Greetings again from all of us in Japan!
First of all, J-List updated or mail server software over the weekend, and changed all accounts over to the new system. If you experience any problems with email messages sent to our J-List email addresses ([email protected], [email protected] etc.) such as bounced mail or messages saying that the mail could not be delivered because your domain is “blacklisted,” please email our alternate account at [email protected] immediately. Let us know if you experience any problems or unexpected behavior — thank you!
While Japanese generally study at least six years of English in junior high and high school (more if they attend college), most Japanese are not competent at communicating in English. The reasons for this are many, but at the forefront is the fact that English is a “foreign” language in Japan, something that is studied as a separate entity, totally outside the lives of normal Japanese. English is never used in daily life in Japan because there is little use for it here — except for helping the occasional lost foreigner find which subway line goes to Roppongi or going to Hawaii or California, most Japanese don’t need to use English. Only Japanese who are extremely interested in the culture of America and Europe and very motivated, like J-List’s Tomo, Yasu and Mayumi, can attain the “critical mass” needed to really master English. The Japanese Ministry of Education is doing what it can to change the situation, but there are two big roadblocks to effective English education in Japan, which are a) most teachers teaching English in schools here do not have a functional handle on English themselves, which embarrasses them and causes them to resist reform, and b) Japan’s famous test culture rewards students for memorizing lists of arcane vocabulary words for college entrance exams, but never moves them toward any competence at communicating in English.
Because English has been taught in schools in Japan since the end of World War II, most Japanese do have a basic functional understand of English, even if they can’t communicate in it. This causes English to seep into the Japanese language in many ways, creating words like “rinse in shampoo” (shampoo with cream rinse in it) and “soft cream” (soft serve ice cream). Since most Japanese can understand at least a little English, movie titles are often left in English, but are “reduced” so they’re easier to understand. “You’ve Got Mail” was released here as “You got mail” — essentially the same, just a little easier for Japanese to remember. “Aliens” became “Alien 2,” “Ms. Congeniality” was reduced to “Dangerous Beauty,” and “The Sum of All Fears,” which I caught last week with my wife, was reduced to “Total Fears.”
For the new update to the J-List site, we’ve got a bundle of new items for you, including:
- First, we’ve got some excellent toy items for you, including the brand-new Transformers toy series from Takara, not released outside of Japan
- Another fun item an “exploding Darth Vader game” that you can play alone or with your friends — when will the Lord of the Sith blow up?
- Yasu has been hard at work restocking our toy and anime items after the Japanese O-Bon holidays, and we’ve got fresh stock of Domo-Kun phone straps, Japan-release Hot Wheels, and the surprisingly popular Kubrick Amelie figure series
- For Star Wars fans, more stocked items, including the Kiran Kiran light-up necklaces and very rare stuffed Jawa and Ewok plush toys
- J-List sells Japanese fude (FOO-day) pens which allow you to write as if you were using a Japanese brush pen and ink — we’ve got several new fude pen items in stock for you
- Enjoy new Japanese snack items, including cute gummi Hamtaro characters (fun to bite the heads off), great Japanese vinegar flavored potato snacks, more Hello Kitty fried rice, and Japanese watermelon candy
- For fans of the highly collectible Studio Ghibli DVD players, we’ve gotten in the last stock we’ll be able to get of these really nice DVD players. We’ve posted them to the site, and at a lower price, too
- For Sanrio fans, we’ve got stock of several fun items, including a Kitty plush dressed up as a penguin (very cute), Hello Kitty straws and chopsticks, and a really nifty Pom Pom Purin color memo pad
- If you love Japan’s pretty bikini idols, a whole world unto itself in Japan, we’ve got the new Operation of Chinatsu Iwatsuki, featuring a magazine and full DVD (region 2) you can enjoy
- J-List sells authentic “loose socks,” those baggy socks that high school girls wear in Japan, and we’ve restocked both the 80 cm and 120 cm sizes for you — they go great with the authentic high school uniforms we also sell
- Finally, look for Japanese miso soup bowls, sweat bands for your wrists, a nice wind chime made of wood charcoal, and other wacky things from Japan!
For our adult customers, we’ve got many new 18+ products, which include:
- For magazine lovers, we’ve got several amateur magazines in stock, including new hitozama and other items as well as more discounted magazine items
- For fans of Japan’s fetish of “cosplay” or costume play, we’ve got an interesting magazine of Japanese girls who dress in famous costumes (stewardess, tennis uniform, bus guide) for you
- Also, we’ve got beautiful new hardcover photobooks by Mai Hoshino and the lovely Shiori Souma that really capture the beautiful nude grace of these models
- We’ve got new doujinshi in stock, the excellent “dick girl” fetish comics in the series called “The Great World of Alchemy” (or TGWOA for short) — and these doujinshi feature pages of “English Outline” in which the creators explain the story of their creation, really nice!
- For hentai manga fans, we’ve got some great new works for you, including Goddess Detectives (a very erotic comic from Mujin Comics), and the very nice “Prisoner”
- Also, a super huge format comic that features pages twice as large as normal comics along with 350 pages, the very erotic “Breaking in the Locked Room”
- For DVD fans, another selection of quality AV titles for you, starting with a great re-release of Momo Aida’s 2-in-1 DVD, Primary, for fans of this lovely 1990’s AV star (she’s the first AV idol I fell in love with in Japan) (region free)
- From Million, a great collection of 4 hours of “large breast fetish” AV starring 24 beautiful gals (region free)
- Airi Niiyama, the sweet and erotic AV idol from Japan, will “assist your masturbation” in a great new release from SOD (region free)
- In Japan, a major category of erotica is “chijo,” translated as “lewd woman” or “slut” — see women who actively crave and pursue sex in another release from Soft on Demand (region free)
- See the best “solo sex” of the models of Tohjiro’s “Blue Sexual Desire” series, featuring six of Japan’s top indies idols (region free)
- See the lovely Chinese AV idol Emily perform incredibly bold eros for you in a new release from Moodyz (region 2)
- Finally, we have a huge update of new DVD titles for you including One Week with Only Semen (see the J-Mate review, below), the excellent Cosplay Royal Collection, SOD’s Confinement Lesbian, Aika Miura’s excellent Lewd Actress, and more!
J-List sells many interesting items from Japan, including our trademark “funny Japanese T-shirts” which are printed in the USA and come in all sizes, from small all the way up to XXXL. Our most popular T-shirt by far is the “Looking for a Japanese Girlfriend,” which outsells all other shirts, followed by “Dirty American Devil” “Confident in my Sexual Power” and “I am a Pervert” shirts. Up and coming is the very popular shirt “Respect the Emperor, Expel the Foreign Barbarians.” All shirts are 100% cotton and all sizes are stocked, for speedy shipment to you!
The J-Mate site has been updated with a new English-translated interview with the lovely Aoi Minori, and a new review of Nanami Nanase’s now-classic “One Week with Only Semen.” The site can be accessed at http://www.jmate.com/
