Hello again from Japan, where you never stand your chopsticks straight up in rice (only dead people do this).
In Japan, as is well known, you take off your shoes before entering a house. The foyer of Japanese houses have a recessed floor area where you can leave your shoes, or put them in a “geta-bako” or shoes-box, to store them. For gaijin living in Japan, having to take your shoes off and put them on again means you learn to wear “Japan-friendly” shoes pretty quickly — no more tightly laced high-top basketball shoes. It’s just one more little thing about living in Japan.
A major path to business success seems to be, watch what successful companies do in the U.S., then do it in Japan before they can get over here. In America, eBay may be on top of the hill when it comes to online auctions, but in Japan it’s Yahoo, and Yahoo’s Japanese auction site is so successful that last month, eBay officially ended their attempts at making a Japanese version of itself. Pizza Hut is another similar success story. After observing the paradigm shift from eating pizza in restaurants to having it delivered, Pizza Hut copied the Domino’s strategy in Japan, opening hundreds of franchises and delivering pizza in 30 minutes or less. Pizza Hut (whose motto is “Dynamic and Speedy” by the way) has a strong presence all over Japan, but Dominoes is only available in a few cities.
We’re pleased with the reaction we’ve had to the very unique Daki-Makura (“Hug Pillows”), the huge huggable pillows featuring famous characters from Tohru Nishimaki’s Blue Eyes mangas, in larger than life versions so you can feel like the characters are right there in the room with you. We wanted to make one comment about the price — at $160 and $205 for the medium and large size pillows, they aren’t cheap. These are a rare and highly collectible item from Japan that are impossible to get outside of Japan, and they’re very expensive inside Japan, too (when you can find them at all). Feedback and requests on our new Daki-Makura page is much appreciated.
J-List strives to bring Japan and Japanese pop culture in all its forms to our customers, we’ve decided to start carrying Japanese film on DVD. Although it’s a very small country, Japanese film has had a very strong influence on the rest of the world. Since there are many Japanese film that are released here in Japan but are not available outside of Japan, we feel it’s our duty to make these products available. See our first titles on the newly renamed Japanese Film & Anime DVD page, with some nice titles selected by our resident movie freak, Tomo.
For the new update, we’ve got some excellent new items for you, including:
- First, several nice new magazines, including the new issue of Urecco, filled to the gills with beautiful girls for you
- For classic adult magazine fans, we’ve got two issues of the venerable Boys, from the mid and early 1990’s (see magazine page 2)
- We’ve also got some dynamite photobooks for you, including the dynamite Manatsu Hirose’s very revealing nude photobook, new leg fetish books, and more
- Also fresh stock of our photobooks, including Maiko Kazano’s dynamite “Memories”
- For fans of the positively lovely G-Taste hentai and leg fetish art books by Hiroki Yagami, we’ve got G-Taste 5, an extra-thick and extra-lovely illustration book for you
- We’ve also got a grand update for manga fans, with excellent new hentai comics by Japan’s best artists and publishing houses, as well as another large update of previously out of stock items for you
- Also for manga and doujinshi lovers alike, a new “doujinshi anthology” in keep-forever book form containing the best hentai parody of Chobits, the new manga (and anime) by CLAMP
- For fans of Japan’s unique homosexual comics, enjoy another update to our yaoi page, with many of the often-requested b-Boy Zips series books in stock
- For Japanese erotic DVD fans, we’ve got another huge volley of items for you, starting with your virtual live-in girlfriend, Minami Asaoka, who wants to play house with you (region free)
- SOD has a new “Best Selection” DVD for you, featuring the best “horse riding style” sex (i.e., girl on top) with many lovely stars (region free)
- For fans of Ai Nagase, enjoy the new Ai Nagase Remix, featuring some of her best hardcore performances (region free)
- J-List also stocks many nice soft porn DVDs, and we’ve got a brand new Sara Shimada sexy nude DVD, along with a final restock of the out-of-print Maiko Kazano “Pure Heart” (region free)
- For lovers of the very strong bukkake erotica of the famous Milky Cat, we’ve got new video offerings for you that are not to be missed
- As mentioned above, we’ve got three very nice selections of quality Japanese film on DVD, with English subtitles!
- We love beautiful Japanese girls, and the beautiful Aimi Nakamura really shines in her sexy idol DVD that we highly recommend
- For Gundam fans, a really fun item: Gundam robots that really walk, through an advanced battery and cold capacitor
- We have some beautiful Japanese figures for you, including a new one based on Dark Angel by Kia Asamiya, and more
- Also, a dynamite series of Lupin III talking figures, and something very cool for fans of the American comic book hero Spiderman
- We’ve got some nice newly posted snack and food items, including delicious yogurt “soft candy” with gummi inside, a tasty traditional Japanese hard candy, and new furikake!
- Also, a major restocking of older items, including sake candy (one of the longest-selling single products in our history), plum hard candy, new caffeine-laced coffee candy, and the last stock of Green Tea Pocky before summer
- Also: fresh stock of the so-fun-to-eat “Fruit of the Bubble” bubblegum by Lotte
- We’ve got some cute items for you, including a Doraemon Pachinko toy and a super bathroom item for fans of Hello Kitty looking for something really special
- Finally, look for a great items for people on the go, more popular Japanese hot springs bath powder, very nice “wet” ear swabs with alcohol on them, to clean your ears or any other surface well, and more!
Spring has come to Japan, and after Spring comes summer. Summer in Japan is hot and humid, and in addition to causing much general discomfort, it also causes chocolate snacks like Pocky to melt and become very difficult to eat. Since we won’t be ordering any more Pocky until the end of Summer, you should order what you want now before it disappears.
Another “just to cool to not pass along to everyone” item, I found an interesting page exploring the inspirations for the Star Wars universe. The URL is www.jitterbug/com/origins/
