This year's Meat Day celebration in Japan, my lust for American cell phones, and the meaning of "recycle" in Japan

The Japanese often play with numbers in interesting ways, converting the numerals into sounds to make messages. Through a phonetic system I still don't understand completely, the number 084 can be read ohayo (good morning), 39 can be san kyu (which sounds like the English word "thank you"), and 4649 can be yoroshiku (pleased to meet you). Yesterday was February 9th, and since the numbers 2 and 9 can be read niku (which means "meat" in Japanese), butcher shops across Japan have decided to label the day as Meat Day, a special day to celebrate meat in all its many forms. February 9th is also my wife's birthday, and rather than getting the big plate o' sushi that we usually get on birthdays, we decided to head out for some yakiniku, a fun category of restaurant in which everyone sits around a grill built into your table and cooks meat and vegetables over a flame. Yakiniku (which just means "cooked meat") is a traditional Korean barbecue meal, slightly customized to Japanese tastes of course, and in addition to various kind of beef, chicken and vegetables, you can order kimchee and various Korean favorites. As with other Japanese dishes like sukiyaki or chanko-nabe (both basically pots of food you cook in the middle of a table, with everyone taking what they want to eat out), eating your dinner as a family together is one of the most enjoyable aspects of yakiniku.

Well, the unthinkable has happened: I'm starting to feel envious of cell phone users in the U.S. Oh, Japan still leads the design wars when it comes to making thin, stylish phones with cool 3G features like high-speed Internet, GPS, 3.2 megapixel cameras and even a phone with a 4 GB hard drive for listening to tunes. However, more and more I find myself looking at those cool Treo-type smart phones with those little keyboards and wish they sold things like that here. Part of the problem is that it's quite easy to enter Japanese text with a phone, since it's all syllable based -- entering arigatou （ありがとう） takes just five characters, which you enter by hitting the number keys (the 1 moves you through the A-I-U-E-O line, the 2 key is the KA-KI-KU-KE-KO line, and so on). Japanese who are used to keypad text entry can go very fast, and knowing Japan, somebody will have come up with a standardized test for fast and accurate typing using this method. Entering English text on a keypad is hell, though, and it takes several minutes just to peck out a simple sentence. Since there's little demand for phones with Blackberry-like features here, there isn't a single such device on the market in Japan, meaning that if I want get some email done out of the office, I have to bring my whole Powerbook with me.

One category of business that really took off over the past decade is the "recycle shop," Japanese parlance for a shop that buys stuff that people don't need anymore, cleans it up, and sells it for a profit. Today, everything from rice cookers to washing machines to skis to console games are bought and sold in Japan's new retail underground. The most successful of these stores is BookOff, a chain of used book stores that has hundreds locations in Japan. His shops include spin-off brands such as ToyOff (they sell "almost new" children's toys), PetOff (used stuff for your pet), and the very oddly named HardOff (used computer hardware and electronics). The other day I was eating Indian curry and noticed a store across the street called Golf Partner, a similar chain that took the "recycling" approach to selling golf clubs, allowing golf fans to buy used clubs cheaply. They seem to be doing well -- they have a national network of stores and promise to be able to search for any type of club from any manufacturer.

Among the many unique products J-List brings you are Comic AG, a super magazine of English-translated "H manga" that comes out about every two weeks. Each issue overflows with 80 pages of manga from top Japanese artists like Tohru Nishimaki, Fujio Okamoto and Yumisuke Kotoyoshi. While we have a huge selection of back issues, we're running low on some of the past issues like vol. 8-12, and when they're gone they won't be available again. Why not browse our selection of Comic AG issues, or go for a regular subscription?

Explore a new side of Japan with the unique PC dating-sim games that J-List sells, a great blend of story, characters and "H" done as only the Japanese could. With game concepts ranging from the hilarious (X-Change series) to the dramatic (Kana My Sister, who is dying of a terrible disease) to explorations of various interests like maid cosplay (I would have to recommend Little My Maid, a favorite of mine). Since the games all have multiple endings you can play agan and again and get a new ending each time, as you try to find all the endings and graphics in each game. Browse our incredible line-up of our "H" games now!

Here are today's "really cool products" that I thought were especially noteworthy. Note: the J-List links below may be for adult products and should probably be considered "not safe for work." To see all the J-List products, check out J-List or the JBOX.com updated products link.

