One concept I’m interested in is the “80-20 rule,” also known as law of the vital few or the Pareto principle, which describes the tendency for 80% of a thing (land owned in Italy at the turn of the 20th century, points scored by football players, sales of hentai products through J-List’s website) to be owned/enabled by 20% of the participants. I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that 80% of the money made in the anime industry flowed to 20% of popular series, leaving the majority to languish financially. So to help out the hardworking staff at these studios, I always do my best to introduce less well-known shows on the J-List site, as well as popular titles.
One such series is Action Heroine Cheer Fruits, a cute show about girls living in a rural town who form an unofficial sentai (fighting hero) team to promote their town. As with all such trope-heavy shows, it’s fun to try to guess what kinds of characters will show up, and I knew instinctively that a rich girl with blonde hair would be introduced before she appeared in the episode. Shows that seek to promote the benefits of rural life in Japan are quite common these days, and I actually had to check and make sure this series wasn’t made by P.A. Works (it’s by Diomedéa), since they’ve come to specialize in these stories. Anyway, if you’re a fan of sentai battles and cute characters, I hope you give Action Heroine Cheer Fruits a try!
I’ve been enjoying having two J-List employees here in San Diego, taking them around for sightseeing and eating. One thing that’s popular in Japan is called B級グルメ or B-grade gourmet, which refers to everyday foods like ramen, soba noodles, curry or katsu (fried pork cutlet) served over rice, which have kind of become the soul food of modern Japan. I wanted to find this kind of “American comfort food” in San Diego, so I brought them to places like Anny’s Fine Burgers near our San Diego office, Rudford’s Restaurant, a diner that’s been open for 70 years with very few changes, plus the Corvette Diner 50s style restaurant, always fun to bring Japanese visitors to. Mark these places down and visit next time you’re in San Diego!
Great news: all the new anime magazines are in stock on the site, including the new Megami Magazine, loaded with free posters and other goodies for fans. See our blog post about the gorgeous Megami posters, or browse all the magazines here.
