Hello again from Japan, where going to Kentucky means eating chicken and everyone thinks IT stands for “Internet technology.”
When a Westerner comes to Japan to live, certain aspects of life here always stand out to them for the first few weeks. In my case, I kept noticing the roofs on Japanese houses, which featured ornate porcelain tiles that looked beautiful and exotic to my eye, as well as the green and white emergency exit signs which are everywhere here (and which we have immortalized in an original J-List T-shirt). The abundance of vending machines amazed me, as did Japanese toilets with flush handles that let out different amounts of water depending on if you’d just gone No. 1 or No. 2. Something that most every foreigner in Japan notices is the tendency for Japanese to wrap things more than necessary. Do you want some cookies? Country Ma’am, a popular brand of cookies here, comes in an airtight package that contains cookies that are also individually wrapped. Want to buy some bread in a bakery? Each item you buy will be wrapped in several layers of plastic or paper. Nestle Kit-Kat candy bars are also wrapped a total of three layers of paper, foil and wax paper, making it quite a chore to open one. Japanese say that the extra secure wrapping makes them feel that the food inside is more delicious, and they are sometimes mistrustful of American import foods which come with wrapping that seems too thin.
Soy sauce is a popular flavoring in Japan, and is used more often than salt and pepper to improve the flavor of food. Another popular sauce used by the Japanese goes by the descriptive name of “sauce” (sou-su, although it’s officially known as Tonkatsu Sauce). It’s a delicious thick sauce that compliments many kinds of foods, especially fried food. Both soy sauce and tonkatsu sauce are also poured over eggs in Japan, but a debate has raged for years at J-List as to which tastes better. Personally, I think nothing improves fried eggs than a dabble of Kikkoman soy sauce, but apparently I am in the minority, as most of the other J-List staff favor the thicker tonkatsu sauce on their eggs. In case you’re interested in making the same comparison, we’ve gotten two varieties of Japanese sauce in stock for you to try.
One of the basic rules of business in the West is that companies should generally “stick to their knitting” and avoid doing things that confuse customers and damage their brands — Dell makes computers, but if they started selling running shoes tomorrow, you would probably wonder what they were thinking. But in Japan, companies tend to enter any business they think they can compete in. All the major beer makers also have beverage bottling businesses, and sell various varieties of bottled Japanese and Chinese teas. JT, aka Japan Tobacco, also sells beverages, although drinking a refreshing drink that was bottled by a tobacco company would give me pause. Do you want to remodel your home? Panahome, the construction company operated by Panasonic/National, will be happy to help you. Panasonic bicycles are also very well-known in the marketplace here. Hitachi is famous for televisions in the U.S., but they also make Japan’s speedy bullet trains. Sony has a popular line of high-end make-up products, and a life insurance business — and their online-only Sony Bank is growing fast with young Tokyoites who like to bank online. When we built the J-List office, one of the companies we considered using was Toyota Home, a division of Toyota that will build you a home in chunks in their factory, and truck it out to your land for later assembly. Americans know that Yamaha makes both pianos and motorcycles, but in Japan they also remodel kitchens and manufacture semiconductors and precision golf clubs. I never cease to be amazed at what an amazing place Japan can be.
For the new update, we’ve got some excellent products from Japan for you. They include:
- First, we’ve gotten fresh stock of the cute “Flavor Mini Vacuum cleaners” from Japan, which are great ways to keep your computer area free of dust and dirt
- For fans of Japanese snacks, we’ve got some great items for you, including a new flavor of Pocky (choco banana, yum), delicious candies of famous Japanese soft drinks, and great rice crackers for babies and kids
- Also, for those who want to try delicious Japanese “sauce,” we’ve got two varieties in stock for you
- Enjoy the sweet charm and beauty of Japanese swimsuit idol Yuko Ogura, who stars in a new DVD (region free) — her photobooks have been restocked, too
- For fans of Morning Musume, the definitive JPOP idol group, we’ve got a limited stock of the cool Hello! Project 2000 photobook
- For fans of Japan’s unique film culture, a great new Japanese film with English subtitles: Hush!, a touching story of three misfits living in Japan, trying to find their way (region 2)
- For fans of ultimately cute things from Japan, we’ve got Tofu Oyako (Tofu Family) figures that are incredibly cute and fun to see — and they come in little packages of tofu, too!
