Peter in Japan

Hello! We've moved our blog...

Wed, 16 Feb 2005 15:25:34 GMT

Sorry for the long delay in updating this. We've moved this blog to its new location, http://peteratjlist.blogspot.com . We hope you'll check out the new blog as it's frankly much better -- has posts back to 1997, pictures of Japan with every post, and so on. See you there.

Fri, 28 Jan 2005

Fri, 28 Jan 2005 08:57:13 GMT

What does America smell like? According to my nine-year-old son, it smells like Mr. Bubble, the classic bubble bath that I enjoyed when I was young and now buy for my kids. Whenever I take a trip back to the U.S. I come back loaded with good things from the States, like onion bagels, Cream of Wheat, Jello pudding and salsa, which are hard or impossible to find in Japan. Opening the bottle of Mr. Bubble for the first time really brings back the smell and imagery of life the USA, and we love taking bubble baths with it. (In Japan, having kids means never bathing alone.)

Part of the fun of learning Japanese is memorizing and using the onomatopoeic words found in the language. There are two kinds of sound-based words in Japanese, giseigo ("mimic-voice words") and gitaigo ("mimic-situation words"). Giseigo are words that imitate the sounds of animals -- wan wan for a dog, kokekokko for a rooster, and so on. Gitaigo, which describe abstract situations, are a little more interesting because there's nothing like them in English. Sometimes these words work as adverbs, modifying verbs: for example, kira kira describes the way a star shines in the sky, or the way a person's eyes glitter when they're overjoyed about something; an employee can work bishi bishi (fast and efficiently) or dara dara (slowly, lazily); and someone who is bilingual in a language speaks it pera pera (fluently). At other times, these descriptive words work as adjectives, expressing a state: pika pika is used to describe a brand-new toy, or as an alternate usage, a child who had just entered the first grade; an older person who has a lot of energy is pin pin (peen peen); and someone who is nervous or excited about something is doki doki.

The Japanese people are some of the longest-lived in the world, partly because Japan is a stable country with a good medical system. When you get sick in Japan, you either go to a large hospital (there are three or four near us), or to a smaller medical clinic. You must always bring your hoken-sho or insurance card, a little booklet that has all the information about your insurance printed inside. There are two systems of medical insurance in Japan: National Insurance, which is open to everyone including foreigners and self-employed, and Employee's Insurance, which is arranged through companies. In both systems, the patient bears 30% of the actual medical costs, with the insurance picking up the rest. Whenever I go to the doctor, I know he'll want to practice his English with me, since doctors usually learn English as part of their training; however, they're usually disappointed when I don't know what the difficult medical terms they use mean, since Japanese expect that every native English speaker knows every word ever created. Also, many of the English-sounding medical terms used in Japan are actually from German, which can cause more confusion. Japan has free health care for everyone under 5 and over the age of 60.

One of the most popular faces in the JAV world today is the charming Mihiro, who has been the #1 selling star in photobooks and "soft" DVD releases over the past year. Now she's debuting as a full-fledged JAV star, following in the footsteps of her senpai (senior), Mai Hagiwara, and we've got her very first release on the site for you. Mihiro truly is a beautiful angel from Japan -- enjoy seeing a whole new side of her!

Back Issues

Fri, 28 Jan 2005 07:47:07 GMT

Basically since this is an archive of the regular J-List mailing list, the last two months have not been updated as it was super busy.

We now update, but in cut form so as to cut down on "backentry spamming".

Sorry for the mess,
The J-List Crew

Mon, 27 Dec 2004 05:47:20 GMT

J-List is accessible directly via http://www.jlist.com

One interesting social concept I see at work a lot in Japan is the idea of "gaman," which means to endure or to tolerate something that's difficult to bear. The idea that is that if there's something you don't like around you, it's better to endure it stoically in an act of self-sacrifice rather than than act
immediately to change it. We see this every day: my wife and I will go to a restaurant that's much too cold, yet no one speaks up to ask the staff to turn the air conditioning down, preferring instead to tolerate the unpleasant situation. We don't subscribe to this notion, however, and will generally break the "wa" of the room by asking the staff to turn the air conditioning down. Once, the officers of a skiing club we belong to were reporting on the expenses incurred over the past year, but there were many large and small irregularities in the numbers. Other members had noticed these problems in the past, but refrained from openly questioning the suspicious expenses. Not so my wife: she stopped the meeting, making them explain all the sloppy accounting issues to her satisfaction. Gaman is something that parents strive to teach to their kids at an early age here, since there are many situations when children need these skills here. The idea of an employee sacrificing himself for the good of his company or of a wife looking the other way when her husband has an affair are linked to this concept. There's a phrase the Japanese use quite often which reflects this tendency to endure something rather than change it: sho ga nai (also shikata ga nai), which means "It can't be helped."

Like the HSBC bank advertisements say, never underestimate the importance of local knowledge. That's true when you're comparing the U.S. with Japan, too. To Americans, the basic idea of soup is Campbell's chicken noodle, but in Japan, it's creamy corn soup, sometimes with corn flakes sprinkled on top. When a child loses a tooth in the U.S., the Tooth Fairy takes it away, leaving money in its place; in Japan, you throw the tooth on the roof (if it was a lower tooth) or under your house (if it was a upper tooth). When you take delivery of a new car, you always do it on a lucky day (Taian) according to a Buddhist weekly calendar, to avoid having a traffic accident. And in the U.S., we sometimes count things by writing "chicken scratch" marks on a sheet of paper, with each completed set of lines equal to five, but in Japan, they write the character for honesty and correctness (tadashii). To see what the character looks like, as well as the stroke order for writing it, click here: http://www.jlist.com/tadashii/

You probably set your clock an hour back on Sunday. Most people grumble about having to remember to set their clocks forward and back in the spring and autumn, this isn't a problem in Japan, the only industrialized country that has not adopted the Daylight Savings Time system. Instead, we have to deal with the other extreme -- by the time I get up in the morning, the sun has been up for at least three hours. It's not that hard to get used to, but all things considered, having that daylight available when you're actually awake and using it is kind of convenient.

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.jbox.com/UPDATES/3/

Remember that it's 2005 calendar season right now! This means that for a limited time only, we've got a huge stock (over 250+) of unique anime, JPOP, swimsuit idol, sports and other calendars that are printed and sold in Japan. Why do we have so many calendars, instead of just carrying the most popular 20 or 30? Because we genuinely love Japan, we want to give you as wide a selection as possible, including items that might not be popular with everyone (but might be perfect for you).

J-List is accessible directly via http://www.jlist.com

Life in Japan Update: Wed, 13 Oct 2004

Thu, 04 Nov 2004 02:12:36 GMT

Direct access: http://www.jlist.com/

Hello again from Japan, where one of the most popular flavors of yogurt is aloe (but it's really good, trust me).

Japan can be a very complex place, presenting many conflicting faces at the same time. While it's true that Japan is a peaceful, wealthy nation with lots to offer anyone who lives here, the other side of the coin is that many Japanese can't handle the more oppressive elements of Japan's buttoned-up society, and opt out of their lives. There are around 30,000 suicides a year in Japan, the same number as in the U.S. despite the fact that Japan has half America's population. Tokyoites know when the trains stop due to an "injury accident," it really means that someone decided to end it all by jumping in front of an oncoming train. Those who take their own lives in Japan fall into several broad groups, such as middle-aged salarymen who face the embarrassment of "risutora" (layoffs, from the English word "restructure"), young students who can't endure the social pressures of Japanese school life, and business owners drowning in debt. Most recently, young people are forming "suicide pacts" and doing away with their precious lives in groups, presumably because they're too scared to die alone. Part of the problem is that counseling and use of drugs to help people in distress are all but non-existent in Japan, and when someone has a problem, they don't know where to turn for help.

The most famous Italian in Japan is Gioramo, an Italian man who speaks Japanese fluently and appears on variety shows as a sort of informal ambassador between Japan and Italy. Whenever there's a quiz show about the Roman Empire, Gioramo's on hand to offer his insights, and he also hosts the late-night Italian language show on NHK's educational channel. Japan has a tightly-knit pantheon of entertainers (aka "talents") who appear on TV, and it's interesting to observe how the entertainment world works here. It seems that as long as you're in a category all by yourself, you can be on Japanese TV. There's only room for one cross-dressing enka singer (the venerable Kennichi Mikawa), so no others need apply; American Daniel Kahl holds the monopoly on foreigners who speak Japanese with an accent from Yamagata Prefecture; and if you're looking for a very intelligent Japanese bilingual from Sri Lanka, Wikki-san will fit the bill, but he's the only one. In the 1990s, Ai Iiijima was the #1 adult film star in Japan, equivalent to Mimi Miyagi in the States. Through hard work, she was able to beat the odds and re-cast herself as a mainstream entertainer, and appears regularly on a variety of reputable shows, despite her infamous background. Since she occupies this unique niche on Japanese TV, it's doubtful that any other JAV idols will be able to jump into mainstream television.

We've got a great announcement for fans of Yulia Nova: the next two DVD releases are available for preordering. These fabulous discs feature two hours of dynamite footage of Russia's loveliest angel, who is incredibly popular both in Japan and throughout the Internet. Fully remastered for perfect video quality, both discs feature optional English subtitles and are free of pesky mosaics. There's a lot of good stuff for Yulia fans to look forward to!

For fans of our amazing 2005 Japanese calendars, we've got good news: we got in a whole bunch of calendars yesterday, and have posted all these items on the site, complete with new digital pictures so you can see how good the illustrations are. This year's Japanese calendars are really special, with beautiful illustrations printed on large sheets of glossy coated poster stock. Preorders for calendars we haven't gotten in stock yet will be closed very soon, by the end of the end of October or so. These amazing calendars, which are printedexclusively for the Japanese market, are really something to treasure, and we hope you'll look through our updated calendar pages. It goes without saying that these calendars make excellent Christmas gifts, too, but you should order soon, to make sure your calendar doesn't get away!

We're taking a trip! The entire staff of J-List is packing its suitcases and going to the island of Guam for a weekend of fun in the sun. Located just three hours from Japan, Guam is a kind of miniature version of Hawaii. While we're gone, the part-time staff will continue preparing all orders. We'll obviously be a little slow to reply to email over the weekend, but we'll get everything caught up when we get back. Itte kimasu! (lit. "I'll go and come back later").

For the extra-special 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.jbox.com/UPDATES/3/

First, for fans of Hiroki Yagami's excellent G-Taste series, we've got a treat: detailed figures designed by Yagami-sensei himself, showing his elegant characters in three gorgeous dimensions
We love the miniature Japanese toys from Re-Ment, which recreate classic food and other items from around the world -- today we've got an esoteric item, miniature Japanese school lunches, well known to every Japanese person around the world
We've also restocked several of the dynamite miniatures from Re-Ment, so detailed and fun to display
We also love to carry gashapon, Japanese capsule toys, which we make available in full sets so you don't need to waste money on duplicates -- we've got two cool sets in stock, a X-Men vs Spiderman and a cool wind-up Sanrio Teacup train set, very affordably priced
Then: the Chogokin ("Super Alloy") series of die-cast metal toys is famous with collectors who know these toys will provide years of satisfaction -- we've got the first-ever Evangelion Soul of Chogokin robot in stock, and it's a fabulous item!
Fans of Japanese snacks, we've got some great items for you, including limited edition Choco Ball by Morinaga, chocolate-covered chestnuts and soybeans
Then, we've got chocolate-covered Macadamia nuts, super cute kitty cat bubble gum, and a new flavor of Watering Kiss Mint Gum (yum)
Restocked snack items include tasty wakame (seaweed) candy, Kitty Chewing Candy, fun-to-eat Shigekix, fresh stock of all flavors of Pocky and Pretz, and for people who are too busy to brush, Lotte NoTime chewing gum
Enjoy delicious Japanese tea in a cool new item, a set of teacups with ukiyoe images of sumo wrestlers on it
Then, we've got some cool aroma oil containing the essence of green tea and sakura, an amazing item from Japan!
For your bento life, we've got some real bamboo chopsticks with chopstick cases, perfect for eating your lunch with
We've got some cool items for your kitchen that are uniquely Japanese, including a new kitchen timer and a Japanese indigo pot holder
Send someone a piece of Japan with cool traditional ukiyoe postcards, featuring famous images of Japan's past
Studying Japanese? We've restocked various items, including kanji practice notebooks and the Zebra Check Set, which helps you memorize anything
Look for various restocked Elecom products, including the cute Groomy plush pets who help keep your computer screen clean, Wordtank cases, and fresh stock of the sold-out Ear Horn speaker system
Finally, we've got a unique way to clean your ears, more cute wiener shapers for bento enthusiasts, Lotte Black Black, wacky erasers from Japan, and more!

Direct access: http://www.jlist.com/

Life in Japan Update: Wed, 6 Oct 2004

Thu, 07 Oct 2004 00:55:38 GMT

Direct access: http://www.jlist.com/

The problem of how to pay for retirement for aging populations is plaguing many nations today, and Japan is no exception. In order to make retirement savings stretch further, some Japanese have come up with a solution: "long stay," a new term which refers to retiring for many years outside of Japan. More and more, Japanese couples are choosing to spend their twilight years in countries like New Zealand, Canada and Malaysia, where the cost of living is low yet access to good hospitals is available. The Philippines has been encouraging Japanese to come and form expat communities there, too, building modern hospitals with Japanese-speaking staff. My wife and I really fell in love with Spain when we went there a few years ago, and are planning on spending our "silver years" there when the time comes.

We've got a new part-time girl at J-List, helping out with our rush of calendar orders. I hadn't met her yet, so I went to her today to introduce myself -- and gave her quite a shock, as she wasn't expecting an American to suddenly appear and start talking to her in Japanese. Although gaijin are a tiny portion of Japan -- the official number of registered foreigners is around 1% of Japan's population of 120 million -- the number of foreigners who master Japanese is even lower, especially outside of cities like Tokyo. The Japanese do like foreigners who speak Japanese, and there's quite a long list of famous gaijin "talents" (a catch-all term meaning any kind of television personality) who appear on news and variety shows to give their opinions in Japanese (most gaijin hate these guys because they speak better than us). The Japanese are fascinated with "gaijin" Japanese accents, and radio announcers regularly read scripts in Japanese with hammed-up "American" accents because it sounds cute to listeners. Pepsi did a series of commercials featuring a bald American who yelled at the screen in heavily-accented Japanese about how good Pepsi was.

