Funny things you may see in Japan, strategies for taking tests, and an important difference between Japanese and American schools

Hello again from Japan where getting your hair colored is known as a "hair manicure." For some reason, one of the weirdest sights you can see in Japan is two foreigners using Japanese to carry on a conversation. Although it's theoretically no different from people from France and Germany using a third language to communicate, the sight of two gaijin chatting in nihongo looks very strange here, and will often get amused giggles from passers-by. I used to have an Iranian friend who spoke no English, so we had to use Japanese to communicate. He'd ask me if America was really the way it looked in Hollywood movies, and I'd ask questions about life back in Iran, and we both learned a lot. Once I flew to the States on Varig, the national carrier of Brazil, and learned that Brazilians aren't generally fluent in my native tongue. Any small talk I wanted to make with the people around me had to be done in Japanese. I remember those standardized tests we had to take back in school, the ones where you had to use a No. 2 pencil (although I have yet to encounter a No. 1 or No. 3 pencil in my life). The teachers would try their best to give us some strategies for the tests, like, make sure you blacken in the circles completely and, if you have time at the end, go back and check your answers. The Japanese are a bit more focused on tests than I was during my education, and the idea of studying for a university entrance exam isn't really about simply learning the subjects that will be tested, but rather how to approach the test itself. Teachers who prepare their students to take the test for a school like the prestigious Aoyama Gakuin University have to research the past year's exams so they can help predict what the students need to cram for this year, and there are prep schools that do nothing but prepare students to get into a single university. Students want results, and these prep schools will advertise the percentage of students who got into their school of choice each year. When it came time for my kids to take the "Eiken" test, the standard test of English that's usually taken by much older students, my wife plotted a complex strategy for them, allowing them to score points on their strengths (listening comprehension) while avoiding the difficult patches (long-paragraph reading and "find the grammatical errors" exercises). Both passed with flying colors.

If you've ever tried complimenting a Japanese person on something, their language ability for example, you might be surprised to hear them deny your compliment. A big part of being Japanese is having humility, which is called kenson (KEN-son) in Japanese, and as a rule people here take great pains to avoid appearing boastful and proud. When a Japanese person gives you a gift, they'll usually say, "This isn't very interesting, but please accept it," or if it's food, "I'm not sure if this tastes good or not." One major difference between schools in the U.S. and Japan that I've noticed is that here, the children themselves are responsible for every lick of cleaning that goes on in their school, from sweeping to wiping off desks to cleaning the bathrooms, including the "big cleaning" that's done at the end of the year. There are no janitors at Japanese schools, just a handyman for doing jobs like changing out lights -- all the cleaning is the responsibility of the students. This certainly has some budgetary benefits for schools, but it also helps build character and yes, a little humility, in the kids. This tradition of self-cleaning is carried over into many companies, and every Monday morning the J-List employees wipe, sweep, clean and vacuum the office to make sure we have a clean place to work in all week. Remember that J-List sells incredibly warm hooded sweatshirts that are perfect for cooler months, or for throwing on the evenings when it cools down. Our hoodies feature cool kanji designs, from our classic "Looking for a Japanese Girlfriend" design to our fun "Respect the Emperor and Expel the Foreign Barbarians." We've also got our great Domo-kun hoodies for you, a great way to show your individuality and love of Japanese pop culture. While most of the hoodies we see being sold online are the inferior 50/50 blends that feel rough against the skin after a short time, we sell the best hoodies money can buy, with high quality 80/20 blends that are really soft and cozy. 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.

	Bomb Nov 2006. New issue of Bomb, whch has been in print for like 34 years -- wow.
	Erotic Woman -- Mitsu Amai. Mitsu Amai has been one of my favorite idols over the past couple of years, and it's great to see her doing indies work now.
	Bijuku -- Hitomi Kobayashi. Gorgeous photobook featuring the "ripened woman," Hitomi Kobayashi.
	Lily White -- Yuriko Shiratori. On the other extreme, here's the lovely photobook of Yuriko-chan, Lily White.
	Catgirl Delivery ~ Hakonde Nyanko. Need cat girls delivered?
	Thunder Warrior Raidy ~ Kaminari no Senshi Raidy Anthology Comic. Ahem, a really amazing manga based on a game from Zyx. We're big fans of this title. This manga includes futanari.
	Yoshi Plush Doll (S)-- Mario Party. Yoshi has never been more huggable.
	Otona no Origami ~ Aruchu Masa. Origami for grown-ups rocks! See how to make funky origami out of Japanese money, like sea urchins and trilobites and more. My favorite was Super Man, a little flying man that's a great gag, since you make it out of a 10,000 yen note (ichi man en).
	FRUiTS No. 115 Feb 2007. New issue of Fruits for fans.
	Hobby Japan Mar 2007. Also, the new Hobby Japan, with its focus on Yamato and all the recent toy releases.
	Japan Atlas ~ A Bilingual Guide. Need a really good map of Japan, with both English and Japanese? This is for you.
	Comic AG Super Erotic Manga Anthology vol. 53. The new issue of AG is in, and it's great as usual because it's got friggin' Maguro Teikoku in it. Wow!
	Tamaki Kousaki Figure *ToHeart 2*. Dynamite figure from ToHeart2 that you can, ah, disrope if you so choose.
	Genuine Arita Ware Latte Mug with Pink Hiragana Script. This is great, a really high quality cup (useful for many types of drinks) from Japan!
	Rinzu Clamshell Jewery Box. We've gotten in some cool small jewelry boxes that can of course be used for other purposes. I love the chirimen fabric on the outside.
	Yellow Lucky Cat Tea Cup . It's a cup that turns into Lucky Cat when you turn it upside down -- wow!
	Basic Kanji Drill New -- 1st Grade. Learn kanji the way the Japanese do with this series of kanji drill books.

