Another new anime season is upon us, and I’m doing my best to stay on top of the new shows that have been coming down the pipe. I always try to watch at least three episodes of any series I start before deciding whether to drop it or continue, because of the Japanese proverb 石の上にも三年 ishi no ue ni mo san-nen, which translates as ”
you have to sit on a rock for three years” and essentially means, be diligent and work at a thing for a long-enough period of time before deciding whether it’s worth continuing with or not. One show I started watching is Denki-gai no Honya-san (“the Electric Town’s Bookstore”), a slice-of-life comedy about a bunch of misfit otakus who work in a large bookstore that’s clearly modeled after the Tora-no-ana store in Akihabara. The cast includes a mild-mannered main character who’s just started work, a “rotten girl” (slang for girls who love BL and otome games) who likes zombies and wearing school swimsuits, a meganekko doujinshi artist, and a token non-otaku girl added for comic relief. If you like the idea of the Working! anime reworked with otaku jokes, give the show a try!
October in Japan is a time of enjoying the changing of the leaves, called 紅葉 koh-yo or “crimson leaves,” and for maybe hitting the Yokohama Oktoberfest if you’re in the area. It’s also time for being tormented by TV commercials advertising Kyoto as the place to visit in the fall, and every year they manage to come up with even more amazing visuals that capture the ancient Japanese capital in its most beautiful season. The music played during these commercials is an instrumental version of “My Favorite
Things” from The Sound of Music, and it becomes impossible to hear this song without your brain summoning up beautiful image of Kyoto. Incidentally, if you’re ever planning a trip to Japan, you could do worse than to aim for October, since it’s frankly the best time to be in Japan, with pleasant temperatures and no humidity. Plus airfares are nice and cheap in October!
I like J-List’s Facebook page and Twitter feed because they provide a way for customers to ask me questions about Japan, give feedback on products and so on. Yesterday a customer asked me what my favorite J-List product was, and this was interesting because I’d never thought about this question before. I certainly love selling Japan-only versions of familiar things, like the bizarre flavors of Kit Kat we stock, and anything that brings anime fans closer to Totoro is also great. I’m always happy to help readers learn a little nihongo, and budding artists learn to draw manga-style art, and occasionally help someone find a Japanese girlfriend (this shirt has actually worked in a few cases!). One product I wanted to sell for the longest time were the clear plastic umbrellas you see everywhere in Japan (and in the film Lost in Translation), and now it’s one of our most popular products. I guess what I really like are products that connect us to Japan in a way that’s fun, so that we can touch and feel (and eat) the cool things we see in anime.
