Hello again from the J-List team!
One thing you can say about Japan: driving here will make you a better driver. Between learning to park your car with less than 6 inches of space on either side to memorizing winding, narrow streets, driving in Japan can be a challenge. Although Japan has freeways connecting major cities, there’s usually none between where you are and where you want to go, so almost all driving in Japan is done on normal city streets. Learning your way around a Japanese city is made more difficult by the fact that only the largest streets have names, and there’s no way to refer to smaller streets other than “that one road with the beauty shop and the convenience store on it.” This presented a challenge to me when I first came here: in order to learn my way around the city I loved in, I had to throw away American-style memorization-by-directions (e.g. “turn left on College Avenue”) and had to instead envision where I wanted to go in 3-D in my mind. It was kind of a bizarre experience. Like the British, the Japanese drive on the right side of the road, so whenever I go back to the States I have to be extra careful to get my bearings straight before getting in the car. Watching which side of the road other drivers are driving on and doing what they do is usually enough to avoid problems.
Karaoke is, as you can imagine, quiet popular in Japan, and Japanese enjoy getting up and belting out their favorite songs in front of others. Invented by a musician named Daisuke Inoue back in the 1970’s, karaoke machines are very popular throughout Japan, and today establishments from bars to restaurants to the public bath I take my kids to on weekends have machines so that customers can enjoy themselves behind the mike (at 200 yen per song). However, like many who try karaoke out for the first time, Japanese are uncomfortable singing in front of strangers, which is why the most popular way to enjoy this pasttime is the private karaoke box. Whenever the J-List staff goes out drinking to welcome a new staff member or have our year-end-party, we always go to a nearby karaoke box and belt out tunes — Brent and me usually sing esoteric 80’s anime songs in Japanese, which causes the Japanese staff to freak out a little. Unfortunately, the inventor of Karaoke didn’t bother to patent his idea, and thus earned no money from one of the biggest technological booms to come along in decades.
2004 calendar sales are going great, and we’re very happy with the response to the over 200 Japanese calendars we’re offering for preorder. We’ve added some more calendars to our site, including Ryoko Yonekura, Ai Kato, and the lovely Korean star Yoon Son Ha, who has a big following in Japan. To help you choose lots of great 2004 Japanese calendars, we’re giving 15% off any 4 or more calendars you buy! Just add them to your cart, and the discount will be applied at checkout. Of course we’re applying the discount to preorders we’ve already received — if you want to add to a current calendar order, too, just email us. Remember, these high-quality Japanese calendars make great Christmas gifts!
J-List has added a great new region-free DVD player to our lineup of products: the Lasonic DVF-982 Transportable DVD Player. With a smaller case that allows it to fit practically anywhere, this new player ads many features over the DVB-8092, including JPEG CD playback and a wireless audio transmitter feature, which allows you to listen to the DVD audio on any FM radio. It plays DVDs from all regions, and also features full PAL/NTSC conversion. Check out this great new player, in stock now in San Diego!
For the new update, we’ve got some excellent products from Japan for you. They include:
- First, for Street Fighter II lovers, we’ve got a very special series of figures from Capcom: pre-painted replicas of your favorite fighting characters — trust us, these are really cool! (full sets are available)
- For Gremlins fans, we’ve got a very well made plush Gremlin by our friends at JUN Planning
- J-List has some cool items to make your Halloween special, including loose socks and school uniforms — or how about a rubber Ultraman mask?
- Also, we’ve got fresh stock of the Hello Kitty kigurimi (full-head) mask and the cute Kitty plush bonnett
- We managed to sell out of the Alien Kubrick toys again in record time, but we’ve got more for you now, including full sets
- Sanrio fans can enjoy several only-found-in-Japan items, including a fun Kitty balloon set and a really cool Kitty not clipper (also use to keep potato chips fresh)
- Little Twin Star fans, enjoy a well-made Sanrio bento box, which we’ve got in stock for you now
- For fans of our Japanese snack foods, enjoy green bean snacks, tasty strawberry vitamin C candy, and a great item: Tiramisu pretzel treats, great for Pocky fans!