One of the biggest changes to come to Japan in the past decade or so is the birth of actual competition. In the "old Japan" of the bubble years, Japanese businesses engaged in "cooperative competition" with each other, basically offering exactly the same service at the same price as their competitors. In those days, getting your hair cut was an extravagant, two-hour long affair, which included a cut, massage, aloe facial treatment, and a complete shave of your face, neck and (I am not kidding) ear lobes. At around $35, it wasn't cheap, but it sure felt good. No matter where you went, though, Japanese barbers gave pretty much the same excellent service at the same price, with very little variation in what they would offer. Banks were another area of cooperative competition. They always provided pretty much the same services, and no bank did anything the others wouldn't be willing to do -- in short, competing by trying to act as much like their competitors as possible. Now, however, things have changed. There is a lot more choice when it comes to getting a haircut, with discount hair stylists and various variations in-between. I now get my hair cut for $10, and although it's not quite as satisfying as the old $35 deluxe treatment, I can take the money I save and go to a sento (public bath) and feel almost as rejuvenated. Banks have also seen big changes, with the advent of Internet-based banks, foreign banks that offer accounts in dollars or euros, and so on.

J-List has tons of 2005 calendars available right now, both in stock as well as preorder calendars that haven't started to come in yet. Japanese calendars are really special, with large poster-sized pages and beautiful glossy printing. J-List goes out of our way to make a huge selection of these calendars available to everyone, offering anime, JPOP/JROCK, swimsuit idol and other calendars for order -- including esoteric calendars which might not appeal to everyone, but which might be just what you're looking for this year. We humbly suggest that these Japanese import calendars make great gifts this Christmas. Get your calendar order in quickly!

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.jbox.com/UPDATES/3/

First, for fans of our authentic Japanese high school uniforms, fun for "cosplay" (costume play), we've got a new uniform available, a stylish summer uniform that looks great
We love to bring you amazing things only sold in Japan -- today we have a set of classic steam locomotives from around the world, by Furuta
Then for Macross fans, a special item: a figure of Miria 639, aka Miriya, from the Macross 1984 movie -- you can change her clothes!!
Then, a super pair of detailed soft vinyl figures from Pretty Cure, the popular anime show on Sunday mornings right now
I'm a big fans of Peanuts, and grew up reading the classic strips of the 50s and 60s -- today we've got cute Peanuts bath toys that pop up when you put them in the water
We have some cool traditional Japanese dishes, great for serving Japanese desserts or just about anything
I've been told that happy faces are "very American" -- we have a cute set of NicoNico Club happy face fingernail cutters in stock today
We have some great Japanese snack items today, including yummy mountain grape candy treats, yogurt soft chews, candies made with real apples, and Mont Blanc treats, with the taste of the famous French dessert
Next, a wacky item for your kitchen: a timer that looks like a hot water pot
We've got an interesting Japanese film on DVD with English subtitles, starring one of my favorite actresses, the lovely Rena Tanaka
For customers interested in finding male Japanese companionship, we've got a treat for you: a cotton hoodie version of our popular "Looking for a Japanese Boyfriend" shirt, which will keep you very warm this summer
Totoro fans, we've added stock of many cute items for you, including the Totoro Doll Collection toys, Totoro white board and magnet set, the wooden Totoro alarm clock and more
Finally, we have a cool traditional Japanese toothpick holder, more interesting bento related items, more wacky Cup Noodle coffee cups that make great gifts, and more!

Remember that J-List sells our world-famous Japanese T-shirts and hoodies, with original designs and messages like "I'm looking for a Japanese Girlfriend" and Domo-kun's face. Our shirts are printed in the USA on 100% cotton 6.1 lb T-shirts that are of very high quality, and the shirts are printed with the highest possible quality printing for extra-long life, even when run regularly through clothes dryers. Also, we make sure to offer a wide selection of sizes, from small (and even XS) all the way up to XXL and XXXL, depending on items and colors. Buy 3 of our T-shirts or hoodies and get 15% off!

Direct access: http://www.jlist.com/

Life in Japan Update: Wed, 22 Sep 2004

Thu, 23 Sep 2004 08:52:07 GMT

Direct access: http://www.jbox.com/

Japan can be a very uniform place: because things like education and transportation policy tend to get decided on a national level, it can be surprising how similar different parts of the country might look to an outsider. In Japan, a traffic light is a traffic light, wherever you go -- they're all exactly the same color and shape, horizontally oriented, except in northern Honshu and Hokkaido, where they hang them vertically to keep the snow off in the winter. In the U.S., there is quite a lot of variation in how schools are structured, with traditional, charter and year-round schools, schools in large, easy-to-heat buildings on the East Coast but spread-out multi-structure schools in warmer parts of the country. In Japan, however, a school is a school, with drab concrete buildings that look like they came out of some Communist country, school uniforms on all students, and textbooks that are the same from one end of the country to the other. And while there are big difference s between Japanese cities, from overdeveloped Tokyo to the gritty charm of Osaka to Hiroshima with its street cars and solemn park around the A-Bomb Dome, there is uniformity here, too. No city seems complete without a tower (Tokyo Tower, Yokohama Marine Tower, etc.), a Tanabata festival in July, and in August, a huge fireworks show.

One minor thing I've noticed about Japanese restaurants and similar establishments: they love to trumpet how long they've been around by posting what year they were established. Our favorite Indian restaurant is Mahatma New Delhi, which has been in business since 1978, according to their sign. They don't always wait before bragging about how long they've been in business, though. My wife and I went to a newly opened Italian restaurant that featured "Since 2004" on their sign. Another wacky one: a coffee shop I go to in Tokyo informs us they've been around "since A.D. 1987" (thanks for the clarification, guys).

Every country has a list of things that are considered rude, and each country is different. In Japan, of course, you take your shoes off when you go into a house (and into some businesses -- J-List included). Never stick your chopsticks upright in your rice, since this is "only for dead people" (chopsticks are placed standing upright in rice as part of a last offering of rice to the departed at Japanese funerals). I've noticed that some Japanese, at least the ones I've encountered, are more open than Americans about discussing topics like menstruation or masturbation. Accidental flatulence is not nearly as rude in Japan as it is in the U.S. On the other hand, something that I personally consider very rude -- someone reading over my shoulder -- is not rude at all here. As a result, anything being read or written by a foreigner on a train is considered fair game, and it's not rare to have one or more Japanese straining their necks to see what this gaijin is writing on his Power book.

We're really happy to see how our wonderful 2005 Japanese wall calendars are selling so far -- thanks to everyone who has preordered. We've added a dozen more calendars which were not posted last week, including popular stars like Akiko Yada (one of my favorite TV commercial idols in Japan), the undying Morning Musume, Japanese pro wrestling calendars and more! Remember, order 4 or more calendars and get 15% off, and your mailing tubes free, too. These wonderful calendars make thoughtful Christmas gifts for anyone who has a fascination with Japan!

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.jbox.com/UPDATES/3/

First, for Gundam fans, we have pretty much the coolest thing I've ever seen: Gundam throw pillows that feature Haro, the Gundam RX-78 and a Zak -- woah
For lovers of classic 80s video games, a rare treat: series 2 of the miniature table-top video games which are real games that you can actually play!
Shirow Masamune's incredibly rare Galgrease trading cards sold out in just one day, but we've managed to get more in stock, as well as his popular Intron Depot vol. 4 art book
Japanese snack fans, we've got more items in stock for you: tasty Cocoa Waffles from Hokkaido, Japanese traditional orange jelly, white grape Hi-Chews and sea urchin flavored rice crackers -- yummy
Also, a limited edition flavor of Pucca cream-filled fish shaped crackers, with yogurt cream inside
We've restocked various items too, including Hi-Chew Grape, Pocari Sweat drink mix, Glico Honey Pretz, and Shigekix engineered to make you smarter
Lupin the 3rd, two dynamite sets of Lupin figures, including Japan's most famous thief, his sidekick Jigen, and Inspector Zenigata
Next, we have another cool traditional Japanese ashtray that's modeled after a famous Japanese symbol -- very cool, even if you don't smoke
iPod owners, we've got a nifty item from Japan's Elecom electronics maker: a cool set of earphones that converts into a "box speaker" when you want to listen to music with friends
For Sanrio collectors, we have a cute faux leather wallet featuring My Melody and strawberries
JPOP fans, enjoy the lovely new photobook of Aya Matsuura, a super cute idol who will charm you with her cute photographs
And for your kitchen, beautiful hand-painted ukiyoe chopsticks, very nice
Fans of Japan's avante-garde artists, we've restocked several great art books, including Gothic Taste and Tsutomu Nihei's "Blame! and so on..."
Interested in learning Japanese? We have a cute hiragana notebook that makes it fun to practice Japan's basic writing system
Explore the world of shiatsu with a nifty Japanese massager, which allows you to stimulate your hands, neck, feet, anywhere
We're fans of the super cute Pinky Street Japanese figures, and are announcing preorders of the new Pinky in Town photobook w/ figure set
Fans of the #1 anime magazine we sell, Megami Magazine, we have restocked Megami Magazine Deluxe, which is loaded with fabulous art and stuff to pull out
Another rare item for you, we've restocked the Microman Chronicle, a fabulous photographic documentary of the Microman toys by Takara, sold as the Micronauts in the U.S.
If you love Japan's super-cute swimsuit idol Yuko Ogura, we can't recommend her new DVD enough: it's a 4-in-1 disc, compiling four of her previous sexy DVD releases into a 2-disc set (region 2)
Tarantino fans, we've restocked the Japanese release of Kill Bill, which features all the scenes cut out from the U.S. release of the film (region2)
Our Japanese eyedrops are very popular -- and we've restocked all varieties for you today (enjoy)
Finally, a cute way to clean up crumbs from your tabletop, more traditional "tenugui" hand towels, more excellent "minus ion" relax pens, and more!

Remember that J-List carries dozens of excellent English-language dating-sim games which allow you to interact with virtual anime girls in a unique Japanese story. These games are really great -- with long, developed stories, beautiful graphics and characters, and lots of replay value. We recommend the DVD-based games by Hirameki International, they look great on your living room TV!

Direct access: http://www.jbox.com/

Life in Japan Update: Mon, 20 Sep 2004

Thu, 23 Sep 2004 08:50:10 GMT

Direct access: http://www.jbox.com/

Hello again from Japan, where a back scratcher is known as "mago-no-te" or "hand of the grandchild."

The day my wife and I have feared for years is approaching: our kids are slowly surpassing our language abilities, getting better at Japanese than me, and better at English than my wife. The warning signs have been there for some time -- my daughter is especially good at pronouncing words that are hard for Japanese to say, like "girl" or "jewel" (which come out as "GA-ru" and "ju-EH-ru" when my wife tries). The other day, my wife was explaining to my son's English teacher that he fell off the jungle gym and hurt his head, but she couldn't remember the right English word to use. Kazuki elbowed her and told her the word she was looking for: "bump." I'm having a hard time too, because as my son advances in school, he's getting better at kanji than me. Like most adults in Japan, I usually use word processors to write in Japanese, which makes it very easy to forget kanji (which has to be written by hand to be retained in memory).

The Japanese really love standardized tests, and there are tests for just about anything you can think of: calculating quickly with an abacus, memorizing train schedules, even a standardized test for penmanship. Getting these qualifications is important to the Japanese, as they help define what kind of person you are as you go through life. Virtually all Japanese study English for six years, and during this time most students take the English test, called STEP, which goes from level 5 (for elementary school kids) to level 2 (for high school students). Once I was in a bar and a Japanese man asked me, "Where is your domicile?" (he meant to ask me where I lived). It turned out that this man had studied for and passed the coveted level 1 of the STEP test, which is so difficult as to be useless for communicating with people. As Japanese slowly realize that tests like STEP aren't helping them learn English, they're turning more and more to a popular international English test, TOEIC, or Test Of English for International Communications.

Just up the road from J-List there's a pleasant little German village. It's called Kronenberg, also known as Doitsu Village, a sort of theme park that recreates a rural German town in the mountains of Japan. Inside they have little shops that sell cheese and sausage, delicious beer, and embarrassed-looking Germans wearing outfits from the Old Country. They have New Zealand sheep dog demonstrations, and barbecues in the summer. Japan has a long-running fascination with Europe, and like to compare themselves with that continent whenever they can. The mountain range that runs down Japan is called the Japan Alps, and in Chiba Prefecture there is a section of cliffs known as "Japan's Dover Straits." In Tokyo's trendy Shibuya district there's a hill called Spain Hill (Spain-zaka) in imitation of Rome's Piazza di Spagna. In general, the Japanese I've met here have known a lot more about the great classical composers of Europe than most Americans I know (myself included).

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.jbox.com/UPDATES/3/

First, for fans of Star Wars, we've got a nice treat: the Japanese version of the Star Wars boxed set, featuring all the movies and bonus material with full Japanese soundtracks and subtitles
Then for true manga fans, be on the bleeding edge with Dengeki Comic Gao, a massive 500 page "phone book" monthly manga with some really excellent stories in it
For fans of the very sexy G-Taste illustration series by Hiroki Yagami, we've got a new PVC figure set featuring his incredible characters in three dimensions
For fans of tasty Japanese snacks, enjoy two new flavors of Whip Toppo, the Pocky-like stick snack with chocolate inside a baked stick
Also other snacks, including yummy, er, squid snacks that are, um, really good (no, really!), as well as other tasty new items
Sushi fans, we've got a great item: realistic sushi keychains that light up when you press them, so cool!
Next, we've got more Frog Style plush toys, really soft and well made, and uniquely Japanese
Then we have some really cute: character keychains of the Sunshine People, the happy figures that rock their heads back and forth while they sit in the sun
Then for your bath: a fun character sponge for fans of Hamtaro and a piggy soap dish that's really cute
Next, we have a stylish pencil case that's made out of kimono fabric, and looks great
Fans of Sailor Moon, we've restocked all volumes of the popular live-action drama on DVD (region 2)
Also, look for fresh stock of My Neighbor Totoro, the excellent film by Hayao Miyazaki on Ghibli DVD (region 2)
Finally, fresh stock of many snack, gum and "wacky things from Japan" items for the Japanophile in you!

Remember that 2005 calendar season is on right now. For a very brief time, we're accepting preorders on hundreds of amazing anime, swimsuit idol, JPOP, sports and other calendars for you. Japanese calendars are fabulous, with large pages and gorgeous high-quality printing, and because they're only sold in Japan, you know you'll have something special that will make your year special. We advise everyone to get your calendar orders in as quickly as possible though, as the window for accepting preorders is very short.

