Hello again to all J-Listas!
It seems that Japanese people never fail to surprise you. You would think that they’d be horribly offended by slurs like “yellow monkey,” which are sometimes used to describe Japanese people, and yet there’s a popular rock band in Japan that proudly names itself Yellow Monkey. Similarly, Japanese composer Ryuichi Sakamoto played in a band called the Yellow Magic Orchestra, a name which sounds a little odd to gaijin like me. In 1991, writer Shoko Ieda wrote a novel called Yellow Cab about the strange phenomenon of normally demure Japanese females going to New York and becoming nymphomaniacs when they find themselves suddenly free of Japanese society, and the term came to describe all Japanese females who too loose sexually. You might assume this term would be offensive to the Japanese, but again, you’d be wrong: one of Japan’s most famous talent agencies is called Yellow Cab. They handle virtually all the top swimsuit idols in Japan, including Megumi, Harumi Nemoto, Eiko Koike and Eriko Satoh, and all girls who want to be “talents” (a catch-all word that refers to any kind of young swimsuit idol, singer or actor) dream of being scouted by them. Search for “yellow cab” on J-List to see these girls, if you don’t know them already.
The Japanese do some things that are very strange to foreigners. One is the way they crouch while waiting for a bus or a train, which is called “yankii-zuwari” or “sitting like a yankee.” Basically, they squat very low, somehow managing to put their heels flat on the ground, rather than balancing on their toes. It’s very hard for most gaijin to achieve this pose, yet Japanese find it very comfortable, probably because they learn this posture using Japanese toilets, which have no seat (you squat over them). In Japanese usage, a “yankee” (yankii) refers to teenagers who are rebels or “bad kids” — the kind of teens who refuse to go to school, who smoke, who hang out in game centers. They’re similar to the “boso-zoku,” the motorcycle gangs who ride around Japan making as much noise as they can. We’re not sure why the English word yankee came to refer to the bad seeds among Japan’s youth, but one idea comes from the fact that rebelling Japanese often dye their hair blonde (or orange), and maybe it comes from this (foreigners = Americans = blonde hair to the Japanese mind). If you want to see a picture of what yankii-zuwari looks like, Yasu demonstrates it for you here: http://www.jlist.com/yankii.html
First, we’re happy to announce a great new shirt for our female customers, a new fitted girly tee version of our popular “Looking for a Japanese Boyfriend” shirt. It’s very stylish and the Japanese characters are as aesthetically pleasing as the look on the faces of Japanese who happen to see it. And it goes great with version 2 of our “Looking for a Japanese Girlfriend” shirt. In stock and ready for you to order!
We’re happy to announce the beginning of our Japanese character blanket season. In Japan, they have incredibly high-quality blankets made of soft acrylic fibers, which are warm and soft to touch and beautiful to look at, printed with bright colors and cute characters. Every winter we make these great items available to customers around the world, and we’ve gotten our first stock in for you, four different varieties of cute Hello Kitty soft blankets and “halfkets” (Japanese for a half-sizes blanket). We know you’ll love the incredibly soft feel and unique look to these great new blankets, sold only in Japan.
For the new update, we’ve got some excellent products from Japan for you. They include:
- Shirow Masamune fans, we’re happy to report that we’ve obtained limited stock of the bestselling poster books, Wild Wet West, Hall Hound and Gal Hound, so if you missed out on these fantastic collections of his posters, which also come with trading cards inside
- We’ve got a nice photobook featuring the best of “Shape Up Girls,” a sexy unit of body-conscious idols from Japan
- Also enjoy super cute photobooks by charming idol Emi Hasegawa and super cute Mizuho Oda, and another dynamite picture collection featuring Yoko Matsugane, one of the most popular swimsuit idols in Japan today
- We’ve got some great Japanese tea that is healthy and great for dieting — jasmine tea and the popular dokidami tea, in handy tea bags to make it easy to prepare
- Then, for fans of our Japanese snacks and other items, enjoy cute hamster ramune candy, and a variety of delicious chocoball candies from Morinaga
- For fans of our unique Japanese 2004 calendars, we’ve gotten several new ones in stock, including the very cool Dragonball issue
- We also stock many varieties of Japanese gum, and have posted some new varieties to our page, including Japanese Recaldent and gum to make your teeth white