The Japanese fear of making mistakes, the end of the Japanese blood type myth, and panty shots in anime you didn't expect to see

Although the Japanese generally study six years of English (or up to ten if they take it in college), they're not as a rule famous for their linguistic skills. There's a long list of reasons why this is so -- English is considered a "test" subject like math, science and Japanese history, grammar and vocabulary are invariably taught in Japanese by Japanese teachers, there are relatively few native speakers around to practice with, and so on. Another big reason many Japanese can have trouble attaining competence in a foreign language is fear of making errors. I saw a concrete example of this many years ago while working at a Japanese supermarket in San Diego, where I noticed a tiny sticker that read "curry" stuck on a box of Vermont Curry. (By the way, you've been in Japan too long when you no longer find anything unusual in the concept of "Vermont Curry.") Being the curious type, I removed the sticker to see that the company had accidentally printed "carry" on the package, a natural enough mistake for a foreign company to make, and had been compelled to fix the error in a way that actually brought more attention to the problem. Many Japanese seem to be quite fearful of making mistakes when speaking English, and it's hard for them to overcome this barrier when they go to a foreign country and must get over "pre-thinking" what they want to say before saying it. In reality, errors are part of the feedback essential for communication, and I've never forgotten a vocabulary word that I screwed up royally with when using the first time. If I had a secret weapon when it came to studying Japanese it was that I never concerned myself with the zillions of errors I made as I try to get my point across to someone.

Historically, the Japanese have placed a great store in what blood type a person is, and some (admittedly silly) people adhere to the belief that the shape and antigen type of your red blood cells can determine your personality. Supposedly, type A folks are straight-laced, serious about everything, very organized, like Felix from The Odd Couple if you're old enough to know what I'm talking about; type B are "my pace," e.g. they go at their own pace, live in their own world, quickly get bored with things that don't interest them, and speak their minds to a fault; type O are very bold, hate to lose and have good leadership skills; and AB people are often so smart they look strange to everyone else. A few years ago there was a series of TV shows that purported to do experiments on groups of people, seeing how kids of different blood types would solve problems for example. For years, my wife would make pronouncements about me or my kids, that we did such-and-such because of our blood type, but she recently received a shock that caused her world view to come crashing down, when a doctor friend of ours asked my kids if they'd like to see their own blood in a microscope. It turned out that both my meticulous son who keeps a detailed log of all his weekly allowance expenditures and my not-a-care-in-the-world daughter who passed a difficult English test by guessing at the answers are both type O, and not A and B as she'd expected. Have you gained some weight? If you're a big person and come to Japan, be prepared to hear light-hearted comments about your weight. Although it's usually not polite to make direct mention of a person's girth in the U.S., in Japan it's quite common to start a conversation with an acquaintance by asking him if he's gained weight recently before getting down to the discussion at hand. It's not fun, but you get used to it quickly enough, and the Japanese mean no harm in it -- it's just a kind of small talk, like discussing the weather or the economy, since there are so few people who are on the big side here. (Actually, it's okay when they comment on your weight. If they stop mentioning it altogether, you might have a problem.) We've just finished doing more upgrades to the J-List website today. Unfortunately the changes to the site might have caused browser cookies to be reset, clearing the shopping cart contents for some customers using the site right as we did the changeover. Very sorry for the inconvenience if you were using the site at the time. Pesky IE7 and its mis-directed anti-phishing warnings... Remember that J-List sells a magazine that's personally done a lot of good for me, Nihongo Journal, a monthly periodical featuring Japanese lessons for many levels, from beginner-intermediate on up, covering a variety of language areas, from business Japanese to conversational speaking to preparing for the JLPT. We carry the magazine via our popular "Reserve Subscription" service which lets you get Japan's most interesting magazine sent to you each month. As with our other subscriptions for Japan's anime, manga, fashion, JPOP, men's and other magazines, you can pay month-to-month as each issue comes in via credit card, check or money order or Paypal, or you can pre-pay for a year's subscription all at once. 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" (a yes/no verification screen will be displayed to filter products from our mature site). To see all the J-List products, check out J-List or the JBOX.com updated products link.

	Juicy Fruits. Popular manga back in stock. I love the art on this cover.
	Walkie Bits Robot Turtle -- Peach Pink See fresh stiock of these cool electronic robot turtles. Now at a lower price, too!
	Genki II ~ An Integrated Course in Elementary Japanese 2 Textbook. We've restocked a ton of the popular Genki Japanese textbooks.
	Wet Hips! -- Shou Nishino. Hips in Japanese referrs to the rear end. This is a great release featuring Shou Nishino, who used to do photobooks before she went for full AV as a career.
	Sakura (Cherry) Kit Kat. Remember, the time to get your Sakura Kit Kat is fading fast.
	Tabi (Split-toe) Type Socks ~ Brown & Light Brown - Ninja Socks. Some cool "ninja socks" for you!
	Lucky Cat Chawan (Rice Bowl) *Blue. Great rice bowl for fans of Lucky Cat.
	Domo-kun Deluxe Stuffed Plush Japanese Toy - DOMOKUN. This is the most popular plush toy we've ever sold. It's also an endangered species and it may well be sold out by the summer.
	iTunes Japan Music Card. Remember, you can buy all the JPOP songs you want from Apple's iTunes store using the prepaid cards that we've been selling. We even had a Slate.com article written about us!
	Naruto Anbu Mask . If you are a Naruto fan, be sure and get your Anbu mask, they are just too cool.
	Snake Hanao Setta -- Size LL ~ Leather Sole . Dynamite setta sandals with (imitation) snakeskin coverings.
	Lotte Black Black Gum . Delicious caffeine gum for people who need to stay awake and productive.
	Lotte "Plum Gum" (Ume Gum). One of the most unique flavors of gum from Japan. Yum.
	Jewel Knights Crusaders. Back by popular demand on our site, the great parody game of fighting evil with the power of sex.
	Japanese Onsen Powder - Kusatsu (set of 5). Enjoy an authentic Japanese hot springs back. Kusatsu is a hot springs town just up the road from us that has hundreds of years of history.
	Cominica Nausica Keychain -- Gun Ship. This is a dynamite item for Nausicaa fans.
	Japanese Hat - "Looking for a Japanese Girlfriend". Our most popular embroidered Japanese hat.
	Bizarre Japanese T-shirt ~ EMERGENCY EXIT 100%. This has been a huge seller over the years, and one of my all-time favorite Japanese T-shirts.