Direct access: http://www.jbox.com/

Life in Japan Update: Fri, 17 Sep 2004

Thu, 23 Sep 2004 08:46:11 GMT

Direct access: http://www.jbox.com/

Hello again from Japan, home of cars with names like the Largo Wagonist and Suzuki Perky.

Back when I was single, I did a fair bit of traveling around Japan, hitchhiking or riding trains on "Youth 18" tickets, which allow you to go anywhere in Japan for around $25 a day, as long as you don't mind taking the slow local trains. (Poor gaijin like me who live in Japan don't get to buy the spiffy Japan Rail shinkansen tickets that tourists from overseas have access to.) I've been from Hokkaido to Hiroshima and have really enjoyed getting out and seeing this interesting country. During my travels, I've stayed at various places, including conventional "business" hotels, youth hostels, minshuku (a kind of Japanese bed & breakfast), and "saunas" (a public bath with a sauna; there's a central room where you can sleep on the floor for free). But perhaps the most unique overnight experiences I had were staying at capsule hotels, the miniature honeycomb-like hotel rooms found in larger Japanese cities. Inside your capsule you have everything you need: bed, blanket, pillow, a little TV, radio with alarm, and a curtain for privacy. Capsule hotels usually have large communal baths and saunas. They're cheap, too: you can stay in the heart of Tokyo's Shibuya district for around $40. Capsule hotels are usually for men only, although I went to one once that had a floor reserved for women.

One thing you have to get used to when studying Japanese is that a word from one language won't necessarily "match up" with a word from the other. English and Japanese are quite different structurally, and there are often subtle nuances you have to master when learning new vocabulary. In English, the idea of a brother is quite simple, but in Japanese, there are separate concepts for older brother (oniisan) and younger (otouto), which is hard to get used to at first. Cold water (mizu) and hot water (o-yu) are separate linguistic ideas, and if you use the wrong word accidentally, people will smile at how cute your Japanese is. In English, "funny" can mean either strange or amusing; the Japanese use "okashii" for strange and "omoshiroi" for amusing, but beware: the latter term also covers the English word "interesting." If you've ever known a Japanese person who seemed to over-use the word "delicious," it's because in Japanese, the word for good ("ii" pronounced like the English letter E) is a separate concept from the word for good-tasting (which is "oishii"). Learning a foreign language is good because it makes you aware of your own language, too.

The 2005 calendars we posted on Wednesday are really proving popular with J-List customers, and we've already received preorders for over 200 calendars. To help you choose which of the great large-format Japanese calendars you'd like this year, we've gone through and updated the calendar pictures with better images. By the way, there was a temporary error in the shopping cart which caused the 15% discount for 4 or more calendars to fail to display. Never fear, it's been fixed now.

At J-List, we carry thousands of fun and rare items from Japan, including over 150 varieties of Japanese snacks -- rice crackers, Japanese sweets, "candy toys," you name it. During the hot summer months, we're forced to remove all chocolate products and Pocky because of the problem of melting. We're happy to announce, however, that fall Pocky season is here once again, and we've got great new flavors of Pocky in stock, ready for you to order! Enjoy the tasty Mild Chocolate Moose Pocky, extra thick and creamy, or the amazing new Pocky Decorer, "just like a decoration cake on a stick!"

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.jbox.com/UPDATES/3/

First, for fans of fabulous Japanese anime characters and posters, enjoy the new Megami Magazine Deluxe, a special once-a-year issue of the #1 selling anime magazine at J-List -- filled with fabulous anime character illustrations and pin-ups
Next, we have the new issue of Gothic & Lolita Bible, the amazing handbook of all that's goth -- enjoy tons of glossy photos of costumes, a deck of gothic playing cards, and a cool pattern you can use to make your own outfits
In addition to the newest issue, look for a massive restocking of all past issues of this remarkable fashion photobook series, simply amazing
We have some excellent toy items today, including the new 50th anniversary Godzilla toy series featuring famous scenes from the past half-decade of the big G rendered in soft vinyl and PVC (full sets available)
Also, a great miniature figure set of Panda Z character toys, featuring really cute plastic figures that you can display or use as finger puppets
For fans of Cowboy Bebop, we have two really excellent PVC statues of the very sexy Faye Valentine and Julia
Like sushi? We've got a cool coffee cup for you that teaches you the names of all types of Japanese sushi
In addition to our new stock of delicious Pocky, we have other snack treats for you, including sweet potato chips (trust us, they're good), yummy rice crackers, and more
Restocked snack and food items include tasty miso soup, Felix the Cat gum, Okinawa Black Caramel from Morinaga, and various flavors of Japanese gum
Have fun cleaning hair and dirt from your bathwater with a Hello Kitty bath cleaner, which makes keeping your bath clean a snap
All Japan loves Pingu, the cute penguin character -- we have deluxe heart keychains featuring Pingu and Pinga, so cute
Also very cool, traditional kimono bags that are carried when you wear a kimono on special events -- but you can use your kimono bag to carry anything, anytime
Next we have a handy bottle for storing and pouring olive oil, salad dressing, soy sauce, you name it
We've restocked several popular Ghibli items including the Totoro stamp sets, the plush Ghibli keychain sets, the Spirited Away No-Face keychains, the popular Bou Nezumi plush toys and many more items
For Hello Kitty fans, we've got a great digital timer for your kitchen, great for Sanrio lovers everywhere
Fans of Cutie Honey, we have fresh stock of the dynamite detailed figures of Cutie and Kisaragi
Finally, enjoy more wacky Japanese gum erasers that are really fun to use, kanji practice notebooks for students, and more!

J-List advertises on several websites and in magazines, too. If you've recently found J-List through one of our advertisements, we'd like to hear from you so that we can better support these companies. If it's not too much trouble, please consider shooting us an email or leaving a note in your next order telling us if you saw an ad of ours somewhere. (You can also reply to this email with your comments.) Thanks!

Remember that J-List carries the excellent Japan Hot Wheels cars, made exclusively for the Japanese market. The popular toys include a perfect replica of the Mach 5 from Speed Racer, the Airwolf helicopter, K.I.T.T. from Knight Rider, the Delorean from Back to the Future, and more. These are remarkable toys, with great die-cast metal detailing, a super item for any collector. Note that the current stock we have is probably all we'll be able to get, as all current toys are out of production.

Direct access: http://www.jbox.com/

Life in Japan Update: Wed, 15 Sep 2004

Thu, 23 Sep 2004 08:30:29 GMT

Direct access: http://www.jbox.com/

One of the biggest surprises any foreigner living in Japan receives is when he sees his first Japanese right wingers, blasting annoying music from their speaker cars. Japanese right-wing groups are blustery nationalists who drive around cities playing patriotic music from Japan's wartime past, including the war songs soldiers used to sing on ships. They fly Japan's wartime "rising sun" flag and make speeches about how great the Emperor is, while passers-by ignore them completely. One of the first anime series I fell in love with as a child was Space Cruiser Yamato, a show which was tinged with more than a few right-wing themes (Earth being bombed by the white Gamilon Desslock was an allegory for what Japan went through during the last years of the war). Sure enough, the theme song from Yamato/Star Blazers is a favorite among Japan's fascist types, and it's common to hear it blasting from their annoying loudspeaker cars. Japan's organized right-wing groups are closely associated with the infamous Japanese mafia, the Yakuza.

Somewhat similar to Japan's right-wingers are the boso-zoku, the motorcycle gangs that drive loudly through the streets of Japanese cities, making as much noise as they can. An odd segment of young counter-culture, boso-zoku (lit. "tribe of those who run wildly") are gangs that dress in clothes with right-wing slogans on them and ride on motorcycles modified to be extra loud. Boso-zoku types are known as "yankii," from the English word "yankee," perhaps because they dye their hair blonde (or perhaps not). The motorcycle gangs from the Katsuhiro Otomo film Akira are based on the boso-zoku, but the real bike gangs aren't nearly as interesting: they're mostly bored delinquents who dropped out of high school because they fell in with the wrong crowd. You could call them "yakuza scouts" because Japan's mafia usually uses boso-zoku members to run errands for them. While it's probably dangerous to get on the wrong side of these loud kids, they're usually nothing more than an annoyance, especially when you're driving somewhere and get caught in a traffic jam caused by a group of them. To experience the annoyance of the boso-zoku, see this German page: http://www.bosozoku.de/ (fair warning: it's loud)

Announcing the second half of Japanese calendar season! Every year at J-List we carry the amazing large-format Japanese calendars which are available in Japan for a limited time from October to November or so. If you've never seen these Japanese calendars, they're really amazing -- huge poster-sized sheets of thick stock paper, with beautiful printing and wonderful photography and art that will really make your year special. Because we genuinely love Japan and want to bring a little piece of it to everyone, we go the extra mile for you, carrying hundreds of anime, JPOP/JROCK, swimsuit idol, race queen and other calendars, including off-the-wall items which might not be that popular (but which are still very cool). Rolled calendars require a mailing tube, which is $2 and one tube can hold two calendars. As in previous years, if you buy 4 or more calendars you'll get 15% off, and get your mailing tubes for free!

As usual, it's fun to look at the ranking of calendars and see whose star has risen or fallen over the past year. Once again, Ayumi Hamasaki has claimed the coveted CL1 spot, reflecting her ongoing status as one of the top JPOP stars and fashion entities in Japan. She's followed by Aya Ueto, who had a banner year in dramas and film, and the elegant Misaki Ito, the Japanese Audrey Hepburn, who built a successful acting career after making a splash in commercials for plum wine. Many of Japan's top name swimsuit idols are back this year, like Yuko Ogura, Yinling of Joytoy and Eriko Satoh, as are popular Japanese "talents" like Yuka and the half-British, half-Japanese Becky. Since the opening of "cultural imports" between South Korea and Japan this year, Korean dramas and films have been very popular here -- look for some calendars featuring Korean stars like the gorgeous Yoon Sona (her Korean-Japanese accent is so cute). As always, there are dozens of great anime calendars available for preordering, with virtually every anime series represented. Hayao Miyazaki fans will be especially happy to see a fabulous 3D Totoro calendar this year, as well as several other great items for his fans.

As always, we recommend that everyone get their preorders in quickly, so we can order your calendars and get them back for you as speedily as we can. Calendars should start to come in in the month of October, and we ship your calendars out to you right away. The window for ordering these great calendars is unfortunately very short, and we'll have to close preorders around the middle of October. To avoid the agony of not getting that rare Japanese calendar you want, be sure and preorder early.

In addition to huge volley of 2005 calendars added to the site, we're happy to announce stock of the gorgeous Shirow Masamune movie Innocence, which tells the continuing story of the characters from Ghost in the Shell. A fabulous animated film directed by Mamoru Oishi, it was a huge hit in Japan and is being distributed around the world. Although this film opens in theatres in the U.S. this weekend, we've got it on DVD right now -- order your copy today! (We even have the deluxe Staff Box in stock.)

Direct access: http://www.jbox.com/

Life in Japan Update: Mon, 13 Sep 2004

Thu, 23 Sep 2004 08:27:23 GMT

Direct access: http://www.jbox.com/

Florida has really been hit with some powerful storms this season, and we hope that all our customers in the area made it through safely. Unfortunately, Japan was also pummeled by typhoons this year, resulting in many deaths in Okinawa and the two southern islands of Kyushu and Shikoku. Typhoon season in Japan lasts from late August through most of September, a kind of second rainy season after the normal one in June-July. The recent typhoon no. 18 caused extensive damage to a landmark well known to foreigners who have visited Japan: Miya-jima, the beautiful Shinto shrine near Hiroshima, famous for the red torii arch that appears to float on the sea when the tide comes in. While much of the shrine itself was damaged by the high winds and water, the floating arch was miraculously undamaged.

Although sumo wrestling is the official sport of Japan, enjoying special status and financial support by the government, the hearts of Japanese sports fans belong to baseball. Baseball was introduced here back in the Meiji era, when Japan started its long path towards modernization. Although halted during World War II as an "enemy sport," today baseball has more fans than ever. Currently, though, Japan's baseball world is going through some growing pains. The #1 team is the Yomiuri Giants (owned by the Yomiuri newspaper company), and the team is so popular that they alter the dynamics of the entire sport: the other five Central League teams can only hope for good ticket sales when their team is playing the Giants, and teams in the Pacific League are doomed to drown in red ink unless they win the pennant. When the owners of the Kintetsu Buffaloes and the Olics Blue Wave announced they were going to merge, effectively laying off half the players, a proposal was put forth to combine the two leagues into one to cut costs. Owners relented when they faced a strike by all players, and they're in discussions now about what can be done to help some of the less profitable teams.

A fun part of learning the Japanese language is memorizing the "counters." In Japanese, you use different words for counting different objects depending on what shape they are. If you're counting sheets of paper, you count with "mai" (ichi mai, ni mai, san mai, and so on). For any long, cylindrical object, you use "hon" (ippon, ni hon, san bon). (Roppingi, if you want to know, means "six trees" -- roku plus the "pon" counter, and ki is Japanese for tree.) There are some difficult ones to get down -- for example, an umbrella is counted with hon/pon because it's long and cylindrical when closed, but when it's opened, it's in a different shape. How do you count it? Does the Space Shuttle count as an airplane or a ship? Does comatose body or freshly-killed corpse get counted with the same counter as the one for people? We used to have lots of fun annoying our Japanese teacher back at SDSU with questions like these.

J-List brings you many unique things from Japan, and one cool category of item we like very much are the authentic high school uniforms made by Matsukameya of Nagoya. Each uniform is hand-sewn by the company to your own size measurements, and the detail on these uniforms is perfect, right down to the buttons and pleats on the skirts. We have uniforms for men and women, with several styles of girl's uniform available. Today we've added a new item to our lineup: authentic high school swimsuits which are great for a variety of cosplay applications, or for Japanophiles who just want to go totally Japanese.

