Hello again from Japan, where the statement “not by the hair of my chinny chin chin” means something else entirely…
First of all, an IP change over the weekend caused some problems with the site, including a brief down period and some images that did not display properly. The problem has been fixed — sorry if you were unable to use the site during the down time. If you experience any problems with the JLIST or JBOX sites, please let us know and we’ll check into it right away.
It’s fun living in Japan, however there’s one big drawback: we live next to North Korea, one of the least fun nations you can live next to. North Korea has kidnapped at least six Japanese citizens during the 1970s and 80s, taking them home to act as language teacher-slaves to train spies how to speak Japanese. There are dozen of other Japanese more who are missing, believed to still be held in the country. They have a nuclear program, and we live right in the middle of any missile flight between Pyongyang and Tokyo — that’s just not fun in anyone’s book. North Korea has a very highly organized drug trade, and virtually all of the cocaine that comes into Japan is from there. But there’s a side to the international drama that you’ve probably not heard about: apparently, North Korean Dear Leader Kim Jong Il seems to have fallen in love with a famous Japanese magician and singer Princess Tenko, and is stalking her through a network of agents in Japan.
It started when Princess Tenko, a famous illusionist (Mattel made a line of dolls based on her in the 90s, and she’s supposedly dating Jean-Claude Van Damme), travelled to North Korea to perform in a gesture of international friendship. North Korea’s leader was quite taken with her charm, and invited her back every year to perform on the birthday of his father. Several years ago, Princess Tenko got suddenly ill during her stay, which the North Korean government used to try to deny her permission to leave the country, in effect kidnapping her. After her return to Japan, Princess Tenko allegedly received hundreds of phone calls from mysterious men who have harassed her, telling her that Kim Jong Il wants her to return to North Korea. Mysteriously, the calls always came at 2:16 pm, which points to North Korea’s Dear Leader: his birthday is February 16, and he is fixated with the numbers, even to the point of driving in limousines with “2 16” as the license plate numbers.
I say allegedly above because with Japanese television you can never be sure that the documentary you’re watching is real or faked. Television in Japan is very ratings-driven, and it’s quite common for TV to stage events so they can film them, which is called “yarase” (yah-RAH-seh). A wide variety of Japanese television is completely fake. In one show, Japanese adventurers travel around Kenya with a camera crew (including a local man who just happened to speak Japanese) in search of giant snakes, who always nearly kill someone before being subdued at the last minute. In another show, an American woman aids camera crews searching for Japanese who have gone missing, using ESP to direct the crew all around Japan in a very dramatic fake search. Japanese love ghost documentaries which purport to capture proof of spirits from beyond on the grave, all of it scripted and quite fake. Even Japan’s NHK got in trouble when they used dynamite to cause an avalanche in the Himalayas so they could pretend they just happened to have a camera there when a natural one occurred. So when watching about the supposed stalking of Princess Tenko by Secretary Kim, it’s important to take everything with a few grains of salt.
We’re happy to announce that the Yulia Nova DVDs vol. 1-3 have gone golden master and are on their way to the pressing factory. They should be back very soon. This dynamite trio of DVDs captures the incredible grace and beauty of Yulia Nova, a Russian model who has become very popular here in Japan and around the world. We hope you’ll order these dynamite DVDs today. Each includes 2 hours of great footage, including 30+ minutes of superb never-before-released material. Also, the DVDs are fully subtitled in English from a new translation of the original Russian, allowing fans to see and understand Yulia as never before.
For the new update, we’ve got some excellent products from Japan for you. They include:
- First, for fans of the hip anime Noir, we’ve got two incredibly high-end cold case anime statues of Kirika Yumura and Mireille Bouquet
- J-List sells tons of cool Sanrio items you can’t find outside of Japan — we’ve got Hello Kitty traditional paper balloons, a great mascot for your bath, and a way to block the sun from your car in Hello Kitty style
- Also — traditional Japanese bell, which you can attach to anything, but these are beautiful Hello Kitty bells
- We’re big fans of Rement’s miniature food items — now there’s a new one, Puchi Sample Supermarket series 2, featuring over 25 miniature Japanese food items, complete with shopping carts and baskets, many cool items for you to play with and display (full sets available)
- Fans of Tomica’s super detailed die-cast cars, we’ve got a new item: the Mazda Altenza, sold in the U.S. as the Mazda6
- For fans of wacky things from Japan, we’ve got lipstick-style Pringle’s erasers in stock, very popular in Japan right now
- For fans of our snacks from Japan, we have delicious chicken and mayonnaise flavored snacks made from rice; tasty grape gummi treats; and one of my favorites, Gummi Choco chocolate-covered strawberry gummi — yum!
