Greetings from J-List September 30, 2001

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Greetings from J-List September 27, 2001

Hello again from the land of the Rising Gundam!

Almost all Japanese with a high school education study English for six years, three in Junior High School and three in High School -- if you ever want to have some fun, ask a Japanese how many years they've studied English, and watch them count up the years one by one, even though you'd think they knew the number off the tops of their heads. Despite all these years of study, the Japanese don't usually attain competency at English. To combat this, the Ministry of Education has declared that English conversation will be taught, starting in the 3rd grade, to try to increase fluency in English. I wish the Japanese educators well, but I know that as long as Japan refuses to study the examples of countries like Canada and Belgium that have successful bilingualism programs, future efforts will continue to be disappointing.

Japanese study English, but there's always a subtle conflict that no one acknowledges: do they study American English or British English? The Japanese have always had great respect for England, and have patterned much of their government after England's. Still, the Japanese tend to study American spelling ("color" not "colour") and pronunciation, as a general rule. The problem is, it's not a fixed rule -- British English is sometimes used in schools, just enough to confuse the poor kids. When my wife was in Junior High school, she took part in a pronunciation contest. She practiced and practiced the text she was supposed to read, but unfortunately, the teacher who helped her with the material had learned British English, and the two accents confused her terribly.

The Japanese love to see their own being recognized around the world, so they were pleased to see Prime Minister Koizumi standing beside President Bush. The Prime Minister pledged his support for the war on terrorism, and he's also doing what he can to amend the Japanese constitution (which America wrote), which expressly forbids Japanese military activities outside of Japanese coastal waters, to allow Japan to do more to help.

When we made our first "Looking for a Japanese girlfriend" wacky Japanese T-shirt two years ago, we had no idea what a cult we were creating. It turns out that there are a lot of people who would like to meet Japanese girls in the world, since our shirts sold beyond our wildest expectations. The new version of our shirt sports a great new design, with the words "Looking for a Japanese Girlfriend" laid out around the Japanese "red spot." We've got two different colors, white and black.

For our first update after returning to Japan, we've got some nice new items for you, including:

• First, we've got some excellent new magazines for you, including the wonderful new Gokuh and Dela Beppin, as well as some great kogal mags and more
  
• For fans of magazines that give you more, we've got Underground DVD, featuring a magazine with tons of excellent material and a 2 hour DVD, too
  
• We've restocked many popular photobooks, which had sold out before, including the Costume Top Models leg fetish photobook,
  
• We've got fresh stock of Yellows 3.0 China and Yellows Angels, the popular photobooks which document the nude beauty of women, by photographer Akira Gomi
  
• For fans of the rather bizarre Japanese medical fetish photography, we've got a new issue of Karte Club for you on the high-end bondage photobook page
  
• Of course we've got an excellent update of Japanese wide manga for you, including some erotic comics by Shikage Nagi, the artist for the popular Snow Drop and Little My Maid bishoujo games from Peach Princess
  
• If you love the fantastic artwork of Yui Toshiki, we've got fresh stock of his hot seller, Yui Shop vol. 1, one of the best-selling erotic art books we've ever carried
  
• For doujinshi fans, we've got several new titles for you, including fresh stock of some great books with kemono (animal) and romantic boy-meets-girl sexual themes, as well as fresh stock of Kenix "game girl" doujinshi titles
  
• We were very impressed with the sales of "First Cock Suckin' and Finger Shakin' Contest," a competition of fellatio and tekoki (hand job) by eight women, produced by SOD. The second video in the series is here, with eight new lovely women doing more of the same!
  
• For lovers of SOD's bold Idol Shower series, we've got another excellent "coupling" title, featuring two complete productions on one disc
  
• For those who love sweet Japanese AV idols with small, lithe bodies, we recommend the excellent No Cut! DVD featuring three full productions and 180 minutes of footage, starring Aimi Yoshii
  
• For fans of Himeya's popular bishoujo games, we're happy to announce that the long-awaited Adam the Double Factor is in stock and shipping! This great 2-CD game is a sequel (or side-story) to the popular Eve Burst Error, and features super animation and more
  
• For anime fans, check out some cool items, including fresh stock of the Giant Robo phone straps (also useful as camera straps or keychains), and limited stock of the very cool soft vinyl "Santa Girl" figure
  
• We've got a bunch of new items on our Japanese snack & food pages, including some delicious kimchee soup mix, a delicious deluxe rice cracker, super-tart "ume-boshi" candies and more of the very nice traditional Japanese hard candy
  
• We have more of our popular wacky Japanese signs on the Signs & Stickers page, including "No Parking," "Do Not Enter" and the ever-popular "Danger"
  
• On our wacky "traditional Japanese" things page, we've got some spiffy new chopsticks, which feature very modern styling and glitter as well as rings that make them easy to hold
  
• On our Wacky Things from Japan main page, we've got a host of nifty things, including an all-new map of Tokyo, some super molds for making sushi and onigiri, new handy kitchen items in the cheerful "Kitchen Hanako" series, and more!
  

