25 years — that’s 100 anime seasons! – is a long time to run a company. I thought I’d write a post on the history of J-List, and some of the interesting adventures we’ve had over the years. Enjoy!
The Days Before J-List
As I wrote in my post looking back at our long history with Anime Expo, I’ve had outstanding timing in my life. Not only did I come of age just as the modern anime convention scene was getting started, I went to Japan in 1991, just in time for the Internet to get going. I distinctly remember the massive 1994 IPO of Netscape, a company that had no revenues and no profits, and thinking to myself, “The world has changed. It’s time to do something with this ‘Internet’ thing.”
Before formally starting J-List, I spent a couple of years testing the waters, hanging out on the rec.arts.anime board on USENET. Back in those days, there was a worldwide fascination with JPOP music, and I would find used CDs in shops and sell them for $8-10, which was a lot cheaper than the $30 they cost new, and added doujinshi later. I maintained my products in an Excel file called The Japan List.
What was the Internet like in 1996?
- Average internet speed: 33 Kbps (dial-up).
- Javascript 1.0 was just released.
- PC Laptop Price: Gateway Solo 2100, $4,149, or $7,234 in today’s dollars.
- “10 Base-T” Ethernet did not yet exist, so you had to buy an extra transceiver dongle to stick out the back of your computer to connect.
- Google did not yet exist, and most of us used Yahoo or AltaVista.
As I grew my early customer base, Mrs. J-List looked on with amusement, waiting for me to crash and burn. When I refused to, she realized I needed proper guidance. She decided to become the president of the company, incorporating J-List and doing important things like managing relationships with banks, making sure we had the proper insurance businesses need, managing payroll, and so on.
Back in the early days of the Internet there was an odd expectation that companies with names like Business.com or Furniture.com would become dominant, but instead brands with wonky names like eBay and Yahoo came to rule the world. When it came time to choose a name for my new company, I shortened The Japan List to J-List, reasoning that once someone had memorized the name of our company, they’d never forget it.
J-List’s Humble Beginnings
J-List started operations on October 1st, 1996. From the beginning, we had two main goals: proving that the early English visual novels JAST USA was creating represented a viable business model, and finding fun physical products to sell to our customers, since we were the only anime shop located inside Japan at the time. J-List was actually created “to tide us over for a few months” until visual novels took off, but of course J-List would become the larger side of the company.
Building Our Dreams
We built the J-List office in 1998, with lots of space for our buyers to work, and two warehouses to store the various products we were stocking…then promptly filled up our space to the brim with products. Things were overflowing so badly, we ended up storing figures and anime calendars in our kitchen, stepping around them while going to microwave our bento lunches. Eventually we’d expand our main office, and build two more warehouses, which wasn’t impossible to do in low-inflation rural Japan.
Connecting With Customers Through Conventions
J-List has been lucky to be able to grow in tandem with great conventions like Anime Expo and the San Diego Comic-Con, and we’ve had great fun over the years, shaking hands with our customers from all around the world. Our beloved cons were taken from is in 2020 and 2021 due to COVID (though a smaller SDCC “Special Edition” is coming in November). We can’t wait for cons to return to normal in the future, so we can hang out with all our awesome customers in person again.
Want to read the history of J-List and Anime Expo? Here’s a detailed post for you! There’s a post about our long history with the San Diego Comic-Con here, too.
The Top Ten Products in J-List History!
Over the years we’ve had a lot of hit products, which really connected with our customers in various ways. Here’s a short list of some of their favorites!
Pokemon Products from Japan. I knew Pokemon because my kids were watching it on Japanese TV, and when Bandai started promoting it at Anime Expo in 1998, I thought they were crazy. But that Christmas, J-List was one of the few places on the Internet where you could buy properly licensed Pokemon plush toys rather than the knock-offs from Taiwan, and we sold them by the boatload.
Bento Boxes. The mid-2000s bento boom was loads of fun, as people all over the world became interested in making Japan-style bento lunches. J-List JBOX.com got even mentioned in an article in the New York Times at one point.
J-List T-shirts. Everyone loves the aesthetic of kanji characters, and back in the day, J-List had a fun line of T-shirts with kanji messages like, “Now Accepting Applications for a Japanese Girlfriend.” The shirts and hoodies were fun, and more than a few of our customers found themselves being interviewed on Japanese TV. Sadly we had to exit the T-shirt market in 2018 due to lack of space to store them all.
Hello Kitty Vibrators. An actual product licensed by Sanrio, these Hello Kitty “shoulder massagers” became standard for all anime- and cosplay-loving girls back in the day.
Domo-kun. We didn’t create the boom in Domo-kun, but thanks to being based in Japan, we could reach a deal with NHK to become the only official Domo-kun shop shipping internationally.
Sailor Moon. I owe a lot to Sailor Moon. During the show’s initial run, I sold more hentai doujinshi and “doujin anthology manga” than I could believe. When Sailor Moon Crystal came along, J-List was there to sell even more fun merch…including the popular official Sailor Moon feminine products.
Want to see more hit products in J-List’s history? Here’s a blog post about 17 times we changed the world (at least a little)!
Hentai Games and Visual Novels. The other day I was having a drink in the outdoor eating area of a bar in downtown San Diego and I struck up a conversation with a slightly older retired gentleman. His wife sadly passed a few years ago, and to fill the void in his life, he’d discovered an amazing kind of computer game on Steam called ‘visual novels.’ I had to smile, since J-List and JAST USA have been part of visual novels from the very beginning, thanks to the amazing support of our customers over the years.
See the newest Limited Physical Edition Games from JAST USA here!
Doujinshi. There’s nothing quite like discovering naughty doujins in which our favorite anime characters pair up sexually, and J-List has always stocked the latest hentai doujinshi from Japan on the site. And with the founding of J18 Publishing, we now help bring you 100% uncensored + translated doujinshi from Japan’s best artists!
Onaholes and Other Naughty Products. Having stress sucks, and J-List always stocks the latest onaholes and other innovative naughty products for guys, as well as quality stress toys for girls, too. These have been especially important during COVID times, when the safest sex partner has been ourselves, and J-List has been happy to help our customers take the edge off.
J-List in the Future
It’s been an outstanding 25 years, full of fun memories and lots of laughs, and we thank everyone for being part of it. We plan to have lots of new products and insights into Japan coming your way in the future and would love to keep going for another 25 years!
Peter Payne
President/Owner of J-List
Thanks to the warm support of our awesome customers all over the world, J-List has been around for 25 amazing years! To thank you, we’re having a $25 automatic coupon off in-stock orders of $150 or more, through October 15. What awesome stuff are you going to get? Start browsing now!