I've been on quite a tear recently, watching classic anime like Touch (the most excellent baseball manga ever), Arion (hilarious combination of Zeta Gundam characters with the Greek Pantheon), and lately, the original Yamato. I thought it'd be fun to compare with the original U.S. release.

There are, ah, a few scenes that I don't remember seeing before. And don't even get me started on Dr. Sado (Dr. Sane) and his "spring water" with the "sake" kanji clearly written on the label.

The fan translation I'm watching is done by Central Anime in Kansas (major shout out to you guys!), which is funny since Gunma (where I am) is probably the "Kansas" of Japan. These guys put lots of great commentary in the translation like what was going on historically when the episode was first aired. They also did the Touch translation.

Most interesting, of course, where the World War II sections that were not in the U.S. version, at least to my recollection.

As I recall, they said "The Yamato" in one line, then renamed it the Argo (bleah) right away. This version had a long scene devoted to the last battle of the Yamato.

Through one of those bizarre coincidences Japan likes to throw at you (like the one about how, through random chance, I just happened to come live in the city where the creator of my favorite anime/manga Touch was born and marry a woman who happened to share his birthdate of 2-9), they showed Otokotachi no Yamato, the film about the end of the ship, the next day, and it was "timely-sugiru" so I watched it.

It's hilarious to realize how totally Star Trek (TNG and beyond) gets its cues from the Yamato series. Like the Holodeck.

A reeeeally cool bunch of parody anime dubbers (no, not that bunch of parody anime dubbers) called Cornpone, who have made many things that I haven't seen, did a great (long) short film called Animation vs. Live Action, in which they basically pit the TNG Enterprise against the Yamato/Argo, and other fun stuff.

An expected bit of Irish in Japan, thoughts on Japan's slow-changing educational system, and all about the concept of "kakko ii"

Yesterday was St. Patrick's Day, a celebration of all things Irish in the U.S. and, presumeably, Ireland. As you might imagine, there isn't a lot of awareness of this day in a place like Japan, which knows nothing of shamrocks or leprechauns or pots of gold buried at the end of the rainbow. However, we managed to have our own little Irish Experience nevertheless. While taking our customary weekend drive up the mountains around the resort town of Karuizawa, we came across an interesting-looking restaurant that served wood-fired pizza and home-brewed beer, a rarity in a country that favors large, easily-taxable industries. Among the beers they offered was an authentic Irish Stout, and I was so shocked at the concept of drinking a rare and delicious brew on a mountain in an extremely rural corner of Japan that I had to have three of them. One thing you can say about Japan is, you never know what it's got in store for you next.

The subject of Japan's compulsory educational system is a complex and interesting one. Officially begun as part of the modernization program of the 1870s, Japan's schools are responsible for teaching young people everything they need to function in life, from reading and writing of kanji to math and science to social skills suitable for Japan's group-oriented culture and being able to say "Fine thanks, and you?" when you ask them how they are in English (a very important skill, to be sure). Public schools are extremely conservative and resistant to change, and it's amazing how much is the same at my daughter's elementary school compared with when her mother went there 25 years ago...or her grandmother, who attended the same school 50 years ago. This is good on the one hand because it creates a continuum of experiences that crosses generations, such as playing the Japanese educational game "Karuta" that teaches respect for local culture -- even something like Japanese school lunches have cultural threads that we foreigners can never comprehend. On the other hand, Japanese public schools seem trapped in a time-warp without any significant plan for the changes students will face this century, including fierce competition from every country in Asia. I sometimes wonder if Japan's educational system can go on changing so little. Japan can be a very style-oriented place at times, and it seems that everyone is concerned about looking good. The universal word for "cool" in Japanese is kakko ii (KAH-koe ee, lit. "good style"), while the opposite is kakko warui (KAH-koe wa-roo-EE, "bad style," e.g. dorky). Another word that describes an absence of coolness is dasai (dah-SAI, out of fashion, uncool, n00b), which supposedly started out as a derogatory word for people from half-rural, half-urban Saitama Prefecture, just north of Tokyo, essentially to Japan's capital what Orange County is to Los Angeles. Many Japanese also have a great appreciation for what's known as dasa-kakko ii, or something that's both lame and cool at the same time, or perhaps cool specifically because it's out of sync with current mores. Some examples of dasa-kakko ii might include the hair styles or fashions from the 1970s, that scene from Mobile Suit Gundam when Amuro sits in the cockpit desperately reading through the manual as he trying to find the mecha's weapons, the movie Willow, anything featuring Vin Diesel, and the artist formerly and currently known as Prince. Remember that J-List carries cool computer peripheral and iPod products by Japan's leading company, Elecom. From stylin' USB computer mice to their trademark katakana mouse pads and keyboards to stylish speakers for your iPod, Mac or PC, Elecom has great stuff for you. We also carry the bizarre-but-cute Mogmo Kun, a push little monster that "eats" your USB flash drive or similar shaped device in order to protect it. So cute! All products are fully compatible with computers and iPod products around the world. 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" (a yes/no verification screen will be displayed to filter products from our mature site). To see all the J-List products, check out J-List or the JBOX.com updated products link.