Do you wish you could talk to your favorte Japanese AV idols, find out what makes them tick? Well, you can, at J-Mate (http://www.jmate.com), a site where you can read all kinds of cool interviews with Japan's most famous and lovely idols. What makes them want to go into AV? How do they feel about millions seeing them perform? When did they lose their virginity? The latest interview is a very nice snapshot into the daily life of the sweet Mai Hagiwara, featuring her private thoughts and feelings on the choices she's made.

Greetings from J-List September 20, 2001

Hello again from your friends in Japan!

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

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

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

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

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

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

Greetings from J-List September 18, 2001

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Greetings from J-List September 17, 2001

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Greetings from J-List September 15, 2001

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Greetings from J-List September 12, 2001

Greetings and prayers from Japan on this terrible day. The World Trade Center attacks occurred around 8 pm, Japan time, and there was nothing to do but watch the horror unfold along with everyone else, but in Japanese rather than English. I listened to Japanese interpreters as they parsed the information coming in from CNN and other news sources, wishing I could turn off the Japanese track and hear it in English, and I watched various Japanese experts on "tero" (terrorism) give their opinions as the awful night wore on. Happily, the confused reports of "eleven more planes hijacked" that were being reported on the Japanese news did not turn out to be true.

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. There were 31 Japanese firms in the two buildings, including some of the most famous banks and trading firms such as Dai-Ichi Kangyo Bank and Fuji Bank, and it's thought that there were 500 Japanese -- office workers, translators, secretaries and investors -- in the two buildings. As the events unfolded, the Japanese media did their best to verify when groups from one bank or another were confirmed safe, but it was difficult at best. Japanese chosen for duty at the New York branches of their respective firms were probably exceptional employees who has worked hard to master English so they could have the privilege of working in New York. We pray for the safety of these people, as well as for the safety of all J-List readers in the New York and Washington areas.

Details are still sketchy at this point, but it's very easy to feel anger over this, the "Pearl Harbor" of our generation. In addition to the lofty goal of "bringing those responsible to justice," I certainly feel that the political claims of those responsible should be totally forfeit, no matter what they are. Maybe this can be adopted as new political doctorine a result of this tragedy.

It's a great shock for everyone. My wife has been to many parts of America, including the World Trade Center buildings, and has flown on the American Airlines Boston to Los Angeles flight that was hijacked. Also, I was supposed to go to New York next month to attend an anime convention, but I've put those plans on hold. Part of the horror comes from the fact that I fly a lot, and to think that something like this could happen...well, there are no words. Unlike most people in the U.S., I've had a night to sleep on this, being 14 hours ahead of California, and I hope you all can experience a more peaceful night than I did.

Good night, and God Bless America.

Greetings from J-List September 10, 2001

Hello again from Japan, where the hours when the most viewers are watching television is known as "Golden Time."

The Japanese love their 4 seasons, and when Dave Barry says that a Japanese is likely to stop you on the street and tell you how wonderful Japan's four seasons are, he is not making it up. But Japan has many seasons, all unique and different from the rest. First comes winter, then "windy winter," which is much worse. Then comes "sakura viewing season," which is supposed to be part of spring, but it's usually bitter cold, so it feels like part of winter. After Spring come the month long rainy season, followed by summer. Right now, summer has ended, and we're in "typhoon season," when Japan is pummeled by one storm after another. Finally comes autumn with its beautiful red leaves, then winter again. Right now we're enjoying rain every other day, and as I write this, a big typhoon is on its way to the Tokyo region. Hope it doesn't hit too hard.

