magazines that feature only Japanese models photographed by Japanese photographers, we have the great new issues in stock for you!
  
• Also, additional stock of discounted magazines, starting at just $5 -- check them out!
  
• For photobook lovers, don't miss out on Erotic Revolution, the fabulous lingerie photobook by Race Queen Akane Souma
  
• Also, we've got the pure and lovely nude of Mirano Matsushita for you, too, a lovely book that we recommend, as well as the delightful pocket photobook of beautiful girls in costume paradise
  
• For fans of girls' cat fighting, a growing fetish in Japan, we've got a fun all-cat fight bondage book, featuring pretty girls slugging it out
  
• For hentai manga fans, we have some great new books for you, including a tale of petite sexual robots, a great doujinshi anthology, and the excellent Shot Through the Heart by Mujin Comics
  
• Also, we've got some dynamite new doujinshi, fresh released at the past Comic Market -- enjoy Gundam Seed, Please Teacher and game girl hentai doujinshi for you, as well as several new CD-ROM collections of hentai images
  
• Also, Yasu has made a general restocking of manga and doujinshi, with many items back in stock, including the great works of Fujio Okamoto, Capricious of You, Festival for Lovers, Branded, and the popular "dick girl" books of Behind Moon
  
• For yaoi lovers, we've got another very interesting collection of erotic stories, this time with a focus on men who wear glasses
  
• Then from Wani, we've got a fabulous art book of gothic hentai art compiled by four talented artists, something that's not to be missed
  
• Also, fresh stock of the excellent erotic art books of Satoshi Urushihara
  
• If you like our unique adult toy products, which feature products made exclusively for the Japanese market, we've restocked the popular "Japan Rotor" egg-style vibrators, as well as the inflatable Hitomi Hayasaka Love Pillow
  
• For our DVD customers, we've got some great new items for you, starting with a new Masterpiece Concentration of the tragic Nozomi Momoi -- celebrate her life with her latest release (region free)
  
• Maria Tagaki star is really rising fast -- see Super Star, her great new release from Calen (region free)
  
• Explore the world of lesbian kissing and sex in a new release from Soft on Demand, featuring pure lesbian sex with only women (region free)
  
• Then enjoy more all-nude volleyball, this time with erotic and experienced "jukujo" or older women, aged 25-30 (region free)
  
• Then from Moodyz, enjoy the "G-Style" sex of busty AV gal Yuria Yoshinaga, G cup, whose delightful sex will thrill you (region 2)
  
• Then, the lovely Ayana Minami is sacrificed at the altar of Black Bukkake, in a new "Japanese girl vs. big black men" bukkake special (region 2)
  
• Finally, look for freshly restocked and price-reduced DVDs, including Nao Oikawa's Bukkake Ittassho in Los Angeles, Amateur Bukkake, lesbian offerings and more!
  

Remember that J-List carries excellent magazine by our "reserve subscription." This means that you can get great anime, JPOP, fashion and other magazines sent to you as soon as the new issue is out in Japan -- a few days earlier than newsstands receive them here, in fact. We recommend great items like Young Magazine Uppers, a superb manga magazine that features Shirow Masamune's newest posters in special issues as well as great comic art from some of Japan's best manga-ka (manga artists). Payment through any method is fine (credit card, Paypal, check or money order) and you can stop your subscription at any time.

Greetings from J-List September 19, 2003

Hello and Happy Friday from your friends in Japan!

I think that everyone should pick a country and go live there for at least a year -- no matter what else happens, you'll really come to appreciate your own home country like never before. In the U.S., most homes have central heating, and you can warm your entire house from one control panel. That's all but unheard of in Japan, where kerosene heaters the Japanese call "stoves" heat each room individually -- the smell of kerosene burning brings instant memories of frosty winters in Japan to me. Japan's doctors are very good, but when I buy medicine I prefer to buy what I'm used to in the States, Advil, Nyquil and so on -- they work much better on my large gaijin body than what's sold here. In America, it's not uncommon to start up a friendly conversation with someone standing next to you in a store, but in Japan, where people have invisible barriers around them, that's almost never done. Americans enjoy incredible choice when they shop, but they're used to that so they don't think much about it. When fruits or vegetables are out of season at the supermarket, they're shipped in from other countries, but in Japanese supermarkets, when a something isn't in season, it's usually not to be found at any price, and people just go without. Yes, I love Japan, but my time here has come to make me appreciate how great my home country is, too.

When learning Japanese, it's always fun to learn the "gitaigo," a category of descriptive words similar to onomatopoeia in English, which describe the state of objects or actions. Because they consist of repetitions of words, they are very cute and fun to use. If you're really hungry, the Japanese would say that you're "peko peko," a word which describes the way you feel when your stomach is very empty. Alternately, "kara kara" describes your throat when you're very thirsty. If you get soaking wet in the rain, you're "bisho bisho," and if your skin is especially smooth and clean, someone might say it's "sube sube" (SOO-bay, SOO-bay, a word which comes from suberu "to glide"). And if you're a little on the plump side, you might be described as "puyo puyo," a word which sounds cute to the Japanese. Some other fun repeating words are "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). Also, "bishi bishi" (doing things quickly and efficiently, without delay), "dara dara" (doing things slowly, being lazy), "pika pika" (being sparking brand-new, e.g. the sound of gleaming with newness), "boro boro" (being old and dilapidated), "pera pera" (being fluent in a language) and "giri giri" (GEE-ree GEE-ree, with hard G's, a word that means "barely" or "just in time," as in, "we made onto the train in the nick of time," or in the case of a very revealing swimsuit, one that almost shows the woman's nude form). There is an endless supply of these highly descriptive words, and they're quite fun to use.

Dating-sim game price reductions! We're reducing the prices of three classic games from Peach Princess to just $24.95. Now you can enjoy X-Change, Snow Drop and Critical Point at these great new prices. All are great multi-scenario erotic adventures that are great for fans -- enjoy the new discounted games!

For the new update, we've got some excellent products from Japan for you. They include:

• First, for all fans of wild and wacky toys from Japan, we've got Pulip dolls, a really cool full-sized doll similar to Blythe, but with fabulous modern gothic styling -- scary and cool
  
• For Totoro fans, a rare treat -- plush fingerpuppets of the great Totoro characters, a product by Sun Arrow
  
• For Shirow Masamune fans, we've restocked his best-selling Intron Depot 3 art book, filled with his most incredible artwork ever
  
• For fans of our Japanese snacks, we have classic Japanese caramel corn, tasty blueberry "dessert jelly", and for those who want to sample the current health trend in Japan, goma (sesame seed) flavored hard candy...!
  
