Hello from Japan, the home to the famous “cream powder” for your coffee called Creap.
When learning Japanese, it’s always fun to learn the “gitaigo,” a group of words similar to onomatopoeia in English, very descriptive words that describe the state of objects or actions. Because they consist of repetitions of words, they are very cute and fun to use. If you’re really hungry, the Japanese would say that you’re “peko peko,” a word which describes the way you feel when your stomach is very empty. Alternately, “kara kara” describes your throat when you’re thirsty. If you get soaking wet in the rain, you’re “bisho bisho,” and if you get indigestion, your stomach is “muka muka.” If your skin is especially smooth and clean, someone might say it’s “sube sube” (a word which comes from suberu “to glide”). And if you’re a little on the plump side, you might be described as “puyo puyo,” a word which sounds cute to the Japanese. Some other fun repeating words are “zaa zaa” (the sound of rain falling loudly, to denote the concept of “pouring with rain”), “paku paku” (the sound of someone eating quickly — this is where Pac Man got his name from), and “shiiin” (the sound of no sound — i.e., of perfect silence). Some other repeating words are “bishi bishi” (doing things quickly and efficiently, without delay), “dara dara” (doing things slowly, being lazy), “pika pika” (being sparking brand-new), “boro boro” (being old and dilapidated), “pera pera” (being fluent in a language) and “giri giri” (a word that means “barely” or “just in time,” as in, “we made onto the train in the nick of time”). There is an endless supply of these highly descriptive words, and they’re quite fun to use.
The Japanese are proud of having four distinctive seasons in Japan, and some seem to think that America isn’t blessed in the same way just because it doesn’t get really cold in Los Angeles in the winter. I enjoy all the seasons in Japan, but it seems to me that Spring and Fall, my two favorites, could be just a tad longer. We’re just a few weeks into Spring, and already we’ve had several hot and humid days, giving us a taste of the unpleasantness to come this year. When it gets hot in Japan, virtually all Japanese drink cold, refreshing mugi cha, or barley tea, a delicious cold tea that’s made from barley and has no caffeine. Like all the Asian teas that the Japanese drink (green tea, oolong tea, jasmine tea and many more), it’s always drank as-is, without milk or sweetener. As part of our mission to bring you a little bit of Japan every day, we’ve got deluxe packages of these mugi cha tea bags that you can make easily — just add one tea bag per liter of water and refrigerate for a few hours.
We’re extremely proud to announce that X-Change 2, the long-awaited sequel to Peach Princess’s very popular X-Change, has gone Golden Master and should be shipping out to preorder customers soon. This is a fabulous game of sex change comedy in which you play Takuya Aihara, an average Japanese boy, who gets changed into a girl through a bizarre chemistry experiment gone wrong. The game, which combines the depth of story and character of Tokimeki Check in! with the hilarious Ranma-like story, is one of the best we’ve ever seen, and has 23 unique game endings. We hope that everyone preorders it for free shipping when it’s ready to go out.
You may have noticed that we’ve added links asking you to “vote for this T-shirt” to some of our wacky Japanese T-shirts. We wouldn’t mind if you’d help us out and click the voting link if you have time. Oh, and don’t forget — the $1 shipping sale on all our world-famous Japanese T-shirts is coming to a close soon. Our shirts also make great gifts, so why not get several and save?
For the new update, we’ve got some excellent products from Japan for you. They include:
- First, for Shirow Masamune fans, we’ve got the very rare Ghost in the Shell continuity script, showing all storyboards for the classic anime film — but stock is limited
- Also, we’ve got volume 5 of the incredibly popular Ghost in the Shell TV series, a great item for Shirow fans who want this cutting-edge series on DVD (region 2), and fresh stock of the Ghost in the Shell bilingual manga
- A special item for Totoro fans, Sun Arrow has released a great new series of ceramic picture frames with music boxes inside them — display your favorite family photographs in these incredibly rare and lovely collectors frames!