	Mecha ii -- Kaede Matsushima. Kaede Matsushima may just be the most popular actress in Japan today. I love her for her slender body and Japanese-ness. Is that a word?
	Hello Kitty Square Pouch (L) *Red*. A cute way to store all your stuff in a Hello Kitty way.
	Totoro Match Box Music Box ~ Mei and Kurosuke -- Totoro no Takaramono. This is just too cool -- a miniature music box for Totoro fans! Two of them, actually.
	TGWOA 21 ~ Twin Dungeon-Princess vol. 3 -- Futari no Meikyu Ohjo III. Fabulous new doujinshi from the Great World of Alchemy circle.
	BIBLE -- Rina Akiyama. Rina Akiyama is red hot in Japan now, so hot that her photobooks are hard to find and we aren't sure if we can restock this. If you love Japanese sexy models, don't miss this extra-special photobook.
	Skinny Denim Style. A fetish for girls in denim jeans?
	Ultimate Erogenous Service -- Aya Koizumi. Aya Koizumi really shines in her latest release, another trendy title from IEnergy.
	Intron Depot Ballistics Figure ~ Shirow Masamune. Intron Depot is Shirow Masamune's popular artbook series, and the art is so good you can't take your eyes off it. Here's a figure from the pages.
	Tokimeki Takaramono ~ Puchi Retro Series Full Set (Set of 10). From Re-Ment, cute retro stuff from the 1980s that's very "dasa-kakko ii."
	Newtype Dec 2006. New issue of Newtype is loaded with good stuff, including a poster and pull-out book for Haruhi fans.
	Hello Kitty Car Aroma Ball *Red*. These are so cool -- little balls of Hello Kitty cuteness that provide good aromoas for your car. And they are just so funky-looking.
	Green Tea & Kinako Aero. Green Tea Aero Chocolate, sounds delicious!
	Daruma Chawan (Rice Bowl) *Blue. Cool rice bowl (chawan) featuring Daruma and Lucky Cat.
	Pocket Monster Origami (plain color 16pcs & special 6pcs ). This is so cute it's kind of weird -- origami Pikachu? Incidentally one of my early memories as a kid is seeing the word "origami" and being totally unable to pronounce it. Now I can write it in kanji.
	Kana ~ Little Sister. This is one of the most well known of our PC dating-sim games, one that I hope all fans or curioous will consider trying. In this game, your sister is dying, a very dramatic and emotional title that has made more than a few of my customers cry.

The needless tragedy of 'ijime,' what's easy and hard about learning Japanese, and the Japanese as the most expressive people on the planet

The other day I went to my son's school to watch the various end-of-year performances the students had prepared for the parents, which included putting on a puppet show and school TV news report all in English, and the entire fifth grade performing a symphony concert for us, too. While I was walking through the halls, I noticed a big poster that said "STOP THE IJIME" with the slogan "we cannot allow bullying to continue -- your courage will end it forever" written below. It's a sad fact that ijime (ee-jee-MEH), the bullying and hazing that happens in schools, is a major social problem here in Japan, and all too often it's given as a the trigger leading to a young person's untimely death. There are several reasons why ijime is such a problem in Japan, beyond the bully-before-you-are-bullied mind-set that is probably present in all kids to some degree. First of all, the Japanese custom of keeping classes of students together all day throughout the school year, with teachers coming and going each hour, might be good for imparting group cooperation skills for forming lifelong friendships, but it also amplifies problems between students. If you have to sit next to a cruel jerk for one hour a day you could probably get through it, but all day, every day, for a whole year? Teachers also sitting together in a large room rather than individual offices is a problem, too, since it makes it difficult for a student to talk to one teacher, especially bad when a teacher is part of the problem. Finally, the near total lack of counseling and therapeutic medicine is also part of the problem, and all too often all kids can do is that most Japanese of activities "gaman" (meaning to endure patiently).

Each language is special, with unique features that may cause confusion for speakers of other languages. Romance languages like Spanish and French have noun genders, forcing English speakers to puzzle over why a pen is feminine while a pencil is masculine. Although Japanese do consider it a point of pride to think of their language as being especially hard to learn, I am convinced that no language is intrinsically more or less difficult than all the others. Still, there are some barriers to learning Japanese that must be overcome, starting with the two syllable-based writing systems, hiragana (the wavy looking one) and katakana (the boxy, masculine looking one), which you can tackle by memorizing the shapes and what sound they make (we can help). Kanji is also no small challenge, although you'd be surprised how much you can read with just a few hundred characters under your belt after a year or two of study. Grammatically there are some confusing areas, such as having to get used to two different verbs for to be (in a place), aru (ah-ROO) for inanimate objects, and iru (ee-ROO) for anything that moves, like people or animals. Whenever you learn something new, it's important to test it to find the limitations on that new piece of information so your brain can internalize it, and I remember bugging my sensei about which verb was correct for objects like zombies, cyborgs, and Venus Fly-Traps. There are times when the Japanese seem to be the most expressive people in the world to me. First of all, the fact that nearly everyone has taken several years of English allows for Japanese to use the language as a tool of expression without letting all the biases against bad grammar and meaningless words get in the way. This leads to the Japanese being able to create new English words to fit their needs, like Balance Up (a calorie balanced snack), Wordtank (Canon's popular electronic Japanese dictionary), Meltykiss (delicious fudge squares, love 'em) or the famous Walkman by Sony, which had to sound really silly the first time you heard it. They're also able to express more when writing text on a computer or cellular phone, since Japanese is a two-byte language, allowing fonts to go beyond the limits of mere ASCII, adding everything from musical notes to common symbols as standard characters. Finally, the tradition of putting kana above kanji to show how it should be read is often extended in innovative ways. In Yu-Gi-Oh, for example, they can put an unfamiliar word like Black Magician in English and write tiny kanji that explain the meaning above it, creating a single gestalt for the eye that performs both functions. Similarly, someone translating a Harry Potter novel might use the English word Quidditch but write characters for "air broom ball" above it in kanji, making all aspects of the word instantly clear at a glance. We're happy to have our Domo-kun T-shirts and warm hoodies back on the site for you, and J-List customers seem very happy to have them available again. We forgot to mention that our hooded sweatshirt now includes an XS size -- a first, since this color is usually not available in this size -- making Domo-kun a great item for customers needing youth sizes. We love to bring you fun an interesting things from Japan, and today we've got Fresh Cuts, an outstanding collection of the most interesting indies music from Japan today, brimming with 16 tracks by bands like Baggy Chopper, Maria Gadet and Guitar Vader. It's in stock in San Diego and ready for your order. Remember that J-List always has plenty of what we call "Wacky Things from Japan," with hundreds of products that are so bizarre, they could only come from the Land of the Rising Sun. Want to make Hello Kitty-shaped ice cubes? We've got your back. How about those fluffy Loose Socks the high school girls wear, along with Socks Glue to make them stay on your leg just so? When you're feeling too much stress in your daily life, we've got something soft to squeeze, or if you want to make a change in how you view your lunch, we've got lots of ideas for you, too. J-List's mission is to be your personal "wonderful toybox of things from Japan," so why not browse our wacky Japanese items 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" (a yes/no verification screen will be displayed to filter products from our mature site). To see all the J-List products, check out J-List or the JBOX.com updated products link.