• Also, fresh stock of one of my own favorite items, Japanese kuro-ame ("black candy") caramels from Morinaga
  
• Enjoy to really cool Japanese cars, the Nissan Fairlady Z and the Honda S2000, rendered in perfect die-cast detail by Tomica
  
• Licca-chan is a super cute line of dolls sold by the Takara toy company for three decades -- now she's been reborn into a "bishoujo Licca" series of cute anime-style figurines, check them out
  
• For bento box fans, we've got a very special item for you: a deluxe Hello Kitty bento box that features separate compartments, large size, and is microwavable for your convenience -- comes with a cloth carrying bag, too
  
• Enjoy the Nyanko Restaurant series, which features super-cute kitty cats baked into famous Japanese dishes -- comes with random Nyanko figures and chocolate cookies
  
• We've got more Japanese signs, this time a Japanese no smoking sign
  
• For those who want to enjoy some Japanese items in their homes, we have traditional Japanese "noren" curtains, which make a nice barrier between one room and another
  
• For fans of famous Japanese swimsuit idols, we've got the superb "mook" (magazine + photobook) of Yoko Matsugane
  
• Finally, enjoy wacky footwear from Japan, more variations of furikake and miso soup, more of the "Joyful Impression" soft cases that hold just about anything, more Hello Kitty business card holders, Japanese bamboo ear cleaners, and other great items. Check them all out!
  

For our adult customers, we've got many new 18+ products. They include:

• For fans of Japanese magazines, we have the sexy new Dela Beppin, the deluxe Beppin that features knock-down gorgeous AV idols and amateur Japanese gals for you
  
• Also, the new issues of Shuffle and Sasotte Ageru ("I'm gonna ask you out"), two great amateur magazines from Japan
  
• For photobook fans, enjoy the sexy "giri giri" (almost nude, see above) fetish of Haruka, along with the sexy CC Girls, and Ayano Yoshikawa's lovely body
  
• We've got fresh stock of the very cool pocket-sized photobooks too, including fresh stock of the popular photobooks which feature pretty high school girls wearing the uniforms of famous schools in Japan
  
• For hentai manga customers, we've got another volley of great books, including Apple Comic's Dangerous Play, a new issue of Love Junkies, and the superb Secret Service by Towai Raito
  
• Also, a dozen or more restocked items, including the dynamite Nami SOS series, Oshiri Excellent, Older Sister's Secret, as well as a general restocking of Paradise Lost, the excellent hentai Evangelion doujinshi anthology series
  
• Also, a great new yaoi comic with erotic kemono themes, great for yaoi fans everywhere
  
• If you love doujinshi, we've got more brand new ones, with great books parodying Final Fantasy X-2, Mobile Suit Gundam, and more
  
• We've also some great CD-R releases of erotic artwork by Japanese doujin-soft (amateur made computer images) circles
  
• Also, an artbook with the collected visual works of talented hentai artist Keisuke Kawara
  
• For the pre-weekend update, we've got some great DVDs, starting with a new Masterpiece Concentration release featuring 120 minutes of Shinobu Kisugi -- very erotic (region free)
  
• The lovely Aoi Sora (also written Aoi Sola) really shines in her new erotic release, The Secret of Younger Sister (region free)
  
• The super busty G-cup Ayami Sakurai is dynamite to see in the new SOD release, My Only Pet is Female Teacher (region free)
  
• For bukkake fans, enjoy the great Idol Semen Super Edition, which brings some of the best cup-showering scenes in SOD's history on one disc for you (region free)
  
• From Moodyz, we've got value-price reissue of one of our favorites, Akira Watase's poetically erotic "Do you wanna Fuck?" (region 2)
  
• Then, enjoy more Japanese women vs. big, black men from the U.S. in a new Moodyz release, "The Girl of a Beautiful Big White Bust, a Black Man, and Sex" (region 2)
  
• Finally, we've got fresh stock of some cool DVDs, including Lesbian 120 Minutes, the massively popular Gold Bird and Euro Angels (featuring the Romanian gold medalist Lavinia Milosovici doing nude gymnastics), and fresh stock of the sold-out Animation & Marchen hentai DVD collections.
  

Remember, J-List carries videos, magazines, photobooks and other items featuring the lovely Yulia Nova, the famous Russian nude model who has become a sensation in Japan and all over the world. J-List is the official international distributor for Yulia goods, and we've got an excellent lineup of her products for you. If you buy 3 or more of Yulia's products (videos, photobooks etc) you get an automatic 10% discount when you checkout, too.

Bewildered at Bishoujo? Confused about Kogal? Head hurting over Hentai? If you're confused at some of the terms used on the J-List site and this updates list (which can be quite out there, we admit), be sure to check out our online J-List Glossary of Terms -- the link is on our site, right below the product category listing on the left side of your browser window. We explain all confusing terms from Anime to Tekoki and more. If there are any terms we haven't covered adequately, please let us know.

Greetings from J-List September 15, 2003

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Greetings from J-List September 12, 2003

Hello again from all of us in Japan!

The second anniversary of the September 11 tragedy was marked in Japan as well as around the world. The Japanese have a great respect for America and the city of New York, and it was the highest point of pride for a Japanese company or bank to have its offices in the famous World Trade Center buildings. Japanese trained for years, hoping for the chance to be assigned to such a prestigeous post. There were 31 Japanese firms in the two buildings, including some of the most famous banks and trading companies such as Dai-Ichi Kangyo Bank and Fuji Bank. Although it was a terrible tragedy for many, happily all but 24 of the estimated 500 Japanese nationals who had been working in the buildings were able to escape safely.