- Also, we’ve got a really high-quality Totoro money purse (for coins or paper money) that is really just too cute, as well as a general restocking of several popular Miyazaki music boxes and tin toys
- If you love Dragonball, there’s a great all-new trading card series featuring the best Dragonball Z art and characters, released for the Japanese market
- For fans of Japanese snacks, enjoy many new treats from J-List, including tropical sour flavored Shige-Kix, an incredibly sour “hard gummi” that’s really fun to eat, as well as famous Japanese “throat candy” and boil in bag curry
- Also, for those wanting to use miso in their cooking, including making delicious miso soup, we’ve got some great “white miso” (Tokyo style miso) for you to try
- For collectors of Ultraman and/or Japan Hot Wheels toys, we’ve got the really cool Machine Sherlock “Guts” car from Ultraman Tiga, a great item for you
- If you love authentic bento boxes from Japan, we’ve got some Shinkansen ones in stock for you, featuring one of the cutest characters for boys from Sanrio
- A fun parody item, we’ve got funny toilet paper with images printed on it that supposed to “encourage successful excrementing”
- For fans of Disney’s Monsters, Inc there’s a cool only-sold-in-Japan keychain figure series that’s really well designed — collect all the characters
- Also very cool, a Final Fantasy VIII “super real figure” of the lovely Riona
- And for Hello Kitty fans, a large robotic Kitty that plays a little Ukulele when you turn her on – great for collectors
- Also, look for other restocked Kitty items, including Kitty chopsticks, Kitty and Felix the Cat gum, and a cool Kitty business card holder
- If you love Japanese things, we’ve got a really unique air freshener for you — it looks like a beautiful Japanese lantern
- We love to promote studying Japanese, and carry many helpful study items (mainly things I would have wanted back at college) — see vocabulary word books, Japanese proverb dictionaries, and more
- Finally, find a fun Japanese pencil sharpener that’s very different from those sold outside of Japan, a handy all-purpose canvas bag and wallet set, more funny Japanese signs and stickers, a very Japanese way to clean your ears, and more!
For our adult customers, we’ve got many new 18+ products. They include:
- For lovers of hardcore amateur magazines, we’ve got the double-thick Namadashi Acme Bijin, featuring all nakadashi-themed photographs
- Also, for fans of short girls, a big fetish in Japan, we’ve got the new issue of Micro Girls, featuring girls who are under 150 cm (4’10”)
- We’ve also got the new issue of Young Hip, a great magazine that combines super hentai manga with lovely nude and sexy idol photography
- For photobook lovers, we’ve got the lovely last photobook of Noriko Hamada, an angelic nude model from Japan
- Japan’s leg and stocking fetish photography is second to none, and we’ve restocked several popular leg fetish books for you today
- If you collect hentai manga, we’ve got some great items for you, starting with a great release by the busty illustrator Wataru Watanabe, a new “Excellent” series anthology manga, and the super-erotic “The Box of the Desire” by Mujin Comics
- Also, Yasu has updated the hentai manga pages, restocking many items, including the popular “What?” erotic manga by Fujimi Comics, the popular Pururun Princess, and Seduction ~ Yuwaku
- For yaoi fans, see several restocked b-Boy Zips anthology mangas, which give you 240+ pages of yaoi action in each book
- Also, fans know about doujinshi, the amateur comics that are incredibly popular in Japan — we’ve got stock of two “doujin photobooks” featuring lovely photos of models in various costumes, released at the most recent Comic Market
- J-List carries many unique adult toys and other items for couples, that are sold only in Japan — we’ve stocked a new variety of very-thin Japanese condoms that come in a box that looks like a pack of cigarettes, and has wacky English all over it
- For DVD collectors, we’ve got some excellent new offerings for you, starting with the incredibly lovely 4 hour sex special of Mai Haruna — see her “keep on flesh pleasure for four hours” (region free)
- Hitomi Hasegawa is an elegant and erotic AV star from Japan, and you can enjoy 150 minutes of her great erotic work in a new release from Million (region free)
- Nanami Nanase is a red-hot AV star, and you can see her best works in Nanamix vol. 2, by Soft on Demand, a great sampler of her best performances (region free)
- Then, enjoy the lovely Megu Anrai and Miyoshino star in a new Waku Waku Chikan Land release from Deep’s, portraying three dedicated police women who allow themselves to be groped on crowded trains so they can catch the perverts and bring them to justice (region free)
- Akira Watase is a sizzling lady with an incredibly sexual body — see her super new “Bad Girl” release from Wanz Factory (region 2)
- From Moodyz, a chance to see the lovely Bunko Kanazawa like you’ve never seen her before, in a super release filmed from the viewpoint of her lovely lower half
- Finally, look for various restocked or overstocked DVDs on the site — and of course, don’t forget that you can get 15% off any 4 or more DVDs we sell (discount applied automatically at checkout).
Remember that J-List has a great offer — get 20% off any four or more Japanese dating-sim games, also known as love-sim and hentai games. We pride ourselves on having the best selection on the planet, and we carry the games of every English love-sim game company in existence, with all items kept in stock so you can get your order right away. See the great items we’ve got for you!
Want to see many interesting sides of Japan? Drop by one of our favorite sites, Tokyo DV (http://www.tokyodv.com) and take in all that they have to see, including video of the insides of love hotels, highlights of the Tokyo robot show and a great interview series with hentai manga pioneer Toshi Maeda.
Oh, and a correction — the suffix used for athletes is actually “senshu” — I got it wrong. Sorry about that!
