Hello again from Japan, your personal friend in Japan!
The Japanese have some interesting superstitions about names, and generally labor over the choice of a name for a baby quite a lot, even seeking the advice of Shinto priests as they try to choose a name that will bring happiness to the family. Chinese characters are always written with an exact number of strokes, and one form of prediction is concerned with the number of strokes in the first name and last name combined — some combinations will bring happiness, others bad luck. Also, some kanji combinations carry bad connotations. Our son Kazuki (peace + tree) was originally going to be named Kazuma (peace + horse), but the Shinto priest steered us away from using the character for horse because it would bring bad luck.
We went to Germany! Well, sort of. In rural Japan, there’s a recreation of a German village, called Kronenberg, or more familiarly, Doitsu-mura (German Village), here. A kind of theme park, it’s a place where you can see recreations of German architecture, drink German beer, eat sausage
For tonight’s update, we have some really cool products for you, including:
- For Japanese magazine fans, the new Dela Beppin, which features some of the most lovely Japanese gals around (we especially loved Morishita Kurumi dressed as an erotic Indian Princess)
- We have more of our popular “one shot” backissues of Japanese magazines from 1995-1997, including some great new copies of The Best
- For fans of photobooks, both volumes of Miyazawa Masaki’s excellent “Nude” hardcover photobooks, which feature dozens of lovely hard-to-find AV idols shot by the extremely talented photographer
- Also quite cool, the Best Video Special Ranking Gourmet 2000, and Love Dream, a wonderful “photographic of 18 girls’ hair nude” (including Miura Aika and more), as well as several new leg fetish books
- We have some very cool hentai art books, including the Perfect Collection Series for Kakyusei, Hiyoko Voice, and how to draw cute girls in uniforms (see the hentai art books pages)
- We have some excellent dojinshi on the dojinshi page, with 30+ new items, including many brand new dojinshi from the past Comic Market
- Also from the Comic Market, we have new dojin-soft (with some very nice adult CG collections) and cool yaoi books, too — yes, we have Gundam Wing
- There are several brand new manga volumes on the Manga (new releases) page, including some really cool new works — also, more copies of the popular all-color Climax Collection
- On the Videos (discount) page, overstocked items for you by Ariga Ryo and Kawashima Azumi and more
- Finally, some great new videos SOD — Get Panty and Peroman, two offerings which explore the immorality of Japanese young women in Shibuya.
Remember that J-List carries wacky snack and gum items from Japan, which aren’t available overseas. In addition to Pocky and other pretzle-stick-type snacks, we have the full line of Lotte’s delicious gum, including the best-selling gum at J-List, the spicy, caffeine-enriched Black Black. We also carry really cool toy & snack combination items, which are only available in convenience stores here in Japan, including the very cool “Hyper Gundam” series (which my own son loves) — available in perfect sets.
Well, that’s all for now — until next time, thanks for being a part of J-List!