"You've been in Japan too long when NHK warnings about landslides and other natural disasters make you feel reassured that someone is benevolently watching over you." NHK, short for "Nippon Housou Kyokai" or the Japan Broadcasting Association, is the government-run broadcasting network in Japan, roughly equivalent to the BBC in Britain. Creating a wide variety of programming, from samurai dramas that teach Japanese classical history, to educational programs for kids, to some well-known anime shows like Cardcaptor Sakura and Nadia of the Mysterious Sea. Sumo wrestling, the national sport of Japan, is covered on TV and radio by NHK, and they show many TV shows from overseas (like Ally McBiel and Sesame Street). But NHK is most famous for news, and the calm, droning voices of the newscasters provide a warm security blanket that covers all Japan, from Hokkaido in the north to Kyushu in the south. As with the BBC, the Japanese spoken by NHK's newscasters is considered the absolute base for standard Japanese.

Magazine Sale! J-List carries many adult magazines from Japan like Urecco, Gal's Dee and many more. We've been doing some spring cleaning around here and have uncovered several dozen magazines which were thought long sold out -- but which are available once again. The best news is that most of these rare items are available at great prices, most at $5. To see these magazines, which often feature girls who have retired and won't be available again, see magazine pages 2 & 3, or view all J-List products and keep scrolling down. But do it fast -- most of these bargain-priced magazines will go fast!

For the new update, we've got some excellent products from Japan for you. They include:

• First, for those curious about Japan's famous interactive anime games, we've got a great item for you: Phantom of Inferno, a beautiful interactive game with great art, music and story, which you play on any standard DVD player, or DVD software on your computer -- fully translated into English
  
• For Domo-kun fans, we've got a special item: a deluxe set of plush keychains that include all the fun and bizarre characters of the Domo-kun universe
  
• For Gundam fans, a cool set of dioramas recreating famous scenes from the history of the Gundam universe -- with full sets available (no need to buy duplicates)
  
• Also very cool, we have the just-released Alien Kubrick toy line from Medicom Toy, which includes incredibly detailed replicas of characters from Ridley Scott's classic film -- the detail of the Alien and Nostromo spacesuit are especially cool, and we have full sets in stock
  
• We love to carry wacky things from Japan, and parody condoms are part of that fun -- find Pokemon and Superman joke condoms on our site today
  
• JPOP fans won't want to miss the limited edition photobook box set for fans of Maki Gotoh, the former Morning Musume who put the group on top of Japan's charts -- it's a really special item for Gomaki fans!
  
• Harumi Nemoto is an incredibly popular swimsuit model in Japan, a model of a new kind of Japanese woman who is self assured in her beauty and sexiness -- see her newest photobook in stock for you
  
• For fans of Hello Kitty goods sold only in Japan, we've got some cool new items, including a leather coin purse and a plush Kitty tissue cover
  
• Also, if you've wanted to get some of the super-cute Usacolle toys, featuring the super cute Usako Friends characters, we have really cool magnets in stock for you -- for now at least
  
• Then for fans of delicious Japanese snacks, enjoy unique Japanese potato chips, tomato-flavored stick snacks, wakame soup, hashed potato treats and more
  
• For Macross fans, a real treat: a limited edition recreation of the orange training mech from the Macross 1984 movie, complete with full transformability and replica figures of Hikaru and Minmei in the cockpit
  
• Then, for fans of traditional Japanese images, we have some beautiful hand-created stickers featuring Lucky Cat, cherry blossoms and other images, a really unique item from Japan
  
• Keep cold drinks cold with a handy 500 ml PET bottle holder from Japan
  
• We've restocked the popular Harry Potter bento boxes from Japan, a great way to mix your Japanese and British culture
  
• For fans of wacky Japanese erasers, which are very popular here, we've got more Japanese traditional sweets erasers in stock, with full sets included
  
• Also, we've got fresh stock of the miniature "ekiben," or train station bento lunches, including full sets of this great item from Japan
  
• We've also restocked most flavors of gum from Japan, including Black Black caffeine gum, delicious Ume (Japanese plum) gum, Dakara ("Pocari Sweat" gum) and more
  
• For fans of Shirow Masamune, we've added stock of the great bilingual Ghost in the Shell manga, which features a totally new translation from the original English release
  
• Also, for Japan Hot Wheels fans, see fresh stock of the K.I.T.T. and Airwolf vehicles
  
• For fans of Blythe, the beautiful doll series from Takara, we have fresh stock of several popular items
  
• Finally, we've got a great 2004 schedule book that is of great use to any Japanophile, more delicious Mill Make, a milk drink enjoyed by all Japanese children for decades, more useful chopsticks for adults, and other great items!
  

For our adult customers, we've got many new 18+ products. They include:

• For fans of beautiful, busty Japanese ladies, we've got the new Gal's Dee in stock for you -- and it's a lovely one, with all of Japan's top busty idols as well as sexy Tokyo amateurs
  
• For photobook lovers, we've got some nice items, including Maria Takagi's super sexy nude photobook, erotic and beautiful to behold
  
• Also, fresh stock of some popular photobooks, including ones by Bunko Kanazawa, Nao Oikawa, Aoi Sora and more, as well as more high school uniform mini photobook
  
• Then enjoy fresh stock of some great magazines like Deka Melon and One-X, just for you
  
• For our hentai manga customers, we have some excellent new works for you, including Gekka Saeki's "Sexy and Charming Wife's Apron," the erotic "Delusion Mania Girls" by MD Comics and more
  
• We've also got a great big restocking of classic hentai manga for you, including Sinful Days 1 & 2, After S, the Chobits hentai anthology, and great works from Fujio Okamoto
  
• Also, a rare treat for fans of Youhei Kozou's Punky Knights manga art -- a special edition erotic CG collection sold only through J-List, which features *uncensored* artwork by the famous artist
  
• Also, for yaoi fans, a great issue of Gush Mania, featuring compilations of erotic yaoi stories from 13 artists, with 320 pages of content for you
  
• We've also restocked several issues of AG, the magazines of "art, sex and CG culture" which presents great Japanese manga translated into English
  
• For fans of hentai animation, we've got a cool treat for you: two bargain-priced hentai anime featuring classic animated erotica by semi-pro and amateur animators in Japan -- great fun for hentai fans, 100+ mins each (region free)
  
• Then enjoy Japan's fetish for beautiful girls from Eastern Europe, in Hame Hame Prague, Czech Girls, featuring drop-dead beautiful girls from the Czech Republic, performing Japanese-style adult video (region free)
  
• Then from Soft on Demand, the lovely Ai Kurosawa, who is an indies performer now, shows you some of her best sex and soapland erotica, including her first lesbian experience (region free)
  
• Then see the dynamite Mai Haruna as she fulfills your erotic anime cosplay fantasies, with parodies of Cutey Honey, Urusei Yatsura, and The Matrix Reloaded -- it's cool (region free)
  
• For fans of the sultry, sexy Ran Asakawa, enjoy her super-erotic new release "Continuation of Merciless Sexual Language" (region 2)
  
• Finally, see freshly restocked DVD titles, including Leg Fetish Best Selection (both volumes), Dream Woman with Asuka Sawaguchi ("gorgeous actress and semen shower"), Miyuki Kasuga's popular The Idol release, and Sakura Sena's top-quality Sexy Boing! DVD -- also, see many reduced priced DVDs on the site as well!
  