The Japanese use a lot of English in their daily lives, but it's often impossible to identify it sometimes after the Japanese get through with it. If you ask your boss for a raise, but he says no, it's "NG" (which stands for "no good") -- a TV "blooper" is also called an NG. The letter "W" stands for "double" to the Japanese, thus a washing machine might be advertised as "W [double] Power." If you want to check your weight, you'd better ask for a health meter -- the English term "scale" is used in Japanese, but only meaning something's size in relation to something else. Sometimes Americans are confused by alien terms that are British English -- I didn't know that the hood of a car was a "bonnet" in British English until I came to Japan. If you want to tell someone to not worry about something, you can say "Donmai!" which comes from "Don't mind!" Similarly, when someone is backing their car up, you can tell them it's okay to come back further by saying "Orai!" which comes from "Alright!" Many English words have been imported into Japanese, but with different pronunciations -- "energy" is pronounced with a hard "G," and "vitamin" comes out like "bitamin" (bee-TA-min). Finally, many of the foreign words used in Japan, like "anket" (a questionnaire), "arubaito" (a part-time job) and "ruksak" (a backpack) don't come from English at all, but that doesn't stop the Japanese from trying to use them during English conversation class.

For this evening's update, we've got the following new stuff for you:

• First, we've got some great new magazines for you, including the new Urecco, which features some beautiful Japanese gals as Rio Sannomiya, Manatsu Hirose and Ami Ayukawa
  
• For hentai fans, we've got the new issue of Push!!, featuring not one but two CD-ROMs filled with goodies, with nothing but the newest titles from Japan
  
• For fans of high-end bondage and S&M from Japan, we've got a new volume of The Most of Beautiful Slave, featuring 14 lovely ladies inside...
  
• For hentai manga fans, we've got a nice update, including excellent erotic titles from Angel Comics, I.C. Comics, and a nice erotic "boy meets girl" manga by Yutaka Tanaka
  
• For doujinshi lovers, we've got an excellent update for you, with both new single-issues as well as good stock of several excellent erotic doujinshi -- check out the new offerings!
  
• For fans of DVD, we've got a super erotic production featuring Rin Tomosaki, the popular AV idol who appears frequently in Japan's adult magazines
  
• Also, for fans of Soft on Demand's very erotic works, we've got an all-new *4 hour* DVD celebrating their "5 1/5 year anniversary," featuring their "worst" productions ever -- although in reality this disc has some of their greatest stuff, including some of their most bizarre ideas ever. No materials duplicated with the SOD 5 years anniversary special, too...
  
• Also for DVD fans, fresh stock of some of our most popular DVD titles, including wonderful DVDs by Mai Hagiwara and Anna Ohura
  
• We're having a sale on many of our region 2 DVDs, as we close out many of these titles we've kept in stock. Check out the DVD region 2 page for the new bargains. This is a great time for those with region-free DVD players! (and remember, see the top of the region 2 DVD page for info on how you can view these discs).
  
• We've got some nice new snack items, including a delicious "super soda" flavor of Shige-Kicks, the super-sour "hard gummi" candy, and a great boil-in-bag curry rice for kids
  
• For fans of lovely Japanese swimsuit idols, we have fresh stock of the Last Alive cards in stock
  
• We've got a new wacky Japanese sign for smokers on the Wacky Stickers & Signs page
  
• We've got some very nice traditional Japanese items in stock for you, including a very nice "simulated" lacquerware bowl and tray (ours is plastic, not polished wood), as well as some excellent chopsticks with ukiyoe pictures on them
  
• If you love our wacky things from Japan, we've also got some nice items in for you, including our popular map of Japan, a quality stainless steel cup from Japan, and more!
  

We've added an easy "one click" link in our outgoing auto reply mails, which makes it easy for Paypal users to pay for their orders. Paypal is a system that lets you pay for things over the Internet directly, from either a credit card or your (U.S.) checking account. It's quite easy to use.

Greetings from J-List September 7, 2001

Greetings from Japan, where wet umbrellas need condoms...

It's interesting, the things you learn about the human brain when you learn a second language. For example, when I was learning Japanese, I found that my brain was not able to "parse" Japanese that I didn't understand when it was spoken at me. In fact, my brain didn't even register that I'd been spoken to at times -- effectively, the Japanese words that were spoken to me registered as so much static to my brain. Interestingly, embarrassing myself by not knowing a certain word in a certain situation often serve as a "memory hook" that will help you remember the word in the future. I remember hitchhiking to Aomori Prefe(famous for apples and Japanese "enka" singers). I was trying to buy a flashlight, but I didn't know cture, at the top of the main island of Honshu the word, to my great frustration. I know it now -- kaichuu dentou -- and that frustration probably helped me greatly.

When the brain encounters a language it can't understand, sometimes it tries to "fit" the words into existing "holes" and understand it that way. I remember watching Macross 1984 for the first time, back in the heady mid-1980's, when there was no English anime to be had for love or money. I heard "Minmei-san" during the course of the movie, but my brain interpreted it as "Minmei song" because that's what it was ready to accept as comprehensible. When my nephew Chris came to Japan and rode around in our Mazda Bongo Friendee, he kept calling it "Bongo Frenzy," because there were no synapses for the odd word "friendee" in his brain.

