Hello, and “happy weekend” from Japan and J-List!
One thing I’ve noticed about Japanese, especially Japanese in Gunma Prefecture, which is a rural prefecture right in the center of Japan (population 2 million), is that they tend not to move. Aside from moving because of changes in jobs, Japanese tend to stay where they are. This creates some interesting differences, when compared with the U.S. In San Diego, there are different “levels” of neighborhoods, depending on the age and income of the people who live there. Poor college students will live in one area of the city, then move to a slightly nicer area when they start to work, move up again when they buy their first house, and so on. But in Japan, where people rarely move and almost never want to give up land they own, you find newly rebuilt houses next to much older homes and even some run-down shacks.
My mother has spent some months adding on to the house in San Diego, and it’s been interesting to observe some differences between the US and Japan, too. In Japan, when you have workmen working for you, you’re required by unwritten custom to bring them something to drink (coffee, green tea) at 10 am and 3 pm. After all, they’re working hard, and you want to keep goodwill between the workmen who are building your house. Of course, they don’t have any Shinto groundbreaking rites in the U.S. either — when we built the J-List office, for example, we had a Shinto priest come out and consecrate the ground in an interesting ceremony to bring good luck.
Our “top 5” has been updated for the past week. Peach Princess’s premier release, X-Change, is selling very well!
For this evening’s update of cool stuff from Japan, we’ve got some really cool items, including:
- First, killer new issues of Japanese magazines, including the new Bejean (features Fukada Miho and more!), the excellent new Gal’s Shower, and a great new issue of Waffle (which should go fast)
- For photobook lovers, we’ve got several excellent all-new hard- and soft-cover books for you, as well as fresh stock of some old favorites
- We’ve got more $5 magazine for bargain hunters, on magazine page 3
- If you love Japan’s erotic S&M photography, we really recommend Bondage 17, which features 17 fantastic Japanese ladies in exotic and erotic poses — includes Hosho Nana, Shimizu Kaori, Inoue Chihiro and more!
- For leg lovers, we’ve got a killer new item — Panst Best, a Photoshot-format glossy photobook-magazine with great and erotic images inside
- Fans of AV sampler products should check out fresh stock of DVD & Video CD Soft Catalog, on the magazine and CD-ROM pages
- For hentai fans, the new issue of Tech Giant, a fantastic gem of a magazine that includes a CD-ROM with demos and game images
- We’ve got some great all-new erotic manga posted for you, including “Rugged Relation,” an interesting title from Hit Comics — also, fresh stock of some popular manga volumes on the Bestsellers page
- Also for manga fans, we’ve refreshed our stock of the excellent Lunatic Party and Paradise Lost series, from Fusion Product — however, the stock we have now will likely be our last, so complete your collection of these excellent Sailor Moon and Evangelion parody dojinshi anthologies soon
- For yaoi fans, we’ve got a nice new title posted for you
- For DVD collectors, two excellent items: the very lovely Kawamura Risa’s Bondage DX, a Race Queen/S&M exploration; and Big Morkal’s DVD Anthology, with an amazing *3 hours* of footage featuring *124* lovely AV actresses, for just $20
- For SOD lovers, a fresh new twist on the Stark Nakedness Sports series: the All Nude Challenger series, where 108 all-nude Japanese girls compete in various sports for cash. Features nude bicycle tricks, nude 100 meter dash, and trying to see how many nude Japanese girls can fit into a phone booth
- If you love 90’s AV, you must love Iijima Ai, an elegant woman who helped make the AV world what it is today. We’ve got a great title from her glory days!
- I love anime, and one of my first loves was Yamato, aka Star Blazers. We’ve got fresh stock of the very cool die-cast Yamato toys, including the Andromeda, on the anime toys page
- We’ve restocked our Wacky Things in Japan page with several items, including the very popular Japanese “kairo” warming pads, and more
- For Japanese snack & food fans, some all-new items: a new flavor of furikake (wasabi flavored, for those who love wasabi), a great curry powder that helps you make curry fried rice easily, and a favorite of mine, Japanese “sauce” (that’s it’s name, just “sauce”), a delicious thick sauce that goes with many foods (but not, IMHO, eggs)
- We’ve got a new silly Japanese sticker — “No drunks allowed”
- Finally, newly posted items on our Wacky Things from Japan page include an authentic Japanese bento box, buddhist incense and special gold sand (to stand your incense up with), and something really cool: Japanese “noren” door curtains, to add a touch of Japanese color to any room.
Remember that J-List has a great assortment of interesting and bizarre gum from Japan, from the runaway best-selling gum Black Black (per number of units, the best-selling single product in J-List’s hitory) to refreshing Green Gum (to give you the “freshness of the forest”), exotic fruit flavored gum like La France and Pepino, and more. Check out the Japanese Gum page now!