Remember that J-List makes dozens of magazines available through our "reserve subscription" system. Basically, we'll pre-reserve the current issue of each month's magazine for you and have it in the mail to you by the time it's in bookstores here in Japan -- a few days earlier, since we get our stock earlier than most bookstores. Some magazines we recommend including Gothic & Lolita and FRUiTS (for those who want to keep their finger on the leading edge of Japanese fashion), Megami Magazine (a great anime magazine filled with posters and free stuff), and Figure King (superb toy magazine -- follow the hottest action figure trends from Japan). See the magazine subscription pages or search for "subscription" from any J-List page.

The top 5 lists have been updated so you can browse the most popular manga, toy, magazine, photobook and other items on J-List over the past week.

J-List customers tell us that the #1 way they hear about J-List is through word-of-mouth. We're very glad to hear this, and we're always happy to accept referrals! If you've got a friend who might be interested in our unique brand of Japanese pop culture, why not tell them about J-List, or ask them to sign up to our J-List updates? Thanks!

Greetings from J-List September 10, 2003

Hello again from Japan, where the municipal employment office is called Hello Work.

As in most countries in the world, modern Japanese culture has been changed by the arrival of the "keitai denwa" or portable phone, which virtually all Japanese seem to own. The Japanese market for cellular phones is red-hot, with companies like NTT Docomo and J-Phone (bought by Vodaphone and recently rebranded with the Vodaphone name) and Au competing to bring the best products to consumers. Being the Microsoft of Japan, NTT's Docomo is a gorilla that beats up the competition pretty badly, and their pioneering iMode, the first system to let you surf web pages on your phone, is a category-killer. Their 3-G FOMA system is going head-to-head with Au's CDMA-1, which has a good edge both in Japan and worldwide. (We like CDMA because it was designed in San Diego.) Some Au phones can also be used outside of Japan, although the extra charges are still quite high. Phones that take pictures have been popular in Japan for a long time, and newer phones offer the ability to record MPEG-4 movies, play Java games, find yourself on a GPS map, and so on. Phones that have an LCD screen on the outside of the phone, so you can see the face of the person calling you, are popular now, too. Japanese are quite adept at sending email with portable phones, and it's funny to see high school girls typing at a very high speed using just their thumbs on the tiny keypad.

What color are your eyes? All Japanese people have brown eyes, although if you ever ask them what color their eyes are, they'll tell you "black" (because the center of the eyes are black, as opposed to the iris). Japanese are often interested in the eyes of foreigners, since they come in different colors, something totally unknown in Japan (although they do sell color contact lenses here). Yet when I tell them that my eyes change color depending on what I'm wearing, changing from green to hazel to blue (they do), they usually don't believe it's possible. Once, we were asked by our Spanish teacher, a Japanese who grew up in Peru, if I saw the world through a blue or green tint because of the color of my eyes. It was kind of a weird experience...

One of the social elements at work in Japanese daily life is the "myth of Japanese uniformity." Just as Westerners who haven't had much experience with Japanese people might say "they all look alike" to them (don't worry, it's a natural reaction, especially when you come here for the first time), Japanese have a tendency to act as if the Japanese race was completely pure and unified, with everyone looking pretty much the same as everyone else. Japanese all have the same color eyes, it's true, but their other features can be extremely varied -- hair color and texture, skin shade, shape of the nose and face, height, facial and body hair, and so on. Inside the "unified" Japanese gene pool there are genes from the Ainu, the original inhabitants of Northern Japan, as well as Korea, China, Mongolian, South America, and increasingly, America and Europe (like my kids). All of the genes create more and more variation in what Japanese people look like, yet Japanese tend not to "see" these differences, and go on believing that Japanese are all pretty much exactly the same as each other. This can be quite a useful thing, since it removes internal strife inside Japan based on perceived differences, although it's an odd concept to get used to, but for the most part, Japan is one big happy in-group. Tokyo mayor Shintaro "The Japan That Can Say No" Ishihara, whose politics are sometimes a bit to the right of Atilla the Hun, recently admitted that Japanese do indeed have blood from a variety of regions in their veins.

At J-List, as love all forms of Japanese pop culture, including the wacky adult and hentai, which is not in short supply in Japan. Today we're happy to announce Casual Romance Club, a bold new kind of total dating simulator released by Libido. Suddenly without reason, love takes you by surprise. Do you want to have a serious romance? Keep it simple at first by joining the Casual Romance Club. Not only is the game released in Japan with a full English translation (including a first for bishoujo games, voice actors who speak English as well as Japanese), it comes with a deluxe 48 page hardcover data book on the characters and gaming system. Since Casual Romance Club is a Japan release, it's stocked and shipped out of J-List's Japan office. Requires Windows 98/Me/2000/XP and a DVD-ROM drive.

For the new update, we've got some excellent products from Japan for you. They include:

• First, for fans of Japanese pretty idols -- check out the "Monthly Yuko Itoh" dedicated magazine/photobook, just lovely
  
• Also, a nice hardcover mini-photobook featuring Minako Komukai, a beautiful girl who wears a kimono, yukata, and bikini of the camera
  
• Then enjoy a great short movie and "gravure image" (Japanese parlance for sexy photos and video of in bikini) featuring the lovely Fumina Hara, a truly beautiful Japanese lady (region 2)
  
• For fans of unique Japanese toys from Japan, we've got a really cool Dragonball Z series of figures, Gokuh, Piccolo and Vegeta, rendered in beautiful soft vinyl
  
• Also, fresh stock of the very cool Amazing Weapons series, miniature recreations of the bizarre weapons invented during World War II as only the Japanese could create them
  
• If you love Naruto, we've got some really cool "detail stickers" for you
  
• For fans of Japanese Hot Wheels, which are sold exclusively in Japan, we have some cool new items, vehicles from bizarre TV shows of the 1970's
  
• For fans of our Japanese food items, we've got several unique delicacies from Japan, delicious "butter caramel," tasty bread sticks from japan, and more
  
• We have more chopsticks from Japan, too, which are extra-easy for adults to use
  
• For those interested in Buddhism, we've got some beautiful Buddhist beads for use as decoration or as an accessory, very nice
  
• If you want to keep your car looking nice, get a cute canvas trash bag for the back -- it's got wacky English on it too!
  