	Sabra Magazine 003 Feb 2007. New issue of Sabra, yummy.
	Maiko Kazano Last photobook. Maiko Kazano was the "other" really beautiful model on
	Which? -- Asami Katsura. Beautiful photobook by a lovely woman who was discovered selling orange juice on TV.
	Heisei Onna Ninja -- Mai Hanano. Female ninjas, that's about as cool as you can get.
	Four Seasons Wife ~ Shiki Tsuma. Fascinating manga about, er, unfaithful women. Kind of blends manga and realistic style together.
	Genki Picture Cards 2 on CD-ROM ~ Genki na E Card 2. New Genki item in stock for students of Japanese.
	Tachikoma Action Figure Perfect Piece ~ Stand Alone Complex. This is *THE* coolest Tachikoma item I've ever seen. Opens up and takes a figure inside!
	Fresh Cuts From Japan - Music CD. Cool, a JPOP music selection for you -- learn about Japan's indies music world!
	Kokeshi -- Winter Color ~ Fuyu. We've gotten in some gorgeous new kokeshi dolls, as well as restocked some of our old favorites today.
	Pretz -- Pudding Flavor. Yum, new flavor of Pretz for you. This is actually Flan flavored, a favorite in Japan. Does anyone know what that is?
	Meiji Pucca Black. Delicious bitter chocolate Pucca.
	*Pink *Hello Kitty Monogram Pouch. If I were of the female pursuasion, I'd definitely carry these cool Louis Vuitton-type Hello Kitty accessories. They look great.

Understanding Japanese society through business cards, some fun Japanese words that are pregnant with meaning, and all about Shinjuku

I was making up some Japanese business cards for one of my employees yesterday, trying different layouts and fonts to see what looked best. As I worked on the design for the "name card" (as business cards are called here), something seemed wrong to me, but I couldn't put my finger on it. Then it hit me: I'd left off one of the most important parts, the job title. Organization is very important in a place like Japan, and just as the entire country is ordered into prefectures, cities, towns and villages, with no unincorporated areas anywhere, people are generally expected to fit into pre-defined slots, e.g. programmer, graphic designer, accountant, city employee, and so on. Everyone must have an occupation associated with their name for people to know how to categorize them, and when proper categories aren't available, allowances are made, such as the recent additions of sub-groups like "freeter," a person who only works part-time jobs without ever officially joining a company as a full-time employee or starting a career; or NEET, a term for a young person living with their parents and "Not in Educational, Employment or Training," i.e. loafing and surfing the net all day. When I started J-List, I encountered some opposition from my wife's family, who didn't think it was a good idea to trade a secure career teaching English for the uncertainty of starting a business on the Internet. I realized later that this was because the concept of an "entrepreneur" was not defined as a valid category in their minds, and they didn't know how to feel about a son-in-law who didn't fit neatly into one of the pre-defined slots...which suited my American sense of individualism just fine. Any way you look at it, English is a convoluted language, with grammar and vocabulary taken haphazardly from many sources, including Olde English, French, Greek, Latin and listening to young people these days, Japanese. The Japanese language is much the same, originally based on the indigenous (pre-6th century) language of the Yamato people dwelling in the Nara Valley, influenced by 1500 years of kanji and 250 years of national isolation, and then exposed to a huge amount of foreign loan words in modern times. There's a category of four-syllable (or four kana) words used here that are so pregnant with meaning they boggle the mind, and as is often the case with nihongo, you can't ask yourself why they mean what they mean but must instead just accept them as gestalt units. First is sekkaku (seh-KAH-koo), which carries the implication of having gone to great trouble to do something for someone only to have them not appreciate your efforts. Another fun word is yappari (yah-PAH-ree), which means "just as I thought" or "as I expected" or "Aha! I knew you'd be trying to peek into the girl's bath!" When you learn something that surprises you, you might use the phrase naruhodo (nah-roo-hoh-doh), which can be translated as "wow, I didn't know that" or "I see your point," and on a TV drama, a character picking up some information from subtle, unspoken clues might mutter this word to themselves as a signal to viewers that he'd found another piece of a puzzle. Finally there's tonikaku (TOH-ni-kah-koo), which just means "at any rate" "regardless of that fact" or just "anyway." When my bilingual son was growing up, he got confused and accidentally combined English and Japanese stems to create the hybrid word "toni-way" (tonikaku + anyway), which has been a running joke in our family ever since.

One of the first things I did after arriving in Japan back in 1991 was hop on a train to Tokyo to explore Shinjuku, one of the most famous parts of Japan's sprawling capital, which I'd only glimpsed through the window of manga and anime until that time. One of Tokyo's 23 wards, Shinjuku is a bustling mini-city unto itself, with sprawling department and electronics stores, restaurants and drinking establishments. Because it happens to contain some of the only stable land in the earthquake-prone area, virtually all of Tokyo's high-rise buildings are located in Shinjuku, including the monstrous 48-story Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building (Tokyo's "city hall") and virtually everything seen in the film Lost in Translation. Shinjuku Station is the busiest in the world, with a mind-boggling 2 million passengers passing through each day as they rush to get to work or home. The station is so massive that the only thing to do is divide Shinjuku into quadrants based on what train exit you're using, e.g. take the east exit to score some good Indian food, or the south exit to get to that one good bookstore, and so on. Shinjuku's Kabuki-cho section is one of Japan's leading drinking districts, too, and a complex economy has formed around the thousands of tired salarymen who get rid of their daily stress there, throwing some back with co-workers before heading home. Remember that J-List always strives to bring you fun and interesting things from Japan, including many kawaii (cute) items, like Japan-only products from Sanrio. From Hello Kitty toilet paper to bento boxes to chopsticks and more, you can always add a dash of color to your life with cool products from J-List. We carry other popular Sanrio characters, too, like My Melody, Cinnamoroll and Keroppi. Browse our site now and see what cool things we've got for you! 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.