- Also, an item that I definitely recommend (I’m eating the sample now, it looked so good): Funya-Q, a super wacky soft gummi face that you can stretch and play with and eat
- Also for Japanese snack fans, we’ve restocked several items, including Hi-Chu (various flavors), CC Lemon Candy, and more
- Godzilla lovers, we’ve got a very cool soft vinyl keychain/phone strap in stock for you
- We’ve added stock of the G&L Bible vol. 1 for collectors who want to have in their collection
- We’ve got more wacky “pin badges” with cute characters on them
- And for your kitchen, extra-long cooking chopsticks that make it easy to cook without burning yourself
- Fans of the Japan Hot Wheels, sold only in Japan, we’ve restocked many popular items, including the Mach 5, K.A.R.R. (K.I.T.T.’s evil twin from Knight Rider), and the Airwolf helicopter
- Also, we’ve added stock of the Cominica Totoro keychains, so detailed and fun to carry with you
- Finally, look for more cool miniature Shogi boards, more tools to help you study Japanese, more cute hamster erasers, and many more items!
For our 18+ customers, we’ve got many new products. The new items include:
- For fans of real Tokyo girls, we’ve got the new issue of Aishite Ageru, the perfect-bound deluxe book featuring real Tokyo girls
- Also, the new issue of Please Be Gentle With Me, a great new issue featuring authentic couples for you
- For fans of magazine + DVD combo items, we’ve got a new Senningiri The Movie DVD, featuring one man’s attempt to document his liaisons with 1000 women
- Then enjoy the lovely hardcover photobook offering of Rio Natsume, the silky and elegant swimsuit model from Japan
- Also, we loved the beautiful glossy photobook of Airi Ishikawa, who you can get to know through her beautiful photographs
- For fans of “jukujo” (mature women), we’ve got the very sexy photobook by Mai Oikawa
- Look for various restocked photobook, including the Office Lady Pictorial Book, Sora Aoi’s popular first photobook, Race Queen Izumi Yokoyama’s dynamite photobook, and more
- Also, we’ve got fresh stock of LCC Gold, the photobook capturing the lovely bodies of Romanian gold medal-winning gymnasts Lavinia Milosovici, Claudia Presacan, and Corina Ungureanu
- H manga collectors, we’ve got a great new items in stock for you, including Kotomi’s Encyclopedia and the positively mind-blowing Heaven’s Egg
- Also, MG Joe First Lesson, a superb oversized H manga complete with color pages inside
- Yaoi fans, enjoy various newly restocked comics as well as a great new anthology comic with great stories inside
- For our DVD customers, we’ve got some great items for you, starting with Hitomi Hayasaka’s Very Best, a collection of 4 hours of her most memorable works on the Million label (region free)
- Then enjoy a bargain-priced selection of the Concentration Soap Land Ladies, four lovely girls who get you squeaky clean (region free)
- From SOD, the best of their “I’ll assist your…” series, featuring incredibly beautiful actresses who are happy to help you feel better (region free)
- Then, 100 beautiful girls who want to engage in “chin chin study,” an amazing Japanese genre (region free)
- Then enjoy more all-girl action with lots of slippery lotion, courtesy of U&K, one of the top specialty indies studios (region free)
- Then from Wanz Factory, enjoy the Super Angle of Mai Sakashita, filming her from low, sexy angles and fisheye lenses (region 2)
- Finally, look for various restocked and reduced priced DVDs near the tops of all DVD categories.
Remember that J-List carries over 2500 unique products from Japan. One of the most unique ever is the Hello Kitty vibrating shoulder massager, a licensed Sanrio item that has been one of the best-selling products at J-List for two years. Sadly, the massagers are totally out of production and will never be made again. We’ve got the last stock of these unique items in all Japan, but our stock is rapidly being depleted as a dozen or so sell every day. If you want to own a really bizarre piece of Japanese pop culture, get yours before we run out for good! If you get 3 or more, you get an automatic 15% off at checkout.
