Greetings from J-List January 31, 2004

Hello from the J-List staff!

I went to Tokyo yesterday on business, taking the fast Shinkansen, or bullet train, making 100 km trip in a 40 minutes instead of the 2 hours it would take using the slow local train. I do love racing through Japan in the belly of a Shinkansen, with rice fields and electric poles shooting by my window. Young boys in Japan always go through a "train phase," when they decide they love trains more than anything else, and when my son was small I watched hours of Shinkansen videos with him, learning all the names of the famous Japanese trains in the process. One of basic Shinkansen types is the Kodama ("tree spirit"), which goes between Tokyo and Osaka on the Tokaido line -- the faster versions of this train are the Hikari ("light"), and the ultra-fast Nozomi ("hope"). The green and white trains that run between Tokyo and Niigata Prefecture, where we are, are the Yamabiko ("mountain echo"). In Northern Japan you can find the only Shinkansen that runs on normal train tracks -- this is the Tsubasa, and when it docks with other trains it looks like they're kissing (or so my son thought). Our favorite bullet train of all is the double-decker MAX, which stands for "multi amenity express" in case you were wondering. For some cool pictures of Shinkansen trains, here's a link: http://www.h2.dion.ne.jp/~dajf/byunbyun/gallery.htm

Sometimes I feel sorry for the Japanese, struggling to learn English so they can communicate with the rest of the world. Because Japanese is organized phonetically into a syllabic system, e.g. ka ki ku ke ko, sa, shi, su, se, so, and so on, the nuances of English are extra hard for Japanese learners. English is loaded with difficult sounds like "f," "v," "th," and an exaggerated "r" sound, which seem custom made to cause problems for Japanese students of English. R/L is another source of problems -- the English words "crush" "clash" and "crash" would have the exact same pronunciation in katakana, the writing system used for expressing English words, and extra hard-to-pronounce words like "election." Near J-List there used to be a Texas BBQ-style restaurant called RONE STAR, with a giant sign proclaiming the restaurant's name. Unfortunately they got caught up in the general economic malaise in Japan and went out of business.

There are many ways a person can go about learning a language, and I do my best at giving a birds-eye view of the Japanese language as well as some advice I have found useful on my personal homepage (http://www.peterpayne.net/). One method I found helpful when memorizing Japanese was to make "cognitive hooks" that would help me to remember what the words meant. When memorizing the character for "tomaru" (to stop), it's useful to imagine a police man putting his hand out, telling you to stop. (You can see the character I'm talking about here: http://www.jlist.com/c2/tomaru.jpg). The grammatical particle that corresponds to "to" or "in" is "ni," which is the word in spelled backwards -- that makes it easy to memorize. The word for "road" in Japanese is "doro" -- the exact reverse of how the word road is written in katakana. And when I had to memorize the verb "shinu" (SHEE-nu), which means "to die," I made up a funny sentence -- "She knew he was going to die!"

We love what we do, bringing wacky and fun products from Japan to people all over the world. We sell many really bizarre things, like the "loose socks" that high school girls wear, and "socks glue"to hold them up, as well as gummi sushi, caffeine gum, and other funny items from Japan. Now we've got a new item to offer you: nipple pinkening cream, called Pink Chikubina, a cream which Japanese women use to reverse the tendency for nipples to become dark over time. Available now at J-List!

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

• First, Kubrick fans, we've got the 2nd series of the oh-so-cool Alien Kubrick toys, including five new figures -- and full sets are in stock for you
  
• For fans of high-end anime statues made of polyresin, we have a great figure of Arche Klainem, a 1/8 scale cold cast figure from Tales of Phantasia
  
• Enjoy delicious ume (plum) candy, fantastic miso soup with clams, and a popular item, Hi-Chew soft candy from Morinaga (including the "secret flavor")
  
• For fans of the Groomy plush toys with soft chamois bottoms to clean your computer monitor, we've got a cute new kitty in stock for you -- also a major restocking of the other toys in this line
  
• We have some great chopsticks from Japan, made of high quality bamboo and laminated -- they have the names of delicious Japanese foods printed on them too
  
• If you have a portable phone, we've got a handy "clip strap" that lets you secure your phone to your own clothing, lest it accidentally be lost
  
• We have two very Japanese ways to clean your ears, with cool Japanese cotton swabs that are great to use
  
• If you follow feng-shui, the Chinese art of altering your luck by controlling your environment, we have some cute
  
• For those who handle documents, we've got some wacky Japanese rubber finger covers that are very useful
  
• Also, for anyone wanting to take up the game of Shogi, we've got an inexpensive starter set for you
  
• The ultimate in cute from Japan are the Nyanko series of toys from San-X, super cute cats built into Japanese foods, etc. Now we've got a really cool "Nyanko Onsen" featuring cute little cats in a traditional Japanese hot springs -- so cute and fun to collect!
  
• Do you love Gundam? Find out all the secrets of the Gundam universe with a new book from Cocoro Books, to be released soon (preorder it now)
  
• There are many cute erasers in Japan, and we've added various stock for you, including our cute hamster erasers, Japanese drink bottle erasers, and more
  
• If you missed out on that special 2004 calendar you wanted, you've got one more chance: we've posted the very last stock of discounted 2004 calendars -- many popular calendars are back on the site (but not for long)
  
• Finally look for more quality soft cases to hold your electronic gadgets in, more wacky wooden signs in Japanese, more cool Totoro items, and many more great items!
  

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

• For fans of beautiful nude photography, we've got the new issue of Dela Beppin, a wonderful new issue for you
  
• Many men in Japan have a fetish for "hitozuma" (lit. "a person's wife"), and we've got a new issue of the top married woman fetish magazine
  
• For photobook fans, enjoy the lovely lesbian experiment with two women an a Barbie doll -- very skillfully photographed and artfully done
  
• Also for Yinling fans, we've got fresh stock of her very first photobook, and it's a beauty
  
• Then enjoy the beautiful large-format glossy photobook of Fumika Hara, a fabulous Japanese beauty
  
• Also, see the beautiful stylish photographs of two of the most famous models in Japan, Kyoko Kano and her sister Mika
  
• For hentai manga collectors, we've got some great new books, including Million Comics' Navy Girls, the very erotic Dry Strawberry, and a new bukkake manga by Griffon
  
• Also, another volley of all-new hentai doujinshi for you, with many great all-new books posted
  
• For our DVD customers, we've got some great titles for you, starting withe excellent sex of Mio Asakura 4 Hour Special - very naughty! (region free)
  
• From SOD, a great selection of the best "oppai & oshiri" (boobs and ass), with great performances by Japan's top AV stars (region free)
  
• Then enjoy Ami Ayukawa's fascinating erotic bondage play, in a great new release from Wanz Factory (region 2)
  
• Finally, see various restocked DVD titles, in the nick of time for your special DVD sale -- hurry and check out all the great items on the site!
  

Remember that J-List carries dozens of super cool "candy toy" (miniature toys that usually come with candy inside, called "shokugan" in Japanese) items from Japan, with many varieties of cool items -- anime figurines, replicas of famous battleships, super detailed replicas of Japanese food and sushi, Star Trek vehicles and more. They're great to display, and since we offer full sets of virtually all toys we sell, so you don't have to buy duplicates, you can save time, money and aggravation. Check out all our candy toys items!

Greetings from J-List January 29, 2004

Hello from all your friends at J-List!

My wife and I were invited to a party put on by the local chapter of UNESCO, which is the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, an international group similar to the Rotary Club -- older Japanese just love to be members of organizations like this. We were there to listen to amazing performances by two Japanese who had studied folk guitar in Spain and Argentina, and another American who played a mean jazz piano. I knew before going to the event that I'd be elevated to near-Guest of Honor status in the room simply because of my gaijinhood, and sure enough, we were seated at the most prestigious table with the musicians. While we ate and listened to the excellent performances, other guests engaged in what the Japanese refer to as "nomunication" (from nomu, to drink, and the English word communication) -- roaming around the room and pouring beer for others while you converse with them. You never pour your own beer in a social setting in Japan -- friends pouring each others drinks is an important social bond here. During the party, several of the more inebriated Japanese guests thanked me for my excellent piano performance -- they had confused me with the other American, who had had to leave after he was done playing for the group. I didn't correct them though. One of the unwritten rules of Japanese social drinking is, if you do something embarrassing while drunk, everyone else ignores what you did, pretending that it never happened.

At the party the mayor of our city popped in to give a quick speech -- through some odd twist of fate, we live next door to him, which makes our city sound a lot more like a hick town than it really is. The mayor had some happy news for us: our city was scheduled to grow past the 200,000 population mark this year (up from 140,000 ten years ago). This is an amazing achievement in Japan, which has one of the lowest birth rates in the world. Rural prefectures like Gunma constantly lose young people to the Tokyo area, causing a slow drop in the population of most rural regions of the country. The more rural the area, the worse the situation can be. Tomo lives in a small town in the mountains called Omama, population 22,000, where there are almost no children at all. Near his house, there's an elementary school with 35 students -- not 35 students per class or per grade, but 35 students in all six grades. Some factors contributing to our city's rise in population include low cost of living compared with other cities, access to good shopping, and a new freeway extension that opened a few years ago.

For fans of Japan's dating-sim games, in which you interact with pretty anime girls in a multi-path story, we've announcing preorders two hentai games without the hentai, great simulation games which you can play on any standard DVD player. They are Day of Love (romantic love-sim) and Amusement Park (you must operate an unprofitable amusement park with the help of several beautiful female characters). Preorder them now and get free shipping when they come in stock! Both titles are scheduled to ship in February.