	More and More -- Sayuri Shiraishi. Very elegant lady from Japan, in the new More and More photomagazine w/ dvd.
	Noble Legs by Costume Play ~ Cosplay na Ojosama no Ashi. Gorgeous new legg photobook.
	Transparent Fetish Body -- Ruri Sato. This transparent clothing thing is shaping up to be the newest fetish for 2007.
	Club Girl Hunting 004. More "Reggae Dance" themed action from Japan just for you.
	robot 1 Full Set *Set of 6* - Painted. Wow, figures from Range Murata's Robot manga artbook series. They are just to die for.
	Trinity ~ Messiah Visualbook. I have to say, my favorite sub-genre of yaoi is definitely the "gay Nazi" games.
	Comptiq Mar 2007- MediaMix Game and Anime Magazine. Gorgeous new issue of Comptiq, filled with color pages, posters, and a free figure -- wow!
	Sex and the Japanese. Very nice book on sex in Japan, penned by Boye Lafayette de Mente, the writer I respect most in Japan.
	Microwave Potato Chip Maker. By request! Microwave your own potato chips. Very healthy and fun!
	Village of Bambooshoot - Baked Apple Cookie. Cookies shaped like bamboo shoots, covered with "baked apple" chocolate. What more can we ask for?
	Tyrant Habanero -- Cacao . What can we say? The spicy habanero cracker that tastes like ... chocolate
	Kirarin Revolution Soft Pen Case. Really cute pencil case from one of the top shojo animes in Japan today.
	Wood Box Medium *Hana*. Put all your stuff in this small but beautiful Japanese box.
	Monokuro Boo Plush Box -- White. San-X is scoring big with their Monokuro Boo series -- this is the cute new white square plush that you can put stuff inside.
	Monokuro Boo "Kuttari" Plush *Black. And here's a black big plush toy. Kawaii!
	Jiji Gamaguchi Pouch -- Kiki's Delivery Service. Put your money in here, Jiji will hold it safe for you.
	Furikake *Noritama -- Egg & Seaweed. Enjoy delicious furikake, dried egg, nori and other goodness that you sprinkle over white rice and eat as-is.
	Authentic Japanese Super Loose Socks ~ 120 cm . Looking for authentic loose socks from Japan, the kind high schools wear? Back in stock!

The warmest winter ever in Japan, all about the Japanese kanji character 'ki' and excitement at my son's school

We've been watching the extra-cold winter dumping lots of snow on the U.S. this year and feeling more than a little guilty, what with Japan experiencing the warmest winter its had in decades and all. The previous 1960 record for the latest snowfall in the Tokyo area has already been smashed, and with the bizarre T-shirt weather continuing, there's talk that this might be the first snowless winter since they started keeping records back in 1876. One of the most enjoyable times to be in Japan is sakura season, when the cherry blossoms bloom with exploding fireworks of beauty, but it's been so warm this year that everyone is sure the sakura will bloom at least a full month earlier. There's also a lot of concern that with such mild weather this year, there'll be less snow in snowpacks in the mountains, leading to water shortages in the summer.

Sometimes part of the fun of studying a language like Japanese is "surfing" the linguistic elements that are totally different from anything found in one's native language. One of the most common kanji characters is ki (気）, a rather all-purpose concept for expressing abstract ideas (read chi in Chinese). Although it can be translated as spirit, soul, nature, heart, mood, feeling, or atmosphere, it mainly deals with (spiritual) energy and a person's awareness. The character is found in some elementary words that students of the language encounter right away, such as genki (happy, energetic), tenki (weather) or kuki (air). The word can express intention (seppuku suru ki = the intention to commit ritual suicide, wish I could think of a better example ^_^), and feelings or emotion (kimochi ii = that feels good). In anime series like Dragonball Z, when a character gets so filled with energy that he literally glows with fire, the word for that fire would be ki. The concept is also used in martial arts and yoga, which seek to focus the mind's ki in beneficial ways -- it also pops up in words like kiai, the verbal yell you release when focusing your strength on a task. The word can be found in several Japanese idioms that are used quite often, such as ki wo tsukete (be careful; literally "fix your body's energy and attention on the task at hand"), or ki wo tsukau (to be considerate of; literally "to use your ki on behalf of another person"). One of the most popular "talents" (an all-purpose word meaning singer/actor/ comedian/whatever) in Japan is Takuya Kimura, a member of the popular group SMAP, the male idol band that dominates much of Japan's music scene. Takuya, who plays the voice of Howl in Howl's Moving Castle, has been called both the "sexiest man in Japan" as well as the domestic version of Brad Pitt, mainly because Levi's hired "Kim-Taku" for their jeans commercials to counter Edwin's successful line of commercials featuring "Bra-Pii." Although they started out as a Backstreet Boys-like group, SMAP has utterly woven itself into the fabric of Japan's pop culture, and you really can't turn the TV on without seeing one or more members of the group hosting a variety show or doing their gourmet cooking competition thing or pulling some gag on the air, like when George Lucas came to Japan and they presented him with a beautiful Japanese sword, which turned out to be a cheap plastic light saber. Recently there's a rumor going around that Takuya and his wife, former singer Shizuka Kudo, are going to put their daughter in my son's special English elementary school this April, which has set the hearts of the school mothers all aflutter with thoughts of Japan's sexiest man attending parents' day with them. J-List sells a unique line of original T-shirts, hoodies and embroidered hats featuring funny and wacky kanji messages, and today we've gotten in a cool new design for you. Every once in a while you hear of a Japanese man who wasn't able to resist his own particular urges, and who got in trouble peeking at pretty girls. Our new wacky T-shirt warns people who see it to beware of nozoki -- peeping toms, who like to watch women secretly -- with a hilarious new design. Check it out on the site, now! Remember that J-List carries hard-to-find artbooks and manga of great Japanese artists, including Shirow Masamune, Satoshi Urushihara, Range Murata, Hidenori Matsubara, Toshiyuki Tanaka, Katsuya Terada, Shunya Yamashita and more. We also carry books that help you learn how to draw, including the popular How To Draw Manga series, Comickers, Character Design Bible and more. Why not browse our excellent selection of artbooks and see what strikes your fancy? 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.

