Hello again from Japan!
When my wife and I went to Spain two years ago, we were pleased to see how old and beautiful houses were, with many houses being hundreds of years old. Unfortunately, this is something that doesn’t exist in Japan — when a house gets too old to live in comfortably in Japan, you tear it down and build a new one from scratch. What’s more, the houses that are built in Japan are really part of this 15-to-20-year rebuilding cycle, are designed so that they won’t last beyond a certain point, kind of like the computer you may be using right now. As a result, Japan is a country where you can find very old things as well as very new things, but very little in the middle. Part of the problem is the perceived value of homes and buildings: unlike in the U.S., where real estate goes up in value, homes drop to almost zero in value in a very short time (since after all, who would want to buy a “used” house?). When we bought our home in San Diego, it took me days to convince my wife that buying a house and keeping it in good condition was a sound investment, not just money you throw away, as it is in Japan.
One big different between Japan and America is that Japan is a very cash-based society. When you get your monthly salary, you almost always get it in a big fat envelope of 10,000 yen notes, with a little hand-written slip of paper inside, for tax purposes. Japanese often carry loads of cash with them — I had a friend who lost $3000 once because she was carrying it around with her — whereas it’s rare to have that much money in the U.S. One reason it’s convenient to carry cash with you here in Japan: there is no system of writing checks to pay for things, and the concept of accepting a piece of paper as payment for goods is very alien here. This is the reason J-List accepts check/money payments for orders through our bank in San Diego, although we’re a Japanese company. As the Japanese economy continues its painful changing process, more and more consumers are using credit cards for their purchases. There’s little fear that the Japanese will give up that national passion for savings, though, just because credit card use is going up: the average Japanese household has well over US$100,000 in cash savings here.
If you’re interested in yuri and shoujoai in anime and manga (that is to say, if you are interested in “animated” female/female sex themes), why not check out Yuricon? It’s a convention run by AniLesboCon in June in New Jersey. For more information see their site at http://www.yuricon.org. Tell them J-List sent you!
For the new update, we’ve got a bunch of great new items for you today, including:
- First of all, Japan is experiencing a boom in a new category of pop art — Daki-Makura, or “Hug Pillows,” massive (120 or 160 cm) huggable pillows that are nearly as big as people, with sexy and nude characters printed on them — see our new
- We have some great new erotic magazines for you to enjoy, including the new Urecco Gal, loaded with beautiful pro and amateur kogals
- We have some dynamite new photobooks for you to browse, both hardcover and softcover, including Erovogue, a beautiful collection of the nudes of six wonderful AV idols from Japan
- The new issue of A-G, the English magazine of “art, sex and CG culture” is in stock, and ready to go out to you from our office in San Diego
- For Japanese hentai manga collectors, another excellent selection of new comics for you, including the excellent “Aizen” by Yukio Shijima, and many other nice books in stock for you
- For yaoi collectors, we’ve got a great update of several very nice books for fans of Japan’s unique homosexual comics
- Also: for fans of the popular hentai anime series La Blue Girl (Inju Gakuen), we’ve got a rare and lovely art book filled with information and glossy artwork pages (region free)
- We’ve got some great new erotic DVDs in stock for you, starting with Starship Nymphomania, featuring lovely anime cosplay as only Soft on Demand could bring you (region free)
- The lovely Nanami Yusa looks so sweet and innocent, yet willingly performs in SOD’s very erotic bukkake special Idol Semen
- For fans of the lovely Kyoka Usami (I am one!) we’ve got an erotic new DVD for you — We are Crazy about Kyoka Usami (region free)
- For fans of Kimiko Matsuzaka, the incredibly busty Japanese AV idol, we’ve got a great offering for you — 8 hours of her life’s best work, a massive collection of huge-busty AV for you (region free)
- Yulia Nova is apparently popular with J-List fans, since her photobooks sold out in record time (more are on order) — so we’ve volume 3 of her fantastic video! (VHS)
- For Aika Miura fans, we’ve got the very nice Aika Miura Special Perfect Eternal Edition, finally released on DVD for you! (region 2)
- For anime lovers, we’ve got some great new toys in stock for you, including the deluxe Mach 5 die-cast toy for Speed Racer fans, and several new Totoro items, including a fantastic Totoro alarm clock
- We’ve added some cool new items in The Dog collection, including loveable alarm clocks and more, and we’ve put them in a newly created category just for The Dog items
- For fans of Japan’s lovely swimsuit idols, see the newly posted photobook and other items
- If you love cute things, we’ve got some for you, including a killer Hello Kitty calculator, more Hello Kitty tissue and toilet paper, and more
- We’ve restocked the popular Spirited Away color comics, which are really beautiful recreations of the film in book form
- There’s a really cool Morning Musume collectible figure set out, and we’ve got stock of them for you (they are cool)
- For fans of our Japanese snacks, we’ve got old-style Glico chocolate snacks (with a wooden toy included, traditional apricot flavored hard candy, more Green Tea candy, and a restocking of our very popular miso soup
- Finally, look for cute hamster colored pens from Japan, a nifty pen that’s really a light, new bento boxes, a handy way to de-core an apple, and more!
One of my favorite games is Love Love Show, which is a totally new concept in bishoujo games, as it’s a series of fun puzzle and card type games. With some of the best graphics ever seen, and great game play that’s a totally new and fresh, we hope you’ll pick up the game. The publisher, Hobibox Europe, has many great games in the pipe, including some of the most popular Viper titles, and they appreciate your support!
