Greeting from all your friends in Japan!
All modern languages contain confusing and archaic elements of past languages, English not in the least. Japanese also has many interesting characteristics as a result of its history. The biggest change in the history of the Japanese language came with the introduction of kanji (Chinese characters), which entered the country along with Buddhism through Korea in the 6th century. Before this time, the mound-building civilization in Japan had no written language at all. As with the invasion of the French language into England in 1066, the introduction of kanji brought many changes. Because the Japanese already had Japanese words for the things around them, they shoehorned the kanji writing system into their own language, creating two ways to read each Chinese character, the original Chinese reading and a second Japanese reading — but many characters have several more readings, which can be very confusing. The result is that, although Japanese uses only about 2,000 characters compared with many more in Chinese, knowing how to pronounce a given word correctly can be a very inexact science, even for native speakers. Place names are especially bad — the only way to know for sure how to pronounce many place names correctly is to ask someone who lives there, and even then it seems there’ll be room for argument.
Part of the problem is that Japanese is a phonetically impoverished language, with only 46 syllables that can be used to express words. Often, words created with the normal kanji system have pronunciations that are identical due to phonetic accidents. For example, the words for “science” and “chemistry” are the same in Japanese (kagaku, although the characters used to write them are different), forcing people to laboriously explain which one they mean if there’s a chance the meaning won’t be clear from the context. Similarly, the characters for “public” and “private” have the same reading (shi), thus the words for “public school” and “private school” are exactly the same (shiritsu), despite the fact that the meanings are opposite. To get around points of confusion in cases like this, the Japanese use euphemisms, or sometimes import English words to take over one of the two confusing terms.
Late-night TV in Japan can be interesting, a repository for all kinds of television concepts that aren’t viable at other time slots. One kind of show that’s been popular in recent years are Asian music shows, usually coproduced between Japan and Hong Kong, which keep fans of other Asian music updated on what’s happening on the music scene in Korea, Taiwan and other countries in the region. Another thing that’s been popular lately are slightly low-budget anime series which couldn’t compete against major anime being shown at prime time, but have no problem finding a niche after hours. Late-night “variety” shows which feature cute bikini-clad swimsuit idols like the ones you can find on J-List are popular, and many of the “gravure” (French for “covergirl” we think) idols start their careers on shows like these. And then there are American infomercials, dubbed over in Japanese — yech. One thing that you won’t see very often is reruns. Although Japan produces tens of thousands of hours of interesting dramas, anime and documentaries each year, it’s rare to see a show rebroadcast once it’s been shown once. As the number of channels available through cable and satellite TV grows in Japan, perhaps this will change.
Some late-night TV shows are brashly sexual, like the now off-the-air Gilgamesh Night, one of the great sexy TV shows from the golden age of 1990’s AV and Japan’s answer to Benny Hill. Every week AV queen Ai Iijima and the busty Fumie Hosokawa hosted the show, which featured all kinds of sexy shenanigans like “mini-skirt sumo wrestling” (girls have to pull each others’ skirts off to win) and “get the diamond ring” (girls had to melt a phallically shaped piece of ice to get a diamond ring frozen inside, using only their mouths). There was an episode where Ai Iijima went to America and asked men “Kyonyu suki?” which sounds like “Can you ski?” in English but means “Do you like large breasts?” in Japanese. Then there was Yuki Hitomi’s famous cooking show in which she would wear only an apron and nothing else. The men on the show would ask her to get ingredients down from high shelves while the camera ogled her bare bottom. It was just a little too demeaning to the women, even for Japan, which is not always a bastion of political correctness. The show went off the air in a teary farewell episode on March 28, 1998. Now there are no “T and A” TV shows on the air in Japan at all.
For the new update, we have a great line-up of products from Japan for you, including:
- First, we’ve been very happy with the response from our Hello Kitty soft blankets from Japan. Now we’ve got another great item, two sizes of beautiful and soft My Neighbor Totoro blankets from Sun Arrow!
- For fans of charming swimsuit idols, enjoy the first photobook of Miri Nanazono, a wonderful Japanese girl
- We love wacky things from Japan, and now we’ve got a fun “hamburger eraser set” with hamburger, drink, and fries!