	Urecco Gal Oct 2005. This is Urecco Gal, a spin-off of Urecco that features only amateur gals who are very stylish. The photography in this is always top notch.
	Kera Harajuku Style Book. How do we love Kera? Let me count the ways. A super magazine detailing the street fashion trends of Harajuku, Tokyo's happenin' young fashion district (they also have good curry).
	Cho! Very Good!! DVD vol. 79 (DVD 120 min) . I am not sure what the attraction of Kogals is, although if they're dumb enough to tan their boddies this much, they might be dumb enough to have sex with anyone, no questions asked. Actually, I think I just nailed it.
	Shy -- Mari Ueyama. Increasingly there is a trend towards more stylized, extremely erotic "giri giri" photography in Japan. This photograph embodies this very nicely. We didn't put the red J-List hanko stamp where we put it on purpose by the way, but the placing is pretty funny.
	If the twins were my dearest girls.... The super cute identical twins Airi and Meiri are back again in a new "What if ... were my dearest girls" series from Million. Japanese AV doesn't get any more unique than this.
	Female Teacher's Hunting -- Shiho (region 2). The lovely Shiho (no lasat name, it's one of those Yuuka thiings) really looks good in this new "femael teacher" themed release from Waap.
	Please Eat Me ~ Watashi o Meshimase. This is one of the problems of translation -- the super polite and subtle nuances of the Japanese title Watashi o Meshimase is totally lost when you bring it into English. What a shame.
	Keroro Salute Plush -- Sergeant Keroro / Sgt. Frog. More Keroro stuff on the site. These plush toys are really well made -- even the little bases they are attached to are plush.
	Washi *Traditional Japanese Paper* 2000 Pieces Jigsaw Puzzle -- 102 x 73cm. Ye gods, this is a nice puzzle. A super huge artistic creation featuring an old image of Heian Japan. Totally beautiful, but with 2000 pieces, you'd better have more time on your hands than me.
	Sperma Idol. I have always been a fan of Fujio Okamoto, a talented hentai artist whose work is serialized in Comic AG. Here is his latest work, with 280 pages (most manga is around 180 pages).
	Kaguya-Hime (Shinning Princess) ~ Bilingual Picture Story Book w/CD. A cool item, a bilingual Japanese fairy tale with English and Japanese right on the page, with an included CD. Incidentally, I've always had a theory that this story, the tale of a Japanese old couple who find a moon child in a bamboo shoot, is the basis for E.T.
	Jelliacoat Genki kun Condom. Japanese condoms are really well made. These thick and reliable, with an interesting "kokeshi" shape that will keep you "genki" longer, according to the box.
	Reversible Chanchanko ~ Japanese Cotton Half Coat. This is another cool item, kind of like the Murasaki Imo Pocky we posted (the one with the coolest box design in all creation).
	Choco Egg -- Series Honda. Cool -- a chocolate egg with a little Honda car inside. Which will you get? I'd hope for the Odyssey, myself.
	Hina-Arare. Traditional snack you eat in March.
	Omamori Eraser Set -- Set of 4. This was quite cool -- a set of four omamori, or traditional Japanese Shinto good luck charms, which are really erasers.
	Unazukin -- Red. Back by customer request! Unazukin are little dolls that nod agreement or shake their heads when you talk to them. Pretty cool.

Our love of Japanese hot springs, thoughts on government and the private sector, and the most beautiful Pocky box ever

As part of my son's homework, he keeps a diary about the past day's events, alternating entries between Japanese and English. It seems that every Sunday night's entry is the same -- he writes about what Japanese hot springs we went to that weekend. Japan is a very volcanic country, which means there are a lot of underground hot springs, or onsen (pronounced OWN-sen) to tap for bathing. Most every weekend we head out in our Mazda Bongo Friendee (sort of an MPV with a top that can be raised, like the old Volkswagon Vanagons) and enjoy a steaming hot bath somewhere in the mountains. Bathing in hot springs has been a part of Japan's culture for centuries -- one of the most famous onsen towns in Japan is Kusatsu (koo-SA-tsoo), located right in our prefecture, and it's been known for its baths for the past eight hundred years. One of the small linguistic quirks of the Japanese language is that there are separate words for cold water (mizu) and hot water (yu), and gaijin will invariably use the wrong word, to the amusement of everyone here. Bathing is so important in Japan that the word yu commonly gets the honorific o attached to the front (e.g. o-yu), as a sign of respect.

