Greetings from J-List, your friends in Japan!
Well, Valentine’s Day is right around the corner. If you’ve watched much anime at all, you may know that Valentine’s Day works a little differently in Japan than in the rest of the world. Here, girls give chocolate to the men in their lives, be it husbands, fathers, boyfriends or potential versions of the latter. The stores positively overflow with all kinds of chocolate-related products, ranging from beautiful packages to little trinkets for, say, the men in the office that women don’t really like (this chocolate that you must give even though you don’t want to is called “giri choco” or “obligation chocolate”). You can get more than just chocolate for Valentine’s Day though — this year, heart-shaped tofu and heart-shaped rice crackers with messages written in them with soy sauce. Men who receive gifts from women must return the favor on March 14, “White Day,” a completely artificial day in which white chocolate is given back to females.
Japan is a nice place, but living here is probably not for everyone. For one thing, it’s earthquake country, and small to medium sized quakes are not uncommon at all. Last night, northern Kanto received a pretty sizable jolt, a “3” on the Japanese scale of Earthquakes (around a 4 on the Richter Scale) which caused no damage but caused my Star Wars figures to fall over (there was a disturbance in the Force, ha-ha). Coming from California as I did, it wasn’t too hard to get used to the quakes in Japan, but those from places that aren’t used to earthquakes might be a little nervous here.
April 1 is only a few weeks away, and in Japan, that means one thing: road construction. Japan’s fiscal year ends on March 31st, and as in the U.S., government bodies that have money left in their budgets have to give it back at the end of that time. Since in Japan, the construction industry is roughly equivalent to the military in the U.S. in terms of its occasional use as a means of spurring the economy, every road construction company in Japan is tearing up some road somewhere around this time of year. Usually this is just a pain in the neck — it means that everywhere you go, you can expect road crews to be doing construction on a perfectly good road — but this year is different. The road we use to get to J-List is a narrow dirt-and-gravel road that becomes a quagmire of mud during Rainy Season, but finally, the road has been upgraded to “asphalt status.” The road crew will be paving the road this week. The downside is that we can’t get into the J-List parking lot…
We’ve been making some improvements to the J-List site. First of all, you can now use Booleans like “or” and “and” to search the J-List site. Search for “aika or bunko” if you want to find all products with either Aika Miura or Bunko Kanazawa in them. To find only products with both girls, search for “aika and bunko.” The default is the same as it always was (“and”) so searching for ” aika miura dvd” will still bring up a list of Aika Miura’s DVDs. Because we’ve been fiddling around under the hood, please let us know if you experience any problems with the J-List site in any way, especially when trying to check out after a purchase. As always, feel free to use the secure email form at https://www.jastusa.com/Merchant2/contact.mv? if you have a problem with the site.
For the mid-week update, we’ve got another volley of nice items for you, including:
- For magazine fans, we’ve got some nice ones, including the new Urecco Gal (filled with lovely kogals for you), as well as a special Beppin School that we’re posting at a big discount as in past months
- For photobook lovers, we’ve got the lovely photobook of Aki Osawa back in stock (for now)
- If you like Japan’s erotic leg fetish items, be sure and see Rina Kurihara’s very erotic photobook “Premium,” featuring Race Queen, nurse, bus guide and other leggy fetish cosplay
- For bondage and female domination fans, see Sniper EVE, a “mistress culture magazine for adults”
- For manga collectors, we’ve got some beautiful new volumes for you, including new works by Hiyo Hiyo, one of the most incredible hentai artists in Japan today (includes tentacle sex themes)
- Also: a major restock of some of our most popular adult manga titles, including Blue Eyes, Alice First, the popular Explosive Breast Newscaster Anzai-san and more
- For fans of the hentai works of Yui Toshiki, the excellent creator of Yui Shop, we’ve got fresh stock of the Yui Shop CD-ROM, for Mac and Windows, and it works great in English Windows or Mac OS
- We’ve got lots of great DVD items for you, including the very erotic new Do Lesbian! in which Mei Sawaga and Rumiko Hasegawa don “penis bands” (strap on dildos that look like real penises) and pretend to be men (region free)
- The Japanese know their fetishes, and they also know that nothing feels quite like flannel pajamas against your nude body — and now there are two “Private Sex of Pajama Play” DVDs for your enjoyment (region free)
- For indies lovers and fans of the lovely Maria Yumeno, see the new “Face” release from Audaz, filled with superb erotica starring this lovely, busty lady (VHS)
- For those with region 2 DVD viewing capabilities, a special item — the Best of Uchu Kikaku, a super *4 hour* (240 minute) compilation of their best AV titles (region 2)
- Thanks to Tomo, fresh stock of some top-selling DVD titles, including Semen Paradise 2 and All About Ai Nagase
- Also, we’ve got a nice restock of many of the popular Deep Kiss lesbian kissing video titles from Soft on Demand, which have been best-sellers for more than two years
- Finally, in San Diego, we’ve restocked several of the popular Pure Beauties softcore DVD titles for you
- Japan is known for many things, and delightful Japanese swimsuit idols are one of them. One of the top idols in Japan right now is the sweet and charming Yuko Ogura, and we’ve got her dynamite idol DVD (region 2)
- For fans of our new deluxe “cold cast” anime statues which we’re trying to bring to you, we’ve got a beautiful 1/6 scale “completed model” of Kaolla Su, an incredibly detailed recreation of the brown-skinned girl from Love Hina
- On our anime & toys page, we’ve got other cool items, including a Japan-only Hot Wheels release of the Delorean from Back to the Future (totally cool) and a deluxe Bruce Lee figure, phone strap and keychain set
- By customer request, we’ve made the beautiful Captain Harlock Leiji Matsumoto figure set available in full sets, so you can get all the figures at once
- Look for interesting new traditional items from Japan, including a sake/tea cup with coaster and a very nice bento box used to serve food to guests
- We’ve got a rare “retro Hello Kitty” mascot with chocolate snack that is too cool to believe (stock is limited, we’ll order more soon)
- We have stock of two series of cute bishoujo and anime trading cards, which are very cool indeed
- Also, a rare item indeed, a phone strap/keychain/camera strap featuring characters from Shusaku, the famous bishoujo/hentai game and anime from Elf
- On our snacks & food page, we’ve got fresh stock Sakuma Drops hard candy, and a great new item, Japanese green tea (matcha) candy!
- Finally, look for other cool items, including new “non-cute” bento boxes, authentic Japanese “fude-pens” which are pens that write like beautiful calligraphy brushes, a deluxe world map from Japan, with Japan right in the center, and a great way to boil eggs!
Remember that J-List carries many interesting and delicious kinds of Japanese chewing gum, including major varieties from Lotte. The most popular is by far Black Black, the spicy caffeine gum that’s never failed to amaze us with the speed with which it sells out every day. Other popular flavors are Blue Berry, Ume, La France (that’s French for “pear”), Coffee and Lemon Tea.
