Good and Bad Design in Japan

There are many reasons to like a given anime series, including a truly fresh story approach, characters with endearing moe features, wanting to study the technical aspects of creating high-quality animation, or, well, fanservice and pantsu. I often find myself drawn to shows with a high level of design, in which creators have taken the extra time to create a unique and visually stunning world to place their characters in. There are quite a few outstanding series with excellent design, from Lain to Jigoku Shojo to Spice and Wolf to Sayonara, Zetsubou Sensei and the new Sasami-san@Ganbaranai. One of my eternal favorites is the Bakemonogatari series, in which every frame of animation and every line spoken by the talented voice actors is designed to draw viewers into a unique world.

Sadly this dedication to excellent design doesn't extend to the web, and one of the things I dislike the most is using web forms on Japanese websites, which generally come from a very dark part of design hell. There's something about Japan that makes them especially bad at creating online forms that are easy to use, and every time I need to enter information into a form on a Japanese website I know it'll be an exercise in frustration. Sometimes the problems are needlessly technical, like requiring that users type some information in 半角 hankaku or 1-byte Japanese characters, and other information in 全角 zenkaku, full sized 2-byte Japanese characters. (What's really fun is that space characters also come in single and double widths, which look the same on the screen but are totally different as far as the form is concerned.) Other frustrations include forms that force you to enter your "kanji name" despite the fact that some users are foreigners without kanji, or forms that only work with the latest browser versions from 2004. When I made the post about the Hatsune Miku Domino's Pizza app I decided to register with the company to make sure I could help any J-List customers who might need help using the app…but getting the form to actually create an account for me was a Sisyphean effort that consumed more than an hour.

Japanese love good design...except web forms.

Foreigners See Japan Through Sakura Colored Lenses

Last time I talked about the way a country like Japan can appear quite different to "outsiders" who come here from some other place (like me) compared with Japanese people who grew up here, and in general I'm far more likely to get excited about things like onsen hot springs or images of Mt. Fuji than my Japanese wife, who can't understand what all the fuss is about. Whenever J-List hires a new Japanese employee, I always take extra time training them so they can understand how foreigners view Japan, to better enable them to find cool products for the site like this replica of an offering box from a Japanese Shinto shrine to save your coins in or this sakura-decorated coffee cup made with the 350-year-old Arita-yaki porcelain glazing method. When I decided to sell dagashi -- traditional Japanese candy and snacks from the Showa Period -- our snack buyer and modeler of strange hats said, "Who would want buy old Japanese candy from 40 years ago? It's so boring." It turns out a lot of people were interested in exploring unique treats like Kompeito and Neri-Ame liquid candy, and they're now among our most popular products. The same thing happened when I wanted to sell those iconic clear plastic umbrellas which are everywhere in Japan: the Japanese staff was sure no one would want to buy anything as mundane as an umbrella, yet we've sold hundreds of them over the years.

Foreigners view Japan through sakura colored lense.

J-List is at Anime Conji This Weekend!

Remember, Anime Conji is a fun anime convention held in San Diego this weekend, and the J-List San Diego staff will be there with lots of awesome T-shirts, eroge, Japanese snacks, random products from Japan and our always-popular Fuku-bukuro grab bags. Hope to see you there!

Full Set of Game Posters with Each San Diego Order

J-List has worked hard to license and translate visual novels and eroge from Japan for fans around the world. We'll be printing new catalogs w/cool game posters in time for Anime Expo this year, but for fans who want to collect our current set of promotional game posters before they're retired, we've got a nice offer: order any shrinkwrapped dating-sim game or T-shirt/hoodie that ships from San Diego and get the full set of all three current game posters for free -- so make an order now! The posters are large and show art from School Days, Demonbane and Django. Offer valid while supplies last.