	Nu Beau ~ Special Nude Collection -- Kaho Kasumi, Shinju Murasaki with DVD. Fabulous nude pictures of Kaho-chan and Shinju-chan -- the latter's name means "Pearl." Vague reference to Dec. 7, 1941?
	First Photobook -- Miwa Asao. Beach Volleyball is big in Japan now, and now you can buy the photobook of the most popular "volleyball idol."
	Triptych Trading Figure -- Set of 7 *Full Set + Rare Item*. Fabulously detailed sexy figures, some of which are nude. Those Japanese are so inventive...
	Japanese T-shirt - Beware of Men Peeking (Men's standard). Wacky new Japanese T-shirt with a zany kanji message.
	Dengeki Comic Gao Mar 2007. I love the new look of Gao, and since it features the Miina manga from Densha Otoko, it's even better. This i ssue comes with a free figure -- don't miss it!
	Shiba Wanko Figure -- Full Set *Set of 5*. Aww, cute little Shiba Dogs dressed in traditional Japanese fashion.
	Sister Anthology Comics. Nice manga about, er, sisters and related nun themes.
	RPG ~ Roll Playing Girl. I love the art and video game premise of this manga. And the girl with glasses isn't bad either.
	Passage to Eternity ~ Yoshino and Omine -- Tenkai no Michi. Beautiful images of the spirituality -- Shinto and Buddhism -- of Japan.
	Pocky Decore ~ Peach. Delicious new flavor of the most deluxe Pocky ever.
	Tomica 117 -- Mitsubishi *i*. Wacky car offering from Mitsubishi, available in tiny form.
	Sakura Tea Leaf Container. Store all your loose tea with this.
	Tenori Mamegoma -- Shiro Goma *White*. Super cute plush baby seal from San-X.
	Tenori Mamegoma -- Kuro Goma *Black*. And here's his twin.
	Totoro Magnet Hook. This is cool. Hang your coat in style with a Totoro magnet hook.
	Authentic Leather and Snake Skin Setta. These are cool, authentic leather setta sandals with tops made of friggin' snake skin. They are so nice to the touch.
	Xylitol Sugarless Sunset Ruby Gum. Delicious gum. I'm chewing it right now ,believe it or not.
	Hello Kitty Toilet Paper -- green. This is really the perfect gift. I mean, whether the person you give this to loves or hates Hello Kitty, you've scored a real hit.
	Hana Fuda -- Yozakura ~ Kyoto Shogun Do. Cool card game practiced with the blessings of the ancients for thousands of yahrens. Oops, I'm channelling 1978 Battlestar Galactica again.
	Lucky Cat 2 Tier Bento Box -- Red. We've been out of bento boxes big time, but got a bunch in today. Sorry if you were waiting for one.
	Fuwarinka Gum -- Rose Flavor. This wouldn't be a product I'd think would sell a huge number, rose flavored gum and all, yet we've moved 1000 packs since we posted them. The mind reals...

Heh, I'll tell you my own favorite game. All those newfangled video games are okay, but I'm still loyal to the original Unreal Tourmanent, released in, I think, 1999. I'm using it on my Intel MacBook Pro, and the fact that it plays so nicely (even with 300 bots, see below) in Rosetta is really an amazing thing.

The reason it's so fun is that there's a nuke you can use to kill your enemies.

Of course, that's not fun enough, so here's what I do. Load the game, type SUMMON WARHEADLAUNCHER unless I'm on a level that has the nuke, get the warhead, then type ALLAMMO. Then instead of having one pansy nuke you have 999 of them. Muhahaha! LOADED is another fun command that gives you all weapons in the game.

You can then addbots if you like so that you have 100, 200 or more enemies to kill rather than the default of 16. Note that adding too many bots at once can overload the machine since most of the bots appear at the same few spawning spots which causes them to explode, and the computer has to draw 100 x 300 bits of expanding flesh on your screen.

This lets you discover a new kind of game, where basically everyone is trying to kill you but you've got a nuke. You can do fun game of trying to kill everyone else (up to 300 bots) without using any weapons other than the nuke. This means you need to shoot and duck behind obstacles, or shoot at the ceiling to take out someone before they get too close. It's quite a challenge. Another fun thing is to slow the game down so you can set up extra beautiful kills.

There's something about running down the hallway in the contrail of a tactical nuke you've just shot that's so much fun. Incidentally I've played this game so much in the past my eyes actually got infected. That's not good, is it?

Ah, beautiful stress relief... I realize my love of cheating at games goes back to my Captain Kirk complex, since I look up to him as the father I didn't have (Captain Kirk, Carl Sagan and Ernest Hemingway). I guess using NOCLIP or god mode in a game is just my own answer to the Kobayashi Maru test.