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

• First, for fans of Evangelion, we've got a great pre-painted anime statue of Asuka Souryu Langley from Kotobikiya, it's great
  
• For fans of our Japanese snacks, we've got delicious Strawberry Kit Kat treats sold only in Japan, tasty and healthy "baby senbei" for little ones, chocolate covered gummi bears, and more
  
• Also, a great item for fans of Disney's classics: chocolate eggs with Disney toys hidden inside
  
• For fans of beautiful swimsuit idols and Race Queens, we've got a new Special Box of trading cards from Movic
  
• We've got a nifty wallet for you from Japan, complete with a place to put your train pass
  
• Japanese like to collect extremely realistic erasers -- we've got several sets of erasers for you, including fruits, desserts, sushi and more
  
• For Domo-kun fans, look for fresh stock of several really cool items, including the plus Domo-kun square toys, which look great in any room!
  
• When we posted the Sony Aibo robot dog toys last week, we didn't expect our stock to sell out in one weekend, but it all went with incredible speed -- through the hard work of Daisuke, we've restocked our full sets of this great toy line
  
• For your car, a nifty way to hang a trash bag anywhere -- hold chips inside the car, too!
  
• In Japan, many people smoke, but smokers try to exercise good manners -- this is called "Smokin' Clean." We have a cool portable ashtray for anyone who wants to follow their good example
  
• For something more traditional, we've got a wacky and fun Japanese mask that you can put on at parties
  
• For fans of the really cool "StitchLock" devices, which knit sheets of paper together so that you never need staples, we've restocked all varieties of these unique Japanese items
  
• Finally, look for the best disposable chopsticks you'll ever find, more wacky Japanese signs for your room, a neat all-wood pencil/pen case, more great toothbrushes from Japan, and many more items!
  

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

• For fans of great adult magazines from Japan, we've got the new Yasashiku Shite Ne (Be Gentle With Me), featuring real amateur girls having sex in love hotels and public places
  
• Then enjoy the new Aishite Ageru (I'll Love You), another great hardcore work featuring the erotic sex of couples
  
• We've got a great photobook/poster book f or Yuko Ogura fans, featuring her sexiest and most wonderful photographs ever
  
• Also, for fans of incredibly beautiful Russian nude idols, see the great hardcover photobook Doll, featuring the lovely bodies of Dasha and Masha
  
• We've got the excellent Yellows nude photobooks, a truly special item for collectors -- however the current stock is all that will be available, as the books have gone out of print
  
• We've also restocked the dynamite photobooks of Kaoru by Aida Garo, Miki Komori's erotic and very flexible photobooks, Yinling's dynamite Demonstration Clinic photobook, super leg fetish photobooks and more
  
• For hentai manga fans, we've got some great new works, including a sexual fantasy by Seiji Aura, an anthology of hentai manga with glasses fetish, a great maid fetish work, and more
  
• We have more all-new erotic doujinshi for you, from Japan's most talented hentai artists -- see them before they sell out!
  
• Fans of Yui Toshiki, one of the most famous and celebrated hentai artists of our age, we've finally gotten fresh stock of Yui Shop 4, backordered for so long
  
• Also, fresh stock of several great doujinshi that we'd sold out of (including Tohru Furuya's busty works)
  
• For our DVD customers, we've got some great new works for you, starting with 4 Hours with Kyoka Ayana, the amazing new busty starlet who has come out of nowhere to take pole position in Japan's AV world (region free)
  
• Then for fans of bukkake, see the lovely Runna Sakai in a major performance, from Soft on Demand (region free)
  
• Also, lots of les action inside crowded trains for you, from SOD's Natural High label (region free)
  
• Then enjoy a superb bukkake of the Semen Club, featuring Nana Mizuki's memorable performance, by Waap Entertainment (region 2)
  
• Then prepare for a great time as Ami Ayukawa debuts in her first indies adult release, showing the "super angle of oppai," one of the most amazing breast-fetish works we've ever seen (region 2)
  
• Finally, we've got a volley of various restocked DVD titles for you for fans who still want to take advantage of our special January DVD sale (which is almost ended...).
  

Do you like Japanese snacks? Remember that J-List carries hundreds of unique and delicious snacks from Japan, from chocolate-covered Pocky sticks to Gummi sushi to traditional Japanese treats you can't find outside of Japan. Take a moment and browse our extensive selection! Remember that we don't carry chocolate products like Pocky in the hot summer months (they melt). But now is a great time to buy!

The Internet is being bombarded with spam and viruses this week -- we're spending more time than usual deleting all the junk that comes into our mailboxes. If you ever receive virus mails from a jlist.com web address, it didn't actually come from us, but from another person who happened to have us in their address book. Because of all the problems with spyware, worms and viruses on the various Windows platforms, J-List runs only Macs.

Greetings from J-List January 28, 2004

Hello and Happy Friday from all of us at J-List!

My children attend Japanese elementary school, and watching that kind of education they receive is proving an education for me as well. In the past, America has had a somewhat envious view of Japan's education system, but I've come to be somewhat less charitable. Japan's schools are very centralized, with most textbook and curriculum choices made by Japan's Ministry of Education. When I was a child, we moved from Maryland to California, and I was amazed at how different schools were -- instead of the large, central building I had on the East Coast, my school in California was spread out with many smaller buildings, to better match the California weather. But in Japan, everything from the school layouts to the sound of the bells that ring to start classes is the same no matter where you go in Japan. Just as there's one correct way to write each kana and kanji character in Japanese, it seems there's one correct way to educate children, no matter where in Japan you live.

It's interesting to see what kinds of homework the kids bring home from school. Japanese children have to learn to write kanji, so each child has a notebook of squares in which they practice their kanji writing (you can see these on our website). To learn multiplication, Japanese children memorize sentences with shortened numbers -- which don't make any sense to my gaijin ear, no matter how hard I try to participate. They also bring home "100 square prints" which feature a grid with numbers along the top and side, and my kids have to full in the numbers with the required addition and subtraction answers within a certain amount of time. The other kind of homework the kids have every day is reading. Apparently trying to foster an interest in reading, my kids have to read stories out of their textbooks to us three times a night -- the same stories, three times each, every night. So far it seems to be having a decidedly negative effect.

There are subtle differences you come across when comparing learning in the U.S. and Japan. In Japan, a red pen is used exclusively for making corrections on tests and homework, and if you asked a Japanese to take notes or sign their name using a red pen, they'd probably be uncomfortable with it for some reason that is unfathomable to me. The symbol for a correct answer is a circle (maru), and an incorrect answer is a check mark -- the opposite of how it might be done in the U.S. The shape of a circle nearly always means "yes" or "good" in Japan, which causes an interesting problem: many electronics from the U.S. have a switch with a 1 for "on" and a 0 for "off," which seems very odd to the Japanese, who expect the zero to turn the device on. My wife has trouble turning on our American coffee maker because of this.

J-List loves the story-based interactive dating-sim games that are so popular in Japan, and carries virtually every English-translated in print for you. We're happy to say that the newest AnimePlay DVD games by Hirameki International, Day of Love and Amusement Park, are in stock and shipping in San Diego. These are DVD-based games that you can play with any standard DVD player, including Playstation 2 and Xbox. Try them now!

We plan to make some changes to the J-List site soon, which will improve the site and add new features. In case anything should go wrong and you find the site giving you trouble, please let us know so we can solve the problem right away. And remember that if you ever have a problem checking out, you can use the secure email form link in the upper left hand corner of the site to send us secure mail, including order information.

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

• First, for fans of our very popular Japanese snack pages, we've got some tasty items, including more "petite snack," delicious gummi Doraemon candy, real tart umeboshi and more
  
• Also, we've got a super sampler of five different classic chocolate candies from Meiji, all shrinkwrapped in one fun-to-eat pack
  
• The delicious "bubble ball" candy items, a hard candy treat with fizzy carbonation inside, have been popular in Japan for decades -- we've restocked all popular flavors, cola, melon soda, ramune and grape
  
• Also look for fresh stock of delicious snacks, including Almond Crush Pocky, the winter-limited Pocky Cocoa Powder, Baked Toppo Chestnut Creme Chocolate flavor, and tasty "Scallops and Soy Sauce Flavor" chips!
  
• The Japanese love fishing, and many people collect interesting lures, which are colorful and fun to display -- we've got a cool set of toy lures in stock for you to check out
  
• We love wacky Japanese things for your car and room, and we've got some bizarre reflective stickers with funny messages in Japanese on them -- great for safety, too
  
• Also, we love the glossy photobook of Nana Eikura, a fabulous "kawaii idol" from Japan
  
• Also, don't miss the newest photobook offering of Gackt, the sexiest Japanese man alive -- enjoy his new offering "Philosophy of Gackt"
  
• Before there was Dragonball or Dragonball Z, there was Dr. Slump, and we've got a rare series of candy toy figures in stock for Dr. Slump fans
  
• For all those embarrassing moments when you don't have enough chopsticks, we've got some great items in stock for you
  
• Got business cards? We've got another great business card holder from Japan, this time complete with bizarre English on the outside
  
• For Final Fantasy X-2 fans, we've got a deluxe large soft vinyl toy in the Heretic Monsters Action Figure series
  
• We've restocked many popular items for Totoro fans, including various Totoro stamps that are very cool, more stock of the deluxe Lapura robot figure with/case, and the Nausica on Meve from Nausica
  
• Like the Japan-only Hot Wheels? We've restocked the Mach 5 for Speed Race Fans as well as the Airwolf helicopter and the Knight Rider 2000 K.A.R.R. vehicle
  
• We also stock many cool Hello Kitty items sold only in Japan -- check out the restocked Kitty Rubick's Cube, tissue box cover and more
  
• Although 2004 calendar season is over, we located another volley of previously sold out calendars for you, so please check through the items -- stock is limited to what we've got on hand, and prices are
  great ^_^
  
• Finally, our wacky things from Japan include self-stamping wacky Japanese stamps, more sushi erasers, and other cool items you can only find in Japan!
  

