Happy Wednesday from Japan, where foreigners are somehow compelled to refer to the country of George Washington as “the States” and by no other name.
Japanese society and relationships can be a pretty ordered business sometimes, determined by “in groups” and the concept of “uchi” (inside my group) and “soto” (outside the group). In Japan, for example, most people have a group of friends throughout elementary and junior high school, but separate when it comes time to go to high school — high school isn’t part of the compulsory education in Japan, and people usually go to a school that fits their scholastic level or goals rather the one nearest their house. One result of this is that an adult will often have one group of “junior high school friends” and another group of “high school friends, without any crossing over between the two groups. When one group of friends goes, say, for karaoke, they are relaxed and casual, and this is reflected in their language — the most informal language is used among friends. However, if an unrelated group were to be mixed — say, a high school friend were to mix in with the group of junior high school friends — the result can be barriers of politeness that are damned hard for a Westerner to grasp. One thing you learn early on when living in Japan is, don’t mix your groups: if you’ve got friends from two different areas of your life, don’t invite them to a social event without knowing the potential risks.
For tonight’s update, we’ve got some really great stuff:
- For magazine fans, we’ve got a bunch of new magazines posted, including the new issues of Video Boy, Best Video, Nippon Mini-Suka Club, and more
- Also on magazine page 1, a treat — not one, but two great issues of Penthouse Japan, the wonderful Japanese-format erotic magazine featuring all Japanese models
- Photobooks, including Ouchi Arisa and Iikubo May, on photobooks page 1
- For manga fans, a fresh posting of all-new erotic wide” manga, with some nice new postings
- For the Yamato fan in you, we’ve got two new Yamato die-cast ships, which may be the last — if rumors we’ve heard of Mimko going out of business are true
- Also on the Anime & Toys page, more of the popular Sentimental Grafitti figures available for order, as well as high-quality metal & plastic Gundam toys
- A long-awaited update to the Special Order video pages, where you can pre-order excellent videos by Kanazawa Bunko, Yoshikawa Minami, and many more
- For fans of Soft on Demand’s truly unique “Indies” style of erotic entertainment, we’ve got great new titles, including Nagase Lum’s hot Cosplay Doll, a new “shiofuki” video, and the classic 1996 Masterpiece of SOD, featuring the nude olympics, performances by several artists who have retired, and one of our favorites — the “arial sex” (a couple having sex while suspended in mid-hair by cranes, and filmed by a helocopter)
- Finally, on our fun Japanese snacks page, we’ve added fresh stock of the super tart “hard gummi” candy, Lemon Shigekix, as well as a great new flavor — Super Cola!
Well, Chiharu and Kazuki are back from their stay in the States. (See? I did it again.) As is our custom when someone returns home, our Japanese house has been transformed into a shrine celebrating American gastric values — everything from Pop Tarts to Lucky Charms to tortillas those delicious onion bagels. Well, time to go home and have some Hamburger Helper!
