Greetings again from that magical place on the other side of the sea, Japan!
When Western couples are going to have a baby, they might consult a book of names, which presents a list of possible names for boys and girls along with background on each, what the etymology of each name is, and so on. Japanese have similar books, but it’s a bit more complicated, as there are “lucky” and “unlucky” names depending on which kanji you choose for the names. My son was to be named Kazuma, which is “kazu” (peace) and “ma” (horse), but my wife consulted a Buddhist priest, who warned us that names with animal kanji in them were bad luck and would result in an unhappy life for the child. So we changed it to Kazuki, which is “kazu” (peace) and “ki” (tree), which is much luckier. The number of strokes in a name is also important in Japan. When we named our daughter Rina, we chose the name partially because it has the exact same number of strokes as my wife’s name, another lucky sign. (To see the characters for “Kazuma” and “Kazuki,” see this link: http://www.jlist.com/kazuki.jpg) Incidentally, the Western custom of naming a son after the father is never done in Japan (except for Lupin III, who is really half-French, half-Japanese, so he doesn’t count).
Another belief system that holds sway in Japan is feng shui, a Chinese system that states that there are certain types of energy that can be harnessed in the way buildings are placed, and in the way objects are laid out in a room. Certain layouts, for example, just seem to “flow” better according to the feng shui system, allowing energy to circulate around the room and move freely, which brings good lines of energy into your life. The layout of the city of Hong Kong is organized along feng shui rules. Colors are also important, and certain colors are associated with money, love and good fortune.
For today’s update, we’ve got another major volley of products for your enjoyment, including:
- First, we’ve got some great new magazines, including the new Gal’s Dee, filled with lovely girls who are all size “D” cup or larger, and the two new issues of Penthouse Japan and Penthouse Special, both with many surprises
- For fans of the lovely Fuuka Sakurai, enjoy a special all-Fuuka magazine published by Karami
- We’ve got another volley of our popular discount magazines for you, with magazines from $5. Also, another low-priced (slightly damaged) issue of Beppin School for you!
- For photobook lovers, we’ve got a large volley of “back from the dead” items for you, which were out of stock but were really sleeping in our stock room — it’s an excellent chance to get some items that will not be available again, and at excellent prices
- A killer new photobook is Ai Nagase’s delightful hardcover offering, “Sentimental Journey” (we’ll probably sell out of this item quickly, but more are already on order)
- For leg lovers, see the very erotic Scoop! which features leg, stocking and “low-angle fetish”
- We’ve got fresh stock of the very nice Yellows 1.0 and 2.0 photobooks
- If you love Japan’s unique bishoujo love simulation games, we’ve got a cool art book for you — fresh stock of the excellent X-Change 2 and Tokimeki Check in! art works book
- For manga lovers, see some excellent new works for you, including popular tentacle sex & dick girl themes
- Also: a major restock of some of the most popular books we’ve ever sold, with works by
- For doujinshi, even more all-new hentai works from Ryu-seki-do and more
- We have fresh stock of some of the b-Boy Zips yaoi manga for yaoi fans
- We have another large volley of AV videos and DVDs for you from Japan’s interesting “indies” world. From Waap, we’ve got an all-new performance by the lovely Aika Miura, followed by a “Chijo” (slut) performance by the unforgettable Mirai Hoshizaki
- From Moodyz we have a very nice erotic performance by Bunko Kanazawa (includes tickling fetish) and a very new “lewd sisters” offering featuring the lovely Nao Hirosue
- We have several excellent items from Soft on Demand, including the very erotic Nanami Nanase in “Three Sisters who Love Semen,” Miho Fukada as an ultra-high class “soap girl,” a great bust fetish DVD with Hitomi Matsuda, and the conclusion to the best-selling “Rape Samurai”
- From the excellent Wanz Factory, we have a new bust fetish offerings by Chihiro Inoue and Maria Yumeno, and the only region free DVD Wanz Factory has released, a killer Bunko Kanazawa cosplay erotic fantasy
- Finally, we’ve got a great hentai anime DVD for fans of the romantic hentai manga artist Yutaka Tanaka
- If you love Ah My Goddess, you might be happy to hear that the Kodansha Bilingual Comics have come out — we’ve got good stock of volumes 1-3 on our site now
- For fans of very cute things from Japan, we have these cute little Ultraman toys from Tinibiz, and useful “sandwich box” and more bento boxes for Hamster Club collectors
- Mayumi has been working very hard to bring more “wacky” items to J-List, and we’ve restocked many popular Hello Kitty items, everything from toilet paper to Kitty-chan travel cases and more
- If you love traditional Japanese items, we’ve got elegant new chopsticks, a beautiful folding fan, and an odd traditional Japanese sweet that’s admittedly only for the brave
- We have a new extra-large size of Hi-Chew on our Japanese snacks page, in Green Apple and Strawberry flavors
- For fans of the popular anime show Love Hina, we’ve got limited stock of a VERY nice soft vinyl figure series that you simply must see
- Finally, see many very rare and useful items for you, like fresh stock of the very popular Japanse warming pads, more fun maps of areas of Japan, a cute velvet dog keychain, more Japanese days-of-the-week magnets, and onsen (hot springs) powder for your bath!
Remember that J-List is having two sales right now, a big doujinshi sale (which is really a buy-5-doujinshi-get-$20-off sale), and a free-shipping sale on all bishoujo game and hentai CG collection CD-ROMs. Why not take advantage of these sales and save some money, too?
The J-Mate site has been updated with a great interview with one of the queens of Japanese AV today, Aika Miura, allowing you to see inside this woman’s head and learn about the adult video world in Japan. It’s very interesting. We’ve also got reviews of Maiko Kazano’s lovely soft porn DVD, and the very shocking White Sexual Desire from SOD (links are posted from J-List’s product pages, too). The URL is http://www.jmate.com
Just in case you don’t know about the Onion, one of the main benefits of the Internet as far as I’m concerned, a parody newspaper which comes up with such jokes as “New 10-10-911 saves Emergency Victims up to 30%,” you should check it out. The URL is http://www.theonion.com/