- For Hello Kitty fans, we’ve always got lots of cool only-old-in-Japan items for you, including a new ceramic Kitty cup and rice bowl set that are just amazing
- For fans of Astro Boy, who is really popular in Japan these days, we’ve got a great Mighty Atom plush toy for you
- Also, from Sun Arrow, we’ve got a great new plush Bou from Spirited Away, very high quality
- Evangelion continues to be one of the most popular anime series of all time, and we’ve got a wonderful cold cast statue of Rei Ayanami for collectors of high-quality anime statues
- Hamsters a super-popular in Japan, and we’ve got a cute set of Hamster erasers in stock today
- Also, for fans of wacky English, we’ve got some “Sure & Simple” notebooks in stock, with funny English on them
- If you love dinosaurs, there’s a new series of dinosaur bottle caps that look great in a collection
- Japanese essays or school reports are always done on a special kind of paper called genko yoshi. We’ve got fresh stock of this Japanese writing paper in stock for you today
- Chopsticks aren’t always easy to eat with, but the best chopsticks are made of bamboo, which makes them both easy to hold and easy to grip food — by happy coincidence, we have some in stock for you
- For fans of Space Cruiser Yamato, e.g. Star Blazers, we’ve got reprints of the original Japanese manga from the first two series — a very cool item for collectors!
- Finally, find a great way to store business cards, more wacky Japanese signs and signplates, delicious melon-flavored milk mix, tasty tofu miso soup, and more!
- For our adult customers, we’ve got many new 18+ products. They include:
- For fans of beautiful erotica involving couples in love, performing their sex for you, we’ve got a new magazine called Make Lovers
- Also, another popular Diva series photobook featuring the erotic loveliness of Kaori Nakatani
- Also, enjoy the graceful beauty of Minami Kawahara, a popular newscaster who has taken off her clothes for the camera
- We’ve got a superb nude photobook featuring the delicious Race Queen Toko Ushikawa, which will really fry your bacon
- In addition, find a general restocking of nearly a dozen popular hardcover photobooks, including those by Yoko Matsugane, Marina Matsushima, and the beautiful Ayami Sakurai
- For fans of Japanese bondage, enjoy the wonderful and mature Natsumi Kawahama in a very erotic new gouka-bon format photobook
- We’ve got an excellent selection of new erotic hentai manga, including the new manga offering by Jubaori Marshmallow (creator of the Alice First series), a very detailed hentai manga from Angel Comics, and more!
- Yasu has restocked several hentai manga books, including Queen Bee, Michael Plan and several other popular items
- Also, fresh stock of the popular b-Boy Zips yaoi manga series, which feature anthologies of popular male/male comics for yaoi fans
- The lovely sex of Rin Nohara is waiting for you, in a new Blue File release featuring 3 hours of her super cute performance (region free)
- Then enjoy the extremely experienced sex of Ran Asakawa in a new “Oneesama fetish” release from SOD (region free)
- Mayura Hoshizaki stars in an erotic new bukkake offering from Soft on Demand, featuring some excellent bukkake sex for fans of Japanese semen fetish (region free)
- Super Indies adult video studio Waap has another Waap TV’s Virtual Best, with the very best erotic performances by the top stars in Japan — all on a great disc for you! (region 2)
- And from Moodyz, enjoy the beautiful lesbian sex of Ruri Ayase and Yuuka Kotono in “Beauty Lesbian” that is something you won’t want to miss (region 2)
- Finally, we’ve added fresh stock of several of the popular uncensored hentai DVDs we stock in our San Diego office — check these great titles out.
J-List carries videos magazines and other items featuring the lovely Yulia Nova, the famous Russian nude model who has become a sensation in Japan and outside of Japan as well. While we’ve been asked to remove interior scans of magazines featuring Yulia by the photographer, Mr. Kizu, who objects to unauthorized posting of Yulia’s images by fans, we do have many of excellent Yulia items in stock, including several issues of Bachelor with her prominently featured. Also, we do have both of the Yulia limited edition post card sets in stock, although they don’t appear on the website. If you’re interested in buying them, please email us.
Remember that J-List’s DVD sale is going on now — buy any 4 or more DVDs and get 15% off. Since this applies to of the over 700 DVD titles we stock for you, we know you’ll be able to find some great titles to buy. Check through our extensive selection now! Also, don’t forget our $1 shipping sale on T-shirts — but the month of April is almost half over, so hurry!
