Hello again from Japan, where having kids means never getting to take a bath by yourself.
Tomorrow is a big day for many of the Japanese gaijin community, the annual Macworld Expo in Tokyo, a day to head out to Tokyo Big Sight and see the new Luxo Jr. iMacs and whatever Apple will have for us. For many of my friends, it’s an excuse to spend a night on the town in Tokyo, bouncing from bar to bar in Shibuya and Roppingi, and this year will be no different. For whatever reason, frozen margueritas are impossible to find in Japan, however the T.G.I. Friday’s in Shibuya has some frosty ones.
Japan has had a decade of bad economic news, with no less than three separate recessions during the ten years I’ve lived here. As bad times continue, a more or less “official theme song” for the Japanese recession has emerged — “Ashita ga aru sa” (There’s always a tomorrow) by Kyu Sakamoto, the talented singer who also sang the famous Sukiyaki Song. A happy, uplifting song about keeping your chin up so you can enjoy the happier days ahead, it’s found its way into numerous TV commercials and is played on the radio quite a lot here. You can hear the song and see a picture of Sakamoto at this site: http://www.manasepro.co.jp/kyu/tomorrow.html . See the lyrics, in romaji (roman character) and Japanese, at http://www.japankiku.com/lyrics/Ashita_ga_aru_sa.html . Sakamoto was killed in the most famous plane crash of Gunma Prefecture, where J-List is based — it was one of the only ones, too, as there are no airports anywhere in our prefecture.
The uncommonly warm days have done their work on Japan, and the millions of cherry trees around the country have officially started their blooming for which they’re famous — the season of the sakura has once again come to Japan. Sakura season is very short, usually about a week, and during that time Japanese make any excuse possible to go to a park with cherry trees and engage in “hanami” or “flower viewing” to enjoy the beauty of the sakura before their fleeting existence is over. We’ll be holding our annual J-List flower viewing, as we always do.
For the middle-of-the-week update, we’ve got some great new items for you, including:
- First, we’ve got new magazines, including the great new Urecco (filled with tons of positively beautiful women), as well as some popular amateur magazines for your enjoyment
- If you like value, enjoy the new DVD Perfect Guide, which brings you a whopping 3 video CDs of MPEG “quickies” spanning a great range of amateur and professional adult video from Japan
- We’ve got some great photobooks for you, including the hardcover and light bondage photobook of Minami Kurihara, and more
- We’ve got a great update of erotic hentai manga for you, including some dynamite works by Action Comics, Toen Comics, Hot Milk Comics and more — check out the very nice items we’ve added for you
- We’ve also restocked several volumes of the popular Paradise Lost, the excellent “doujinshi anthology manga’ which compile the best Evangelion adult parody doujinshi in a keep-forever manga volume
- Also: Trans 3, a “hard boy’s love adult comic anthology” for yaoi fans
- For fans of Japan’s very special erotic DVDs, we’ve got some nice items for you, starting off with a fantastic new Maiko Kazano erotic soft porn presentation from Bauhaus
- There’s a great new “No Cut!!” series DVD, featuring a massive 180 minutes (3 hours) and three complete video productions for a great low price
- For fans of the high fetish Milky Stop M’s Video Group, we have a very rare bukkake video offering
- We’ve got a great 2-in-1 Tekoki Series Special featuring dynamite Japanese hand-job fetish material
- Tomo has restocked several popular DVD titles, including our popular Anna Ohura DVDs and erotic Adult Video Wrestling DVD that has been such a hit
- Also, look for reduced prices on many DVDs and videos, and with included free shipping, too!
- We have many great Japanese candy and snack items in stock, including Good Stone Choco (a chocolate snack that looks like stones), Jersey Milk milk-flavored hard candy, and the limited edition Kit Kat Orange flavor from Nestle
- Also, fresh stock of the Green Tea hard candy and chocolate covered sunflower seeds (which are really good!)
- We’ve seen a lot of interest in our Tomica Japanese mini-car toys, so we’ve posted some more: the Toyota Celsior (sold as Lexus 400 in the US), the Prius, and the Hilux Surf, all very cool
- Japan is very big on cute hamsters, and we’ve got some cool items for you, including hamster message stamps that say “Konnnichi wa” in hiragana, a Hamutaro “free note” (meaning a notebook that you can do anything you like with), and a deluxe stuffed Hamutaro stuffed toy complete with sunflower seed in his little hands
- One of the most popular items in our history has been the Hamster Club bento boxes, but we keep selling out of them whenever we get some in — well, we’ve got 20 in stock now, so they should last a little while
- We’ve got fresh stock of some “kawaii” (cute) items, including Hello Kitty mayonnaise cups (which you can use as contact lens cases if you’re so inclined), more Hello Kitty toilet paper, and more!
- If you want to add a touch of Japanese to your room or house, we’ve got some nice Japanese signs and message boards for you, some of which are very wacky
- Finally, look for other fun items, including a marijuana wristband (“good fit!”), fresh stock of some great tools to help you study Japanese, new health and fun items, and much more!
Remember that J-List carries many fun items from Japan. One of the most fastest sellers in recent memory has been the Hello Kitty Vibrators, long rumored and thought to be an urband legend, but made by Sanrio for limited distribution in Japan. We’ve got about 100 in stock right now, so check this cool item out — makes a unique and thoughtful gift, too.