- Also, for smokers, we’ve got a great gum called Nicodass, that both replenishes the vitamins that smoking takes out, as well as removes the smoke from your breath
- Japanese “noren” curtains help partition rooms and create privacy — we have more attractive noren curtains in stock for you
- We’ve got a really fun game for fans of cute things from Japan — a game with sony’s popular PostPet pink bear character
- For Totoro fans, we’ve restocked the popular Soot Sprite keychain and magnet plush, two extremely popular items with J-List customers
- Also, we’ve restocked several popular Totoro and Ghibli music boxes, as well as plush Totoro toys that are so cool
- Shirow fans have bought all the Shirow Masamune poster books, although another 200 of each is coming soon (feel free to order from the site) — in the meantime, we’ve got fresh stock of Jashin Hunter for you!@
- For Japanophiles who want to wear their love for Japan on their sleeves, or their heads, we’ve restocked our Japanese wacky headbands
- Finally, find more quality chopsticks, a handy all-purpose carry bag, more pocket “go” sets, and more!
For our adult customers, we’ve got many new 18+ products. They include:
- For fans of quality adult magazines from Japan, we’ve got the very cool new Best Video and Video Boy, two visual magazines for fans of Japanese adult video, overflowing with Japan’s most famous stars!
- Then enjoy the deluxe double-thick Mini-Suka & Panst DX, featuring 40 delicious girls wearing panties, mini-skirts and stockings, a superb item for leg fetish fans
- For fans of Japan’s beautiful hardcover photobooks, we recommend Usagi Aino’s fabulous nude photobook offering, a beautiful collection of superb photographs for you
- Then, enjoy the superb photobook of Masa Sato, a woman so beautiful you could dash yourself against her like a ship against a rock — her new photobook was shot in Paris
- Also, we’ve got the pure, natural nude of Masumi, the “Legendary Nude Idol,” in stock for you
- For hentai manga fans, enjoy several great new books for you, including Giant Breast Princess, Kirara Moe’s Lovely Girl, an erotic maid fantasy Kiss Cue, and more
- Also, enjoy a restocking of popular manga titles, such as Please Enjoy the Pretty Girl, Very Satisfied with Five Body Parts, Free as a Bird and mor!
- For doujinshi fans, another great selection of offerings of superb hentai books, Ah My Goddess, Stellvia in Space, game girl sex and more
- For our DVD fans, we’ve got some great new offerings for you, starting with Mai Sakashita’s very erotic 4 Hours Special DVD (region free)
- Then, for fans of the delightful Sola Aoi (also written Sora Aoi), enjoy a super hardcore release from Samantha, with sci-fi virtual sex and Aoi’s sweet erotic body (region free)
- Pro Wrestling fans, enjoy the new 2-DVD release of Adult Video Wrestling, with innovative and exciting sex in the ring, and many top names (region free)
- Japanese have a fetish for “announcers” (newscasters), and SOD explores this with a new bukkake DVD release for you (region free)
- Enjoy the hot return of Mai Hagiwara in Mirukuru Returns, featuring some of Maichy’s most erotic on-camera work ever (region 2)
- Then, enjoy a great new Dream Shower bukkake title featuring Bunko Kanazawa, for fans who really want to see Kanabun get creamed (region free)
- Finally, restocked and price-reduced DVD titles including The Idol and No Cut!! DVD releases, featuring three hours of great hardcore AV for you!
Remember that J-List is the only place where you can buy the excellent Himeya Soft games from C’s Ware and get them sent from inside the U.S. We stock all the very nice dating-sim game titles from Himeya as well as Peach Princess, JAST USA, G-Collections, and Hobibox, and recommend them very highly to fans and collectors of Japan’s bishoujo games.
