Hello again from Japan, the home of a car called the Toyota Ism (named after the English suffix -ism, from words like existentialism, etc).
We’re back from our vacation on beautiful Guam. It was a blast! My family had the most fun at the “Sea Walker” tour, which lets you walk along the sea floor 20 feet under, with an air helmet resting on your shoulders while fish eat out of your hand. Now the J-List staff is very refreshed, and we’re hard at work, catching up on orders and email received over the weekend.
Today is my anniversary, the day I first came to Japan back in 1991. I sure experienced my share of culture shock back then: vending machines on every corner, streets that were 1/8 the width of what I was used to in San Diego, and a confusing mix of sparkling new glass buildings right next to rice paddies. Air conditioners also heat rooms, Kit Kat chocolates are wrapped three times, and Japanese-style toilets don’t have seats — you just squat and do your business as best you can. I was also surprised to find Christians in Japan, something I hadn’t really been expecting. For my first Christmas in Japan, I was asked to play “Santa-san” at the local Baptist church — having a real gaijin for your Santa Claus is the height of fashion for any Japanese organization. Mormon missionaries are a part of daily life in our prefecture, too — they offer free English lessons to students as a way to get converts, and they’re famous for riding mountain bikes and playing basketball with locals. I was shocked to see that they even had Japanese Jehovah’s Witnesses, who stand outside of train stations in grey suits handing out Japanese versions of The Watchtower.
Every since my son was born, I’ve been enjoying my second childhood. I loved the original Ultraman TV series when I was young, and was able to relive it with my son when he was that age. (Japanese preschoolers sing a version of “If you’re happy and you know it clap your hands,” substituting “Ultraman” and his specium beam attack.) Now my son and I are having fun watching the classic Gundam series of the 80s, which are a lot easier to watch in Japanese now than when I was trying to understand them in 1987. The other day he busted me though, suddenly asking me how come I knew some much about anime when I wasn’t even Japanese. I had to do some fast talking to get out of that one…
It’s “shinmai” season in Japan right now, when “new rice” (the rice that was recently harvested) makes its way into the marketplace, and everywhere in Japan, restaurants and stores advertise that they’re using delicious, fresh rice in their products. Although annual consumption of rice decreases every year as the Japanese diet undergoes changes, they still eat rice two or three times a day. Rice is so ubiquitous that the word for cooked rice (gohan) is used to refer to any meal, even if it doesn’t include rice. Virtually all Japanese cook rice in an electric rice cooker, which allows rice for the whole family to be prepared with the press of a button. Companies like Mitsubishi and Zojirushi complete to bring the best rice cookers to market, with features like automatic timers, inner pots made of copper to simulate the taste of cooking rice a hundred years ago and the ability to bake bread.
When the three former Romanian gold medalists Lavinia Milosovici, Claudia Presacan, and Corina Ungureanu agreed to appear in the buff for two Japanese DVDs, they probably thought that no one outside of Japan would ever see them. Japanese video company V&R Planning offered a staggering amount of money to shoot the videos here in Japan secretly, but of course the secret got out, thanks to the power of the Internet. Now Gold Bird and Euro Angels are cult favorites, and are among the most popular DVDs ever carried at J-List. J-List stocks both of these amazing titles for you, as well as many other amazing ballet, gymnastics and other great DVDs that only the Japanese could have thought of.
Remember that J-List carries dozens of rare and cool items by Shirow Masamune, the creator of Ghost in the Shell (which indirectly spawned The Matrix), and pretty much the most incredible artist in Japan today. We stock many items for Shirow fans, including figures and toys, his illustrated novels, trading cards, and more. We also have all of his excellent Galgrease posterbooks in stock, each featuring four double-sized posters and a pack of really excellent trading cards. Get all three posterbooks and get 15% off, too.