- For fans of unique Japanese toys, we have some cool Microman figures, which are the Japanese version of the Micronauts (and much higher quality than the re-release of the Micronauts, if I may say so)
- Also, we’ve got some really cool Marvel Kubrick figures, featuring classic heroes from the Marvel universe, great for any fan
- Also, fresh stock of the popular Panda-Z action figures and keychains, a great item from Japan for you
- Hello Kitty fans will go ape over a cool Kitty shampoo bottle, a great addition to your bath or shower
- Also, fresh stock of the incredibly popular Hello Kitty kigurumi masks, which allow you to totally transform yourself into Sanrio’s most famous character
- Also, we’ve got fresh stock of Japanese bath powder, which replicates real Japanese hot springs for you
- Then, we’ve got another wacky Japanese “power stone” that promises to improve your love life
- It’s getting colder, so we’ve gotten in fresh stock of a popular item, the Japanese warming pads that keep you warm for up to 18 hours
- We’ve lowered our prices on several of the popular shokugan toy sets, including full sets of the Ghost in the Shell and Intron Depot figures that are so cool
- If you’re studying Japanese, you might want to get a Wordtank, the world-famous Japanese-English electronic dictionaries by Canon that feature English menus — and we’ve knocked our prices on all units down for you
- For fans of our “Dirty American Devil” wacky Japanese T-shirt in camouflage, we’ve restocked the sizes that were out of stock for the past couple of months
- We have fresh stock of parody items, like the popular “toilet paper that helps you poop”
- Finally, look for some high-quality Japanese pencils, some super cute “stick glue,” a perfect cloth bag to carry your bento in, more wacky Japanese stickers, more go sets, more Hot Wheels from Japan, and more!
For our adult customers, we’ve got many new 18+ products. They include:
- For fans of erotic Japanese adult stars, we’ve got the new issue of Bejean, featuring a multitude of heavenly bodies from Japan for you, including Sonan, Yoko Mitsuya, Maria Takagi, Ryoko Mitake
- Then, for fans of the Japanese fetish of “hitozuma” (lit. “a person’s wife”), or married women, we’ve got a new naughty magazine for you
- For fans of hardcover photobooks from Japan, enjoy G-Taste, a truly beautiful offering from Mita Kitagawa
- We have some excellent new hentai comics for you from some of Japan’s best artists and manga houses, including Sakura Mitoni’s Love Diary, Tsukasa’s Prime of Petit Devil, and more
- Also, we have great restocked hentai manga for you, including popular “dick girl” books, the Punky Knight comics, fresh stock of the Electric Fighting Daughter doujinshi anthologies, and more
- Also, for fans of Takuya Inoue’s superb erotic artwork, we’ve got an amazing color artbook featuring his busty, sexy female characters — stock is limited!
- We’ve got some great items for our DVD customers, starting with the lovely Aiai Sakura in her second No Cut!! release, featuring three hours of great erotic (region free)
- Then from Dogma and director Hitoshi Ninomura, enjoy the Kiss Addicted Oneesan, Miri Sugihara, an erotic adult star who loves all kinds of sex (region free)
- Then, from SOD’s Natural High label, we’ve got a special new Asuka Sawaguchi DVD featuring the best hardcore works of this bright and charming starlet from Japan (region free)
- Japan’s tradition of “sentai” (sci-fi fighting team) shows, embodied in the U.S. as Power Rangers, is famous all over the world — enjoy an erotic sentai parody for a great price, on the Soft on Demand Outlet page (region free)
- From Wanz Factory, we have a great bondage play DVD with Yui Kayama, showing you her happy, energetic sex (region 2)
- Then, the super-erotic Akira Watase looks great in her newest release, which brings you three hours of her most erotic sexual performances ever (region 2)
- Finally, we’ve got fresh stock of several popular items, including Ann Nanba’s “Removal of the Lesbian Ban” (where do they get these titles from?), Bunko Kanazawa’s “Dream Woman 19,” SOD’s study of female masturbation, more dynamite women’s wrestling, more DVDs with free shipping, and more.
Do you like Domo-kun? At J-List we do, and because of our special relationship with toy distributors in Japan, we’re able to bring you dozens of super-cool Domo-kun items, from high-quality plush toys to PVC keychains to Domo-kun face towels and more. Domo-kun is the spokesmonster for NHK’s “BS” channels (it means broadcast satellite), and he and his friends Usajii (the TV-watching rabbit), Ta-chan (sports watch-wearing weasel girl) and Shinobu and Morio (two bats) have become famous all over the world because of their extreme cuteness. Why not give Domo-kun gifts this year for Christmas?
