Japan has Overly Peaceful

Another year, another Anime Expo. As usual, this year was a blast, with a bazillion J-List fans and customers (and more than a few of my Twitter followers) coming by to say hi. We sold a ton of T-shirts, Totoro plush toys and H-games, and I scored the autographs of all the members of Morning Musume on our spiffy new J-List printed bags. See everyone next year!

Japan is a strange and wonderful place, and you never know what will become popular next, like the current boom in taiyaki, a fish-shaped snack loaded with sweet anko beans (or sometimes chocolate), or the traditional "Food Drop" candies we have on the site. Once I found a video that consisted of nothing but a pretty girl staring at the camera, looking out of your computer at you for long spans of time. I can't figure out what the point of having a girl stare intensely at you for many minutes on end is, but it was strangely compelling, and I guess it's a good way for hikikomori types (hardcore otaku who never leave their homes) to get used to interacting with others. Below the video, one of the comments by a Japanese viewer read, "Japan is really heiwa," meaning peaceful, and this is a concept you encounter quite a lot: Japan's awareness that their country is especially blessed with peace, a unique place where crime is low and there is no war or religious strife, and people have the freedom to make silly videos and post them on the Internet. A related concept is heiwa-boke (hei-WA boh-keh), literally meaning "numbed from too much peace," which describes the state of literally being made stupid by living in a country that's overly harmonious, like the Japanese who traveled to Iraq in 2004 to help rebuild the country only to be promptly kidnapped because, well, they were in friggin' Iraq.

We had fun at AX, and Morning Musume signed our spiffy new event bags; weird J-Girl stares at you.