Last weekend we picked a nice-looking onsen in a village called Showa-mura and headed up there. It wasn't our first choice for a destination, but some of our regular hot spring spots are located high in the mountains, and we didn't want to hassle with driving in snow. The facility, the Showa-no-yu General Welfare Center, was pretty much what we'd come to expect: a washing area where you clean your body before bathing; a good mix of indoor baths to choose from; an outdoor bath where you can take a dip while enjoying "vibrant greenery"; and a sauna. There was also a large common room where you can relax, have a beer and enjoy some karaoke or a game of go after your bath. Also as expected, the facility was built by the local municipal government and operated with tax money, rather than by a private company. From swimming pools to the Kampo life insurance sold by the post office to a chain of luxury hotels subsidized by postal savings accounts, there are dozens of areas where the Japanese government intrudes on the private sector, doing things that often could be done efficiently by regular companies. The overall effect of this interference by the government is that Japan is less of a market-driven country and closer to something like socialism, a fact born out by the extremely low rate of entrepreneurship here. On the one hand, I'm happy to have access to a nice, hot bath in a small village that probably couldn't support such a venture without public money, but on the other hand, I wonder if Japan's public works-based approach to driving the country forward can be sustained.

Pocky has gone from being a wonky snack that a few anime fans knew about to being a major force in the world-wide snack market. The chocolate-covered pretzel stick, named for the pokki! sound they make when you break one, was first introduced in 1965, by Glico, a confectionery company founded by a man who swore to improve the health of Japan's children by introducing sweets containing glycogen harvested from oysters (which is where the name Glico comes from). There are many different flavors of Pocky available, from traditional chocolate to slightly bitter Men's Pocky to the luxurious line of Pocky that look like decorated cakes and even the surprise of the season, Black Sesame Pocky. Now Glico has introduced two new varieties of thick Mousse Pocky for 2006: Murasaki Imo (a purple-colored sweet made with sweet potato), and a favorite of J-List customers, the new Green Tea Mousse Pocky! In addition to being just plain delicious, the new Mousse Pocky boxes are some of the most beautifully-designed I've ever seen, with amazing traditional Japanese images on them. Sure to be a collector's item in years to come -- no B.S., I think I will save a case of each in a cool, dry place just in case it goes up in value someday. Available by the case, too!

Here are today's "really cool products" that I thought were especially noteworthy. Note: the J-List links below may be for adult products and should probably be considered "not safe for work." To see all the J-List products, check out J-List or the JBOX.com updated products link.