North Korea Update

I've written before about how one of the least enjoyable aspects of living in Japan is having to be so close to North Korea. Whether it's kidnapping at least 17 Japanese citizens to serve as language teachers for North Korean spies, engaging in state-sponsored programs to flood Japan with illegal drugs and counterfeit 10,000 yen bills or shooting "peaceful space satellites" over the Japanese islands, living this close to the world's craziest country is just no fun. Now things are getting tense again, with North Korea making noises about launching missile(s) again sometime after April 10, perhaps to mark the 1-year anniversary of Dear Leader Kim Jong-un's rule or the 101st birthday of his grandfather Kim Il-Sung, who Wikipedia informs me is the designated "Eternal President" of North Korea. The country does seem somewhat obsessed with dates. After Japanese singer and illusionist Princess Tenko traveled to North Korea to perform in a gesture of goodwill, then-president Kim Jong-Il (the really creepy one) reportedly became obsessed with her. He tried to entice her into staying in North Korea, and when she refused and returned to Tokyo she started getting harassed by North Korean agents who would call her and plead with her to return, always calling exactly at either 2:16 P.M. or 2:16 A.M. (Kim Jong-Il's birthday is Feb 16). Of course, we're not really that concerned with these latest threats, since we've been here before, but on the off chance that this is J-List's last update, thanks for all your support, and hope you enjoyed the shimapan!

Missiles from North Korea, another example of #GaijinWorldProbems

Why Doesn't My Wife Like Sakura?

I've learned a few things during my time in Japan, including dozens of ways to use mayonnaise as well as "never click on Hetalia fanart unless you know what the content is ahead of time." I've also come up with what I call Peter's Outsider Principle, which states that people from a certain country may tend to take that country for granted and feel less passionate about it than "outsiders" (which is what the term gaijin actually means) who came from some other place. Whenever the sakura bloom in Japan I bug my Japanese wife to do hanami flower viewing with me, but she whines about how cold it is outside, and who wants to sit on a blanket with drunk salarymen all around you, and what's so special about cherry blossoms anyway? I face a similar challenge whenever I get the urge to visit Kyoto and try to get her to come along -- while I'd gladly spend weeks exploring Japan's ancient capital city, she's not nearly as excited about the city and would be much happier visiting Los Angeles or New York. I've got an Italian friend from Rome who has never been to Venice even though it's just a few hours up the superstrada from his house. Instead of looking at the "old crap" (his word) that's surrounded him all his life, he's much happier eating Osaka-style kushi-katsu in a hole-in-the-wall restaurant in Shibuya and drinking in the energy of life in Tokyo. I've always thought that the extra passion for a country felt by those who have come from elsewhere to be analogous to the difference between someone raised in a given religion vs. those who have made the conscious choice to convert (the difference between Peter and Paul, if you will).

Outsiders can feel more passion for a place than natives at times.

Names in Japan

Names in Japan, of course, are pronounced family name first, so if you meet someone named Yamada Hanako you'll know that Yamada is her family name and Hanako is her first given name. While this is the rule for Japanese names, it's rare for foreigners to use this reverse name order. Instead we write our names in the normal given name/middle name/family name order, which is why anime characters with "Western" names like Arsene Lupin III or Louise Françoise Le Blanc de La Vallière always have their names in standard order. When you work as a teacher in Japan, though, there's a strange phenomenon that happens: everyone starts calling you by your first name, in my case either "Peter" or else "Mr. Peter" if they're feeling especially formal (never "Mr. Payne"). While Japanese are usually very strict about using the proper name for a given situation, adding name suffixes like -san or -sensei as needed, something about interacting with foreigners breaks down these barriers of politeness. I think it's because for almost all Japanese, the first foreigners they come into contact with are the English teachers they meet in elementary school, who happily played games like Uno while teaching lessons that were fun, and this sets up an expectation of casual interaction that's not present with Japanese teachers.

My students called me "Mr. Peter."

Today is Bento Day!

The Japanese love to designate different days for different reasons, for example June 26 is "Outdoor Bath Day" because the numbers 6-2-6 are phonetically close to 露天風呂 roten-buro or an outdoor hot springs bath, and April 22 is "Happy Married Couples' Day" for similarly confusing reasons. It turns out that today, April 10, is Bento Day, a day to celebrate the visual beauty of Japanese bento boxes. In addition to being a fun way to eat lunch Japanese-style, bringing your own bento is economical (far less expensive than eating out), and great for anyone trying to watch their calorie intake. Why not browse our bento boxes and related bento accessories now, since we're having a great sale this month!