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

• For fans of famous men's magazines, we've got some great new items from Japan, including limited stock of the new Gal's Dee, an item for fans our "outdoor fetish" and more
  
• Also, the elegant new issue of Motto Yasashiku Shite Ne, or Please Be More Gentle With Me, complete with perfect binding
  
• Enjoy the elegant hardcover photobooks Japan has to offer, including the lovely offering of Kyoko Fujikawa
  
• We've also restocked several photobook and art book items, including Miku Matsumoto's delightful hardcover work, and Shirow Masamune's Intron Depot 3
  
• 18+ manga fans, we've got some excellent offerings for you, including a great new comic by the famous busty artist Wataru Watanabe, the super cute Happy Planet by Plaza Comics, and more
  
• Restocked manga include The Confession of Mrs., Psycho Therapy, This is Peach Company and more!
  
• For doujinshi fans, we've got several great new items for you, including a fantastic new work by Behind Moon, featuring their wildly popular hermaphrodite artwork -- do not miss this new item!
  
• At J-List, we love to bring you rare toys for adults that are sold only in Japan, and today we've got two new vibrators, a classically themed kokeshi with a "Jumpin' Jack Rabbit" to assist in the job, and a rotor-type "Strawberry" item that is fun an innovative
  
• Also, a unique item for men: take the essence of Ai Nagase with you in your pocket, wherever you go
  
• For our DVD customers, we've got some great new products, starting with the Best of Ran Monbu, whose name sounds like the French dessert Mont Blanc (she was scouted in a cake shop) (region free)
  
• Japanese are really in love with girls from Russia and Eastern Europe -- we've got a great new DVD of Moscow girls showing you their best (region free)
  
• From SOD's New High label, we've got a great item for fans of "New Half" (aka Mr. Lady) (region free)
  
• Then see the pure, candid performance of Nana Natsume, a charming actress from Japan (region free)
  
• Outdoor naughtiness is a major fetish in Japan, and we've got a great offering from Waap Entertainment (region 2)
  
• Kyoko Ayana's start just keeps going higher and higher -- see her in her excellent new release from Wanz Factory, Super Angle of Oppai (region 2)
  
• Finally, we've restocked several popular DVD titles, including Mirai Hoshizaki's popular back-door release, Ami Ayukawa's delightful Super Angle of Oppai, Maria Yumeno's works, and great titles by Asuka Sawaguchi, Kurumi Morishita and Haruki Mizuno.
  

J-List advertises in various magazines, including Face Magazine, Play Magazine, AG, and more. If you found out about J-List through a magazine advertisement, we'd appreciate if you'd shoot us an email and let us know. Thanks in advance!

Remember that J-List carries something that's almost impossible to get outside of Japan: authentic Japanese high school uniforms, made just for you by the famous Matsukameya of Nagoya. Each uniform is sewn just for you, to the sizes you specify on our detailed chart, and the quality of these uniforms is not to be believed. If you love Japanese "cosplay" and want to try on a real Japanese high school uniform (the company takes pride in offering sizes large enough for men to wear the girls' uniforms), please see the excellent items we have on our site. We also have boys' high school uniforms too! We recommend these excellent uniforms for the coming summer anime convention season.

Greetings from J-List January 23, 2004

Hello again from all of us at J-List!

Rice is the staple food of Japan, and it's eaten pretty much two or three times a day by most Japanese. Japanese usually eat white rice, steamed in electric rice cookers that are owned by virtually every household (we have two or three in our house). Rice is usually eaten as a side dish to other foods (hamburger steak, sashimi, salmon, etc.), and the food you eat as a main course along with your rice is called "okazu." Supposedly, the idea of eating a small amount of a main dish with a lot of rice comes from Japan's wartime past, when everyone was poor and had very little to eat except rice. The best rice in Japan comes from Niigata Prefecture, on the Sea of Japan side of the country (the Snow Country in Kawabata's famous novel). It's called Koshi-Hikari, and restaurants proudly boast of serving only this type of rice to their customers. The Japanese have a couple of different words for rice, depending on what form it's in. "Genmai" refers to rice in its natural state, and "kome" (KOH-meh) is processed, uncooked white rice. Rice in its cooked form is "gohan," and this word is also used to refer to all food, not just rice. Similarly, "sake" refers to all alcoholic beverages, not just sake.

The fact that Japanese love to eat so much rice is the probable reason so many Japanese women seem to have problems with constipation -- after all, rice is supposed to firm up your stool, and they eat it every day. One report I saw on TV here said that 47% of Japanese high school girls and 57% of career women report problems with constipation ("benpi" in Japanese, in case it ever comes up in Trivial Pursuit). The high rate of constipation can cause other health problems including a tendency towards some cancers, and women have even been known to die when their intestines ruptured from an accumulation of waste products. Rice is very important to the Japanese, but perhaps some of them should consider eating less?

It's been said that South Korea is "the nearest country and yet the farthest away" from Japan. Despite being extremely close to one another geographically and genetically, and despite billions of dollars of trade flowing across the Sea of Japan (the Koreans hate that name by the way), it's often amazing how little understanding there is about customs on both sides of the water. Over the past few years, though, there've been real steps at meaningful cultural exchange between Japan and South Korea, helped in part by the co-hosting of the 2002 World Cup. Many Koreans such as KPOP singer BoA and actress Yoon Son Ha are regular faces on Japanese TV, and as of January, a ban on Japanese culture in Korea has been lifted, allowing Japanese music and other forms of culture to be sold in Korea. We hope for lots of happy interchange between the two countries now and in the future.

At J-List, we really believe that Japan's interactive dating-sim games are great, and so we carry virtually every English-translated game available in our San Diego warehouse for your convenience. We're happy to announce the next great game to be released: G-Collections' new Heart de Roommate, in which you play Yusuke, a boy who finds yourself living in a girls' dorm with some very beautiful female roommates. A innovative new dating-sim game for Windows computers, the story is divided into 26 anime-style episodes, complete with opening credits, "eyecatch" breaks before commercials and more. In stock and ready to ship out to you right away!

For the new update, we've got some excellent products from Japan for you, described below. To view all products updated in the past 3 days, click: http://www.jlist.com/UPDATES/PG/3/

• First, for all who love Totoro, we've added some high-quality plush toys from Sun Arrow, Japan's famous maker of toys for nearly 100 years
  
• Also, a majorrestocking of popular Totoro and Studio Ghibli items, including the Knitting Bou Nezumi from Spirited Away, the Totoro Soot Sprite keychain and more
  
• For fans of our delicious Japanese snacks, we've added many new items for you, including Indian Chai flavored chocolate snacks (wow!), Barbecue flavored "scone" snacks, and some delicious Japanese potato chip and sesame munchies
  
• Domo-kunfans, we've restocked the super large Domo-kun stuffed plush, the largest Domo they ever made!
  
• From Medicom Toy, we've got a deluxe set of six detailed Kubrick figures from Dragon Head, the popular anime and manga, a fabulous item for collectors
  
• Also forfans of unique Japanese toys, we've got a set of six classic steam locomotives from Japan's golden years, a great item for trainophiles all over the world
  
• We've gota great new Tomica die-cast metal car in stock, the Nissan Cima, sold in the U.S. as the Infinity Q45
  
• For Hello Kitty fans, we have a great form-fitting pillow which will make sleeping more comfortable, and make it fun to sleep with Kitty
  
• We've got more wacky Japanese folding fans that are very traditional and nice to look at
  
• We'veadded more stock of the popular Japanese brush pens which let you write flowing Japanese calligraphy
  
• Forsushi fans, we've got some handy "temaki" sets which allow you to make rolled-type sushi easily
  
• J-List carries unique DVDs from Japan, and we've added stock of My Neighbor Totoro (the official Ghibli release with full subtitles and many extras) as well as OH! Mikey vol. 4 (both region 2)
  
• For all students of Japanese (or just about any other subject), we've gotten in more stock of the Zebra Check Set study aids, which help you memorize any information, the way the Japanese do
  
• Finally, we've got wacky Japanese stamps, more music boxes for anime collectors, fresh stock of the deluxe 120 cm loose socks, and more!
  