Big changes are coming for the small liquor shop which my wife's parents run. The shop has been in business for nearly 50 years, but sadly, it's become quite dirty and run-down in past years. In the past, "mom and pop" liquor stores were protected by Japanese liquor licensing laws, which prevented large chains from selling alcohol. But in the "new Japan" with its economic turmoils and new challenges, the government is allowing convenience stores and supermarkets to sell liquor too, which makes things even harder for our little liquor shop. To improve things, we're going to reform the interior of the store, replacing all glass, shelves, and fixtures and adding a specialty coffee bar. It's going to be hard work, and very expensive, but on the plus side: borrowing the money is practically free, about 1.6%.

We're pleased with how well the Himeya titles have been selling . To help you decide which games you want, we've updated the descriptions to some of the Himeya titles with links to compressed demo movies that you can download. To see the links, choose the Himeya Soft link under Hentai/Bishoujo games, and the games will links will all appear at the top of the page.

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

• First, a great update of Japanese adult magazines, including the brand new Dela Beppin (featuring both Mai Hagiwara and Anna Ohura), the new Cho! Very good!! (great for kogal fans), and the very erotic new Do-Up!
  
• For photobook fans, we've got the lovely hardcover photobook of Mako Tanaka, a former Mini-Suka Police member, as well as fresh stock of Bauko Eichi's dynamite "B" photobook and Juri Kayama's waitress fetish photobook
  
• We have some excellent doujinshi for you, both new "one shots" obtained at the summer's Comic Market as well as ten copies of the red-hot "God's Hermit Play"
  
• For erotic manga fans, we've got many new titles posted, including new works by Tsukasa Comics, Wani Comics and more, as well as "Thief of Love," a dynamite comic by Mujin Comics
  
• We have some new issues of b-Boy Zips, the high-quality yaoi comic compilation for fans of Japan's unique homosexual comic themes
  
• For DVD fans, we've got two new titles for you: first, a super erotic performance from Koharu Tohno, the pure and lovely "puchi AV idol," and for fans of the Soft on Demand "Deep's" label, a super compilation DVD featuring all their productions from the first half of 2001
  
• Also for DVD lovers, we've got fresh stock of many cool titles that had been sold out
  
• For adult video collectors, we've got a super performance by Kaori Shimizu, the erotic and stylish AV idol
  
• We've got another cool item for card collectors -- a cool trading card series based on the popular manga Futari H
  
• For fans of our unique Japanese snacks, we've got fresh stock of the delicious Hi-Chew candies, including cola, green apple, and a new flavor, grape. Also, a restock of the delicious Japanese Tomato Pretzles (you have to taste them to believe them)
  
• On our Wacky Things (cute) page we've got fresh stock of Hello Kitty picture holders and pretty printed chopsticks
  
• For fans of Japanese notebooks and other study items, we've got some cool new notebooks in stock, with funny and bizarre English printed on them, as well as fresh stock of the Pokemon kanji practice notebooks and Japanese traditional report-writing paper
  
• On the Wacky Stickers and Signs page, we've got limited stock of some cool items: the "it is forbidden to urinate here" wooden signs, and the "I am H" (watashi wa H) wacky Japanese headbands
  
• Finally, on the main "Wacky Things from Japan" page, we've got a bunch of new items for you, including a super new Japanese banto box, delicious individual packets of soy sauce to go with your bento boxed lunch, limited stock of cute sushi erasers (maguro, tamago and uni), a great way to clean your ears in Japanese style, and more!
  

The link that we'd been using in our past few mails to show the latest items at J-List was broken, thanks to the mailing list "converting" part of the URL for us. This probably caused most of the newly posted products to not display. To view all the new and updated items at J-List, please access http://www.jlist.com/ directly and find the "find new products updated in the last 3 days" submit button. Sorry for any confusion.

Greetings from J-List September 5, 2001

Hi from your friends in Japan, at J-List!

