Greetings from Japan, birthplace of karaoke, tomato pretzles and gummi candy shaped like a woman’s breasts.
We got a lot of comments on Japanese superstitions and beliefs from Monday’s update. They are very complex and interesting. The system of Yakudoshi, the unlucky year, is based on Buddhist ideas and the native Japanese astrology. There are various smaller unlucky years, but for women the really unlucky year is age 33, and for men, 42. The years before and after the main yakudoshi are also unlucky, and you’re not supposed to start business, build houses, or get married around this time. There’s another system of lucky/unlucky days that cycles through fourteen days or so. The most unlucky day is “Butsumetu” and the luckiest day is “Taian.” Every bride in the country wants to get married on Taian, so they’ll have a happy life
There are customs governing the naming of children, too, and before you decide on a name it’s customary to talk with your Shinto priest. Based on the number of strokes in the kanji for the name you choose for your children, they might have happy or sad lives. For our son Kazuki, we’d originally chosen the name of Kazuma (peace + horse), but were advised that the stroke number, coupled with the kanji for “horse” (which has some bad connotations), we’d have an unhappy son who might even die at a young age. Not wanting to push things, we changed it to Kazuki (peace + tree). (See the two kanji at http://www.jlist.com/shop/names.gif .)
Today’s update is a nice one. Newly updated items include
- A huge shipment of some of the most-requested manga items in recent memory, the excellent Viper parody dojinshi anthology series
- For fans of interesting Japanese snacks, we’ve added Tomato Pretz (delicious tomato-flavored pretzels) and Hello Kitty Caramels (which come with a free Hello Kitty phone strap)
- Stock of the popular Photoshot and Photoshot DX issues, which feature some of the nicest photography in Japan, on the photobooks pages
- Great new special order videos, including new items by Yoshikawa Minami and Kanazawa Bunko
- New puzzles and Hello Kitty items on the puzzle & cards page
- More copies of the zany “Seiryoku Zeturin” (a four-kanji word that means “matchless, unequaled sexual power”) T-shirt that had sold out (on the T-shirt page)
- More of the popular Pikachu Alarm Clock that plays the Pokemon theme song (on the anime page)
Several new and back-in-stock magazine and photobook items
J-List has the last remaining stock of the popular Otaku Publishing English-language hentai games: Ring Out, Return to Paradise Heights, and True Love. They’re the last copies that will be made, so if you’re interested in trying these hit games (especially Ring Out, which we’re almost out of stock of), you should think about picking them up soon. Remember, we’ve got a great special — any three hentai games for $100, shipping to the U.S. and Canada included.
That’s all. See you on the web!