For our 18+ customers, we've got many new products. To view all new products, click this link: http://www.jlist.com/UPDATES/R/3/

• First, check out the new Monthly Chisato Morishita, featuring amazing photos of one of Japan's most beautiful ladies
  
• Then see limited stock of some popular magazines, including more items posted starting at just $5
  
• We love Japan's tradition of leg fetish photography, and we've added a new photobook for you
  
• Then enjoy the delightful swimsuit photos of Izumi Yokoyama, an amazing Race Queen popular in Japan now
  
• Also,a superb offering with Hikari Kisugi and Kirari Koizumi, two very special Japanese idols
  
• For 18+ manga fans, we've added some great new comics, including the newest Maya Miyazaki Presents, cute cosplay manga, and a dynamite work by Hidemi Amano
  
• Also, we've restocked several popular manga for you, including Blue Eyes (all volumes)
  
• We've got more excellent doujinshi for you to check out, including amateur comics based on Bluer than Indigo, Sakura Wars and more
  
• For yaoi fans, we've added a great new manga for you too -- Aim For My Heart and Let's Fall in Love
  
• For our DVD customers, we've got some excellent new items for you, starting with The Stewardess Best 4 Hours, 240 minutes of all-stewardess action (region free)
  
• Sola Aoi, aka Sora Aoi, is one of our all-time favorites in the JAV world -- see her in a new release that features mult-angle features (region free)
  
• From SOD, enjoy the "pure select" performances of stars like Ai Kurosawa, Kokoro Amano and Kyoko Ayana in a great new best-hits release (region free)
  
• For fans of girl-on-girl action, we have a new release by Soft on Demand in which girls must battle other girls, with sexy results (region free)
  
• We've loved Akira Watase ever since she appeared on the JAV scene some years ago -- see her in a bold new release from Wanz Factory with some of her best performances ever (region free)
  
• Then from Moodyz, enjoy a wonderful new release starring Manami Suzuki in a beautiful tropical land
  
• Finally, look for a big update to our DVD stock, including Anna Ohura's DVD works, Stars!! with Monoka (sigh...), more 4-hour DVDs full of the best girl-girl performances you can find, and more!
  

Remember that J-List offers automatic discounts on many items that we make available. Looking for some DVDs? Get 4 or more and get an automatic 15% off. Looking for some Japanese dating-sim games? Buy 4 or more and get a great bit 20% discount. Some of our wacky Japanese T-shirts with messages like "I'm looking for a Japanese Girlfriend"? Get 3 or more and get a 10% discount. All discounts are automatic at time of checkout.

Greetings from J-List January 21, 2004

Hello again from J-List!

Japan is an interesting country, often being pulled this way or that by various outside influences. Japanese people go to a Shinto Shrine to pray on New Year's Day, turn to Buddhism for death-related customs such as funerals, have Christian weddings, and import customs like Valentine's Day and Christmas just to balance things out. Japanese can be quite superstitious, and many people here pay attention to their horoscope using the Western astrological system, although more tend to follow to the Buddhist system of lucky and unlucky days -- when getting married or taking delivery of a new car, for example, you always make sure to do it on the "lucky" day, called Taian. Japanese are also very big on using feng shui to improve the flow of energy in environments.

Since Japan used the Chinese calendar until the 1873, they also maintain some elements from that system, such as animal years, e.g. the year of the dog, the snake, etc. 2004 is the year of the monkey, and this is the birth animal for any babies born this year -- I was born in 1968, also a monkey year. But there's an unfortunate Japanese superstition surrounding women born in the year of the horse when the element fire is dominant -- most recently in 1966. Females born in this year, called Hinoeuma-no-onna or Fire Horse Women, are supposed to be un-tamable, shrew-like women who devour men, and there is subtle discrimination against them, especially by older Japanese. Eager to spare girl-children the pain of this superstition, many couples avoided having children in 1966, which caused the birth rate to plunge in that year -- very silly. If you want to see what birth animal you are according to the Chinese zodiac, here is a chart: http://www.io.com/~cortese/hinoeuma/year.html

The topic of the role of women in Japan and how it differs from the West is a very complex one. For starters, Japan is definitely a man's paradise where men are uniquely able to take the lead in just about any area they want, politics, business, you name it. In the U.S., the very act of a boss asking his female employee to get him a cup of coffee calls up any number of sexist images, but here, no one would think anything of such a request. Although there are laws against discrimination in the workplace as well as "seku-hara" (sexual harassment), there are many visible signs that Japan is for the most part a Man's Country. The best example of this was the lightning speed with which Pfizer's popular pill for men was approved for sale here by Japan's Diet, comprised almost entirely of the drug's target market. How about the Pill? Although available for 30 years in the West, birth-control pills remained illegal to dispense until a few months after the arrival of the popular drug for men, when Japanese lawmakers sheepishly admitted the double standard and approved it for sale. And yet, although Japanese women have consciously decided not to embrace Western-style feminism, they don't lack for control at all -- just ask my wife. Like almost all Japanese households, my wife handles all finances, making sure money is saved for important events, and generally protecting the happiness of the whole family.

Japan has had a strong tradition of love-simulation games, which allow you to interact romantically with beautiful anime girls, and we've worked hard over the year to support awareness of this unique form of Japanese entertainment. J-List carries virtually every English language dating-sim game in print, with all titles in stock in our San Diego warehouse. Because we're a little overstocked on some titles, we've got a great new offer for you: two "special sets" of great games from G-Collections. Get the classic game DOR plus your choice of two other G-Collections games for $95 (normally $135), or DOR plus three games for just $135 (normally $185). Choose from Kango Shicyauzo 1 or 2, Kana, Chain, Horny Bunnies, or Come See Me Tonight. A super chance to complete your bishoujo game collection!

Remember the January DVD sale! Because our fiscal year is ending on Jan 31st, we're having a special sale on all DVDs -- get an extra-large 20% discount when you buy 4 or more DVDs from Japan. Check out our great selection of titles now, before the ones you want sell our and this special DVD sale ends!

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

• First, we've got a dynamite item for Shirow Masamune fans: the new Treasure of Togihime illustration collection, which includes all works (including some very cool alternate versions of his most famous artworks) -- you can fix calendar stickers to the pictures to make a customized desktop calendar, too!
  
• For fans of the Japanese love of cosplay, creating anime costumes, we've got the new issue of CosMode, featuring tons of photos of fabulous costumes as well as a pattern that you can use to create your own
  
• Star Wars fans, we've got a cool soft vinyl figure of Jango Fett for your collection
  
• Fans of the Japanese pop quartet Speed, we've got a cool reissue of one of their most popular photobooks ever -- see all four girls in beautiful glossy shots that will knock your socks off
  
• For fans of innovative off-the-wall Japanese short films, we've got the new Grasshoppa! DVD, featuring fabulous films that are subtitled in English (great for OH! Mikey fans too)
  
• We love cute things from Japan, and we've got a really fun Kitty thermos/bottle with pop-up straw in stock for you, along with fresh stock of our popular Hello Kitty ceramic mug (large)
  
• Also, more fun Japanese egg bath toys -- a bath egg that dissolves, bring a sweet "strawberry milk" fragrance to your bath water and revealing a Snoopy toy
  
• For fans of Jiji, the popular black cat from Kiki's Delivery Service, we've got some cool "vibrating Jiji" plush toys (similar toys have proven very popular in the past, and these have been hard to reorder or keep in stock)
  
• Also, a very small plush of the really cool "No Face" (Kaonashi) from Spirited Away
  
• We've got some cool traditional Japanese dishes for your kitchen, including a miso soup bowl and a cool square cup for drinking sake
  
• Speed Racer fans, we've restocked the popular Mach 5 Hot Wheels, sold only in the Japanese market
  
• For your desk, an all-purpose sturdy steel basket to keep the things you need in
  
• For fans of our Japanese snack items, we've got delicious "Koeda" (which means "twig" in Japanese) stick snacks, in chocolate/strawberry and "black cocoa" flavor
  
• Also, strawberries "frozen" in white chocolate, spicy cracker rings, and various freshly restocked snack items
  
• Also, enjoy tasty senbei rice crackers in various flavors (shrimp, seaweed and crab)
  
• We've restocked our popular miniature Japanese food items, including the best-selling Washoku Zanmai series, extremely detailed replicas of traditional Japanese food, as well as my own favorite, miniature supermarket food items from Japan
  
• We've got a handy clip for your portable phone, which helps keep it from getting lost
  
• Finally, see more wacky signs in Japanese, some extremely well made chopsticks, more wacky maps from Japan, and other cool items!
  

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

• For fans of truly beautiful Japanese women, we've got the new Karami Photo Magazine, featuring the delightful erotic body of Akiho Yoshizawa
  
• Then see the incredible beauty of the Best of Sabra Girls, featuring 40+ superb models like Yoko Kumada, Yuko Ogura, Waka Inoue, Yinling and more -- don't miss this superb special issue
  
• For fans of the Japanese fetish known as "New Half" (She Male or Mr. Lady), we've got a new gouka-bon format photobook in stock
  
• We've also restocked the very lovely Yulia Nova photobooks, but the stock we have now is all we'll have ever -- the books are out of print
  
• For hentai manga fans, we've got some great items for you, including the delightfully erotic Introvert Eros vol. 3, an erotic fantasy work from Delta Comics and the superb Dawn of the Silver Dragon
  
• Also, a big restocking of our popular hentai mangas, including sold-out works like Noble Illusionist, Equation of the Immoral, and Full Course
  
• We have a great volley of new doujinshi comics for you, as well several "doujin soft" CD-ROMs, featuring fan-created works like games and cosplay photographs
  
• For our DVD fans, we've got some great new titles for you, starting with the lovely No Cut!! release of Haruka Tsukino, a fresh, clean adult film star from Japan (region free)
  
• Then enjoy the lovely Ai Kurosawa dressing up as your favorite anime characters in Animetic Costume Play (region free)
  
• From Soft on Demand, enjoy a new "Sperm Lesbian" release, featuring lesbians who also like to do it with men in the mix (region free)
  
• Then enjoy the delightful sex of Momo Takai and Rua Mochizuki, who are happy to assist your masturbation (region free)
  
• From Moodyz, see the super indies debut of Hikari Kisugi and Kirari Koizumi, performing a smorgasbord  of sweet sex in sunny Okinawa (region 2, 2 DVDs)
  
• We've also restocked several popular DVD titles for you, just in time for our special January DVD sale!
  