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.jbox.com/UPDATES/3/

First, for Gundam fans, we've got a dynamite item: a little folding table featuring Haro, the cute robot from the various Gundam TV series
Fans of Kubrick's amazing detailed block toys, we've got a deluxe set featuring all the characters of The Usual Suspects
We have a really cool traditional Japanese ashtray (or generic container to hold whatever you want) shaped like a Japanese 5 yen coin
For Hello Kitty fans, enjoy a wacky toy hammer shaped like Kitty-chan, which makes wacky sounds when you hit things with it
For fans of Japan's "sentai" (fighting team) shows, we've got a treat: Zebraman, a really amazing Japanese film exploring Japan's hero genre (region 2)
For fans of Japanese snacks enjoy delicious grape & cider sticks, very tart ume candies, ramune candy with vitamin C, and tasty white grape gummi
Freshly restocked snack items include Sushi Gummi, delicious Black Sugar Caramel from Morinaga, and the popular Black Black caffeine gum
Also, a traditional candy known as konpeito, which appeared in the film Spirited Away
Protect laptops and other similar items with an all-purpose soft zipper pouch, which we have in stock
Then for your kitchen, a cute Hanako Style holder for glasses, very stylish and cute
Clean any surface with handy cleaning tools, which remove oil and dirt easily from kitchen surfaces
We love My Neighbor Totoro, the famous film by Hayao Miyazaki -- enjoy fresh stock of many Totoro items, including the giant plush toy, several Totoro stuffed toys, Catbus soft plastic toys and more
Also, fresh stock of the cool Totoro alarm clock, made with real wood, a great way to wake up every morning
Finally, see fresh stock of our Cup Noodle coffee cups, more Sanrio ice cube trays, a great restocking of traditional "fude pen" brush pens, and more!

Remember that J-List sells our unique Japanese T-shirts featuring bizarre and aesthetically beautiful messages in Japanese, like "I'm looking for a Japanese girlfriend" or the Japanese emergency exit sign. We love the reactions we see from Japanese who see the shirts outside of Japan, and having a wacky message on your shirt is a great potential conversation starter. All shirts are 100%, printed in the USA, and all shirts are full U.S. sizes.

Direct access: http://www.jbox.com/

Life in Japan Update: Fri, 10 Sep 2004

Thu, 23 Sep 2004 08:25:42 GMT

Direct access: http://www.jbox.com/

Hello and TGIF from all of us in Japan!

Ever heard of Zena, Yunker and Aspara? They're Japanese energy drinks, a major category of product in Japan that promises to improve your health, remove tiredness and give you the energy you need to be successful in business. Although the small single-serving bottles usually provide nothing more than caffeine and vitamins in a sweet syrup, the marketing muscle behind the drinks has turned them into a consumer sub-culture, Japan style. The first health drink was Lipovitan, released in 1962 by Taisho Pharmaceutical, and it's still the industry leader, with a staggering 2 million bottles sold every day. For four decades Lipovitan's TV commercials featuring a pair of burley men who cry out "Faito! Ippatsu!" ("Fight! One more push!") as they perform some athletic activity have been as famous as Mr. Whipple in the U.S. Back in the 90s another Japanese energy drink, Regain, served as a symbol of the differences between Japan, Inc. and the U.S. In addition to giving you back your "genki" (pep), some energy drinks promise to revitalize men with Chinese herbs (wink wink), cure your cold symptoms, and remove your hangover in record time. Governor Arnold also made a splash when he appeared in ads for Arinimin V back in the early 90s. See one of his silly CMs here: http://homepage.mac.com/alan31/clips/schwarz4.mov (Quicktime required).

You probably know some of the Japanese name suffixes that are used at the end of names. The most famous is -san, which is added to the names for politeness (e.g. Fujita-san). Two other suffixes that are heard often are -kun and -chan, for boys and girls respectively, used to refer to children or close friends (e.g. Taro-kun, Hanako-chan). One suffix that comes up in anime frequently is -sama, for addressing high-ranking persons, samurai lords and so on. Actually, -sama is rarely used in regular Japanese life except in certain situations (addressing letters, for example). There are several polite phrases that have the -sama suffix in them, though, such as "otsukare sama deshita" ("job well done," said at the end of the work day) and "gochisou sama deshita" (lit. "it was a feast," said when you're finished eating).

I remember first coming to Japan back in 1992, totally dazed at everything around me as I struggled to find my "gaijin legs." Happily, I met many other foreigners who helped me out and showed me the ropes about living in Japan. One of the people I met was a local American who is kind of the "First Foreigner" in our prefecture, who came to live in Japan during the Vietnam era as a conscientious objector and has stayed here ever since. When I met him he'd lived in Japan for sixteen years or so, and at the time I was amazed that anyone could live away from his home country for so long -- of course, now I've been here for thirteen years myself. He's quite a famous local personality -- he writes articles for the local newspaper and also had a local radio talk show, mainly because he'd been here so long.

At J-List, we love Shirow Masamune and carry dozens of products. Among the most popular Shirow items are his poster books and art books, which feature his remarkable female characters and illustrations. Issued along with his posterbooks are Shirow trading cards which are very hard to get, because they're only available by mail to people living in Japan. Through the hard work of the J-List staff we've obtained stock of these excellent laminated trading cards for J-List customers, along with very cool binders to put them in. Get your Shirow cards before they're gone!

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.jbox.com/UPDATES/3/

For Macross fans, enjoy a dynamite item: "book figures" (glossy art books that come with boxed figures) of Lynn Minmay and Mylene Jenius
We love the cute "Nyanko" series of cat toys from San-X -- now enjoy cute kitty fast food with kitty cats cooked inside, with the new Nyanko Burger series
Hello Kitty fans, we've added a new color of cool desktop vacuum cleaner, which removes dust and dirt from your computer area or desk and looks darned cute
Fans of the classic video game Dragonquest, we've got a great candy toy series of the characters (full sets in stock)
Japanese idol fans, we've added some nice photobooks of popular swimsuit models like Yuko Ogura
Japan is going wild over frogs, and we have a cool Frog Style plush toy for you
Also, a traditional frog item: a gorgeous windchime from the Frog Style line -- hang it up and listen to the
We have authentic chopsticks made of bamboo, and very easy to eat with
We've got tasty snacks for you, including traditional cakes from northern Japan, Lion cola candy, soft vitamin C candy and more
Next, a great parody item from Japan: a memo holder in the shape of the famous peeing statue in Belgium, which is incredibly famous here for some reason
Study Japanese with the excellent Chobits and Ghost in the Shell bilingual manga, which feature both Japanese and accurately translated English right on the page
Always have a place to sit with a handy tripod chair, which folds up for easy storage and is very small
Finally, look for various restocked items, including snacks, wacky things from Japan, kitchen items, more collection boxes for your miniature toys, and more!

Remember that J-List stocks a wide range of cool DVDs from Japan including Japanese films that don't get distributed outside of Japan (complete with English subtitles, in most cases) to the world-famous anime films of Hayao Miyazaki. The newest Miyazaki film is The Cat Returns, the story of a girl's amazing journey to the World of Cats. While most of our adult DVDs are "region free," anime DVDs from Japan are zoned for region 2, so you'll need a region-free DVD player unless you have one already -- we humbly suggest the three excellent units we stock. We hope you'll check out our selection of Japanese DVDs!

Direct access: http://www.jbox.com/

Life in Japan Update: Wed, 8 Sep 2004

Thu, 23 Sep 2004 08:23:43 GMT

Direct access: http://www.jbox.com/

Hello from Japan, where a cleft chin is known as "ketsu-ago" (KEH-tsoo AH-go), literally meaning "butt-chin."

Japan is the home of manga, the uniquely detailed comics that are famous all over the world. The term manga literally means "whimsical pictures" and was coined by ukiyoe artist Hokusai to describe a book of wookblock art he'd done (he's the artist of the famous Red Fuji and The Wave you may have seen). Early forms of manga had existed since before World War II, but the father of manga in its present form is Tezuka Osamu, creator of virtually all of the popular early works. His stories, often laced with challenging philosophical themes, set the bar high for the generations of manga artists that would follow. Today Japanese buy a staggering 2.2 billion manga books annually, 40% of all printed books sold here, and manga is generally read by people of all ages. At our liquor shop, we sell the weekly manga magazines like Shonen Jump and Shonen Magazine, and it's not uncommon to see a businessman get out of a BMW to buy this week's issue of his favorite comic. While Westerners use the term manga to refer to Japanese printed comics, most Japanese over the age of 25 use the word to refer to animation as well; only the younger generation uses the term anime.

Currently Japan is having a "manga revival," with many of the classic golden age comics back in print for fans to enjoy again. Fist of the North Star, Golgo 13, Lupin III, The Rose of Versailles, Ashita no Joe -- they're all being reprinted and sold in convenience stores for the next generation of Japanese. I'm currently re-reading Touch, the 80s high school baseball manga by Mitsuru Adachi, which I used to study Japanese with back in college. It's very "natsukashii" (nats-ka-SHII, meaning nostalgic)

The most profitable Disney theme park in the world is Tokyo Disneyland, which opened in 1983 and has broken all records for money-making in the history of theme parks. The Japanese penchant for spending money on souvenirs for family members, called omiyage (oh-mee-YAH-geh), helps make this profitability possible -- the average guest spends around $300. Disney's second Japanese park opened a couple years ago: DisneySea, centered around themes of the ocean. The park features a volcano, a recreation of the Arabian town of Agrabah from Aladdin, a fun under-the-sea area for younger kids, a cruise ship, a "jet coaster" (as they say in Japan) based on Journey to the Center of the Earth, and even a hotel where you can get married, right inside the park. We had fun when we went, but my son said it was "kakko warui" (uncool) for Mickey Mouse to speak Japanese when he should be speaking English. The biggest problem with theme parks in Japan are all the people: no matter what day you go, it seems they're brimming with guests, and waiting 3-4 hours for popular rides can really suck.

For the new update, we've got some excellent products from Japan for you, including updated and restocked toys, manga, DVDs, snacks, wacky things from Japan, and much more. J-List has over 2000 cool things from Japan -- you can view items updated in the last 3 days with the handy 3-day link, http://www.jbox.com/UPDATES/3/

For anime fans in Germany, there's a cool convention starting September 10-12 in Kassel, and many of our game and T-shirt products will be at the show (although we won't be, unfortunately). For more information on the show, see the Connichi website at http://www.connichi.de/

Remember that J-List stocks the incredibly detailed classic food replica items from Re-Ment and other companies, which recreate famous foods of the world -- sushi, Japanese traditional dishes, classic American food, Asian treats and more -- in such detail you won't believe they're not edible (you even get little silverware/chopsticks). Although Japanese have to buy these individually, we go out of our way for you, making full sets available so you can avoid buying duplicates and throwing them away. These amazing toys are perfect for doll collectors, too -- and they make thoughtful gifts, too.

Direct access: http://www.jbox.com/

Life in Japan Update: Mon, 6 Sep 2004

Thu, 23 Sep 2004 08:21:40 GMT

Direct access: http://www.jbox.com/

When I was six, I lived in New Zealand for a year. I was just a child at the time, but I have many fond memories of Big Ben's Meat Pies, the fountain in Christchurch, glow worms, and lots of sheep. I also learned a lot about the history of British royalty because of the many historical dramas I watched on the BBC. Japan also has a strong tradition of reliving its history through historical dramas, called "jidai-geki" (period dramas) -- George Lucas borrowed this Japanese word for his Jedi Knights. Samurai dramas documenting Japan's past are quite popular with viewers of all ages, who get a lot of appreciation for the various people who shaped Japan into what it is today.

Currently, the most popular samurai drama on TV is Shinsengumi, which tells of the events surrounding the fall of Japan's feudal Shoganate and the subsequent restoration of the Meiji Emperor to power, which marks the beginning of Japan's history as a modern nation. After Admiral Perry forced Japan to trade with the U.S., there was widespread mistrust of the Shogun's government, which was unable to stand up to the foreign powers. With their battle cry "Respect the Emperor, Expel the Foreign Barbarians," many samurai opposed the Shogun's government and assassinated its officials. Shinsengumi, which means "newly selected group," was a sort of counter-terrorism police force organized to fight on the side of the Shogun against those who wanted to overthrow the government in the name of the Emperor. Over the weekend, we took a trip to northern Japan to Aizu-Wakamatsu, a city that was one of the battlefields during this tumulous period. During a battle in 1868, nineteen young samurai who thought their castle was taken and their lord killed committed seppuku (aka hara-kiri, ritual disembowelment). These events are a famous to Japanese as Pickett's Charge is to Americans, and the mountain where they killed themselves is a very solemn and hallowed place.

One English word the Japanese get a lot of mileage out of is "the" (pronounced "za" in Japanese). Ito Yokado, a large chain of department stores in Japan, has a biannual sales event called "The Sale" (za see-ru). A popular brand of curry is House's "The Curry," and not far from the J-List office there's a laundromat called "The Sentakuya" ("the laundromat"). There's a series of Playstation games with names like The Pinball, The Mahjong, and so on. Using foreign words as a decoration is done in the U.S., too -- I remember the old parody TV commercials on Saturday Night Live for a French-made shoe called "Le Shoe."

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.jbox.com/UPDATES/3/

First, for any and all fans of beautiful anime girls, we've got Moe-Kan, a fantastic art and data book that contains information on virtually every gorgeous anime female over the past 15 years
Also, we've got a fantastic new Heaven's Prision manga + figure set in stock again, a beautiful item for collectors
Japanese love pets, and we've got a really cool new toy set in stock: famous dogs doing very human things like drinking green tea or taking a bath -- full sets of this detailed hand-sculpted toy series are in stock
We've restocked a very popular item: the Hello Kitty desktop cleaner, which vacuums dirt and dust from your desk, and looks really cute at the same time
Japan's Race Queens look great as they promote F-1 racing in Japan -- we have a new RQ photobook in stock for you
Bento fans, we've got a deluxe new item for you: a super double-decker Hello Kitty bento box that is great to take your lunch in, with many great features
We've got other Sanrio items from Japan too, including a cute Kitty sponge for the bath, a "doremi whistle" your little one can play, and more
Fans of our Japanese snacks, enjoy a traditional Japanese caramel treat, tasty Fruit of the Pie by Lotte, and healthy snacks made with tofu milk (it's good, trust us)
Next, enjoy fresh stock of our popular snacks, including Bubble Ball traditional fizzing hard candy; Pocky Reverse; Black Black caffeine gum and many more items
Studying Japanese? We have the most famous children's stories from Japan for you to practice reading with
Also, a cute "hiragana sponge puzzle" that's fun to take apart and put together
We love the popular character line known as Frog Style, which feature highly stylish frog-themed toys and other products, very popular in Japan right now -- we've got some super Frog Style large plush toys in stock today
For fans of Japanese film, we've got "Iten & Tity," a movie about music and live and dreams (subtitled in English, region 2)
Finally, we have a handy all-purpose wallet, fresh stock of the excellent Hello Kitty Kabuki ceramic dolls, more "collection box" for storing your toy collections, a restocking of the best-selling FX Neo minty eyedrops, and more!