• For Hello Kitty fans, we have a cute toy vacuum cleaner -- wind it up and watch it go -- as well as fresh stock of various other from-Japan Kitty items
  
• We've gotten in a major restocking of miniature toys w/ ramune candy, including the Chinatown and miniature sushi sets -- with full sets restocked and ready for you to order
  
• Also, look for various new Domo-kun items, including several popular items which had sold out (including the "really big Domo-kun plush")
  
• Finally, look for Japanese train pass holders, a great way to scoop rice, more mosquito incense to kill the pesky bugs, sushi molds for making sushi, more minty eyedrops from Japan, and more!
  
• For our adult customers, we've got many new 18+ products. They include:
  
• For fans of high-quality Japanese adult magazines, we've got the new issue of Urecco, and it's a great one, with dozens of ripe, beautiful girls for you to check out
  
• Also, we've got the great new issue of Photo Shot, featuring a host of superb erotic cosplay photos and top stars, like Alice Ogura, Sora Aoi, Ryoko Mitake, Hitomi Hayasaka, and Yuko Ogura
  
• Then enjoy the first issue of Ryu-gu ("Dragon Shrine"), featuring superb hardcore sex by Japanese bad girls, a real treat
  
• Also, for fans of magazines with a focus on kogals, we've got a great new issue of Yes!! featuring dozens of loose Japanese girls in love hotels
  
• For photobook fans, don't miss the super sexy nurse fetish photobook of Yoko Kumada, fast becoming one of the top sexy idols in all Japan, as well as fresh stock of Manami Suzuki's superb erotic photobook
  
• Also, a great issue of DVD Sand, featuring a full color hardcore magazine and a DVD with great cosplay "quickies" (region 2), along with fresh stock of the superb Ran Asakawa "More and More" magazine + DVD set
  
• For our hentai manga customers, we've got some great new books for you, including The Campus Legend Love Affair by Mujin Comics, sweet sex in everyday situations with Lovely Girl by female hentai artist Moe Kirara, and exploration of sex-on-train themes in Piko no Season as well as other works
  
• In addition to the excellent Casual Romance Club, we're happy to announce that X-Change 2 is back in stock after selling out for a week (more copies were being pressed) -- so be sure and check out this fabulous dating-sim game if you don't own it yet
  
• For our DVD customers, we've got some great titles for you, starting with a new bargain-priced "Masterpiece Concentration" release featuring the lovely sex of Ai Nagase (region free)
  
• Then enjoy some real sex of authentic soap girls in Tokyo, in a special look at this interesting world of Japanese soaplands, image clubs and lingerie pubs (region free)
  
• A bargain release on our SOD Outlet, we've got stock of the very cool Lovers Pop, a "sex magazine" on DVD featuring erotic content that's of interest to both men and women (region free)
  
• Explore the world of slutty women and lesbian sex in a new release from Dash, "A molester's woman is a lesbian" -- love those funny English titles (region free)
  
• Finally, Tomo has added fresh stock of several popular DVD titles, including Wet & See Through with Mirai Hoshizaki, Female Masturbation Study (Lesbian Version), the erotic Chikan Report, Deep's 2003 Masterpiece, erotic Gymnastics girls, and more -- see all the great new items!
  

J-List carries AG, the excellent manga magazine of "art, sex and CG culture," bringing superb English-translated hentai manga and more to adult readers. We love the format of the excellent magazine, which comes out every 2-3 months, and we offer reserve subscriptions for fans who want to make sure they don't miss an issue. We hope you'll support this great magazine by picking up all the issues. For your ordering convenience, it's stocked in our San Diego warehouse.

Like Star Trek or the Lord of the Rings? Then logic dictates that you see the video of Mr. Spock singing the Ballad of Bilbo Baggins if you haven't yet. I found a link here: http://www.game-revolution.com/download/trickyl/goodies/Video/baggins.mov (not sure if it will stay up when everyone on the list accesses it, but search Google if it stops working). Quicktime required.

Greetings from J-List September 8, 2003

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Greetings from J-List September 5, 2003

Hello and TGIF from Japan!

Although you may think of certain foods as sushi, sashimi, tempura and sukiyaki as popular Japanese dishes, the national food of Japan has got to be curry, or as the Japanese call it, curry rice. Curry spread to Britain during the 1700s and from there went all around the world. In Japan, curry is eaten on steamed white rice, and became popular at the start of the 20th century -- and now it's eaten more than any other kind of food. Japanese curry is thicker than the soup-like Indian curry, and many companies here compete to make the best blend of curry to appeal to consumers, making products with names like House The Curry, Vermont Curry, and Java Curry. Although Thai food is quite popular in parts of America, it's not very common here in Japan -- but Indian restaurants are always seem to be packed.

The Japanese do love tests. In addition to their world-famous college entrance exams, the Japanese have standardized tests for just about everything, with levels that are similar to the belt colors in karate and judo. Just about every subject, from abacus to waapro (word processing) to accounting have national tests that students and adults are encouraged to study for and take. The most famous standardized test in Japan is Eiken, also known as the Step Test, a series of tests that Japanese students take over the course of their lives -- level 3 while in junior high school, level 2 while in high school, and level 1 if they really want to try a challenging test after college. There are standardized tests for Japanese brush writing, penmanship, and even a test for calculating rapidly and accurately with a calculator. All sports have their own various standardized tests, too, to give students goals to attempt and clear as they progress in learning the sport. For gaijin like you or me, there's a test for learning Japanese called the Nihongo Noryoku Shiken or the Japanese Ability Test, taken each December at various cities around the world. Level 4 tests basic kana and kanji, levels 3 and 2 are progressively harder, and level 1 is a really difficult test required for all students who want to enter a Japanese university. Japan's test mania may seem odd, but it is a good way to motivate people to study and better themselves. I think the test is a great way for anyone studying Japanese to set a goal to work towards each year. For information on the Nihongo Noryoku Shiken, see http://www.jpf.org.au/slc/proficiency/proficiency.htm

We love the popularity our wacky Japanese T-shirts have enjoyed with J-List customers. In addition to the standard men's size T-shirts we carry in all sizes (S through 3XL), which are all printed in the U.S. on 100% cotton, standard-size shirts, we also have some great fitted baby doll T's for girls. One design we think is really cool is "Koguaru" (kogal), a tribute to Japan's spoiled bad girls, who dress so fashionably and who would never be seen without their keitai (portable phones). We've added a great new color of Koguaru shirt, allow you to choose between three great colors. See all our shirts on the site now!