Remember that J-List now sells long-sleeve and hoody versions of our popular wacky Japanese T-shirts, like "Looking for a Japanese Girlfriend" "Beware of Perverts Touching Women on Trains" and so on. A great way to wear a wacky Japanese message and stay warm at the same time!

Greetings from J-List January 19, 2004

Hello again from Japan!

It seems that no recent invention has changed our lives as much as the portable phone, and this is true in Japan as well. Cellular phones (called "keitai" in Japanese) are extremely popular here, and there are currently 80 million subscribers to the various cell phone companies in Japan -- more than 60% of the entire country. Cell phones have many nifty features, like Java so you can play games, GPS sensors, and vintage 80's video game music and sound effects for the ringing sound (Yasu is really big on this). But the most popular "killer app" has proved to be phones with digital cameras built into them, which were created by J-Phone (now owned by Vodafone) as a way of competing with telecommunications giant NTT and industry-dominating Docomo line of phones. The latest phones feature cameras that are actually good -- megapixel and higher, with support for removable media to store the pictures on.

In response to the rise of camera phones, an innovative company has come up with an "alibi service" for people with inquisitive spouses. After registering with the system, you can store a picture of yourself as a cropped image and paste it over other background images stored in the phone. If your wife suddenly calls and asks you to take a picture of your current location and send it to her, so she can check to see if you're really working late, just send her a picture of yourself against a background of your desk at work, and she'll never know you were really out drinking with your friends, or engaged in some other activity. There are other "alibi services" too. At J-List, we subscribe to a Japanese cable radio service that allows us to listen to 440 radio channels, including radio stations from California, New York, and London. Several of the channels the company offers are to help people who need an alibi, providing background sounds of pachinko parlors, crowded pubs or train stations -- which allow people to fool their significant others into believing they're somewhere they aren't.

It can be quite interesting to analyze Japan's car names. Above all, car names must sound "kakko ii" (cool, stylish), and since nothing sounds cooler to the Japanese ear than English, most cars here get their names from English words -- like Honda Life and Subaru Legend, or Nissan's Sunny and March (sold as Nissan Micra in Europe). But many other names come from slightly altered English, so that they cause the same emotional response while being original. Words like Carolla or Tercel or Sylphy or Premacy sound like English, but car companies can still "own" the original names. In recent years, Japanese car companies have started mining Spanish as a source for car names, resulting in cars like Daihatsu's little van Vamos (I love that name), Nissan's El Grand, Toyota's Carina and Familia, and Mitsubishi's Diamante and Viento, and the oddly named Pajero. Japanese cars must never, ever have Japanese names, since that would be "kakko warui" (un-cool, bad style) -- Japanese are always amused to learn that the Suzuki Jiminy was sold as Suzuki Samurai in the U.S. However, there are some cars whose names started out as Japanese words before being "English-ified." Toyota Camry, for example, gets its name from "kamuri," which means crown in Japanese -- which is funny, since Toyota sells a higher-priced sedan here called Toyota Crown, and in the past as sold the Toyota Corona, which means crown in Spanish.

Announcing the J-List January DVD Sale! J-List is a Japanese corporation and our fiscal year ends Jan 31st. J-List has thousands of cool items from Japan in stock, but at the end of our year we have to pay taxes on that stock. Rather than do that, we'd rather sell it to you, which is why we're having a great sale on all our extensive stock of DVDs from Japan! For the next ten days only, you an get an extra-large 20% discount when you buy 4 or more DVDs from Japan! Check out our great selection of titles now, before the ones you want sell our and this special DVD sale ends!

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

• First, for all fans of fantastic anime figures and garage kits, we've got the 2003 All That Figure photobook from Hobby Japan, just loaded with fantastic photos of these amazing 3D anime statues and figures
  
• Also, we have a great polystone statue of Mizuho Kazumi from the great anime Please Teacher, that'd be great for your room
  
• Ayaya fans, we've got a great new hardcover Aya Matsuura photobook in stock for you, filled with great photographs of this amazing Japanese singer and idol
  
• We're big fans of the detailed food replicas that are popular in Japan, and we make sure to carry all these great items -- now you can find the new Dessert Shop Series 2, with ten great desserts that Japanese love (full sets are available too)
  
• Then enjoy a pair of cool "Hawaiian Wedding Hello Kitty and Dear Daniel" from Sanrio, sold only in Japan
  
• Also, a really cool trading card series based on the hentai game Street Angel Kurumi
  
• We've got another really cool Blythe doll that comes with a full-head costume to wear, very stylish and nifty
  
• Studying Japanese? We've restocked our popular J-E and E-J dictionaries as well as our 4-character word and Japanese proverb dictionaries, really fun to study
  
• Also, we've gotten in more stock of the very popular Chobits Bilingual Manga vol 1 & 2, so you can enjoy this great manga by CLAMP and see both the original Japanese and a full English translation!
  
• Also, after several months of being backordered all over Japan, we've managed to get in more of the Ghost in the Shell Bilingual Manga too, which features color pages and an all-new translation of this most excellent work (much better than the Studio Proteus one)
  
• Japanese smoke a lot, but they try to practice good smoking manners, which one TV commercial calls "Smokin' Clean" -- if you smoke, you can do your part by carrying a portable ashtray which allows you to avoid dropping ashes and butts on the ground
  
• We've got some great snack items for you today, including traditional "tonkotsu" ramen flavored snacks, traditional "sakura daikon" snacks, and delicious poppable castella cakes that have been popular in Japan for centuries
  
• Also, a cool candy version of the famous ramune bottle soft drinks, but you can eat these!
  
• One of our favorite foods in Japan is gyoza, aka Pot Stickers, the delicious Chinese dumplings you dip in a sauce that contains soy sauce, vinegar and spicy sesame oil -- now you can try to make your own with cool gyoza makers that we have in stock
  
• If you're a collector of antique teddy bears, we've got a rare and cool item: Japanese miniature toy replicas of the most famous teddy bears of the 20th century
  
• Finally, we've got more cool Japanese maps, fresh stock of the rare "socks glue" which you use to glue your loose socks to your legs, more disposable chopsticks, and more!
  
• For our 18+ customers, we've got many new products. They include:
  
• For fans of Japan's professional JAV stars, we've got the new Video Boy, filled with great stars like Nao Oikawa, Kurumi Morishita, Alice Ogura, Aoi Sora and more
  
• We've also got the new issue of Meets Girl (as in "boy meets girl"), featuring real sex in love hotels by gorgeous amateurs
  
• Then enjoy the new Video Girls, a special magazine with 120 minute DVD for you to enjoy
  
• For photobook fans, enjoy the delightful sexy swimsuit photos of Moeco Matsushita, a charming and beautiful swimsuit idol from Japan
  
• For fans of Japan's bondage and domination fetishism, we've got the new Eve Grande all-color photobook, brimming with great photographs for you
  
• We've got some great new erotic comics for you, including Tsukasa Comics' Milk Communication, fetish with Female Teacher Izumi or Maid Ayaya, and an erotic comic detailing sexual between people who used to be just friends -- you will love these new books
  
• We've also added fresh stock to our manga pages, with great works like Kuikomi Scanty, The Secret of Me and Her, Yuwaku - Seduction, Gothic Taste and more
  
• We have another dozen or so all-new doujinshi from the past Comic Market, with great erotic comics based on famous anime shows
  
• For our DVD fans, we have some great new DVD titles for you, starting with Azumi Kawashima's delightful softcore release - "Azumi's Smile & Nude Make Us Happy" (region free)
  
• Then enjoy the very nice new project from Soft on Demand, in which female friends must look at various girls' genitalia and guess which belongs to their friends (region free)
  
• Also from SOD, a massive harem of beautiful girls who give themselves willingly to men (region free)
  
• There's a great new release in the "black men vs Japanese girls" series by Moodyz, this time featuring Ann Nanba (An Namba) taking on a roomfull of black guys from the U.S. (region 2)
  
• Then enjoy the wonderful new release of "Nao." (she always has a period after her name, in imitation of Morning Musume.), featuring some of her best cosplay and bukkake work ever (region 2)
  
• Finally fresh stock of several DVDs including cosplay, lesbian, and other great titles, just in time for our special DVD sale!
  

Remember that J-List sells wacky T-shirts with message like "I'm looking for a Japanese girlfriend" (our most popular shirt ever), "Respect the Emperor, Expel the Foreign Barbarians" "It is forbidden to take a bath with your tattoo" and so on. Why not browse our selection of T-shirts today? Because your satisfaction is important to us, J-List goes the extra distance for you, stocking a wide range of sizes (from small to XXXL for most shirts), so everyone can enjoy our fun Japanese T-shirts. They're printed in the USA and all sizes are full American sizes. If you're not sure exactly what size you need, the measurements for the shirts in centimeters and inches is displayed via the "Click here for size info" link. We also have hoodie and long-sleeve sweatshirt versions of our unique designs, too!

Greetings from J-List January 17, 2004

Hello from all your friends in Japan at J-List!

Well, the Japanese military is off to Iraq. Amid a massive political debate that has Japanese questioning the nature of their support for their allies as well as grappling with how they should feel about their wartime past, Japan is sending the first 30 members of its Self Defense Forces to support peacekeeping efforts in Iraq. It's a very controversial decision for Japan's government to make, though, since most Japanese are against sending troops anywhere outside of Japan. Part of the problem is that Japan's constitution specifically forbids its military from waging war overseas, and so the decision to send troops is being viewed as a constitutional problem. But Japan is a country where in-groups are very important, and being "nakama-hazure" (nah-kah-mah ha-ZOO-ray), or outside the group that includes the U.S. and Great Britain, would be something Japan's government would not like at all. The decision to send troops is really based on wanting to be seen as doing their part in the world stage than anything else.