Have you ever wondered who's on Japanese money? Well, we'll tell you. The Japanese 1000 yen note features the famous 19th Century novelist Souseki Natsumi, who wrote such famous books as "I am a Cat" and "Kokoro." As part of the Japanese education system, the first sentence of famous novels is memorized by students, and nearly all of his novels are famous. The 5000 yen note sports Inazo Nitobe, one of the "forefathers" of modern Japan, and among the first Japanese to become fluent in English (he was a student of Professor Clark, an American who started Sapporo University, and left the famous words "Boys, be ambitious"). He toured Europe and the U.S. to observe elements that were desirable in the "new" Japan. The 10,000 note, pretty much the "basic" unit of currency in Japan (roughly equal to $100 in value), features Yukichi Fukuzawa, another modernizer in the Meiji Period, and founder of Keio University. The old 1000 note, which went out of circulation about 15 years ago (but you still see them sometimes) was Hirofumi Itoh, the first Prime Minister of Japan (but he was assassinated, in the tradition of Meiji-era Japanese politicians).

Driving in Japan can be different from what you might be used to. First, while many people prefer to drive with their lights on during the day in the U.S. for extra safety, is never done here, and if you leave your lights on while you drive, it causes other drivers to stop you and tell you that your lights are on. While honking a horn at another driver can cause road rage in the U.S., here a short "beep" is the universal way of saying thanks and good-bye as you pull away. Most drivers turn off their car's headlights at intersections (leaving the parking lights on), as a courtesy to drivers who might be blinded by their lights on the other side of the intersection. In Tokyo, where drivers drive with consideration for others (unlike Gunma, where we live), a two-second flashing of the hazard lights is the correct way to say "thank you" when another driver gives you the right of way. In Japan, traffic lights have a 3 second delay, before the next drivers are allowed to go. By unwritten rule, Japanese drivers universally make use of this time to speed their car through the intersection, despite the red light, since they know they've got several seconds before the other cars will be moving.

We've got a quite a lot of interest in the Japanese hanko stamps. We should point out that only Japanese last names (e.g. Sekiguchi, Yamada, Fujita) are available. If you have a Japanese last name, or just want to have an "honorary" Japanese name and a hanko stamp, let us know and we'll get one for you.

We've updated our region 2 DVD page with links for Mac users who want to view region 2 DVDs on their computers, including several hacks and a useful program that resets the number of times you can change your DVD region setting.

For this middle-of-the-week update, we've got some nice new items for you, including:

• First, some great new magazines, including the two new issues of video Boy and Best Video, featuring great info on the most lovely AV idols from Japan
  
• For fans of kogals, Japan's lovely bad girls, we've got limited stock of the very nice Lip Mate, always a popular magazine at J-List
  
• For fans of Japan's unique rape-play erotica, we've got a very nice photobook for you, featuring eleven different lovely nude models
  
• For hentai manga fans, we've got another nice update for you, including some excellent new offerings as well as fresh stock of several very popular items that kept going out of stock
  
• For doujinshi fans, we've got a very special offering for you -- the super erotic Girl Power, a dynamite 60+ page erotic doujinshi with some of the best busty artwork we've seen
  
• For DVD lovers, we've got something very special for you -- a super new erotic offering from Aoi Minori, featuring tons of excellent erotic performance for you, and a special treat -- a "rock scissors paper" game you can play with your DVD controller
  
• For collectors of region-2 DVDs, check out the excellent "coupling" title from SOD's I-Entergy label, featuring Hirosue Nao's erotic performance along with the charming Yayoi Yukino's sexual ravaging
  
• If you love Japan's Race Queens, see the erotic video by Risa Takahashi, a real former Race Queen, featuring tons of erotic sex by this slender angel
  
• If you're a fan of lovely swimsuit idols from Japan, check out the Infinity Idol Cards Collection, with some of Japan's loveliest idols in the series
  
• If you're studying Japanese, or any language, check out the very handy Campus Word Books we've got in stock -- they feature a very organized way to write down the original word, pronunciation, and English meaning of vocabulary words
  
• Finally, we've got some nifty and convenient things for you, including an all-new Hello Kitty onigiri maker (so you can make perfect triangular rice balls), a superior way to grate and store food, and more!
  

My comment about the J-Mate site got messed up in the last update. J-List will give a credit of $5-10 for all reviews submitted to the J-Mate page. For more information, mail mailto:reviews@jmate.com . Also, remember that there's a forums site set up on the Peach Princess BBS, so you can discuss the excellent reviews and interviews posted on the J-Mate site. The direct link is http://princess.cybrmall.net/ubbcgi/Ultimate.cgi

We *think* we've got the mailing list formatting problems worked out, and this mailing should work for everyone without any problems with the paragraphs scrolling off to the right endlessly. As always, please let us know how the list is apearing for you. Thanks!

Greetings from J-List September 3, 2001

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The J-Mate site (http://www.jmate.com/) has been updated with a fresh interview with Fuuka Sakurai, as well as several great new reviews. Check out the new offerings at J-Mate. Also: announcing