Will You Be at Anime Conji This Weekend?

Remember, Anime Conji is a fun anime convention held in San Diego this weekend, and the J-List San Diego staff will be there with lots of awesome T-shirts, eroge, Japanese snacks, random products from Japan and our always-popular Fuku-bukuro grab bags. Hope to see you there!

Sakura and Time Travel

Over the weekend I took a drive with Mrs. J-List up to the mountains above Karuizawa, the pleasant city in Nagano Prefecture that's a nice getaway for people in Tokyo. One of the problems with cherry blossom season in Japan is that it's so short, usually just 7-10 days, and strong winds or rain always threaten to make it even shorter. There's a solution to this problem, however: head for the hills, since you effectively roll back the season a few days for every 100 meters of elevation you gain. Down where J-List is located the cherry blossoms have sadly ended their fleeting beauty for the year, but during our pleasant drive over the mountains to we got to experience all stages of sakura again, from 桜名残 sakura-nagori or the "melancholy felt in the aftermath of the cherry blossoms' passing" to 桜雨 sakura-ame or a "rain of sakura petals" to 満開 mankai, with flowers in full glorious bloom, and so on. So if you ever plan a trip to Japan but find (as sometimes happens) that you've missed the cherry blossom season, remember you can head for the mountains and still find some.

You can travel back in time and enjoy sakura if you like.

Kawaii Culture in Japan

I took a trip to Tokyo last week to see some guys about an eroge, and while I was riding the train I noticed a ridiculously cute picture of a bear warning riders to be careful not to lean against the train door as it opened or close their fingers in the door as it closed. The message was made more emotionally appealing (and thus more effective) through the use of a kawaii character which was designed to be noticed by as many people as possible, especially young children who might otherwise be injured by the train door. There's really no limit to what can be made cute in Japan: guard rails for construction sites that look like rabbits, kitty litter that features a cat holding his nose, antibacterial sheets for your bento, and even surprisingly cute Rilakkuma products for the bedroom. No one knows for sure why Japan has such a highly developed tradition of embracing cute characters, but one theory is that it started in 1960 when an inflatable plastic doll called Dakko-chan was introduced by the Takara Vinyl Manufacturing Company (now Takara Tomy). The toy was a huge hit, and that summer everyone walked around with Dakko-chan dolls clinging to their arms. According to theory, the popularity of this character prepared Japan for the rise of later "character dynasties" like Hello Kitty in the same way the popularity of Planet of the Apes (the first film in which merchandising was more valuable than the film itself) helped pave the way for the success of Star Wars.

There's no limit to what can be made kawaii in Japan.

Japanese Driving Safety + Yakuza Awareness Week

People in J-List's home prefecture of Gunma are going to be extra careful driving this week, for two reasons. The first is that it's time for the Spring Driving Safety Week, when police will be especially vigilant watching for speeders and drunk drivers, and anyone driving is apt to be stopped by elderly people with Haruhi-style armbands and thanked for being mindful of others while behind the wheel. Pop groups like HKT48 (the offshoot idol group from Hakata, Kyushu) get into the spirit, too, becomming the official spokes-idols for traffic safety. The other reason we'll be a little more careful when driving is found in a fax we received by the Gunma Prefectural Police. Supposedly there's a big problem with 当たり屋 atariya right now, yakuza gangsters affiliated with the Yamaguchi-gumi mafia group from Osaka who get into accidents on purpose so they can extract money from innocent drivers and their insurance companies. (The word comes from 当たる ataru "to hit," which is the root of Atari by the way, and 屋 ya which means "roof" but in this context denotes a profession.) We're supposed to watch out for cars with license plates from Yamaguchi, Kobe and the Naniwa area of Osaka, among the shadiest parts of Japan. If you're ever in an accident with a yakuza you're supposed to refuse to give them any personal information but instead call the police, who have special experience dealing with these unsavory characters.

It's traffic safety and yakuza awareness week in Japan.