One of the core concepts to Japanese society is an unstated belief that all Japanese are basically "the same" (known as the Myth of Japanese Uniformity). While Japanese would be insulted at anyone insinuating that all Japanese look alike to foreigners (although I've been told that all gaijin look alike to Japanese), they do have a tendency to see themselves as coming from the same stock and having the same features, e.g. black hair, "black" eyes (brown pupils, but the Japanese always insist their eyes are black). This belief in genetic sameness is a useful social engine for creating a unified national identity and removing discrimination from Japanese society, but here's the rub: there is actually a wide variety of features among "Japanese" people, with obvious influences from Korean, Mongolian and Ainu blood, differences in skin color and the depth of facial features, size and shape of the eyes, and so on. Conveniently for their harmony-based society, the Japanese don't "see" differences in facial features of their own people, allowing everyone to feel that they're part of the same homogenous group.

A major challenge for men learning Japanese is to avoid picking up the nuances of women's speech, but since we're often learning from female teachers or girlfriends or wives, a lot of the input we receive is from females. There are many specific phrases that make up "female" Japanese, such as tag particles on the ends of sentences ("ne" or "kashira" on the ends of sentences, both of which mean "Isn't it?" or "Don't you?"), or using first-person pronouns that only females use ("atashi"). To balance myself out while learning Japanese back in college, I read lots of Fist of the North Star manga, which pushed me in the other direction, making me talk like a ridiculous parody of a macho man. When learning a language, there's no substitute for having native speaking friends of both sexes who can provide feedback to you. One great resource for me at SDSU was the Japan-America Friendship Club, a group where Japanese learning English and all students interested in Japanese could mingle and make friends. I wonder if it's still around?

Still looking for a really unique 2004 calendar for your wall? J-List still has 50 different really cool Japanese calendars in stock for you to choose from, although prices have been reduced to rock-bottom and they're selling fast. Choose from our great JPOP, traditional, photo, bikini idol or mature calendars -- you'll love the way these large-format glossy calendars look on your wall!

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

o First, for fans of the very detailed fish tank replicas from Tomy, we've got two new varieties for with new varieties of fish: clownfish (for fans of Finding Nemo) and really cool looking jellyfish

For Totoro fans we have a great new plush Cat Bus for you, from Japan's famous Sun Arrow company

Also, a cute soft vinyl figure of Pan Taron, pilot of the giant panda-shaped mecha Panda Z

Hello Kitty fans, enjoy a great Kitty talking alarm clock, super cute and only sold in Japan

We love to carry a variety of unique things from Japan -- today we've got more traditional wooden Buddhist prayer beads which can be worn as a stylish fashion accessory if you like

For your kitchen, a really cool traditional object for cleaning pots, your sink, and more

Want to eat rice the way the Japanesedo? We have a really nifty non-stock rice scoop in stock for you

We have a very stylish Blythe figure for you, with a cute "kigurumi" costume (a costume that includes a full head mask), very cool

Also, a great high-quality "one coin figure" series based on The Big-O

For fans of our Japanese snack foods, check out Hello Kitty corn flakes and delicious spicy Japanese senbei (rice cracker)

OH! Mikey is really getting popular around the world -- in addition to fresh stock of the DVDs and remaining stock of the 2004 calendars, we've got a soft vinyl figure keychain of the petulant Laura

Finally, a way to keep your toilet clean, various fresh stock of Japanese gum and snacks, and more!

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

• For fans of Japanese magazines, we've got the very sexy ONE-X, for fans of experienced "onee-san" (oh-NAY-san) type girls, aged 20-24
  
• Then for fans of the enduring fetish of "hitozuma" (lit. "a person's wife"), or married women, we have the new issue of Yappari Hitozuma Dechu, or "I'm sure I love married women after all"
  
• For lovers of Japan's dynamite leg, panty, stocking and up-skirt fetishism, we have the new Noble Legs by Costume Play, which you won't beleive
  
• For hardcover photobook collectors, we've got some new items for you, including great new stylish nudes in the style we've come to call "Girls in Underoos"
  
• For fans of doujinshi, the delightfully erotic underground comics from Japan, we have a huge volley of all-new books posted for you (but choose fast, they won't stay around for long)
  
• Also, we've got some great new hentai manga for you, including Nanami Shizuka's "Milky Girls," Toen Comics' "Dangerous Emissions," the very erotic manga "Lewd Touching" and more
  
• For fans ofour fantastic DVDs from Japan, enjoy Ai Kurosawa as an ultra-elegant "Highest Class Soap Lady," making men clean and satisfying their slippery desires at the same time (region free)
  
• For fans of "sentai" (fighting shows like Power Rangers), we've got Yui Kayama vs. Mai Haruna in a great deluxe Super Erotic Ninja sex-fest (region free)
  
• Then from popular director Hajime, enjoy the pure sex of pure Japanese amateur girls, great to watch because everything Hajime does is 100% authentic (region free)
  
• Finally, find various restocked and price-reduced DVDs in stock for you!
  

Remember that J-List carries virtually all English-language Japanese dating-sim games available, so you can find all the best games in one place, and at great prices. Peach Princess, G-Collections, Hobibox, Himeya Soft, JAST USA and Milky House, we've got them all and all are in stock in our warehouse in San Diego. If you're unsure which games you think you'd like, feel free to email us for a recommendation! Order 4 or more games and get 20% off, too!

Greetings from J-List January 15, 2004

Hello again from your friends at J-List!

Well, my little trip to San Diego and Las Vegas has come to an end, and it's time for me to make the jump back to Japan. It's always nice to come home -- nothing makes a person appreciate what a great place their home country is like living in another one. One thing I really miss about San Diego when I'm in Japan is the weather: today, while the rest of the U.S. was freezing, it was a balmy 74 degrees, perfect for wearing short-sleeves.

Tokyo is a really exciting city, a sprawling mass of people and concrete that really boggles the mind the first time you're there. The population of Tokyo itself stands at around 12 million, but if you count the neighboring cities of Kawasaki and Yokohama and nearby prefectures of Chiba and Saitama, it grows to a massive 33 million. About a quarter of all Japanese live within 100 km (60 miles) of the Tokyo, making it by far the most influential part of the country. Because Tokyo is so massive, every few years someone brings up the topic of moving the capital to another part of the country, like Japan's Tohoku region (the northern section of the main Japanese island of Honshu), which is still underdeveloped economically. Unfortunately there's not much momentum for such a plan at present.

If you're ever in Tokyo, there are some good places to see, the famous "playgrounds" which are fun to check out, whether you want to have fun or just do some people-watching. First is Harajuku, a stylish area on the Yama-no-Te loop line where you can find very cool shops, and very hip young people. Go on Sundays to see people dressed up in Gothic & Lolita fashions. Next is Shibuya, also on the Yama-no-Te train line. Go out the Hachiko exit (Hachiko was a faithful dog who waited at this station for ten years for his master to return, unaware that his master had died; you can see a statue of him here), preferably on a Friday or Saturday night, and just feel the energy from the lights, the massive TV screens, the street musicians, and the cool restaurants. Roppingi is also good -- famous for its bars and "image clubs" (establishments where you can have girls dressed in costumes pour drinks for you), and Tokyo's Hard Rock Cafe is there. Finally, if you ever hit Tokyo, you must go to Akihabara, the electronic mecca of Japan, with hundreds of large and small electronics shops. When riding the train, you can always tell you've stopped in Akihabara because all the gaijin suddenly get off the train.

When you learn a foreign language, one concept you catch early on is that a given word will often have many different meanings or nuances when used in another language. One of the first words students of Japanese learn is "genki," which is used in the Japanese greeting "Ogenki desu ka?" (Are you well?). In the context of this greeting, genki means "fine" or "well" and you can reply to this greeting by saying "Hai, genki desu" (Yes, I am fine). But genki can have other meanings, such as describing children running around ("energetic"), or someone beaming with happiness about something, or someone getting healthy after an illness. (The word can also refer to a man in a state of sexual arousal.) Studying a foreign language teaches you a lot about how words work and makes you think about your own language, too.

For the new update, we've got some excellent all-new products from Japan for you, from toy magazines to cool items for your home to brand-new Gundam toys to nifty Kitty items and more. Items for adults include erotic new magazines and super sexy photobooks and hentai manga/doujinshi and great DVDs like the popular "clothed female, naked male" DVD series. Three dozen new products from Japan for you to check out -- please browse them all!

At J-List, we love DVDs, and are happy that we can provide so many unique titles to our customers from Japan. 95% of the DVDs J-List sells are "region free" meaning you can use them in any player, but some discs from Japan -- Japan-released anime and high-end indies 18+ DVDs -- require a special region-free player to view. J-List stocks two excellent transportable region-free players from Lasonic, the feature-rich yet inexpensive DVF-982 and the even more affordable DVB-8092. These players will play discs from any country in the world, including playing PAL (European) discs on an NTSC (North American) TV and vice-versa. They also play VCDs as well as CD-R and DVD-R/CD-RW media. And they start at just $88!

Greetings from J-List January 12, 2004

Hello again from J-List!

Well, we're back in sunny San Diego again, safe and sound. We had a great show in Las Vegas -- thanks to everyone who came by to say hello. Doing an "adult" show was a totally new experience for us, but we had fun, and got to see a lot of cool stuff (Hulk Hogan came by our booth, too). I'm used to having "reverse culture shock" when I come to California from Japan -- little things like ordering a small drink and getting a drink that's larger than a large size in Japan. It was amazing how much culture shock we had in Nevada though: everything from the rules of the road to where you're allowed to smoke (everywhere) were quite different from what we were used to in California.