- We have another fine Japanese film on DVD for you, complete with English subtitles — Versus, an amazing film of combat and danger (region 2)
- We have some nice traditional items, including a great miso soup dish and plate set, beautiful i.Kotoba cotton bags that are great for carrying your bento, and more
- Also, fresh stock of several chopsticks for kids and adults, including the cute Hello Kitty chopstick set, a long-selling item
- For fans of Hayao Miyazaki’s films, we’ve got a rare and special item, a ceramic music box of the cat from “The Cat Returns” (also from If You Listen Closely)
- Also, a fantastically cute Totoro plush “ball” figure that’s fun to hold and play with, and incredibly cute, from Sun Arrow
- New only-available-in-Japan Hello Kitty items posted today include a new stylish Demitasse Cup and Saucer that’s fabulous, a Hello Kitty cake kit, funny Kitty chocolate, and more
- Also, a fantastic Hello Kitty doll that sings a great Hello Kitty song, which you won’t be able to get out of your head (we can’t)
- Restocked wacky items include more days of the week magnets in Japanese, more deluxe sake cups for drinking sake as a Japanese does, and cool umbrella covers (referred to as “umbrella condoms” by the gaijin community in Japan) used for covering a wet umbrella
- For Japanese snack fans, see a “secret flavor” of Hi-Chew, the delicious “chewing candy” from Japan, as well as fresh stock of furikake and miso soup, and more
- Finally, look for a super massage device for your back, neck and feet, a cute “wiener cutter” for bento fans, refreshing bath powder, a cute Sanrio Pom Pom Purin water bottle, and more!
For our adult customers, we’ve got many new 18+ products. These great items include:
- For bukkake fans, the bold new issue of Gal’s Shower, one of the most popular magazine items at J-List
- Enjoy love hotel sex and anal play in the new issue of Peach Hip Development, as well as E-Jan, a Photoshop-format photobook of amateur hardcore
- For fans of Japan’s highly developed S&M and bondage culture, enjoy the new MPEG Aido (Love Slave) club, which comes with two Video CDs, too
- For lovers of Japan’s leg and stocking fetish photography, we’ve got a new photobook in stock for you, starring two dynamite girls
- If you enjoy the hardcover photobooks of Japan, we’ve got several nice ones for you, including sexy actress Rieko Miura’s first nude photobook, the “Cuty and Sexy” photobook of Hitomi, age 19, and more!
- Also, fresh stock of Yuko Ogura’s excellent “Love Heart” photobook and new “Chinkame” small-format photobooks that are loads of fun
- We love the inflatable “love pillows” (Dutch Wives) featuring real Japanese AV stars, and we’ve restocked several, including Hitomi Hayasaka, Ai Kurosawa and more
- Also, enjoy fresh stock of some uniquely Japanese adult toys, including all sizes of the Japan Rotor (small and efficient egg-shaped vibrator), the popular Rabbit Rotor, and the Hello Kitty deluxe massager
- For hentai manga fans, enjoy excellent adult comics from Japan, including a superb new Peach Breast series from Chosuke Nagashima, an erotic anthology of maid fetish works, and more
- Also, fresh stock of popular hentai manga works, including top-notch works like Erotic Heart Mother, Gehenna, Free as a Bird, and the excellent “Electric Fighting Daughter” game-girl hentai series
- For DVD fans, enjoy many new offerings starting with the beautiful “underwater world” with the lovely Momoko Tabata, great for fans of the Japanese underwater swimming fetish (region free)
- Kurumi Morishita is an erotic “magical girl” in a new offering from Dogma that’s just great (region free)
- Ruri Anno is a self-confident and erotic AV idol from Soft on Demand, and she really shines in her new “Temptation of White Juice” DVD (region free)
- Ai Nagase is an erotic female teacher in a new production by SOD’s IEnergy label, very nice (region free)
- Enjoy two superb “Les Room” releases from Wanz Factory, with excellent performances by real amateur lesbians (region2)
- Then, we’ve got fresh stock of some excellent works, including busty Kimiko Matsuzaka’s “The Complete,” Ryoko Mitake’s “Crazy Love,” the long-selling Akira Fubuki Special (the *only* Akira Fubuki DVD release), Miho Fukuda’s No Cut, and more!
The J-Mate site has been updated again, with reviews of some great DVDs, including Ryoko Mitake’s beautiful “Prick” soft porn release, and the Japanese film Versus, a spectacular new work. Read recent interviews with top Japanese AV models including Bunko Kanazawa, Nao Oikawa and many more. The URL is http://www.jmate.com/
J-List sells many Japanese manga, fashion, pop culture, toy and hentai magazines by “reserve subscription,” allowing you to get the current issues of great magazines sent to you each month, until you ask us to stop. Why not browse our selection of great subscriptions and see if there are any you’d like to try out? You can cancel at any time, and as always, you don’t need a credit card to order (check or money order, postal money order, Paypal and cash are all acceptable).
