We hope you’re enjoying the all-new J-List website. Just a reminder: certain products like magazine and snack subscriptions, iTunes cards and game downloads are still not up, but will be soon. For English visual novels and eroge via download, please visit JAST USA.
The way we view other countries is naturally affected by various factors, including the geographical and cultural distance between us and the area in question. Asia can seem like a very distant place if you’re located in the middle of the U.S., away from the coasts, and it’s not uncommon for Japanese, Chinese and Korean food and culture to get lumped together in people’s minds as a single entity. Pop culture also affects how we perceive other countries, and the other day I jokingly asked my Facebook followers to what degree they thought of Japan as being like it is in anime, with high school kids running to school with a piece of toast in their mouth every morning. This goes both ways, of course, and Japanese can have some pretty outrageous impressions of the U.S., believing that scenes from action movies complete with exploding cars are a daily occurrence, or that “Americans always say whatever they’re thinking immediately because it’s a free country with no social restrictions, unlike Japan.”
Other perceptions about Japan are affected by the “pop culture filter” we view the country through, for example…sex. Judging from all those hentai anime and games the Japanese love, they must be the most perverted people on the planet, leading sex lives that would amaze us all, right? The truth is that the average Japanese has their first experience between 18 and 23 years of age (younger in rural Okinawa and Aomori, older in urban areas). Japanese are very conservative about nudity, and the idea of sunbathing topless in public “like they do in Europe” would give any Japanese woman giggling fits. What about those extravagant love hotels? They’re really about providing a place of privacy for couples in a country where many people live with their parents well into their 20s, or if they’re the oldest child, forever. One of the problems with modern Japanese society is the high number of people who never build the social skills needed to form relationships (think of the awkward love between Ono and Tanaka in Genshiken), which I think is a big shame.
In addition to our awesome $11-off-$40-or-more-of-Japanese-snacks sale which goes through Monday (use code POCKY2016), we’ve got more good news: our PG fuku-bukuro grab bags are posted too! This year we’ve got great anime/toy, doki doki random, and traditional “samurai” in addition to the always-popular ecchi grab bags. Browse them all now!