J-List Bento + Kitchen Sale Continues

Spring is here, and that means a new start and trying new things -- like making beautiful bento from Japan! We're having a big sale on all bento boxes and kawaii bento accessories, plus everything in your kitchen. Want to score a great traditional bento box from Hakoya? How about a cute Pokemon or Totoro themed bento box? Or a cooker for making Takoyaki or Taiyaki as seen in anime? We've got it all in stock.

Love Hotels in Japan: Q&A

One of the more exotic aspects of Japan are its "love hotels," private hotels that couples can go to in order to spend a few hours of quality time together if they don't have anywhere else to go. Based on "private inns" that were common in the Edo Period and official facilities set up during the Allied Occupation, love hotels are a huge industry in Japan. I decided to fire off an "ask me anything" question to the J-List Facebook page and see what questions people had. Here are some of them.

Q. What are they? How much do they cost?

A. Basically, hotels where couples can "rest" for 2-3 hours, or "stay" overnight. The cost is usually around $30-50 for a few hours or $80-130 for all night.

Q. Who uses them?

A. Everyone from couples in their 20s to married couples who live with their parents or children. Recently there's been a lot of use by "silver" couples who are still genki, and hotels are starting to embrace these customers by creating 'barrier free' hotel rooms. Though there's no doubt an occasional connection to "delivery health" and other thinly disguised prostitution-esque services, the hotels are surprisingly professional and legitimate.

Q. Can foreigners use them?

A. Sure, no one cares who uses them. If you're coming to Japan and want to give one a try, it would probably be a lot of fun. They're quite common in Tokyo, such as the Spain-zaka area of Shibuya or Uguisu-dani station. If you're outside a major city like Tokyo they can be harder to find, as they're usually placed on the edge of town, hard to get to if you don't have a car.

Q. What will I find there?

A. Competition has forced the hotels to become quite creative, and they offer different themes to couples, with everything from Disney and Hello Kitty themes to rooms with various costumes you can try on to at least one "Hotel California" style establishment. In addition to a vending machine selling ridiculously cute toys for couples, there's lotion and a condom, too, but the J-List staff tells me it's common sense to never use condoms from a love hotel as the previous person might have poked a hole in it as a joke. There are often exotic baths that can be as much fun to play in the main reason for going.

Q. How is privacy handled?

A. Since no one wants to see anyone else when visiting one of these places, hotels get creative here, too. You park your car in the space reserved for the room you want and go right into your room. Payment is handled by a machine that unlocks the door after you insert payment or else a pneumatic tube that delivers your payment to the front desk without you seeing anyone.

Q. How big is the industry?

A. At around $42 billion, the love hotel industry is around twice the size of the entire anime/manga industry. Being such a healthy area of the economy, it occasionally attracts interest by international hedge funds, but they usually can't get around the idea of investing money in a taboo industry. Incidentally, Nintendo famously operated a love hotel for a few years before settling on their current product line

Q. Any more information?

A. If you're curious about these love hotels, we've got a couple of cool photobooks on the site for you to check out.

Love hotels are one of the more mysterious aspects of Japan.

Catching Up with Anime: Kotoura-san

It happens every time: a new anime season is about to start, yet I'm still working through the last one. One show I've been plowing through lately is Kotoura-san, a fun series about a girl who's born with the ability to read people's 心 kokoro -- translatable as "hearts" or "minds" -- which leads to trouble (and more than a little slapstick comedy) since she can tell what everyone is thinking. (Warning, the first episode is quite laden with "feels" but the rest of the series is much lighter.) The word kokoro is one of my favorite Japanese words, representing the romantic and philosophical elements of a person's heart, essentially where one's mind is focused in the body. In Japan it's thought to be located in the chest, whereas most of us would consider the "mind" to be located in the head. The shows up in various places in the language, e.g. the eyes are thought to be the "mirrors of one's kokoro" (目は心の鏡 me wa kokoro no kagami), and someone with mental illness is said to have a 心の病 kokoro no yamai or "sickness of the kokoro." There's an insightful proverb on women which has served me well in my years of marriage: 女心と秋の空 onna-gokoro to aki no sora, which means "a woman's heart is like the sky in autumn, always changing and never the same" [so keep an umbrella handy].