	Loco Misa -- Misako Yasuda. Misako Yasuda is a bright shining point of light in Japan's idol world, and this is just about the best photobook of hers I've seen. I like the format, with huge, oversized glossy pages.
	Comic AG Super Erotic Manga Anthology vol. 27. Another issue of AG, which is the best bi-weekly hentai manga mag being published in the U.S. today. Well, it's the only one too, but nevermind that. Seriosly, all fans of hentai artwork need to make a conscious effort to support this magazine so that it can continue to flourish.
	Tokyo Platinum Club ~ Tokyo Shirogane Club. Longtime J-List readers might just be thinking what we're thinking -- that the girl on the cover of this book looks just like Kaori, J-List's first employee. It's not her, trust us.
	Welcome to Max Airline -- Manaka Satoh. The Max Airline is Max-A's answer to their Max Cafe line of waitress fetish adult movies, this time featuring stewardess costumes.
	Erotic Dice Game Travel -- Ai Kurosawa. This is a fun new production from Soft on Demand, in which Ai Kurosawa (JAV idol and all around beautiful woman) shows her thanks to her fans by having sex 39 times (3 9 = san kyu in Japanese, which means "thank you"). The Magic Mirror Box is just too trippy...
	Natural High Female Employee! I've long thought, why don't the adult studios in Japan make a production in which the cameraman or director gets to play a role? Well, Natural High has read my mind, with this "revenge of the AD" release.
	Black & Erotic Lady & Swap -- Izumi Hasegawa (region 2). Another Japanese Girl vs. Black men from the USA release from Moodyz. I like this series because (among other things) the linguistic interplay between the two groups (usually zero English spoken by the girls, of course) is hilarious to see. And other thiings.
	Forever. If you watch only one anime based on an H-game, hunt down and watch Kimi ga Nozomu Eien Ni, or the Future that you Wish For. It rocks. Meanwhile, here's a doujinshi based on the game/anime.
	Miina Kudo PVC Figure -- Onegai Twins. Man, I love figures like this. This is Miina from Please Twins. You just want to reach out to her and enter her little plastic world.
	Karen Onodera PVC Figure -- Onegai Twins. The matching twin figure. Since most fans will want to buy both, we've put in a buy-both-get-15%-off discount on the site.
	Poko to Issho ~ Together With Poko. It is a good time for fans of futanari right now, with great books like this, and the other book we published today. Amazing art and "dick girl" concept here.
	Haruyo Morita 1000 Pieces Jigsaw Puzzle -- Shishi no Mai ~ 50 x 75cm. A really stylin' puzzle from Japan, just for you. I can't get enough of Haruyo Morita.
	Glico Mousse Pocky -- Murasaki Imo. This is the new Mousse Pocky, a thick, creamy, purple Pocky made with a traditional sweet from Japan, Murasaki Imo. Now, this is really delicious, but even if the taste of the Murasaki Imo isn't for you, damn this box looks great!
	Glico Mousse Pocky -- Green Tea. This is the 2006 edition of Green Tea Mousse Pocky, although I am tempted to call it Matcha Pocky since technically, Matcha is quite different from Ryokucha (which is what normal green tea is called in Japanese).
	Hello Kitty Pen Pouch -- White ~ Enamel Type. Excellent Hello Kitty retro item for collectors, featuring Kitty-chan as she looked in 1976.
	Keroro Netsuke *Afro Hair Ver* -- Sergeant Keroro. Sgt. Frog, aka Keroro Gunsou, aka Keroro Gunso sometimes (I hate transliteration in the age of Google), with a 'fro. Dude!
	Geisha Comb. If you buy no other comb this year....

History and our "national personality," famous Japanese of the world stage, and putting dogs to sleep in Japan

History is in all of us, and each nation has its own unique quirks or features that come about as a result of its own past. For the Japanese, the arrival of Perry's black ships in 1853 brought them face-to-face with the fact that Japan couldn't stand against nations like the United States and Great Britain. After the "respect the Emperor and expel the foreign barbarians" revolution that ejected the last Tokugawa Shogun in favor of a government formed around the Emperor (which "restored" the Emperor to power, hence the term Meiji Restoration), the country underwent an unprecedented crash program of modernization, retiring the old system of feudal domains (han) for a modern prefectural system based on that of France and introducing education to the people. One of the forces driving this was Japan's desire to be seen in a positive light by foreigners from the powerful countries of the West, and today, the Japanese are still very concerned about how they appear to gaijin (usually translated as "foreigner," although a more accurate translation of the term would be "outsider"). Many large-scale public works, such as the first Shinkansen line, seem to be created to coincide with international events like the Olympics, when foreigners would visit Japan in large numbers and "oo and ah" over their technical achievements. It's like Japan is still trying to prove to the West that they've left the backwards feudal nation they were 150 years ago behind.

This tendency to be concerned with the opinions of the International Community manifests itself in many interesting ways. For one thing, the Japanese love nothing more than to have one of their own number recognized internationally. From writers like Kawabata and Mishima to directors like Kurosawa and Miyazaki and the many Japanese athletes who have made names for themselves abroad, the Japanese are always tickled when a local boy makes good. One of the most respected Japanese today is Etsuro Soto, one of two main sculptors working on the Sagrada Famila cathedral in Barcelona, Spain, which gives people here enormous pride. Another Japanese active on the world stage is Ken Okuyama, one of the main designers at Ferrari and the lead force behind the Enzo, who has won design awards for his creations, to the great happiness of Japanese.

Every country is different, and I bump into these little differences just about every day in Japan. Our family dog Chibi passed away last week, but a few months before I remember having a discussion about him with my wife's family. Although he was old, Chibi was still quite genki (a word that can mean many things, from "I'm fine" to "cheerful" to "energetic," but in this case "healthy"). But if Chibi were to really get sick, so that he were in pain, I asked, would we have him put to sleep? The room suddenly got very quiet -- apparently this is one of those topics you just don't bring up in Japan, much like estate planning for people before they die or how a person who's last name means "the rice field by the mountain" can actually believe his ancestors were samurai. Chibi is happy to be alive, I was told, and we would never think of interfering with the number of his days by ending them early. In this, I sensed an incredible respect for life, although the issue of euthanasia for a beloved pet in pain is certainly a difficult question.