Remember that J-List sells warm hoody versions of several of our popular Japanese T-shirts, with long sleeves and pull-over hoods, great for keeping warm in these cold months. For our normal men's shirts, we offer a great selection of sizes, from small all the way to 3XL for most colors. Not sure what your size is? Click the handy size link in the description of each shirt and see all measurements in inches and centimeters.

Direct access: http://www.jbox.com/

Life in Japan Update: Fri, 3 Sep 2004

Sat, 04 Sep 2004 06:53:42 GMT

J-List is accessible directly via http://www.jbox.com/

Hello again from Japan, where a popular snack is fried octopus balls (takoyaki).

Like California, Japan is a very volcanic place, and homes have to be specially constructed to withstand earthquakes, which are common here. Gunma Prefecture is situated right in the center of Japan's main island of Honshu, and the populated areas are ringed by several large volcanoes: Mt. Akagi, Mt. Haruna, and Mt. Asama. (For fans of the mountain racing anime Initial D, which is set in Gunma, Mt. Akina is a fictional amalgamation of Mt. Akagi and Mt. Haruna.) Three weeks ago, we took our daughter to visit the top of Mt. Asama, which had erupted several times over the past century: the beautiful sea of black volcanic rock at the top of the mountain is amazing to see, and there's a great shinto shrine at the top, too. While we were up there, we noticed many large concrete shelters, to protect people if the volcano should start acting up again suddenly. Two days ago, it did just that: we felt a strange jolt, and a few minutes later we turned on the TV to see images of the mountain erupting in a flow of eerie orange lava. Fortunately it seems to be a small eruption, and there have been no evacuations so far. The eruption happened to come exactly 81 years to the day after the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake which destroyed virtually all of Tokyo and Yokohama -- spooky.

Japanese, like all languages in the world, comes in many different dialects. The fact that Japanese people tend to move less, often living their whole lives in one area, helps make dialects more pronounced than in the U.S., where the population tends to be more mobile. When older Japanese from rural Japan are interviewed on TV, it's not uncommon for the TV station to put subtitles on so everyone else will understand what is being said. Standard Japanese is defined by the Ministry of Education as the Japanese of Tokyo, and that's what is taught in textbooks around the country, but other dialects of Japanese have more "flavor" to them. The most well-known is Osaka-ben, the dialect of the Osaka region, and just like any good stand-up comic in America has to speak with a thick Jewish New York accent, comedians here usual tell their jokes with an Osakan accent. In Tokyo, people in shops will thank you by saying "arigato"; in Osaka, they'll say "ooki ni" (oh-KI ni).

All in all, Japan is a fairly easy country for an expat to live in: Japanese are friendly and interested in English, and there's always something fun to see or do. Theatres show Western movies in English with Japanese subtitles, not dubbed over as in most foreign countries, and you can get CNN, Fox and the Discovery Channel on satellite or cable. But there are some challenges to living here, as well. Summers are hot and winters are cold, yet Japanese homes lack central heating or air conditioning (you heat or cool one room at a time). Outside of cities like Tokyo, it's not uncommon for signs to be written only in Japanese, so if you don't read the language it can be a challenge to get around. It's hard to find books in any language other than Japanese, too. Also, you're constantly bombarded with "wasei eigo" (lit. "made in Japan English"), and words like washlet (a toilet seat that washes your butt), rinse-in shampoo (conditioning shampoo), cooler (air conditioning) and trainer (a sweatshirt) start to sound natural to you. There are also some things you have to do without when you come to Japan to live, like Mexican food, delicious Vlassic dill pickles, root beer, and around Christmas, eggnog.

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.jbox.com/UPDATES/3/

First, for fans of the amazing artwork of Tsutomu Nihei and his art book entitled "Blame And So On..." we have a treat: rare figures from the Blame manga, deliciously gothic and cool
Fans of Japan's darling swimsuit idols, we've got a new photobook featuring Yuko Ogura, the most popular sexy idol in Japan today
I'm a fan of the Micronauts toys from way back -- we have a cool Microman Chronicle catalog of Microman/Micronauts toys sold since the very beginning
Next, we have a full set of the incredibly cute Olivia the Piglet figures, an amazing series of toy that you'll love to display in your office or room
Also, we've got a super anime figure of Anita from the Read or Die anime series -- comes with interchangeable faces, arms and a base
Sanrio fans, we have a super cute Kitty figure that plays a little cello when you play music near her -- so cute!
Fans of gashapon, Japan's highly popular capsule toys, we've got a great new series of Panda Z toys, including all characters from the cute parody universe (it's based on Go Nagai's Mazinger Z but with panda bears)
Also, gashapon of super cute Sailor Moon figures, released to coincide with the popular live action Sailor Moon series
Fans of Japanese snacks, enjoy tasty ume (Japanese plum) candy, traditional monaka sweets with ume inside, and delicious potato O's
Next, a cute candy dispenser featuring the cute pig Bright Lighton
Enjoy more traditional Japanese "tenugui" hand towels, in stock
Also, enjoy making Japanese onigiri, shaped rice balls, with the new pucchi rice ball makers we have for you
Learn Japanese while you eat with our chopsticks with Japanese food on them -- wacky and fun
Also, incredibly cute notebooks featuring flying space rabbits
Totoro and Ghibli fans, look for various restocked items, including Totoro and Spirited Away music boxes, more Totoro bento boxes and other cool items
Also, we've restocked one of my favorite items: the Totoro Cuckoo Clock, a massive fully functional cuckoo clock for anime fans
Finally, find a cute "rubber duckie" for your bath, fresh stock of Japanese study supplies including kana/kanji practice notebooks, cool cases for your Wordtank electronic dictionary, and other cool items from Japan!

J-List carries so many cool things from Japan, it's hard to know where to start looking. You can always browse all the products we sell, sorted in most-recently-updated order, by clicking the "view all products" link in the upper left hand corner of the site. You can also check products updated in the past 3 days with the three-day link.

J-List is accessible directly via http://www.jbox.com/

Life in Japan Update: Wed, 1 Sep 2004

Sat, 04 Sep 2004 06:47:29 GMT

J-List is accessible directly via http://www.jbox.com/

Hello from Japan, home of feminine products with names like Charmy Body Fit and Supporty.

Japan's birthrate is among the lowest in the world, with about 1.23 children born per couple. Since Japan lacks constant immigration from the outside like America and Europe, the low birthrate is placing some unique strains on society here. Extremely rural parts of the country are becoming practically empty of people, as young Japanese move to cities to work and older Japanese die off. We can see Japan's "famine" of children right here in Gunma Prefecture, where we live: 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. To counter the dire problem of having less and less people every year, provincial Japanese governments are trying hard to make it easy for families to have more kids, giving free health care to every person under the age of 5 and providing subsidies for services like preschool. Some prefectures even offer bonuses for families willing to do an "I-Turn" (a Japanese word for moving from a city to the country, taking the letter I from the Japanese word "inaka" meaning "rural area"). The Nagano Prefectural Government will give anyone who moves to the prefecture and builds a house $10,000, no questions asked. Even in our city, there's a monthly bonus of $300 paid to any family that has three children, with more money available if you have more kids.

Each language is unique, with its own set of interesting features. Romance languages, for example, have nouns that come in male and female genders, which is very different from English, and potentially confusing for English learners of those languages. In Japanese, there are other interesting features. For example, the subject and object are often left off of sentences if the speakers know what is meant. Thus a girl might say to her friend "Iku?" which literally means "Go?" Who is going, and where are they going, and when are they going, are all implied. Also, there's a highly developed system of "keigo" or polite Japanese used in formal and business settings. Often, you choose extra-polite verbs and nouns (called sonkeigo or "honorific language") when talking with, say, a company you do business with, to raise them up to a higher level than you. At the same time, you choose other words when referring either to yourself or your own company to push yourself a lower level (called kenjogo or "humble language"). Many basic verbs such as to eat, to go and so on come in three versions, a normal version, an honorific version and a humble version.

Japanese have many tongue twisters in their language, which are always fun for gaijin to learn, since no one expects us to know things like that. One of the most famous is "Niwa ni wa, niwa niwatori ga iru." This translates to: "Niwa ni wa (in the yard), niwa (two + counter for birds) niwatori (chicken) ga iru (there are)," or, "there are two chickens in the yard." Another fun one is "Tonari no kyaku wa yoku kaki kuu kyaku da." This breaks down as "Tonari no kyaku wa (as for the customer next to me) yoku (a lot of) kaki (oysters) kuu (eat) kyaku da (is a customer who...)", or "The customer sitting next to me is one who eats a lot of oysters." Don't know how to pronounce the Japanese words? Don't worry, here are the two phrases in MP3 format, courtesy of J-List's lovely staff: http://www.jlist.com/tonguetwister.mp3

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.jbox.com/UPDATES/3/

First, for fans of the Japanese fashion and cosplay movement known as Gothic Lolita, we've got a great new Handmade Goth Loli photobook featuring gorgeous outfits complete with patterns you can use to make your own outfits
For fans of Japan's unique small toys (called candy toys because you usually get candy in the box too), we've got some great "evolution" figures featuring the creatures that have lived on the Earth before us (full sets in stock)
Next, we have a great samurai sword keychain that's useful as a letter opener or just as something cool to display
For Sanrio fans, we've got a dynamite Hello Kitty pencil case that's just beautiful -- a unique item from Japan
Japanese kids love hamsters -- we've got some cute Hamtaro dress-up dolls that are really fun to play with
Do you ever get carsick? We have some handy motion sickness bags in stock for you
Fans of Gashapon (capsule toys), we've got full sets of a unique Pokemon set -- and full sets are in stock
For collectors of plush toy, enjoy a cute large Pingu plush, a cute animal brought to you by Banpresto
For fans of our Japanese snack items, enjoy tasty beef bowl flavored potato chips (yes, you read right); traditional Japanese candy made from sweet beans; and delicious ume (plum) tea powder, wow
Also, some delicious tropical fruit candies for Hello Kitty fans, three packs with a different flavor each
Enjoy some great restocked snacks too, including Funya-Q (a "gummi happy face" that is tasty), ramune and cola gummi, Honey Pretz and more
Bento fans, we've restocked several popular items, including the Kyoto and I.Kotoba Deluxe Bento Sets, more chopsticks, and lots of other items
Never be without a pen to write with -- we've got a superb miniature pen that you can use as a keychain so it's always handy
Organize everything in your life with a small "section case" great for jewelry, computer parts, tools and more
Finally, for fans of the groovy Sailor Moon live action series, we've got the 6th DVD, which was just released in Japan (region 2).

At J-List, we love bringing our brand of wacky Japanese pop culture to the world. J-List customers report that the #1 way they heard about J-List was through word-of-mouth. If you know of anyone who's interested in Japan in some way, we hope that you'll tell them about us -- we're always happy to receive referrals! Thanks in advance for telling your friends about J-List.

J-List is accessible directly via http://www.jbox.com/

Life in Japan Update: Mon, 30 Aug 2004

Sat, 04 Sep 2004 06:45:31 GMT

J-List is accessible directly via http://www.jbox.com/

Hello from Japan, where you order french fries in restaurants by asking for "potato."

Japan's electronics industry is a very competitive place, and companies are always trying to come up with new products to capture market share away from their competitors. Every few months, it seems some company comes up with a new twist on an existing product -- like a refrigerator that emits "minus ions" (negatively charged ions) to make your room feel fresh and clean, rice cookers with revolutionary cooking features, or combination washer/dryers that wash, then dry, your clothes -- a great item to have during Japan's rainy season, when it's too humid to hang clothes up to dry. Companies are always trying to create a new category of product that they can lead in -- Sharp has done this with their new "water oven," which cooks food with steam, removing fat and oils to make food healthier. The area where competition is fiercest is probably the digital camera arena, where all the major electronics companies are constantly releasing new models to keep from getting left behind. The battle for market share is so fierce that sales of a new camera drop off after just 1-2 months, since consumers know a newer model is right around the corner.

Some things in Japan just defy explanation. The green lights on traffic signals are "blue" in Japanese ("ao" not "midori") -- although they're the same color as every other country, the Japanese look at a green light and say it's blue. When you stop at a convenience store, it's common to leave your keys in the car with the engine running -- even if you're driving a tricked-out Nissan Fairlady Z. Confusion can arise from names, too. For some reason, most of the people who live near our house in Japan have the same last name as us -- Yanai -- despite the fact that they're not related to us in any way. Once, in the "kairanban" (a kind of circular newsletter that goes to everyone in our immediate neighborhood; when one family reads it, the put a check by their name and take it to the next house on the list), I noticed that 11 out of 19 families around us were named Yanai, all of them apparently unrelated to each other. We happen to live next door to the mayor of our city, whose last name is also Yanai. About a kilometer away, there's a patch of houses with families whose last names are all Hosoi, but they, too, are not related to each other. Japan can be a mysterious place...

There are a lot of words that the Japanese invent that are fun to learn, and one word in particular most fans of anime learn pretty quickly is "H" (the letter H), which when said with a Japanese accent sounds like "ecchi" (also written "etchi"). Probably created by taking the first letter of a word that means "perverted," the word "H" is basically used as an all-purpose euphemism for any kind of naughtiness. If a person thinks about girls too much, he is "H" (ecchi), and a common euphemism for the act itself is "ecchi suru" (literally "to do H"). We've got a wacky new Japanese T-shirt for you today, too: a "Rated H" shirt that is perfect for anyone who is just a little too "H."

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.jbox.com/UPDATES/3/

First, we've got delicious new snacks from Japan for you, including traditional "Hakka" peppermint candy, great spicy rice crackers, and traditional Japanese coffee candy
Want something wacky from Japan? We've got several maps for you, including a map of Japan and a nice map of Kyoto
For your bathroom, some gorgeous kanji messages that will add a touch of Japan
We have some cool traditional "Kinchaku" bags, which are traditionally carried when women wear kimonos (but you can put anything you like in them)
Then enjoy some delicious "furi-furi" shakes, strawberry and melon Hello Kitty drinks that are fun to make
Sanrio fans, we've got a wacky item for you: Bad Batz Maru chopsticks, so cute!
Also, a set of three stacking Hello Kitty cups for little ones -- these are really great
Next, we've got some great gashapon (capsule toys) based on Steam Boy, the excellent animated film by Katsuhiro Otomo
We've added stock of the popular Character Design Bible, an art book filled with fantastic Japanese character illustrations and artwork
Ah My Goddess fans, we have a gorgeous vinyl figure of Belldandy in swimsuit bikini, a fabulous pre-painted figure, ready for you to display in your room
Next, for Kubrick fans, we've got the new Be@rbrick series, an incredibly beautiful series of Kubrick bears that must be seen to be believed (full sets are in stock)
The Japanese are fans of many things -- including erasers. We've got a wacky new chocolate eraser in stock, as well as a handy non-PVC eraser that's great for study
DVD customers, we've restocked several popular items, including OH! Mikey vol. 1, the excellent Lupin III movie directed by Hayao Miyazaki, and more
Want to make Japanese onigiri (rice balls)? We've got some onigiri molds for you that make it easy
Finally, look for freshly restocked snack and gum products, including Blueberry Gum, Crispy Pizza Pretz (mmm), Okinawan Black Candy Caramels, Sushi Gummi and more!