I've been enjoying Kotoura-san, a fresh idea for an anime.

The J-List Spring Bento Sale is On Now

Spring is here, and that means a new start and trying new things -- like making beautiful bento from Japan! We're having a big sale on all bento boxes and kawaii bento accessories, plus everything in your kitchen. Want to score a great traditional bento box from Hakoya? How about a cute Pokemon or Totoro themed bento box? Or a cooker for making Takoyaki or Taiyaki as seen in anime? We've got it all in stock.

Fun With Japanese Companies

One unique aspect of companies in Japan is the way they do pretty much everything, without limiting themselves to one main area of business. Do you want to "reform" (remodel) your home? Panahome, the construction company operated by Panasonic, will be happy to help you, and you can get a Panasonic high-performance bicycle to go with it. When you think of Hitachi you think of consumer electronics, but they also make Japan's speedy bullet trains. Kawasaki makes trains too (the New York Subway cars are made by them) as well as ships, helicopters and of course motorcycles. Other companies to have surprising side-businesses include Toyota (they manufacture pre-fab homes under the Toyota Home brand), Mitsubushi (the 8th largest bank in the world is also a major supplier of military hardware), Sony (who sells life insurance) and Fuji Film (which used its chemical expertise to switch to from film to high-end make-up products). Japan's beer companies also manufacture a variety of beverages from Asian teas to health drinks, and Coca Cola even tried their hand at producing an alcohol-free beer for a short time.

Need a house? Have Toyota Home build one for you.

Learning to Mock Society with "Haganai"

I've been watching the second season of Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai, aka Haganai, aka I Have Few Friends, a surprisingly good show about a bunch of misfit high school students who don't have any friends, so they form a school "neighbor's club" in order to learn how to make some. (The joke is on them: they don't realize that they've already got great friends in each other.) One word that comes up a lot in the show is リア充 ria-juu, so I thought I'd talk about it a bit. Coined around 2005 on Japan's ubiquitous 2ch BBS, it's short for リアル充実組 riaru juujitsu-gumi or "those to live a satisfied, happy life in the real world." It's a catch-all (and somewhat mocking) term for anyone who leads a happy life with normal hobbies and healthy human relationships, especially those lucky enough to have a real girlfriend/boyfriend instead of having to make due with alternatives. The battle cry of Japan's hardcore otaku and Internet users is リア充は爆発しろ！ ria-juu wa bakuhatsu shiro! or "blow up all people who have happy sex lives."

Haganai is about high school kids who want to find friend.

Thoughts on Maids and Culture Shock

It's funny the way our "base culture" can shape the way we look at the world. The other day I came across a picture of a black couple from the U.S. posing ironically in front of what appeared to be scary guys in KKK hoods...but if course it was the cofradías (Brotherhood of Penitents) of Seville, Spain, whose unique costumes date back to the 14th century. It's similar to the minor shock Westerners get when they arrive in Japan and see swastikas printed on Japanese maps. The symbols (which are left-facing, the opposite of the ones we see on History Channel documentaries) are called manji and are an ancient symbol used in Buddhist and Hindu countries to denote the locations of temples. A few years ago my wife and children visited a friend in Kuala Lumpur, Malysia, staying at her house. The friend was quite wealthy and employed several maids to clean their house and cook, which caused some confusion with my daughter, who wondered why the women weren't wearing flamboyant uniforms modeled after 19th century French maids. To her, a maid is a kawaii female who serves coffee and cakes for her go-shujin-sama ("master"), maybe while wearing cat ears for extra cuteness. We all had a big laugh at this interesting example of culture shock.

Some thoughts on culture shock and maids.

See the J-List x Tamatoys Itasha at Anime Expo

We have great news for anyone who'll be attending Anime Expo this year. J-List and TamaToys have teamed up to make an awesome itasha anime car which we'll be displaying at our booth. TamaToys is the company that creates those awesome parody stress toys and innovative cosplay products, and we're happy to be their partners and creating this cool car. Come by and get your picture taken beside it!