The circle is now complete: I just caught the last chapter of the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy. It was truly amazing, a real visual treat, although the Tolkien purist in me might have a thing or two to say about the final cut (which will probably be fixed in the final DVD release). My wife suspects I plan my business trips to the U.S. to coincide with movies that just happen to not be opening in Japan for a few more months, so I can see them early -- where would she get an idea like that?

When you learn a language as different from English as Japanese, there are inevitably some words that don't translate on a perfect 1-to-1 basis, which can present some challenges to anyone learning the language. The concept of "cold," for example, is expressed with two different words: samui (sa-MOO-ee, coldness in the air) and tsumetai (TSOO-meh-TAI, coldness to the touch). Similarly, cold water (mizu) and hot water (yu or o-yu) are two totally different concepts in Japanese. There are two words for "love" in Japanese, too, and if you want to have some fun ask Japanese what the difference between them is -- they'll stumble as they try to come up with a way to explain the difference. The two words are koi (which usually describes romantic love between a man and a woman, or the hot love you get while dating) and ai (a higher kind of love that is used for family or anyone who's very dear to you, or the steady, long-burning love of marriage). Yet another concept that takes several forms in Japanese is "heart." There are three potential ways to express this word: shinzo (the actual heart pumping blood in your body), kokoro (the philosophical elements of your heart, aka your spirit or soul), and haato (the English word heart, written in the katakana writing system), which usually describes a traditional heart shape but can also be an alternate way to write kokoro. Incidentally, while Westerners usually assume the "self" or "mind" is in your head, Japanese indicate that it's in your chest, where your heart is. In case it ever comes up in Trivial Pursuit.

Sometimes Japan can really throw you a curve ball. In Japan, like in all countries, there are foreigners living and working there, from countries like the Brazil, Peru, South Korea, the U.S. and so on. They fill various jobs, such as English teachers, translators, factory workers, you name it. The other day I was in a game center, and I saw a sign posted on the wall that stated in extremely polite Japanese, "Thank you for using this game center. Please understand that our staff can only speak Japanese, so we cannot communicate with foreigners who can't speak Japanese. If you can't speak this language and have some trouble with our games, please go to another game center." Since the sign was written in Japanese, I don't know who they thought was going to read it.

For the new update, the J-List staff has worked extra hard to make a great update for you, with dozens of cool new products from Japan, including DVDs, magazines, photobooks, toys, wacky things from Japan, snacks, gum and more. Please take a few minutes to browse all the great new items we've posted for you! We've also restocked your old favorites, from manga to candy to DVDs, and we know you'll love the cool items for you.

Remember that J-List carries a really unique item sold only in Japan: ultra-soft acrylic character blankets from Japan, with printed images of Totoro and Hello Kitty on them. These blankets are incredibly soft and great to snuggle up against, and keep you really warm -- we actually sleep with two of them, one below and one above, for really toasty winters. My mother loves these blankets so much that she regularly has me bring them to her from Japan. Our current stock of warm blankets from Japan is all we'll be getting in for the rest of the season, so get your super-soft Japanese blanket today!

Greetings from J-List January 9, 2004

Hello again from your friends in Japan!

We're having so much fun in Las Vegas. After the first day of the AVN show we took in the Canals of Venice, beautiful Paris and the Eiffel Tower, and New York, New York, all in the casinos. This is such a powerfully alive place, we couldn't be bored for even a few minutes here. Remember, if you'll be in Vegas this weekend, we hope to see you at the show. For more info on the show, see http://adultentertainmentexpo.com

I love Japanese public baths (sento) and hot springs (onsen, pronounced so that the first syllable rhymes with "go"), and take my kids every week -- sometimes twice. Public baths hail back from the Edo era when people didn't have private baths in their homes, and had to go to community facilities to bathe. Hot springs have also a long history, and popular onsen towns like Kusatsu, located in the mountains of Gunma (where J-List is located) have been in use as resort towns for hundreds of years. The other day my son saw a young boy in the bath and asked me why he had a blue bruise on his rear end. This is the famous Mongolian Spot (mokohan in Japanese, "the Old Spot of Mongol"), a blue bruise-like spot which is found on Chinese, Japanese and Mongolian children, including my own kids when they were young. The spots go away when the children reach age five or so. In Japanese, the word for someone who is still a wet-behind-the-ears greenhorn is "ao ni-sai" ("still blue 2-year-old"), which is probably related to this spot.

Before I went to Japan back in 1992, I had heard that beef was expensive, and I figured I'd rarely be eating such luxuries as steak in Japan. However steak is quite common in Japan, and there are many restaurants that serve steaks. It's not even that expensive -- especially the more affordable "hamburg steak" (ground-beef steak) that's eaten more commonly than full cuts of meat. The Japanese have a great custom when it comes to eating steak: they take a sauce made of daikon radish that they scoop over your steak, still sizzling on its hot plate. The daikon sauce makes a wonderful "schuaaa" sound as the sauce hits the plate, and you protect yourself from the flying sauce by draping a napkin over your steak while the sizzling dies down. It's a fun part of eating in Japan.

Sometimes I suddenly get "pop culture dissonance," amazed at the turns my own life has taken and at the effect the tiny country of Japan has had on the world. I was watching my Star Trek movie DVDs a few months ago -- and there was good old Mr. Sulu, who, along with Miyagi-san of The Karate Kid, symbolized what Japanese were to me before I came to Japan. (And yet, the name "Sulu" is not Japanese at all, but something that "sounded Japanese at the time.") Now, we've got an anime version of Colonel Sanders selling to chicken to us, and anime-influenced Hollywood movies like the Matrix and Kill Bill. During my time in Japan, I've learned the Japanese words to both the Yamato/Star Blazers and Speed Racer theme songs, and have sung them loudly at the top of Mt. Fuji. I've had the good luck and pleasure to be able to introduce many odd and wacky aspects of Japan to so many great people around the world. Life is fun!

For the new update, the J-List staff has posted a bunch of new and restocked products for you to browse, with many excellent manga, DVD, Japanese snack and gum, toy, wacky and T-shirts items in stock for you. Enjoy them all!

Interested in the hit Japanese mannequin drama OH! Mikey? This is a deliciously bizarre parody of an American family living in Tokyo, with fashion mannequins playing all the parts of the story. In addition to the cute antics of young Mikey, there is the oh-so-dapper James, his wife Barbara, the playful Tony and Charles, Mikey's venomous cousin Laura, and more. All three DVDs in the OH! Mikey series are subtitled in English, so you can enjoy this most excellent and wacky example of Japanese television even if you don't understand Japanese. (The DVDs are region 2, so we humbly recommend the region free DVD players we stock to view.)

Greetings from J-List January 5, 2004

Hello again from J-List!

First of all, a full hard drive caused a dozen or so orders received over the weekend to show as incomplete on our end -- we received the orders but not the email addresses or names of the people who made them. If you ordered something through the J-List website on Saturday or Sunday and haven't received the second email from us, please contact us so we can get your order processed properly.

We had a fun weekend. Our kids don't get out enough since we're so busy with J-List, so we took them to beautiful Yokohama to show them the city, hitting such famous sites as Chinatown and the Gaijin Graveyard and Yokohama Marine Tower in Yamashita Park, the tallest lighthouse in the world (I've wanted to see it since I saw episode 15 of Robotech back in high school). Yokohama is a fabulous place, steeped in history and international culture, and I've always felt drawn to it -- maybe that's because my hometown of San Diego is similar in many ways, and in fact, Yokohama and San Diego are sister cities. We took the kids to have some fun at Hakkejima Sea Paradise, an amusement park and excellent aquarium located on an artifically created island in Yokohama Bay. We loved riding the rides, but had the most fun in the aquarium, a very well-designed system of tanks and windows that allow you to get inches away from some amazing marine life, and meet eyes with beluga whales, dolphins, penguins and more. There's also an escalator that goes up through a massive tank of aqua life, so that there are fish on all sides of you and above you. It was pretty cool.

In Yokohama we stayed in a Western hotel, one of the high-rise hotels popular in the major Japanese cities known as "city hotels." Staying in a city hotel is a totally Western experience -- everything from the beds to the bathtubs to the food in the restaurants is based on a slightly exaggerated ideal of what a fine hotel in America or Europe would be, as seen through Japanese eyes. It was actually a bit of a culture shock for my family and I -- we're so used to the rhythm of a Japanese-style inn, with tatami rooms, futons, cotton yukata and large communal hot spring baths, that the city hotel took some getting used to.

At the amusement park there was an Anna Miller's restaunt, which we happily ate at. Anna Millers' is a famous chain of "Boston style" family restaurants that's really good, and their pies can't be beat. But Anna Miller's is famous for another reason: their sexy waitress uniforms, which feature very short skirts and, er, support for various parts of a woman's anatomy. As part of the general Japanese boom in "cosplay" (costume play, i.e. dressing up in various uniforms or costumes), the Anna Miller's sexy waitress uniforms have become famous throughout the country, and are as recognizable to Japanese as the Playboy Bunny is to Americans. To see what the uniform looks like, just search for "waitress" on the J-List site and see what comes up -- the bishoujo game Viper V16 also features a girl wearing this famous costume on the cover. Supposedly, the best place to experience Anne Miller's is the restaurant in Meguro, Tokyo -- the girls are supposed to be the prettiest there, according to Tomo, who is an expert. If you're ever in Tokyo and want to experience some delicious food and pretty waitresses, just go to the Meguro or Ebisu train stations on the Yama-no-te loop line and take a taxi to the restaurant.