Remember that J-List carries dozens of interesting PC dating-sim games for Windows computers, a unique category of software from Japan. These story-based love-sims allow to you experience a unique form of Japanese entertainment in its original form, but with the Japanese text translated faithfully into English. Because there are so many amazing games to choose from, there's sure to be something for you. Feel free to email us for recommendations, too! (We also have many non-H dating-sims in stock.)

J-List is accessible directly via http://www.jbox.com/

Life in Japan Update: Fri, 27 Aug 2004

Sat, 04 Sep 2004 06:42:28 GMT

J-List is accessible directly via http://www.jbox.com/

I took off early from work yesterday to take my son to a movie -- the new Steamboy, a film directed by Otomo Katsuhiro. A gorgeous panorama set in 19th century London, it follows the story of Rei, a young inventor and youngest son of the famous Steam family. When a mysterious invention is delivered to his house, he's suddenly caught up in a struggle between two opposing technological forces vying for control of the future. I was thoroughly impressed with the film, one of the most expensive animated movies ever made, and my son enjoyed it too -- it was truly worthy of the director of Akira. Check out the Japanese movie trailers here: http://www.jlist.com/steamboy (the film is scheduled to open in the U.S. in November).

The Japanese often abbreviate words to make them easier to work with, such as English terms that are clumsy to use in Japanese. For example, the English word "digital camera" is often shortened to "digi-kame." There are many of these shortened words: Ame-komi (American comics), geesen (game center), pure-sute (Playstation), pasacon (personal computer), and so on. Names of famous people also get reduced to short nicknames, ala J.Lo -- handsome Japanese actor/singer Kimura Takuya is universally known as Kimu-Taku, and Brad Pitt is referred to as "Bura-Pii." The Japanese also come up with some "English" (quote unquote) abbreviations. A TV commercial is known as a CM, and when you're driving along the freeway you can stop at a PA (parking area) to take a rest. Before doing something, you should consider the TPO -- this Japanese word is short for "time, place, occasion." Several English abbreviations which sound strange to my American ear are actually British terms, possibly archa ic, like OB/OG ("old boy/girl," i.e. an alumnus of a university), NG ("no good," the opposite of OK), and WC ("water closet").

A woman was hurt Tuesday in a pachinko parlor when 808,000 pachinko balls fell through the ceiling on top of her. The balls had been inside a device that delivers them to the machines on the floor, but the weight caused the pipes to break, spilling the balls into the floor below. Pachinko -- a form of gambling in which you have to make metal balls fall into little holes, which causes more balls to come out, so that you hopefully end up with more balls than you started out with -- is an extremely popular pasttime here in Japan, especially here in Gunma Prefecture. Whenever I go to the public bath, it seems all the middle-aged men in the sauna can talk about is which pachinko parlor gives the most balls this week. Whenever I see a new building being put up, I pray that it'll be something useful, and not another pachinko parlor. All too often, however, I find myself disappointed.

The J-List staff works very hard to find unique and amazing products from Japan for you every week. We're especially big fans of Shirow Masamune, and we stock dozens of his cool products. We're happy to report that the long-awaited Galgrease poster books are finally in stock, and we've got them all for you!

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.jbox.com/UPDATES/3/

For anyone interested in Otomo Katsuhiro's movie Steamboy, we've got full sets of a great mini figure series by Megahouse
Next, by Re-Ment, enjoy a very special new series: the Asian Sundries Shop, featuring beautiful products from all over Asia, just like you'd find in a small Japanese shop
We've got a new pair of photobooks by the elegant team of Mika and Kyoko Kano, two gorgeous models who appear often on Japanese TV
Also, look for fresh stock of other photobooks, including Yuko Ogura's Apple & Peach and more
We have a cute new toy in the Devilots (Devil Robots) series: extra large PVC figures that are great for displaying
Hello Kitty fans, we've got a special item: a Hello Kitty watch set, with stylish and fun watches in different colors (full sets available)
Fans of the Big G, we've got a treat: the newest film, Godzilla vs Mothra vs Mecha Godzilla (region 2)
We love Totoro products, and have some cool Totoro stamps in stock for you today -- very cute and fun to use
For fans of our Japanese snacks, enjoy tasty potato snacks, tasty senbei (rice crackers), and yummy ginger snacks
Also, enjoy some great hard candy, including cola candy, blueberry, as well as fresh stock of sugarless Black Black caffeine gum
For fans of traditional Japanese items, we've got gorgeous "tenugui" (traditional Japanese hand towel), with many great images on them
Next, we have fresh stock of fude pens, pens that let you write as if you were writing with a Chinese calligraphy brush
We have some great chopsticks too, which feature full adult length, easy grip patches at the bottoms, and chopsticks holders for you
Do you travel? We have a stylish Japanese travel pouch, great for holding passport, money, or just about anything
Protect your camera, iPod or other possessions with an all-purpose soft case, also in stock
The live-action Sailor Moon show is proving very popular with fans - we've restocked several volumes including the first one
We've restocked the dynamite illustration book Cannabis Works, by Toshiyuki Tanaka, a fantastic treat for art book collectors
Star Wars fans, we've restocked the rare Japan-only Lego Star Wars toys -- very cool
Finally, more Japanese "minty fresh" eyedrops, delicious Pocari Sweat drink mix, fresh stock of American food miniatures, and more!

Interested in learning Japanese? Remember that J-List loves Japan and always wants to promote the study of Japanese all over the world. To that end, we carry cool things like the famous Canon Wordtank electronic dictionaries, kanji practice notebooks, kanji study cards and the spiffy Zebra Check Set, a system that helps you memorize anything and test your memory. Also, be sure to see Peter's general overview of the Japanese language and his advice for students or would-be students, at http://www.peterpayne.net/

J-List is accessible directly via http://www.jbox.com/

Life in Japan Update: Fri, 20 Aug 2004

Sat, 04 Sep 2004 06:36:05 GMT

J-List is accessible directly via http://www.jbox.com/

Hello and TGIF from Japan. I'm off for a weekend getaway to Niigata Prefecture, on Sea of Japan side of the country. But first, our regularly schedule J-List Update...

Japan is a great place to live, although it's very different from the U.S. Certain concepts that are taken for granted around the world don't really apply here. One is the concept that the house you live in has value and the value goes up over time. In Japan, only land has value, and if you buy land that has a house on it already, you nearly always tear it down a build a new one -- who would want to live in a "used" house? Also, the way prices work can be strange. Japan has always operated on the odd economic principal that "the inflation rate is low, but the prices are already high to begin with." I don't understand why this statement can be true, but it is: for most of the past thirteen years, I haven't witnessed prices going up for anything at all -- and with the beginning of Japan's deflationary problems about three years ago, some prices have actually fallen. The odd inflation rule operates with respect to gasoline prices, too. In Japan, we've paid around 90 cents for a liter of gas for quite a few years, which works out to $3.25 a gallon or so. The current problems in Iraq haven't had that much of an effect on prices here -- they've only gone up a little, to around $1 a liter or $3.60 a gallon. That sounds expensive by American standards, but Japan is a lot smaller place...

There are several ways to learn a second language, such as the Communicative Method (learning by communicating verbally), Total Physical Response (the teacher issues orders and the students obey, like playing Simon Says), and the Natural Approach (trying to learn language skills in the same way children acquire them). Japanese usually practice what's called the Grammar/Translation Method, learning by translating to and from Japanese, and while it may help their understanding of English grammar and vocabulary, it's a poor way to learn how to interact verbally in a language. Yet there are downsides to being "naturally" bilingual, like my kids, who grew up hearing English from me and came to understand it as a separate thing completely from Japanese. As a result, they can function well enough in either language, but if you ask them how to say a certain English word in Japanese, they might have trouble making the conversion -- they lack links between the Japanese side of their brains and the English side. Studying a language is fun because you end up learning a lot about how the human brain works!

Long time J-List customers know that in the fall, J-List carries hundreds of really amazing Japanese calendars, printed in huge glossy sheets of paper. We go out of our way to carry all the great anime, JPOP, idol, traditional and other calendars. Unfortunately the window for ordering these calendars is very short, usually about a month or so. We've posted our first 2005 calendars to the site, including traditional calendars of beautiful Japanese scenery, temples and shrines, beautiful actresses in kimonos, the "joy of sushi" and more. We'll get the anime/jpop calendars posted as soon as this year's material comes in, around the beginning of September or so.

Look for various improvements to the J-List site. First, we're hoping to go live with the new shopping cart very soon, and we think you'll love the new features. We've updated the website with better pictures of the new Lasonic region free DVD players we offer, including pictures of the remote controls, so customers interested in the units can see what they look like better. And we've tweaked our RSS/XML feed to allow you to view product images right inside the feed, if your reader supports it.

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.jbox.com/UPDATES/3/

First, for fans of beautiful traditional Japanese things, we've got more gorgeous Japanese wooden geta shoes for women -- they're gorgeous, suitable for wearing or displaying in your home
Next, an excellent Kubrick toy line based on the very popular Batman Animated Series -- full sets of this cool toy series are in stock
Shirow fans, we've got the Innocence Roman Album and 2501 Roman Album from the fantastic Ghost in the Shell movie that will be in theatres in the U.S. soon
We've got some new photobooks for Japan's charming swimsuit idols like Yuko Ogura
For fans of the G-Taste series, we've got a great limited figure of Mai Kannazuki, created by Hiroki Yagami
Fans of our Japanese snacks, enjoy tasty Curl in rare flavors that aren't normally available, as well as yummy March of the Koalas, Ume Sake candy, and more
Also, look for fresh stock of one of our most popular products, Lotte Black Black caffeine gum, loved by students and truck drivers who must stay awake
Next, a nifty item for your bicycle: an all-purpose case that fits under the seat
For your kitchen, a treat: a Hello Kitty pasta canister that's really cute
Keep track of your month with two handy hang-up calendars we've got -- there are pockets that hold papers with the days printed on them so you can change each month easily
We positively love the miniature toys and models from Japan, called candy toys since you usually get some kind of candy inside the box -- from Furuta, we've got a great collection of World War II ships including the most famous battleships and aircraft carriers
We love unique and rare stationary goods from Japan, and we've got a super "ergonomic wood scent" pen that's great to hold and use
Sailor Moon fans, we've got the new DVD of Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, the tongue-in-cheek live-action show that's a tribute to all fighting team shows (e.g. Power Rangers)
Studying Japanese? Why not check out the Chobits Bilingual manga, which feature English and Japanese right on the page
Finally, find more chopsticks, restocked Japan Hot Wheels cars, and various other wacky and cute things from Japan!

The "Top 5" lists have been updated for the past week, allowing you to see which products other J-List customers are buying. The links show you the top 10 products for each category.

Do you love the anime films of Hayao Miyazaki? Remember that J-List stocks all the excellent region 2 DVD releases for Studio Ghibli movies like My Neighbor Totoro, Castle in the Sky Laputa, Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away and more. These DVDs are released in Japan directly by the studio and include many features that make them great for collectors. All releases are multi-disc and feature English subtitles and/or dubbed tracks and are great for fans who want the definitive versions of these anime classics overseen by Mr. Miyazaki himself. The only catch is, you need a region free DVD player to watch them -- and J-List humbly recommends the excellent units we currently have in stock.

Like Star Trek or the Lord of the Rings? Then logic dictates that you see the video of Mr. Spock singing the Ballad of Bilbo Baggins if you haven't yet. I found a link here (Quicktime required):

http://www.game-revolution.com/download/trickyl/goodies/Video/baggins.mov

J-List is accessible directly via http://www.jbox.com/

Life in Japan Update: Wed, 18 Aug 2004

Thu, 19 Aug 2004 02:19:05 GMT

J-List is accessible directly via http://www.jbox.com/

Hello again from Japan and J-List!

My son has returned from his month in the U.S. where he'd been with his grandmother, speaking English and having great fun at summer camp. Talking with him about all that he did during the summer, he mentioned to me that when he speaks English, he has a totally different personality from when he's in Japan. He'd discovered something I already knew -- when you become fluent in a language, you actually develop a new personality that's turned on when you're speaking that language. My son's American side is much more outgoing and friendly than his Japanese persona, which is quite reserved and aloof. There's just one problem: my wife and I are the last ones to ever see our children in "American mode," since whenever we're around, they instantly revert back to speaking and acting Japanese (yes, even with me). Now that he's back in Japan, it's time for him to crack the books: Japanese kids always get lots of homework to do during summer vacation, which keeps them from forgetting everything they learned during the past school year.

Land prices in Japan fell about 5% in 2003, as Japan's long hangover from the speculative land bubble of the late 1980's continues. But this drop is actually good news -- the rate of decline seems to be slowing, which means that a recovery in land prices might be in Japan's future. The drop was slightly higher in large cities, but in rural areas like where we live, land prices actually rose slightly, as some Tokyoites get tired of their concrete jungle and move to smaller cities near their place of birth (which is called "U-Turn" in Japanese). But although land prices might eventually start moving up in Japan one day, in general, land is worth half what it was worth in 1989 -- ouch!

One of my favorite anime series if Lupin III, the story of a famous thief by manga artist Monkey Punch. Cast as the grandson of Arsene Lupin, a fictional thief from a series of French novels, there are a lot of layers to the story. Lupin's samurai sidekick Goemon is based on a historical character, Goemon Ishikawa, an outlaw who was executed in 1594 by being burned to death in a pot of boiling oil. There's a traditional kind of Japanese cast-iron bathtub named Goemon-buro (Goemon's bath) in his honor. Inspector Zenigata is also based on a cultural reference: Heiji Zenigata, a fictional investigator for the Shogunate during the Edo period, who threw coins at enemies the way Inspector Zenigata throws handcuffs ('zeni' means coin by the way). If you haven't seen it yet, we highly recommend you check out the Castle of Caliostro, the Lupin III film directed by Hayao Miyazaki, one of his best works ever.