For the new update, we've got some excellent products from Japan for you. They include:

• First, for fans of Hayao Miyazaki's films, we've got some great new items for you, including a Castle in the Sky Laputa deck of cards that's beautifully printed and a deluxe set of fabulous handmade Totoro stamps
  
• For fans of our unique Japanese snacks, we've got some new varieties, including seaweed and potato flavored pretzel sticks (they're good!), Japanese custard cookies, chicken in a can and Japanese-style worcester sauce
  
• Also, fresh stock of several delicious treats from Japan including Gummi Sushi (fruit-flavored sushi on marshmallow rice), Wata-Pachi (exploding pop rocks inside cotton candy), March of the Koalas chocolate-filled cookies and more
  
• We love to find cool Japanese toys for you, and one of our favorite series are the Kubrick toys by Medicom Factory -- see the fun Ponkikies bizarre toys we've got in stock for you, with full sets available!
  
• Got small electronics you want to protect? We've got some very handy soft foam cases that will protect just about anything from your iPod to a PDA and more
  
• For Hello Kitty fans, we've got some great new items, including a plush tissue box cover that will Kittify any living room, and cute Kitty reflective bracelets that are stylish and cute
  
• Another thing we love to sell are the very detailed die-cast Tomica cars -- see two cool colors of Mazda's RX-8, very cool!
  
• To beat the summer heat, why not get a folding fan in Ayumi Hamasaki-style leopard skin?
  
• We love Japanese bikini models, and one of our favorites is the lovely Megumi -- see a new photo magazine dedicated to this lovely girl
  
• Also, look for a great photobook featuring Hikaru Kawamura, the famous idol and Race Queen
  
• For fans of extremely cool miniature toys from Japan, we've got fresh stock of the Amazing Weapons series, featuring bizarre weapons invented during World War II (w/ full sets in stock)
  
• Also, fresh stock of the popular Japanese Summer Festival miniature series, so very cool
  
• For fans of high-quality anime statues from Japan, we've got a positively dynamite 1/6 scale pre-painted statue of Morrigan from Vampire Saviour, which stands a massive 13 inches high and is incredibly beautiful to behold
  
• For our female customers, we've added a cute new color of "Koguaru" (Kogal) T-shirts in a great fitted style that will make you look great -- a super item for girls who want to show off sexy
  
• Finally, sleep well with "minus ion" sheets for your pillow, more sushi makers and bento related items, cute Hello Kitty plastic bags, more funny Japanese signs, unique Japanese ear cleaners, and more!
  

For our adult customers, we've got many new 18+ products. They include:

• For fans of amateur sex in love hotels, we've got the new issues of "I'll Give Myself to You" and the perfect-bound issue of "I Want You To Look At Me" (love those Japanese names)
  
• Also, we've got the new issue of DVD Explosion 10 Hours, a great color magazine that features two 5-hour DVDs with a whopping ten hours of great sexual samples and quickies (region free)
  
• If you love big, glossy Japanese photobooks featuring beautiful women, why not check out the new photobook of Kyoko Fujikawa
  
• Also, we've got other great photobooks, including a selection of nudes by real "soap girls" who work in Japanese soaplands, where a man can get a pretty girl to wash his body
  
• For hentai manga fans, we've got some great new works for fans of bukkake, nurse fetish, dick girl and other classic erotic Japanese themes
  
• If you love dick girl and hentai game girl themes, we've got a great item for you: a new CG collection from Rebis, the "Androgynous ONLY circle," featuring extreme hentai artwork of your favorite video game gals
  
• For yaoi fans, we've got a new story of the exploration of love between friends, as well as fresh stock of several popular yaoi works
  
• For our DVD customers, rejoice: Aoi Sora stars in a great new release of the Contrary Soap Heaven series, in which beautiful AV idols go to be serviced by men instead of the other way around (region free)
  
• Then from SOD, enjoy a fun "penis study" release in which four beautiful rich girls study the male member in front of the camera (region free)
  
• From SOD's Chujitsudoh ("Hall of Sincerity"), we have a superb selection of bukkake and sweet sex featuring Mio Asakura (region free)
  
• Then for fans of the Soft on Demand Outlet, where you can find older titles at great prices, we've got the delicious seaside sex of Ruri Ayase, in her Virtual Venus release (region free)
  
• Then from Moodyz, we've got a great new bukkake with four delightfully erotic chijo (slut fetish), who explore bukkake and lesbian sex and more (region 2)
  
• Then enjoy a beautiful Dream Shower release featuring Nao-chan, the hot new indies AV star who's growing in popularity because she's so beautiful (region 2)
  
• Finally, we've added fresh stock of several popular DVDs, including cat right (girls slapping the shit out of each other), lesbian titles, black men and Japanese girl fetish, and more great titles by Asuka Sawaguchi, the clean sex idol from Japan.
  

Remember that J-List carries great collections of CG images from famous Japanese doujin-soft artists, who publish CD-ROMs of their computer artwork in lieu of comic-book format doujinshi. We especially love the Creamy Angel series, which features excellent hentai artwork with famous and original characters, as well as Dream World 2, featuring beautiful erotic images based on Evangelion. All art is uncensored, and images are included in full size so you can print them out, use them as desktop wallpaper, and more.

Also remember that J-List carries that great symbol of Japanese wacky pop culture, the Hello Kitty Vibrating Shoulder Massager, which is of course intended as massager for your neck and shoulders, although some would call it a Hello Kitty vibrator (imagine!). A licensed Sanrio item sold only in Japan, the unit features high and low massage modes, and a beautiful image of Kitty and her rabbit friend. It looks just great, in or out of case -- display it as a wonderful pop culture icon. Why not get a few, and give them out as gifts? (If you get 3 or more you get a 15% discount through the J-List shopping cart.) We're down to a few hundred of these left, so whether they will be in stock or not by Christmas is very doubtful.

