J-List has been selling Japanese calendars for 24 years, and they were literally one of the first hit products from Japan we started carrying when we started the company in October of 1996. Currently the 2021 anime, artist, and traditional Japan photo and art calendar season is underway, and J-List has dozens of amazing calendars for you to browse and preorder. Because COVID-19 has put pressure on a lot of industries, including the Japanese calendar industry, I thought I’d write a post giving information on what’s so special about these anime calendars, and how this year might differ from year’s past.
Anime Calendars from Japan are Gorgeous
One reason we love Japanese calendars is that they’re so darned huge, with giant pages that are A2 or A3 sized pages, which are huge poster-sized sheets printed on glossy paper that will look great all year long, and beyond, since some customers like to collect calendars into the future. Calendars are shipped separately inside protective tubes, and with speedy DHL shipping (to the U.S. and several countries in Asia) or EMS shipping (to Europe, Canada and a few other countries), it should arrive in excellent condition.
Note that there are other sizes of calendars. Some are desktop calendars, which are obviously much smaller and can be shipped with other traditional products in a box, allowing you to use the DHL 2 kg flat fee shipping, if applicable. Some calendars are large and flat, like the Kantoku calendar, too.
Japanese Calendars Feature Gorgeous Internal Art…But We Can’t Show It To You
In normal years we sometimes get requests from customers to show the internal pages inside the calendars, rather than just the covers. Unfortunately it’s impossible to do this this year, not least because we generally don’t have the calendars in stock yet (they’ll come in later in November), and also because of the difficulty of opening the calendars and photographing the pages. Instead, let’s look at past year’s calendars for example of the high quality art the anime studios have prepared for us in the past to get an idea of what’s inside the 2021 anime calendars.
A Lot of the Anime Calendar Covers on the Site are Temporary Place-Holders
Even in normal years, but much more so during the special circumstances of 2020, anime calendar makers have released calendars for preorders, but the covers (the only art we have to show you) are generic place-holders, rather than gorgeous original art similar to the posters you see in Megami Magazine and Newtype. Please trust that Japan’s calendar makers will not let you down with generic art, but will have amazing fresh art showing the characters you love in the final calendar.
The Most Popular Anime of 2020 Has a Calendar
One of the few good things to come out of 2020 has been Interspecies Reviewers, and we’re happy to reveal there’s an uncensored calendar for 2021 featuring all your favorite characters from the series. Find the Ishuzoku Reviewers 2021 calendar here.
We Stock Famous Artist Calendars, Too
While we usually have more offerings for you, this year there are three artists calendars: Kantoku, Coffee Kizoku and Takuya Fujima. There’s also a nice 365 daily calendar (Himekuri 365) that gives you different gorgeous anime girls from top artists, one each day! Above see some past calendar pages from Kantoku’s offerings for an idea how awesome these are, and imagine them on huge A2 (23.4 x 16.5 in) glossy pages.
PLEASE NOTE: We’ve already put in our orders for the artist calendars, and once we sell out of the stock that we’ve pre-ordered, the calendars will be removed from the site. These are among the most popular calendars we sell, so get your preorders in early!
The Studio Ghibli Calendars are Especially Awesome
We have a lot of Hayao Miyazaki fans on J-List, and love to bring great Studio Ghibli calendars with your favorite characters from the studio’s films. The main Studio Ghibli calendar is especially important because they feature original art, always drawn new for each calendar. This means that new image details might be seen in the illustrations, potentially adding new “canon” information to our beloved animated films, since it’s coming from Ghibli directly.
J-List Stock More than Anime Calendars!
Want to spend 2021 with amazing traditional Japanese art? How about wonderful photography of Japan’s famous night scenes, which allow you to learn about places in Japan you might visit someday when the current crisis is behind us? How about calendars featuring art of classic Japanese cars, or beautiful women in kimonos? Browse all our traditional Japanese photo and art calendars here!
Where are the Adult Calendars?
While we usually stock calendars featuring JAV actresses, this year there’s only one nude calendar available for ordering, one by famous photographer Kishin Shinoyama, who took some of the most iconic photos of the 20th century (nude and otherwise). He’s the guy who took the famous photos of John and Yoko, for example.
Thanks for reading this post! We hope that 2021 anime calendar season goes smoothly, and that you get your orders in for whatever calendars you want as early as possible to help our staff get them to you quickly! Browse all Japanese calendars here!
Thanks for reading! Find J-List’s monthly snack boxes on the normal snack page any time, or on this static link that will always show the current snack boxes available! And make sure to pick up something fun for yourself during our “Nutvember” naughty products sale!