Learning about the brain through Madagascar, how names work in kanji in Japan, and a bizarre murder in Tokyo

We have a rule at our house: in order to help our kids become bilingual, we only watch DVDs from the U.S., and never bother with Japanese versions of American films released here. Right now my kids are in love with the movie Madagascar, laughing at the antics of Alex the Lion, Marty the Zebra, Melman the Giraffe and Gloria the Hippopotamus at least three times per day, as children are wont to do. My kids learned English in a very "natural" way, spending summers in the U.S., interacting with me and watching movies in English -- quite different from the memorizing of grammar and vocabulary that Japanese students must do. I've noticed that the two languages sometimes aren't as "cross-mapped" in my kids' brains as in my own, and it's quite common for them to know a word in English but have no idea what it is in Japanese, or vice-versa. I sometimes hold "who can translate this word the fastest" competitions when we're going somewhere in the car (trying to beat one's sibling at something is a great natural motivator), and it's interesting to see how difficult the act of moving a word or phrase from one language to the other is for them, even though they're perfectly functional in both languages. Recently I saw a news article that said that bilinguals who use two languages on a daily basis have a lower chance of getting dementia in old age due to increased blood flow through the brain. Hopefully we're doing some long-range good for our kids as we raise them to be a part of both countries. Any loss of life is a tragedy, and the murder of a human being is especially bad. The number of homicides each year in Japan is low -- around 0.9 per 100,000 compared with 7.4 in the U.S. -- and out here in semi-rural Gunma murders are so rare they're talked about for weeks when one occurs. Despite the comparative rarity of homicides here, somehow it seems that the number of uniquely tragic or bizarre killings in Japan is much higher, at least subjectively. Currently Japan has been galvanized by the story of Kaori Mihashi, a 32-year-old Tokyo woman who murdered her allegedly abusive husband by hitting him with a wine bottle while he slept. The body was too heavy for her to lift, so she had the bright idea of taking a saw and carving him up into sections, depositing his torso, legs and head in different parts of the city (they're still looking for his arms, poor guy). She tried to throw suspicion off of herself by filing a missing person's report and replying to emails from her husband's mobile phone as if he were still alive, but the authorities found holes in her story and eventually uncovered the truth.

It's interesting to observe how kanji functions in society on a daily basis here. In written Japanese, kanji characters are used to write the major nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs in a sentence, with hiragana characters added for grammatical elements like the markers for subject and object, past tense, and so on. Names are also generally written using kanji characters, and just as there are alternate spellings for many names in English, there are many choices for writing a name like "Takeshi" (健志、武志、武史、丈志、丈史, たけし, well, you get the idea). When you learn someone's name, it's important to learn how to write it properly, and it's the height of rudeness to write someone's name with the wrong characters, especially in a business setting. (J-List's Yasu once changed suppliers because they wrote his name wrong on an invoice.) Part of becoming functionally literate with kanji characters involves learning to describe the kanji for a person or place name to someone over the phone, referring to other words that are written with that character, describing the radical (the part of a kanji used to organize it in a dictionary), and so on. The part of our city J-List is located it in is called Hashie-cho (波志江町, Hashie Town), a rather rare place name, and I've had to describe how to write this address so often I've got it down pat. "The 'ha' is 'nami' (波, wave), 'shi' is 'kokorozasu' (志す, meaning to aim for a goal or take on a challenge), and the 'e' (eh) is the first character from 'Edo' (江戸, the old name of Tokyo)." J-List carries many seasonal items from Japan, from delicious "winter limited edition" chocolate products to other items that go great with each season. Calendars are another example of an item that's very seasonal, only available during this time of year, and J-List still has a great selection of 2007 calendars for every taste, including anime, JPOP singer, drama actress, pretty bikini model and men's calendars that are selling fast. We've got some great news for calendar customers: several items that had been sold out are back on the site now, as calendars that had been ordered but not paid for are removed, freeing those items up again. But hurry, stock is severely limited! 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.

	eOnna Sep 2006 vol. 33 ~ e onna with DVD Region ALL. Super new issue of eOnna, filled with gorgeous models who are so beautiful they don't even need to take their clothes off. Also comes with poster and DVD.
	SUI CUP -- Karin. Gorgeous busty idol releases a new photobook. Man, the pictures in this glossy book are fabulous.
	Gekkan LINA - Maki Kawakita. Gorgeous "mook" (a cross between a magazine and a book) dedicated entirely to Maki-chan.
	Riko Tachibana Nakadashi 100 Times Collection. Another in IEnergy's line of "100 Nakadashi" DVD releases.
	Sport Chu! -- Tina Yuzuki. I am officially a fan of this gorgeous half-Japanese, half-Portuguese JAV star.
	Council of Carnality Unlimited. Brand new English translated H manga from Icarus Publishing.
	The Triple Cast (region 2). Pure silk from one of our favorite JAV studios.
	Okame Natto Keychain -- Full Set *Set of 8* ~ Bandai Gashapon. A really wacky item -- little packages of natto you can carry around on your keys. No, they don't smell bad like real natto.
	Bourbon Every Burger. Delicious cookie hamburger busn around chocolate hamburger patties. Yum!
	Junichi Nakahara's Beautiful Nurie 3 ~ Utsukushiki Nurie 3. Good news and bad news -- we've gotten in a wonderful new nurie coloring book for grown-ups. But we only have one copy in stock right now, and backorders for these are always slow in coming in :(
	Baked Puccho -- Custard Cream. Yummy Baked Puccho. Gotta try some.
	Gun x Sword #17 Trading Figure -- Set of 6 *Full Set + Rare Item*. Fabulous line of sexy characters from Gun x Sword.
	Kitty *Buden* Tote Bag -- Dark Blue ~ Business Success. Answers the question "What if Hello Kitty were a shipping conglomorate in Japan in the 1930s?"
	Doraemon *Yamanote Line* Netsuke -- JR Tokyo. A great souvenir from Japan's Tokyo Station!
	DX Celebration Envelope *Gray -- Golden Rice. Beautiful envelopes from Japan for giving cash gifts.
	Dengeki G's magazine reserve subscription. A real up and coming magazine, this is Dengeki G's, focusing on the lovely characters from bishoujo games and anime (and it's so purely focused on the characters it's a non-H magazine).
	Japanese T-shirt - Sukebe (Pervert). One of my favorite shirts. Says "Sukebe" (su-keh-beh), which means the same thing as "ecchi" (i.e. a person who thinks about sex too much). Since almost no one knows this word, though, it's a great stealth joke.