There's an international symposium on architecture and culture being held in September in Venice, Italy, and the Japan Foundation will be creating a special section to promote cultural communication and knowledge of "otaku" popular culture. As part of this cultural exchange, the they're creating a special catalog and cultural booklet with essays and information for the event in Italian, English and Japanese. The catalog comes with a very rare pre-painted figure titled "New Yokohama Arina in Akihabara" featuring a giant girl in Tokyo's Akibahara district (the famous electronics area) Because we believe this will be a very popular item for collectors, we've opened up preorders for this really cool item for you. However, stock will be limited since this item is already very popular in Japan.

We're planning on going live with the enhanced J-List checkout very soon. The new shopping cart system has a lot of great new features, including express checkout -- you'll be able to finalize an order using the settings you used last time (shipping address, shipping method, etc), which will save lots of time. We hope you enjoy the improvements to the site! (As always, if you experience any problems, please use the secure email form to tell us about it or to send us your order.)

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.jbox.com/UPDATES/3/

Do you love irresistibly cute things from Japan? We've gotten in more Devilots (Devil Robots) toys, great for displaying in your room or anywhere
Sanrio fans, we've gotten in a deluxe Hello Kitty all-purpose pouch, great for carrying cosmetics, school supplies, digital camera, you name it
Also, a really cool My Melody pencil case that incredibly cute
We love traditional Japanese items at J-List and stock many great items for you -- enjoy a great item, enamel replicas of famous advertisements from the Showa Period (full sets in stock)
Also, a really cool item: a traditional Japanese daruma, a red god of good luck that you can use to make your wishes come true
For fans of Takara's Microman toys (e.g. Micronauts), we've got a Devilman figure made with the same high quality Microman toy design
Yuko Ogura is a delightful Japanese swimsuit idol -- we've added stock of her popular photobook Yuko's Secret Room
We've got some tasty Japanese snacks for you, including Natchan "jelly in gummy" treats, pizza flavored corn snacks, crunchy udon noodles you can eat as-is, and delicious fruit-flavored gum
Also, some dried snacks made from sweet potato which are a famous food of Kyushu (where our own Daisuke is from)
We've got the 3rd disc of the Sailor Moon live action series in stock -- between the corny but fun five-team fighting and the incredible cute actresses they chose for the girls, we recommend this great item
We've got more all-purposes "cushion cases" that are great for protecting the things you own from damage -- just about anything
Among other things, Japan is home to some of the most interesting erasers ever seen -- we've restocked our popular sushi erasers for you today
Japanese "hard minty eyedrops" are among our most popular products -- we've restocked several varieties including Zi, Lion Smile Contact and more
For fans of Japanese fude (foo-day) pens, pens that allow you to write as if you were using a Chinese writing brush, we've got a great set of 12 different colored brush pens in stock today
We've added stock of several popular art books, including Character Design Bible, a really cool item
Finally, look for more great items for the summer, more fun Japanese mini shogi sets,

Do you have a retail shop of some kind? J-List makes many of our popular products available on a wholesale basis, namely our wacky Japanese T-shirt, dating-sim game and some other products, available through our San Diego office. If you'd like to see the Japan-related products available for your business, please see our wholesale page at http://www.pcrdist.com/ (valid resellers' license required to order).

J-List is accessible directly via http://www.jbox.com/

Life in Japan Update: Mon, 16 Aug 2004

Thu, 19 Aug 2004 02:02:12 GMT

J-List is accessible directly via http://www.jbox.com/

"You've been in Japan too long when you appear for your first skiing lesson with brand new Rossignol high performance racing skis and an aerodynamic racing suit with color matched goggles...and then snowplow down." One thing you learn about the Japanese pretty quickly when living here -- they can be very style-oriented at times, especially when it comes to sports like skiing. It's a given that anyone heading for ski slopes here will have already spent thousands of dollars on looking good, whether they can ski or not. Another area where Japanese can be very style-conscious is camping, and most Japanese wouldn't think of venturing out to the campgrounds without a carful of the latest snazzy Coleman camping equipment. This is very different from me -- my idea of camping is to throw some folding chairs and sleeping bags in the car and decide where to go along the way. I've had to basically give up taking my kids camping here in Japan, though, because I can't compete with the stylish campers around us.

1989 was a sad year for Japan. In January, Emperor Hirohito died, closing the long Showa Era (1925-1989) and introducing the current Heisei Era. Then in February came the death of Osamu Tezuka, creator of classics like Kimba the White Lion and Astro Boy and father of manga in its current form. Finally came the passing of Misora Hibari, probably the most celebrated enka singer ever, who had an incredible 40-year career singing in postwar Japan and an incredible string of hits. Fans still remember her last concert at Tokyo Dome in 1989, where she performed despite being in pain from her illness that would take her life soon after. Her song "Kawa no nagare no yo ni" (Flowing Like a River) was chosen by Japanese fans as the #1 song of the 20th century. Here's a link to the song in MP3 format: http://www.jlist.com/hibari

Japan is overjoyed at one of their brightest stars taking home a gold medal for judo. Ryoko Tani, formerly Ryoko Tamura before her gala wedding to baseball star Yoshitomo Tani last year, is one of the most famous athletes in the country, and has been competing in judo ever since she was a child. She's nicknamed Yawara-chan, after the main character of a popular judo manga and anime from the 80s.

Good news for fans of doujinshi, Japan's famous underground comic books created by amateur artists: this past weekend marked Comic Market 66, and the J-List staff was hard at work, getting cool doujinshi for J-List customers. A massive event in which about 50,000 fans line up to buy their favorite amateur books, Comic Market (or "Comiket" as its universally abbreviated) is held twice a year, in the summer (sweaty, dripping hell) and in the winter (blessedly cold and refreshing). Inside Big Sight, there are four large halls jam-packed with doujinshi circles selling their various creations, loosely organized into different sections (books for men, yaoi, and so on). Look for great new items on the J-List website, today and in the coming weeks.

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.jbox.com/UPDATES/3/

First, we've got a wacky new T-shirt for you all -- a twisted parody of Japan's famous "lucky cat"
For fans of the amazing Re-Ment miniature food toys and supermarket replicas, we have a very special item: the Pucchi Refrigerator, a complete toy refrigerator that will hold all the great supermarket toys!
Next, for fans of the famous Sailor Moon, we've got a treat: the new live-action Sailor Moon DVDs vol. 1 & 2 are in stock (region 2)
We love the unique toys Medicom Toy creates, and their newest line of BabeKub block toys is really cool -- we've gotten in various Disney BabeKubs in stock for you today
Totoro fans, we have a great Totoro pencil case that's really beautifully made
Protect the things you own with two handy soft cases from Japan, great for storing notebook computers, cameras, just about anything
Next, we've got some really cool traditional Japanese tray and dish sets, which should be very popular
For fans of Japanese snacks, enjoy many new items, including Petit Pizza (hot chilli flavor), creamy almond Toppo sticks, fried octopus balls (trust us, there're not what you're thinking) and ramen snacks you can eat right out of the bag
Also, restocked Japanese snacks, including Poiful, the delicious gummi jellybean treat from Japan, plus Pocari Sweat powder, more delicious Japanese "sauce," and gum that brushes your teeth
Steam Boy is coming! The gorgeous new animated film by Katsuhiro Otomo, creator of Akira, and we've got some dynamite capsule bottle-cap figures in stock for fans (full sets are available)
Draw straight lines with a cute Hello Kitty rules, that features jagged lines so that you can, er, draw jagged lines if you need to
We have an elegant porcelain phone strap, also useful as a keychain or camera strap, a cool item from Japan
We've restocked the popular Tomica die-cast cats from Japan, including the popular Prius, the most popular model
Next, a new folding fan, made of bamboo and very beautiful, and a great item for summer
Panda Z fans, we've restocked the really cool Panda Z large figure, complete with young Pantaron at the controls of his giant panda robot
Finally, we've added fresh stock of many cool soft vinyl Nausica, Totoro and Kiki's Delivery Service toys, which are perfectly molded and hand painted by Cominica -- these are great toys that we recommend to all Miyazaki fans!

Remember that J-List makes dozens of magazines available through our "reserve subscription" system. Basically, we'll pre-reserve the current issue of a your favorite magazines for you and have them in the mail to you by the time it's in bookstores here in Japan -- a few days earlier, in fact, since we get many magazines earlier than most bookstores. We've got a great selection of different anime, toy, cosplay, JPOP/JROCK, and street fashion magazines available for you to choose from.

J-List is accessible directly via http://www.jbox.com/

Life in Japan Update: Fri, 13 Aug 2004

Thu, 19 Aug 2004 01:48:12 GMT

J-List is accessible directly via http://www.jbox.com/

Japan can be a superstitious place, with many beliefs that people in the West would have trouble understanding. Some of these seem to have to do with water. For example, after a woman gives birth, it's bad luck for her to touch water for three days, so her mother will generally do all the dishwashing and laundry during that period. It's no big deal to remodel your house, but if you relocate anything to do with water, like your kitchen or bathrooms, it might bring bad luck to the family. My policy on these beliefs is, since I have no evidence that they're wrong, they might be correct, so I never dismiss them outright. Japanese kids have a cute superstition they do here, called "shoe weather forecasting": they take off a shoe and throw it as hard as they can. If the shoe lands upright, it will be a nice day tomorrow; if it lands on its side, look for clouds; and if it lands upside down, it will rain.

At J-List, we're able to act as a kind of "ambassador of pop culture" between Japan and the West, something we really like doing. I get a lot of email from young people who really love Japan, asking me for advice on how they can live here someday. By and large, the time-honored way for English speakers to work in Japan is by teaching English as a Second Language, and before I started J-List, I taught ESL to Japanese kids, high school students and adults, to my great satisfaction. ESL isn't for everyone, but if you'd like to know more about it, I've got a (recently updated) article on my personal homepage at http://www.peterpayne.net for you. Of course, when I get mail from young people interested in Japan, I always make sure to tell them to think about university first and foremost. When I look back at my life, virtually everything good that I've been able to achieve was made possible by my four very interesting years at SDSU. If you're a young person wondering how you can come to Japan some day, by all means plan on going to a challenging 4-year university first -- everything else will probably click into place after that.

Native English speakers don't think about it very much, but English can be really convoluted and confusing, with grammar and vocabulary borrowed from almost every other language on Earth. During my time as a teacher, I was often hard pressed to explain the "why" of grammar and word usage to my students, who wanted to understand the structure of English, not just hear what the correct answer was. Language is ultimately based on grammatical rules -- for example, there's a rule governing the intonation of words that can be both nouns and verbs (e.g. record a record, present a present to someone, subject the subject to a test). Even slang and dialects like eubonics are based on their own sets of rules. During my time as a teacher, I really got to learn my own language.

J-List carries three different DVD players that allow you to enjoy DVDs from any country, including the region 2 anime and special DVDs which we sell at J-List. We offer three units by Lasonic, made for the U.S. market with one year warranties and manuals in English. We sell the low-priced DVD-7890, the ultra-compact DVD-800, and the full-featured player with karaoke, the DVD-7880K. All players are in stock in our San Diego office right now, ready for you to order.

To view all new products, click this link: http://www.jbox.com/UPDATES/3/

First, we're big fans of the miniature food toys by Re-Ment which include traditional Japanese meals, sushi and extremely detailed miniature cakes. Their newest series captures the "Dream of American Life" with such replicas as steak, airline food, Halloween candy, snacks at a movie theatre and more! (full sets are in stock)
For fans of traditional footwear from Japan, we have some beautiful Japanese "geta" (wooden shoes) that are fabulous -- great for wearing or displaying in your home
A super item for summer: we've got beautiful Japanese wind chimes that sound great in the breeze, and feature a uniquely Japanese look with the kanji for "ice"
Also for the hot months, we've got a great fan that will keep you cool no matter what you're doing this summer, as well as pleasant "cool" bath powder that makes you feel minty fresh even when it's hot out
For Eva fans and collectors, we've got the "Real Model" of the Eva-01 Test Type, a super toy from Sega
Want to learn to draw manga? We've restocked several of the popular How to Draw Manga books for you
Also: a super new toy from Japan, the die-cast metal bike from Katsuhiro Otomo's Akira is in stock, complete with stand, many accessories and a figure of Kaneda to ride it -- this is a cool item!
For fans of our Japanese snack foods, enjoy tasty Konnyaku Gummy treats with healthy fruit inside, delicious ramune candy, and a great item for fans of esoteric traditional snacks from Japan: a super value pack featuring a total of 39 items for you to taste and try inside
Restocked snack items include more Pocky Reverse, delicious Tea Doc chocolate treats, Dice Caramel, Peko-chan Milky Candy and more
Would you buy a washboard from Japan? We've got one, and they're very handy to have around
We have a great color manga by Katsuya Terada, a horrific tale of a bizarre trip to the west
Next, a parody of Young Magazine featuring gorgeous Mari Shimomura, nicknamed Young Marilyn
For JPOP fans: a super photobook of Aya Matsuura, the incredible shining star of the JPOP world -- comes with a punch-out desktop display for her fans
We have a great combination toothpick case and business card holder that is very traditional and cool
Fans of Hello Kitty, known as Kitty-chan in Japan, we have a great all-purpose hand mirror in stock today, as well as fresh stock of the popular Kitty USB mascot
Domo-kun fans -- we've got more great stuff for you, including restocked keychains, memo pads, the deluxe stuffed plush toy, and the Domo-kun business card holder
For students of Japanese, we've restocked the inexpensive Canon Wordtank IDC-310, which is a very compact unit yet it features the "jump" feature that makes it useful to gaijin to look up kanji characters
We've added stock of various wacky parody items too, including toilet paper that helps you go to the bathroom, fun Japanese headbands, and more
Another unique item we sell is StitchLock, the incredible "staple-less staplers" from Japan that knit sheets of paper together for you -- we've restocked several items, including the deluxe StitchLock Zn
Also: we have fresh stock of the popular "minus ion" (negatively charged ion) relaxing pen
Finally, look for some great traditional and wacky things from Japan, including Japanese notebooks paper, a great Buddhist money bank, more capsule-type marker pens, and other cool items!

Remember that J-List carries cool Japanese shoes and footwear, including great "tatami sandals" (setta) that are made out of the material tatami mats are made from. We also carry an item I personally feel all parents of young children should buy, Japanese shoes for children with squeakers inside -- when children walk, their shoes make a fun squeaking noise. Kids like to wear shoes that make noise, and parents will appreciate being able know exactly where their kids are in a crowded store. It's a wacky but very useful thing from J-List.

