Hello again from Japan, where it’s considered good manners to turn your car’s headlights off while waiting at a stoplight, to avoid shining your lights in the eyes of the driver across the intersection from you.
I often look back on my years of teaching English as a Second Language to Japanese students with fondness. Besides being a good way to interact with a lot of pretty, nubile Japanese girls, teaching ESL allowed me to learn my own language in ways I’d never expected. If you’ve never had to explain the “why?” behind the meaning of two-word verbs — work out, take in, speak out, etc. As a native speaker, I know when something is right or wrong, but as a teacher, it’s important to be able to present the rules of English to your students in a clear manner. I remember trying to explain the nuance between “another” and “other” and being stumped for weeks.
The English version of Princess Mononoke is still running in Japanese theaters. I saw an interesting show about the making of the English version — about the fights between the Japanese and American staff when it came to make any changes from the original script as Miyazaki-san wrote it. For example, there’s one scene where Ashitaka silently cuts his hair and moves for the door — to Japanese viewers, this is a gesture that he’s going on a long journey from which he won’t be returning. Since American viewers might not understand this back story, the U.S. release includes dialogue from a character that has his back to the viewers, allowing the meaning of this act to be explained. They compared the theatrical trailer that Miramax released for the film — featuring mostly fast action battle scenes and music — with the film trailer released in France. The French version featured slow, dramatic scenes, and wasn’t viewed as an action movie. The film did much better in France than in the U.S.
For tonight’s update, we’ve got some nice items, including:
- Great new magazines, including the excellent new issues of Beppin School and Gokuh
- For fans of “indies” (independent AV), a great dual Video CD & magazine combo — MPEG Cyber Indie’s — with nearly 2 hours of cool indie AV footage and an all-color magazine
- A fantastic selection of new hentai game artbooks, including the excellent CG graphics of Yuhei & Girl in a Box, and Viper GTB (see these on the hentai manga page)
- New dojinshi (dojinshi page)
- A selection of new in-stock videos including Kano Mizuho, the lovely Kojima Kaori’s Home Teacher video, a new “Rich Wife” (Kifujin) video, Kanazawa Bunko’s Contrary Soap, and more
- A wonderful new DVD featuring the lovely Miwa Haruna
- Some new toy items on the anime & toys page, including another copy of the hard-to-find Bruce Lee figurine phone strap/key holder
While J-List will continue to post items on eBay, we are proud of the very special place we’ve built — a unique pleace where people who love cool stuff from Japan can find something fun, from rare magazines to manga to wacky Japanese T-shirts and only-from-Japan bizarre things for adults. So you have our promise that although we might post some items on eBay — especially items that we have a good supply of — the best place to browse the rare and unique items we have will always J-List. Thanks for your support!
That’s tonight’s update — see you on the web!