Greetings from J-List September 3, 2003

Hello again from Japan, where an athlete is a "sportsman," a still photographer is a "cameraman" and an employee at a company is a "salaryman."

Well, I'm safely back in Japan after an eventless 14 hour flight. I had to give up the extra day I'd gotten for free when going to the U.S., and jumped from Monday morning to Tuesday afternoon in a single plane ride. Happily, jet lag is not too bad coming back to Japan, since you arrive more or less at bedtime and can get to sleep right away.

One of my favorite things about Japan are public baths and hot springs, and I take my kids to the bath at least a couple times per week. Public baths (sento) are a holdover from the old days when people didn't have baths in their homes, and had to go to a community bathing place. There are usually several different kinds of baths, including herbal baths, very hot baths, jet baths, and quite often an electric bath, which carries a low electric current. There's usually a sauna and a cold bath, too, to cool off if you get too hot. Hot springs are also very popular in Japan, and there are famous towns throughout the country where people come just to take a bath in the volcanically heated water. Japan is often known for having baths in which men and women bathe together, but this is actually very rare -- I've only found a mixed-bath once in all my years living in Japan. More common are "family baths" where a family can reserve a large bath for an hour and bathe together. Westerners are sometimes a little shy about getting naked in front of twenty other men, but no one thinks anything of it here in Japan. However, one thing that can be embarrassing is when you go to a bath which is cleaned by women, who come into the men's bath or sauna to take away old towels or straighten the buckets up. It's a little unnerving to have a group of women descend on you while you're naked in a bath, although like all things, you can get used to it. Public baths frown on customers with full-body tattoos (which in Japan means yakuza, Japan's mafia), so there are always signs informing customers "you can't take a bath with your tattoo." We liked these signs so much, we immortalized them on an original J-List T-shirt.

Beer is the preferred drink for Japanese after a hard day of work, and the Japanese beer market is always a busy place, with market leader Kirin defending strong challenges by Asahi and Japan's smaller breweries. The market has undergone many changes since the emergence of happo-shu, a low-malt beverage that tastes like beer but technically not beer. Because the taxes on happo-shu are much lower than on beer, it's much cheaper for consumers, and this has sparked a price war that has brought the prices of virtually all alcoholic beverages down to as much as half what they were a few years ago, contributing to Japan's ongoing problem of deflation. Every few months a new "limited" beer is released, like Sapporo's "A Winter's Tale" beer (sold only in the winter) or Kirin's "Sakura Beer" (supposedly brewed specially for enjoying flower-viewing in the spring). Now that Autumn is starting to show its face, the limited-edition Aki-Aji (Taste of Autumn) beers have started to appear in stores.

We're great fans of the films of Hayao Miyazaki, the most famous creator of animation in Japan, and we've had the honor of bringing many hundreds of cool Studio Ghibli toys, books, and DVDs to our customers. We're extremely happy to announce the preorder availability of the DVD release of Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind. Three different sets will be released: the 2-disc DVD complete with English subtitles and many extras; a figure set, which includes a limited-edition figure of Nausicaa; and a deluxe collector's set which adds a replica of an Ohmu insect and a beautiful painting by Mr. Miyazaki. The last time Studio Ghibli released limited-edition sets like this, we had over a hundred people clamoring to buy the last Laputa boxed sets we had, so we recommend that you get your order in early if you want one of the limited sets. Both of the limited sets will be sold on a first-come, first-serve basis in case not enough are available. The figure + DVD set is already sold out throughout Japan, so we expect it to be especially hard to stock.

For the new update, we've got some excellent products from Japan for you. They include:

• First, for fans of Gamera and other classic Japanese monsters, we've got a cool series of candy toys (Japanese figures that come with candy) recreating the best moments of the Gamera universe -- very cool!
  
• Also, for those who love Domo-kun, we have a deluxe phone strap (also useful as a key holder or camera strap) of Domo-kun and his TV set (watching NHK, of course).
  
• If you love Totoro, we've got some very unique and special hand-made plush toys that are crafted from chirimen, the fabric kimonos are made from
  
• For bento fans, we've got two great new bento sets, which feature everything you need to enjoy authentic Japanese boxed lunch, just like they do in anime'
  
• Also, enjoy cold drinks with you wherever you go with a 1.5 liter PET bottle cooler, great for picnics with your bento
  
• For fans of beautiful Japanese idols, enjoy the photobook of Manami Ozawa, a sweet and pretty swimsuit idol from Japan who you will want to protect and love
  
• Then, we've got some unique new Japanese snacks for you, including onion soup, delicious doria sauce, Curl brand potato sticks, and frozen matcha ice that's very tasty
  
• For fans of cool DVDs from Japan, we've restocked the excellent 2-disc release of My Neighbor Totoro and Spirited Away, which feature many extras from Mr. Miyazaki, as well as Samurai Fiction, OH! Mikey vol. 1, and more (all region 2)
  
• Bamboo is the best material for making chopsticks, and we've got some great extra-long chopsticks for you, with special ends that keep food from slipping -- great for cooking or eating
  
• Japanese minty eyedrops wake you up and keep you alert, and they're very popular all over the world -- see fresh stock of several brands added today
  
• For Hello Kitty fans, we've got some nice items, including a handy Kitty mesh holder that you can use to store anything in, as well as freshly restocked Kitty items
  
• If you love the miniature Japanese food toys, including famous desserts and traditional Japanese foods, we've restocked both on the site now (full sets are available too)
  
• For anime fans, see the cool Jiji Pencil Case and Nausica/Laputa Fox Squirrel plush toys from Sun Arrow
  
• Also, we've added fresh stock of several of the popular Hot Wheels toys, including the Speed Racer Mach 5, the Delorean from Back to the Future I and III, and more
  
• For those who like wacky Japanese around them, we've got some cute new Japanese sign plates for you
  
• Finally, find wacky Japanese notebooks with funny English on them, more furikake to sprinkle over your rice and miso soup, delicious Shike-Kix "hard gummi" candy, useful things for your room, and more!
  