Here are today's "really cool products" that I thought were especially noteworthy. Note: the J-List links below may be for adult products and should probably be considered "not safe for work." To see all the J-List products, check out J-List or the JBOX.com updated products link.

	Urecco Oct 2005 with DVD. Urecco is the top-selling magazine for men at J-List, and it's just gotten a little better -- there's now a 2 hour DVD for you to browse. Man, I love the pic of Aoi Sora in this mag (the sort of slutty tennis girl).
	Bomb No. 305 Jul. 2005. Bomb is a magazine promoting the worshipping of Japan's bikini idols, like Yuko Ogura, Chisato Morishita, Megumi Yasu and so on. This isn't really "a" magazines, but rather it's "the" magazine, since it's been around for like 27 years. Which means they started publishing back in 1979, when we were all waiting for Empire Strikes Back to come out. Wow...
	An Afternoon like the color of Lemon~ Lemon Iro no GoGo -- Ayumi Kinoshita. Super cute idol in her newest photobook, which has a really colorful name too. Ayumi-chan was the cute girl in Deka Ranger, last year's "Power Rangers" type show.
	Love Da Nyan -- Lyrian (Ririan). I'll tell you about one of my own fetishes: it's beautiful models photographed in professional settings, with big, bright studio lights reflecting in their eyes. I don't know why, I just like that. And I love this girl, whose name is either Lyrian or Lilian, you decide.
	Mejiri -- Yuma Asami. The Mejiri series has been going on since as long as I've been into JAV, and that's a long time (we used to rent them from a store down the street in 1992). This is the latest offerings, featuring Yuma Asami, no related to the great state of Arizona.
	Female Announcer Shameful Report -- Mio Ayase. A popular genre in Japan is "female announcer" (which means newscaster). Here is debut offering by Mio Ayase in which she reports the news with a real twist.
	Yunomi Set with Paulownia Box~ Renzan (mountain range). This is a new set of two Arita Ware (read: some of the nicest, lightest and most well made) tea cups from Japan's Arita region, located in Saga, Kyushu. They even come in a wood box. How's that for cool?
	Hakkutsu Oppai Daijiten. The amazing Kabou Kikkawa (whose name would really be written Kikukawa, but he prefers the slightly stylized version) has penned a new hentai manga for his fans. Very nice art, cute characters with bells in their hair.
	Renai Cinema ~ Cinema of Love. Another killer manga from Setsuna, who always impresses me with her clean art and beautiful characters. A female H manga-ka.
	Glico "Tsubu" Strawberry Pocky. New Pocky, with even more fresh strawberries than last year's version. We're talking, half the weight of a Pocky is now strawberry pulp! That's delicious!
	Dead or Alive 4 Best Shot. The new Dead or Alive game for Xbox 360 is darned cool. Here's the new Best Shot art book which gives you the CG pics from the game, as well as the moves to win.
	Odd Jobs Art Works of Atsushi Kaneko -- w/ Special Kubrick ~ Limited! This is really cool: an art book by Japanese illustrator Atsushi Kaneko, and it comes with a Bearbrick, er, I mean a Be@rbrick too.
	Petit Bit -- Capuccino. Do you think Petit Bit is a rather odd name for a snack food? Well, I do too, which is why we went out of our way to get this tastety, if oddly named, item for you.
	Frog Style Kuru Kuru Swing -- Full Set *Set of 6* ~ Gashapon. Frog Style are really stylish frogs from Bandai. Here is a set of phone straps that you will treasure for a long time.
	*Yellow* Tweety & Hello Kitty Pen Case. More Hello Kitty + Tweety Bird goodness. Good for your kids.

More random pics from my Flickr account. These are the buttons that call waitresses to your table in restaurants. WHY??? do they not have this in the U.S.?

Hanging out in a bookstore. The latest Mazda fun book.

Beat Takeshi, who is really quite famous (it must be all those fans of Johnny Mnemonic), has a new book out

The #1 busybody in Japan, this is (sort of) fortune-teller Kazuko Hosoki, who is on TV five nights a week.

Cool clothes from a "frea market."