Greetings again from a very humid Japan!
The Japanese recession continues, but some parts of the Japanese economy are still doing well. House construction is up, for example, as people take advantage of the “0% interest” strategy the government has pushed for the past two years, making the real rate about 1.9% (before you ask, no, we can’t arrange a Japanese loan for anyone ^_^). Cars are also selling well. This year’s selling cars are Toyota Corolla, Honda’s new “Fit” (a very small, cute car for women to drive), Honda’s Step WGN (pronounced “step wagon”), and Toyota Estima (Toyota’s “ingenious egg” according to their commercials). Sales of foreign cars are also up, with Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz and BMW being the major beneficiaries. Volkswagen leads the foreign car market here, with 14% of the foreign market.
Well, the existence of God has been proven once and for all: we have an actual Starbucks in Gunma Prefecture. It opened at the single most metropolitan spot in our fair prefecture of 2 million, inside the train station of Takasaki, the largest city in Gunma. We’d love to go enjoy a frosty Frapachino some time, but unfortunately, everyone else in Gunma has the same idea, and you can’t get into the place without waiting 45 minutes or more.
We continue to limp along without our air conditioner, hoping it will be fixed soon. Meanwhile, summer is always an interesting time to be in Japan, mainly to enjoy the “usugi” or thin, revealing clothes that girls wear. This year’s fashions includes bras that use clear plastic for the shoulder straps, making them appear “invisible.” The effect is rather nice.
For this evening’s update, we’ve got some excellent items for you, including:
- First of all, we’ve got several great new magazines for you, including the lovely new issue of Dela Beppin, a new issue of Haay Gachinko Musume, and more!
- For photobook fans, see the wonderful hardcover photobook of Hitomi Hayasaki, and more
- For hentai magazine fans who like the popular magazines we carry, we’ve got several in-stock issues of Bug Bug and E-Login for you, and all issues come with a demo CD-ROM inside
- If you love Japan’s erotic manga, we’ve got some great new products for you, with super new manga by Mujin Comics, Hit Comics, Angel Comics, and more — also, fresh stock of many sold out books, including the runaway bestseller Puri Puri Mermaid
- Also: we’ve got doujinshi! We’ve posted over two dozen nice doujinshi for doujinshi fans, so check out the new items, as these single issues will go fast
- For Japanese adult video and leg fans, check out the new Mini-Skirt Street, a fun video featuring three lovely, leggy Japanese women and high heels
- For DVD fans, some nice new items, including the lovely erotic performance of Kaori Shimamura, as well as a super Zamen Gokkun Best Selection DVD from Soft on Demand, for bukkake lovers; for those with region-free DVD players, a dynamite erotic DVD featuring Aoi Minori
- We’ve also gotten fresh stock of many of our popular adult DVD titles, including Mai Hagiwara’s “The Secret of Mirukuru,” Emily Yoshikawa’s “Poison,” and the very cool Kuki 20th Anniversary sampler DVD titles
- If you love Japan’s colorful anime magazines, we’ve got some issues of Animage from a couple of months ago, complete with all posters inside
- For fans of the Ultraman TV characters, we’ve got one more box of the very cool Ultraman Hero cards
- We’ve got a new flavor of delicious Xylitol gum, a sugarless gum that tastes great (Kaori especially recommends it)
- If you love the delicious snacks from Japan, see our snacks page: we’ve got fresh stock of Pocky, the original chocolate covered pretzel, and Toppo, a delicious baked chocolate snack
- If you love bizarre messages in Japanese, we’ve got several nice items for you, including fresh stock of a popular Japanese headband, new “Looking for a beautiful woman” stickers, and the totally insane Buddha Man (so stupid, he’s cool!) — see these on the headbands and stickers page
- Finally, for fans of things with funny English on them, we’ve got a handy little spiral notebook with insane English printed on the front, as well as a nifty train map of Japan showing all train routes, and more!