Now I'm at Narita Airport, about to make the leap from Japan to California again. I'll be attending the AVN Adult Entertainment Expo in Las Vegas from Jan 8-12. If you'll be at the show and want to stop by and say hello, we'd love to see you! For more info on the show, see http://adultentertainmentexpo.com

For the new update, we have a whole lot of new items for you, from magazines to photobooks to doujinshi/manga to DVDs to anime toys to wacky things from Japan and more -- a great volley of new items for you to browse and enjoy! Also, look for freshly restocked items from Japan from our extensive selection of unique products from Japan for you. We hope we can serve you in some way!

Remember that J-List carries thousands of cool things from Japan, including the really cool miniature "candy toy" (called this because you usually get some ramune or other candy in the box). Our favorites include the full sets of Street Fighter II replica figures, the excellent Urusei Yatsura figures, and the replicas of famous foods found in Japan, like sushi, traditional Japanese dishes and miniature bento boxes sold in train stations all around Japan. Because we want you to be satisfied with these great toys, we go the extra mile for you and create full sets that you can buy -- so there's no need to buy two dozen toys and throw away all the duplicates. Please note that these candy toy items are all out of production, and no more will be available -- so if there's something you want to get, we recommend you get it before our stock runs out.

Greetings from J-List October 4, 2004

Japan is ecstatic about the achievement of Ichiro, Japan's current favorite son, who beat the record for most hits in a season set back in 1920. The Japanese like nothing more than having one of their own gain recognition around the world, and names like writers Yukio Mishima and Kenzaburo Oe and directors Akira Kurosawa and Hayao Miyazaki have a special place in the hearts of people here because they raised Japan's image internationally. The Japanese are great fans of baseball, and to have one of their own distinguish himself in the Big Leagues like that makes everyone very proud here.

As always, it's interesting to watch the unfolding of American politics from outside the U.S. I can really get a bird's-eye view of my own country, looking in from the outside, and I've had interesting discussions with British, Canadian and Australian expats about various aspects of American politics. As the U.S. election approaches, Japanese newscasters regularly follow the campaign, giving commentary on every facet of the battle for president, which is often a tall order since there are so many differences between America's electoral system and the Parliamentary system that Japan uses. Gaijin like me are able to vote in the election too, thanks to the absentee ballot system, which Japanese are always amazed at -- they don't have anything like that for Japanese living outside of Japan. While I've voted for candidates from both parties in my life, I am personally concerned about one party -- GOP or Democrat -- controlling both houses of Congress as well as the Presidency. I believe it's fundamentally healthier for America when power is shared between both parties, which forces them to struggle and reach compromises that are good for all of us.

Time for some trivia. In case you were wondering what the Japanese use to estimate the size of a person's privates, well, we'll tell you, and then you'll know. Unlike in the U.S., where the size of the hand often indicates male size, here the size of a man's nose in relation to his face supposedly indicates whether or not he is well endowed. So if you've got a large nose and come to Japan, you may find yourself surprisingly popular with girls (although your mileage may vary). In similar silly Japanese fashion, the area inside a woman's ear (the little cavity formed by the bottom of the "S" shape) supposedly indicates the general size of her womanhood.

If you use a XML news reader, you can follow updated J-List products easily with our RSS feed, which lets you easily check your favorite blogs and news sites (the link to our "R" feed is http://www.jlist.com/feed.xml). We'd had some problems with our feed which might have caused errors to appear in some readers, but we believe we've fixed them now. Feedback on our RSS feed is always appreciated.

We have a wonderful update for you today, with many great items. First of all, the first batch of 2005 calendars has come in, and we've posted them to the site post haste -- no waiting! We'll be getting more and more calendars in over the next few weeks, so if the item you want to get still says "preorder" it means those calendars haven't come in yet, but will be in soon, so feel free to order it. We've also gotten our stock of the Otaku Catalog, the collection of essays on otaku culture released at the international symposium on architecture and culture in Venice, Italy. It's very interesting reading for anyone interested in Japan's unique sub-culture.

Remember that J-List carries authentic Japanese "loose socks" in two different sizes, and also carries "socks glue" which you can use to glue your socks to your legs to hold them up. Worn by virtually all Japanese high school girls (except those who go to strict schools where they are forbidden), they look great when bunched up just so. Enjoy a little slice of Japanese fashion culture courtesy of J-List -- they also go great with the authentic high school uniforms we sell, too! Great for cosplay, too.

Greetings from J-List October 4, 2004

Greetings from J-List January 3, 2004

Hello from Japan, home of cars with funny names like the Honda That's.

We've taken to spending our weekends getting to know our own prefecture, exploring the backroads of Gunma, where we live, in our Mazda Bongo Friendee. A rural prefecture with a population of 2 million located right in the center of Japan's main island of Honshu, Gunma is famous for mountains, water, poetry (a famous Japanese poet was born here), politicians (three of Japan's past prime ministers hail from our prefecture), and cold, biting wind in the winter, called kara-kaze. Some of the best hot springs can be found in Gunma, and quite frequently we roam around looking for undiscovered places to take a hot bath. There are other fun attractions, such as Gunma Flower Park, where you can see flowers from all over the world; Tobu World Square, with scale replicas of architectural wonders of the world; and Green Bokujo, a kind of mock farm where city folks can interact with farm animals. For something entirely different, go to Kronenberg, a mock-up replica of a German village in the mountains near us, complete with embarrassed-looking German gaijin standing around. But they have good beer and sausages! Last weekend we went to Gunma Safari Park, where you can see animals of Africa from inside your car, although my kids love the game Zoo Tycoon, so they were more interested in seeing zookeepers raking up poo, like they do in the game.

When I got here 12 years ago, I noticed many things that the Japanese were very fond of, which seemed odd to me and my fresh-from-the-States sensibilities. The Japanese just love corn soup, and you can buy it in most restaurants -- they even have canned corn soup sold in vending machines, which is great to hold in your hands on winter mornings. Audrey Hepburn is the favorite actress of many Japanese, and her film Roman Holiday is one of the most well-known movies among Japanese women. Sydney Sheldon is one of the most popular Western authors, and his books are all translated into Japanese and appear in most every bookstore (usually alongside the translated works of Agatha Christie). Then there are some things from the U.S. that Japanese aren't so fond of. Mexican style beans are one -- Japanese nearly always hate these when they eat them for the first time, because in Japan, beans are supposed to be sweet. (Foreigners usually hate Japanese beans for the same reason.) Another product the Japanese usually can't handle is root beer, which is detested universally by Japanese, who think it tastes like the pain relieving Salonpas. Most Japanese can handle Dr. Pepper okay. Japanese also tend to not eat bread crusts, and in fact you can buy bread in the supermarket with the crusts already cut off -- which might explain why Japanese women are seemingly all constipated.

We've become aware that more and more, emails sent from the jlist.com domain are being blocked by ISPs, due to the ever-worsening problem with spam. AOL blocks our mails quite often, which obviously makes it impossible for us to send you updates on orders have made. If you ever feel you're not getting a mail you should have gotten from J-List, please email us and we'll look into your order and try to mail you from another account. Thanks for your understanding.

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

• First, for fans of our delicious Japanese snacks, we've got delicious winter-only March of the Koalas candy, as well as a traditional Japanese "kneading candy" which you mix in the air with chopsticks to make it ready to eat -- really fun
  
• Also, we've got some new varieties of sugarless gum from Japan, featuring the popular xylitol, a delicious sugar substitute that strengthens your teeth (it's from Finland, go figure)
  
• We have a great art book for fans of Dead or Alive Xtreme Volleyball, featuring some of the most realistic and beautiful CG gals we've ever seen
  
• Japan is home to many cute things -- now we've got a cute little electronic pen that comes out an egg right before your eyes
  
• Also, we've got a really cute mini hamster fan which will keep you cool in all seasons, and it's adorable, too
  
• For Gundam fans, we have a really cool line of detailed Gundam candy toys, which include a Gundam toy you can put together along with candy to eat
  
• The Groomy line of plush pets, which include soft leather undersides for wiping your computer monitor -- now we have Strap Groomy, cute plush pets with phone straps, which allow you to attach them to cameras, cellular phones, etc.
  
• For our "wacky things from Japan" fans, we've got more Japanese maps, of Nagoya, Tokyo and Gunma Pref.
  
• Domo-kun fans, we've added stock of many different items, including the Domo-kun phone straps, Domo-kun plush toys and square cubes, Domo-kun stationary and more
  
• We love to promote the study of Japanese, and we've got more wacky mini-dictionaries in stock, as well as the infamous "kanji toilet paper" with kanji quizzes printed on each roll
  
• For fans of really Japanese things, we have some cool chopsticks with "lucky cat" printed on them
  
• Also, a major restocking of our bizarre Japanese headbands (hachimaki), with slogans like "certain victory" "I will pass the test" "Guts" and more
  
• We love the cool toy line Panda-Z, which features a cute panda boy who pilots a giant panda robot -- now you can play with his enemy, Black Ham Gear, featuring the evil Dr. Jangarly
  
• Japan is having a big boom of samurai dramas on TV now -- join in the fun with a toy replica samurai sword set
  
• Finally, we've got great items for your kitchen, a cute metal sign in Japanese, pocket igo for anyone who wants to try the ancient Japanese game of go, fresh stock of wacky Hello Kitty items, and more!

For our 18+ customers,