J-List is accessible directly via http://www.jbox.com/

Life in Japan Update: Wed, 11 Aug 2004

Thu, 19 Aug 2004 01:42:35 GMT

J-List is accessible directly via http://www.jbox.com/

Hello again from J-List!

Japanese family names can be interesting to study. Generally, family names are written with two kanji, usually using the Japanese readings of the characters, as opposed to the Chinese ones. Many names are made using elementary words for things around us, e.g. yama (mountain), ta (rice field, also pronounced da), village (mura), island (shima, also pronounced jima), center (naka) and so on. I would imagine that Japanese with "down to earth" last names like Yamada and Tanaka came from families that grew rice back in the Edo period, but this is impossible to verify since all Japanese seem sure that their ancestors were samurai (you get used to this when you live in Japan for a while). I've heard that Japanese who have the character for "gold" in their names, e.g. people named Kanai (gold + well), are probably of Korean ancestry -- the Korean last name Kim means gold -- much like anyone with "Mac" in his name probably had great-grandparents from Ireland. To see what some common Japanese names look like in kanji, see this link: http://www.jlist.com/d1/kanjinames.jpg

The Olympics are coming once again, and Japan is preparing for massive coverage of every event. Japanese are natural sports fans, and they love nothing better than to do well at sports and gain international recognition. Sales of high-end televisions are way up in Japan, as people upgrade their TVs so they can enjoy the games in gorgeous plasma flat-panel color. It seems that every third TV commercial on right now advertises something to do with the Olympics. We hope that judo star Ryoko Tamura will get a second gold medal!

Apple's iPod mini has come to Japan with a big splash, and Japanese fans are going ape for the tiny digital music player. Thousands of fans lined up outside Apple's flagship Ginza store for a chance to buy one of the stylish players last month. Even during the long recession of the past ten years, Japan has always been a country that appreciates the value of quality goods, and companies like Louis Vuitton does a third of its worldwide sales here. My wife wants a blue one.

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.jbox.com/UPDATES/3/

First, for Range Murata fans, we've got his brand new Illustration Book featuring incredible creations made from his designs
Next: J-List is the creator of our original Wacky Japanese T-shirts, and we have dozens of great shirts for guys and girls. By request, we've added XS to several popular shirts for girls, so that our extra small customers can enjoy them too
Japanese snack fans, enjoy the amazing chocolate covered strawberry creams from Meiji, mmmmm
Also, fun cheese potato snacks, delicious ramune candies, Tomato Pretz, March of Koala Coconut type, and various restocked Japanese chewing gum varieties
For fans of remote controlled toys, a really fun item: a RC Yellow Submarine, which you charge for 90 seconds then send it under water to go wherever you send it
Fans of the timeless anime Captain Harlock, we have a great capsule toy set featuring all the characters of Leiji Matsumoto's famous work -- available in a full set (no need to buy duplicates and throw them away)
Next, for Hello Kitty fans, we've got some amazing light-up LED magnets, which you can put anywhere -- very cute and unique
Also, some cool Sanrio Bubbling Bath tablets that are really fun to use
Next, we've got an all-purpose soft case suitable for holding books, documents, laptop computers, or just about anything
When Japanese cook in the kitchen, they usually use extra-long cooking chopsticks to protect the hands from burns -- we've got some of these handy items in stock now
For summer, we have an elegant fan for you, made of bamboo and kimono-like cloth material
For Ghibli fans, we've done a big restocking of popular Totoro and other items -- look for Totoro, Spirited Away and Porco Rosso keychains, various Totoro plush toys, and more
Also: a big restocking of great Domo-kun items, including all three plush Domo-kun cubes, the extra-large Domo-kun huggable pillow, the HUGE stuffed plush pillow, Domo-kun post-it notes, and more
We've added more wacky parody items, including funny signs for your car
Studying Japanese? Memorize like the Japanese do -- we've restocked the Zebra Check Sets, which make it easy to memorize any material you are studying
We love traditional Japanese things, and we've added stock of the popular Hanafuda Japanese card game
We also carry fude (FOO-day) pens, which allow you to write like you were using a Chinese writing brush -- look for various restocked items
For fans of the famous Gothic & Lolita series, we've gotten in additional stock of the original Homemade G&L patternbook, with many costume patterns you can use to make your own outfits
Finally, a cute happy face pool toy, more takoyaki makers, miniature "go" that you can play anywhere, fresh stock of the gorgeous Kitty Kabuki Series dolls, and more!

Remember that at J-List, we carry the whole line of unique Japanese chewing gum from companies like Lotte and Glico. Some of our most popular items are Lotte's "Black Black" (Japan's unique caffeine gum, it will keep you awake!), delicious Blue Berry gum, Pocari Sweat flavored gum (Dakara), and one of my favorites, Ume (Japanese plum) gum. Check out all these items on our Japanese snack and gum pages! As usual, there's an automatic discount for buying 10 or more packs of the same gum.

J-List is accessible directly via http://www.jbox.com/

Life in Japan: Mon, 9 Aug 2004

Thu, 19 Aug 2004 01:39:02 GMT

J-List is accessible directly via http://www.jbox.com/

Hello from Japan, where a person's fly is known as his "window of society" (shakai no mado).

It's high summer in Japan, and the cicadas are busy doing what cicadas do, making lots of noise. (To hear what summer sounds like in Japan, click this link: http://www.jlist.com/cicadas) It's also time for the national baseball championships at Koshien Stadium, near Osaka. To go to Koshien (KOH-she-en) is the dream of every high school baseball player, and there are many manga comics and anime shows that capture the romance and adventure of a Koshien race. One of the most famous sports-related manga/anime ever is "Touch," the story of two twin boys, Kazuya, who is good at sports, and Tatsuya, a total slacker. When Kazuya is killed in a car accident, Tatsuya must fulfill his brother's dream of taking their school's team to Koshien. By an amazing coincidence, the creator of this manga was born in Isesaki, where we live. Baseball fans here seem to have an extra keen affinity for the drama of Koshien, vicariously reliving their youth while they watch the games that are broadcast on national television. Unfortunately Gunma's team, Kiryu Daiichi High School, already got eliminated, being trounced on Sunday by the team from Okayama Prefecture.

The most important day of the year in Japan is January 1st, when most Japanese head to their favorite Shinto shrine to pray for good luck in the coming year. But the second most important time of the year are the Obon ("oh, bone") holidays in mid-August, going on right now. Ostensibly a kind of "homecoming day" for the souls of deceased family members, it's a time when Japanese usually gather at their parents' home as a family, sort of like Thanksgiving in the States. Obon is also a time to visit the graves of family members who have died, to clean the gravestones with water, light an incense stick, leave fresh flowers, and update the deceased on family events, so they know they haven't been forgotten. So many people in the Tokyo area are from other parts of the country that Tokyo becomes a ghost town for a week during this time of year.

You may be familiar with the Japanese word "otaku." A formal word which really means "you" or "your family," it's come to describe people who go all-out in pursuit of their hobbies. The most famous otaku are the anime otaku, aficionados of Japanese animation, but there are many other kinds, from military otaku to perfume otaku to onsen otaku (lovers of Japanese hot springs) like me. There seems to be something about the Japanese psyche that opens them up becoming obsessive when it comes to their hobbies. Unfortunately, while foreigners are often happy to use the word otaku to describe themselves as a lover of all things Japanese, I really have to advise against using the term in front of Japanese people you don't know well. In Japan, the concept of people getting carried away collecting doujinshi, Zippo lighters, and Disney plush toys is cute, but make sure you get to know the person you're talking to before letting them see your otaku side, just to be safe.

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.jbox.com/UPDATES/3/

First, for fans of the beautiful Japanese sci-fi film Casshern, we have a very cool toy series featuring five characters from the film -- full sets are in stock!
Fans of Blythe, the elegant and somewhat eerie doll series made by Takara, we have some stylish new Pucchi Blythe dolls in stock
If you love Japanese snacks, we've got some nice new items, including all-natural gummi candies (suitable for vegetarians), a traditional Japanese hard candy, and two new flavors of tasty Pretz snack pretzel sticks
Restocked snack items include delicious Bontan Ame (with wrappers made of rice, so you can eat them, wrapper and all), traditional Black Sugar Caramels, and delicious Bubbleball Bubble Gum, bubble gum encased in a hard candy shell
Also: we've restocked a popular item from the past, Hello Kitty Bottlecap Candy, which include a super cute Kitty mascot wearing a costume, and delicious fruit flavored candies
Another cool item: a fantastic "candy toy" (shokugan) Kubrick series featuring the famous Ultraman characters, and delicious cookies inside -- we have full sets of this great item, including the secret figures (!)
Pingu fans, we've got a new keychain that is so cute you will die
Speaking of cute, we've got more Devilots toys, super cute figures that you can display anywhere you like
Enjoy a world-class massage with cute massage assist toys from Japan -- the hard molded plastic feels great on your neck and shoulders
Miyazaki fans, we've got a deluxe Fox Squirrel in stock for you -- super big and super huggable
For fans of the Japanese Girl Nagomi art series by Seiichi Nomura, we have a traditional eyeglass or pencil case that's very nice
If you're studying Japanese, we've restocked many interesting items for you, including unique dictionaries, including books for some unique uses
Finally, more deluxe Japanese chopsticks from Japan, fresh stock of the Iron Glove that makes it easy to iron clothes, cool items for your kitchen, and more!

Remember that J-List carries dozens of books, toys and other items for fans of Shirow Masamune, creator of Ghost in the Shell and one of the most famous and influential illustrators in Japan today. Some of the more popular of his works with J-List customers include the bilingual edition of the original Ghost in the Shell, which features a new translation (much improved from the original U.S. release of the book), as well as his very beautiful Jashin (Beast) Hunter illustrated novels, and more. We've also got his new Galgrease poster books available for preorder (they'll be coming in at the end of August).

J-List is accessible directly via http://www.jbox.com/

Life in Japan Update: Fri, 6 Aug 2004

Mon, 09 Aug 2004 08:56:33 GMT

J-List is accessible directly via http://www.jbox.com/

My wife and both children are in the U.S. now, enjoying their summer vacation in beautiful San Diego. This means I get the whole house to myself, which is truly the Holy Grail for any married man. For the next week, I can enjoy an extra can of beer, play video games all night long, and generally rattle around the house all I want -- life is good.

The Japanese can be somewhat superstitious compared to Americans. It's common in department stores to see people getting their palms read, and fortune tellers that develop a reputation for issuing accurate predictions become very popular, with lines of people eager to hear their advice. There is a cycle of six "lucky" and "unlucky" days based on an old Chinese system, and virtually everyone here goes out of their way to get married or take delivery of a new car on Taian, the luckiest day in the cycle. Salt is thought to purify (sumo wrestlers throw it in the ring before a bout), and after a person who has really bad luck has come for a visit, throwing some salt on the ground will get rid of their bad influence. The Japanese are also interested in Feng Shui, and usually take care to build a house in keeping with its rules (don't build a front door facing west or you'll get divorced, and so on). Similarly, when you break ground on a new home, you always call the local Shinto priest who comes to purify the ground with salt, fish and sake -- we did this when we built the J-List office. The Japanese have also imported some Western beliefs, such as fear of black cats and it being bad luck to break a mirror.

Japanese can have various beliefs about choosing names for their children, too, and there are books that list "lucky" kanji characters to choose for your baby's name. Often people will seek the advice of a Shinto priest when deciding a name, too. We had been planning to name our son Kazuma ("peace + horse") but were were told by the priest we talked to that animal kanji are not good for names, so we changed it to Kazuki ("peace + tree"). Often lucky names are determined numerogically -- for example, when we chose my daughter's name, we were advised to choose a name with the same number of strokes as my wife's name, since that was a lucky number of strokes. Which kanji you choose for the name can be important, too. My wife's name is Chiharu ("thousand + fine day"), but often this name is written with "spring" for the second character. Spring can have a bad connotation in Japanese, such as the word for prostitution ("selling spring"), so most parents would avoid choosing this character for the child's name.

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.jbox.com/UPDATES/3/

First, for all fans of the Micronauts toys, sold here as Microman, we have a unique treat: the entire 2004 lineup of new figures, with superb updated designs and deluxe attachments that are really fun to play with
Speaking of cool toys, we have extra copies of the new Figure King, a special issue featuring the excellent toys of the Tunderbirds (along with thousands of other amazing toys)
Also for Thunderbirds fans, a fun item for your bath: eggs that dissolve in the tub, creating pleasant Japanese hot springs water and revealing a fun random Thunderbirds toy
Next we have a great item for the summer: fun wind-up "fortune telling goldfish" which give you good luck depending on what color fish you get -- fun to use as a keychain or hang up
Next, a unique item: metal truncheons, or "jitte," which were used by samurai in combat, very cool
For fans of Japan's beautiful Race Queens, who promote F-1 racing but are a unique world unto themselves, we have the deluxe new Endless Racing Team photobook
Hello Kitty lovers, we've got cute doorknob messages for you so you can indicate when you're sleeping, studying and so on
Also for Sanrio fans: fresh stock of classic Hello Kitty toilet paper, great for people who either love or hate Kitty
Look for more Japanese Girl Nagomi items by artist Seiichi Hayashi, including a convenient tea holder for your kitchen
Lovers of Japanese snacks, we've got more for you, including super fruit gummi candy, sweet Japanese "Karintou" snacks, and for all fans of the super cute character series Ochaken (Tea Dog), mascot characters with cookies in the box
Next, we have some great chopsticks from Japan that are extra easy to use and come with chopstick holders for your table
For fans of OH! Mikey, we've restocked the Color of Life Movie, a great DVD compiling wacky late-night Japanese television (including the original OH! Mikey pilot episodes) (region 2)
Also, look for restocked films by Hayao Miyazaki (region 2) including one of my favorites, the minor story of growing up, Ocean Waves (region 2)
For fans of cool things for their computers, we've restocked the Groomy plush pets with soft leather bottoms for cleaning your computer screen, as well as the Bit Grast silver mouse
We've restocked our popular Japanese eyedrops, which are very refreshing and popular with our customers
Finally enjoy fresh stock of various Japanese study cards, more cream to make nipples pink again, a real wooden shogi playing board, delicious sauce called "sauce," and more!

Remember that J-List has Pocky again! Although Japan's most famous chocolate-covered stick snack melts terribly in the hot summer months, the newest flavor of Pocky, Pocky Reverse, has the cookie part on the outside and the chocolate on the inside, so we can carry them in the summer. Enjoy this delicious treat on the J-List site now, and if you get 10 or more boxes, you get a great discount, too.

J-List is accessible directly via http://www.jbox.com/