For our adult customers, we've got many new 18+ products. They include:

• For fans of hardcore magazines from Japan, we've got the new issue of Do-Up!, which always shows you great sex by couples in love hotels
  
• Also, we've got the new issue of Yo!, which features dozens of Japanese amateurs and kogals getting it on for the camera
  
• For fans of married women, which is a big fetish in Japan, we've got the new Bizuma Hacker, featuring beautiful mature women aged 23-32
  
• For photobook fans, enjoy the beautiful body of Aki Hoshino, who poses in a super cute see-through school uniform for you, and a superb hardcover photobook by Haruka Nishimoto, a beautiful nude idol from Japan
  
• For manga collectors from Japan, we've got some excellent new titles for you, including The Fleshy Toilet of the Female Teacher, Inui Sekihiko's incredible kemono manga Fiesta, the incredible Temptation hentai manga by Keppi, and many more
  
• Also, for yaoi fans, check out the new erotic comic by Hanko Kagurazaka about male/male love in the workplace
  
• For DVD fans, we've got some great items for you, starting with a great bukkake work by the famous Kazuhiko Matsumoto, the AV director who single-handedly invented the category of bukkake in the 1990's -- his great new work is "totally fresh for you" (region free)
  
• Then enjoy the sex of office lady sex in a new work from Soft on Demand -- see the prim and proper female office workers (OLs) get it on after hours (region free)
  
• Then enjoy the excellent lesbian kissing fetish of SOD's Martian Devil label, with superb lesbian kissing, sex and more (region free)
  
• Then, enjoy superb "hip & leg" with a panty stocking club, featuring great leg, panty and panty stocking-fetish, from Waap Entertainment (region 2)
  
• Then, also from Waap, enjoy the "private face and sexual habit" of the beautiful natural gokkun girl, Nao, who cheerfully accepts bukkake from dozens of men (region 2)
  
• Finally ,we have some great new DVD titles for you, including various new Deep's and SOD titles, fresh stock of Aoi Sora's hardcore DVDs, and more!
  

J-List loves the DVD video format, and we stock over 800 DVD titles from Japan for you. While most of the adult DVDs from Japan are region free (meaning you can play them in any DVD player), anime and some high-end indies titles are zoned for region 2 only (including the new Nausica DVD release, mentioned above). To view these discs, we recommend a region free DVD player, such as the two we sell: the portable size Lasonic DVB-8092, and the full-featured Cybrhome DVD CH-500 deluxe player. Both players play DVDs from anywhere in the world, including PAL discs, MP3 and music CDs, CD-R and DVD-R media, and Video CDs. They also offer "set and forget" region free operation -- just access the secret menu with the remote control and the player is ready to go, forever. Also, we've lowered the price of the Lasonic player to just $98, making this an incredible deal, too!

Greetings from J-List September 1, 2003

Hello again from J-List!

The show has come to an end and Yasu and I are very tired. We've had a great time at BAAF, and also enjoyed seeing the sights of New York, but now it's time to go home. Tomorrow I leave for Japan, laden with many omiyage (oh-MI-ya-gay) for J-List staff and family. Yasu is going to take a few days off to visit Philadelphia, where he attended university, since he's in the neighborhood. We met a lot of great people at the convention, including many J-List customers who came by to say hello. Thanks to everyone!

Studying the names of Japanese companies can be interesting. For example, I'll bet you never knew that Kyocera is short for "Kyoto Ceramics." The number one car company in Japan is Toyota, which is located in Toyota City, Aichi Prefecture (near Nagoya) -- but the company came first, and the city changed its name later because the company was based there. The number two Japanese car company is Honda, founded by Soichiro Honda to make motorcycles after the end of World War II. Mazda, which is largely owned by Ford, is really called Matsuda in Japan. Datsun's name has an interesting story -- DAT were the first letters of the names of three founders, and they considered the company they were founding to be their son, thus DATSON. However, "son" (with a long vowel, so that it rhymes with bone), means "loss" or "disadvantage" in Japanese, so they changed it to "sun," a much more cheerful word. Datsun was later bought out by one of its distributors, Nissan (which means "Made in Japan"). Several Japanese companies grew out of Japan's "zaibatsu" (trade cartels) which had existed for hundreds of years, the three biggest being Mitsubishi, Mitsui, and Sumitomo.

Although Sumo wrestling is the official national sport of Japan, receiving special status from the Japanese government, the hearts of Japanese sports fans belongs to good old American baseball. There are twelve teams in Japan, organized into the central and pacific leagues. Teams often carry the names of the companies that own them, such as Yomiuri Giants (owned by the Yomiuri Newspaper Company), the Seibu Lions (Seibu is a department store that has a big sale when their team wins), and Yakult Swallows (Yakult is a popular yogurt drink). The strongest team in Japanese baseball is the Giants, which was led by the most famous man in Japanese baseball history, Shigeo Nagashima, until he retired in 2001. If you go to a Japanese baseball game, you might be surprised to see how organized the fans are. At Swallows games, fans bring a blue umbrella and do a traditional dance called the Tokyo Ondo at the bottom of the 7th inning. At Tigers games in Osaka, fans blow up balloons and release them into the air at the same time, also at the bottom of the 7th. Japanese teams hire foreigners (usually scouted from minor leagues in the U.S.) to help their teams, but they're only allowed to play two foreigners in any game, a limit that maintains the "Japaneseness" of the sport here. Although Baseball was imported from the USA, it was considered "unpatriotic" to use English during World War II. As a result, virtually all the terms used in baseball are written with archaic kanji derivatives (i.e. "one death" in place of "one out"), although the English words are also used when speaking the terms out loud.

For the big new update, the J-List staff has added dozens of great new products to the site for you. They include wacky Buddhist prayer beads that you can wear, cool Hello Kitty items including Kitty calculators, more Totoro stamps, more snacks and food items, cool Dragonball figures, Japanese cute erasers that look like fruits, the rare Macross 1/48 scale Max Jenius version fighter, and more wacky items from Japan. For adult customers, we have many new products on the site, too. Please see them if you are over 18.

J-List carries over 2000 unique products from Japan, a lot of products for you to check out. You can always view all products using the handy "view all products" link in the upper left hand corner of every page. All products are displayed, with the most recently added or updated products showing at the top, cascading down in order. It's a great way to check out everything that's new at J-List!