Hello again from your good friends in Japan!
First of all, we’ve been finding that some customers have had problems checking out of the J-List website recently. The checkout seems to go through fine, but due to some bug we’re working very hard to squash right now, the order doesn’t show up on our side. If you made an order over the past week or so but haven’t heard from us about it, would you please email us and we’ll check into it ASAP? As always, you can use the “secure email form” as an emergency backup if you experience problems at checkout. Thanks in advance!
One thing Japan has that they don’t have in the U.S. are CD rental stores. In general, anyplace that rents videos in Japan will also have a large music CD section where you can rent anime, JPOP and western music, either singles or albums, for around $3 per disc. It’s very convenient, although the practice of allowing rental of music CDs has caused friction between the shops and American record companies in the past. I’m a big fan of Apple’s elegant iPod, and use mine all the time (it holds the entire 13-CD Lord of the Rings BBC radio show with plenty of room to spare, what more can you ask for?). It’s always fun to hit the CD shop and see what new discs are available for rental so I can listen to them on my iPod.
The first drama co-produced between Japan and Korea is on the air right now, Friends. Starring the popular idol Kyoko Fukada and South Korean star Won Bin, it’s an interesting drama about the problems two young lovers have being together in spite of all the differences between Japan and South Korea. It’s a very interesting story, and it’s interesting to see “Fuka-kyon” (her nickname) speaking Korean. For more info on the drama, see the official site here: http://www.tbs.co.jp/friends21/ (Japanese only). Japanese dramas are a major part of entertainment life here in Japan, and are popular all over Asia and America. I’m sure this drama will be very popular, too.
J-List sells thousands of DVDs each month. The vast majority of the DVDs we sell are region-free, meaning you can view them with any DVD player in the world, but anime, hentai and most of the Indies releases are region 2. We recommend the Sampo DVE-611, a popular low-end DVD player that you can pick up for $109 or so that can easily be made to play discs from all regions. But if you’ve got a PC with a DVD-ROM drive and use DVD playback software like Software Cinemaster, PowerDVD, or WinDVD, there’s a simple (and free) patch available that will make it easy to play region 2 DVDs from J-List and anywhere else. The URL is http://www.inmatrix.com/files/dvdgenie_download.shtml
For today’s update, we’ve got another very nice selection of great items from Japan, which the staff of J-List has worked very hard to bring you. They include:
- First, new magazines for your enjoyment, including ones for fans of kogals, amateur girls in love hotels, embarrassing photos of famous idols like Yuuka, and a new one — a magazine for fans of “micro girls” (below 4’10”)
- We have some rare items, some premium issues of Nowon from the mid 1990’s including some great appearances by the wonderful Naoko Iijima
- For photobook fans, we’ve got some nice newly posted items, including the very bold nude by model “Mariko”
- Manga fans, be sure to check out our newly posted hentai manga offerings, including great works by Japan’s top hentai artists and studios
- Yaoi lovers, we apologize for letting our stock get so low, but we’ll take care of the situation soon. In the meantime, we have stock of two very nice new yaoi homosexual Japanese comics
- For doujinshi collectors, we’ve got another volley of really nice erotic underground comics, put on sale at Japan’s past Comic market
- DVD collectors, we’ve got many new items for you, including the very nice First Love, a super sampler DVD with ten of Japan’s hottest AV stars including Emily Yoshikawa and more (region free)
- The lovely Airi Kago allows herself to be tied up and toyed with in a very erotic new DVD from Soft on Demand “I’m sorry I’m all tied up” (region free)
- For fans of jukujo (older, experienced women), we’ve got a very nice DVD featuring Yukari Sakurada’s very bold “Cosplay, Jukujo, Bukkake” performance (region free)
- The very nice G-Taste live action sexy idol DVDs have been released, and we’ve got the first two volumes — they feature sexy Japanese women play-acting in very nice costumes, and they’re just great (region 2)
- For fans of the erotic AV of Waap Entertainment, we’ve got a super new 2-DVD Chijo (slut) performance (region 2)
- Finally, we’ve had a major restock of DVDs, including Nanami Nanase Answers the Flagrant Requests of Bukkake fans, SOD’s Semen Bust and Semen Paradise, the no-mosaic lesbian DVD My First Experience, and much more
- For fans of the Crystal Card nude AV idol trading cards, we’ve got fresh stock of the 2001 vol. 1 series for you
- In our quest to bring you really cool new Japanese anime figures, we’ve got two new ones: Naru-chan and Shinobu-chan from Love Hina, and they are really to die for
- For lovely Japanese idol fans, we’ve got some beautiful photobooks for you by Japan’s lovely race queens, swimsuit idols, and more
- New Bento-related items, including fresh stock Picky’s Bear Japanese bento boxes and other items
- For Star Blazers/Yamato fans, fresh stock of the Yamato Chronicle trading card series from Cardass
- We’ve restocked many popular anime and toy items, including the Star Wars super deformed toy line and the Macross Plus VF-11B transforming Battloid toy, and the lovely Love Hina Skyluv Project Naru-taking-a-bath toy
- Also: fresh stock of our very cool Ichiro baseball action figures
- We’ve got cool new health items, like the “sticky type” hand and body warmers that keep you warm for up to 12 hours, as well as cool Japanese hot springs tablets for your bath
- Newly updated on our snacks and food pages are Vegetable and Fruit gummi candy (yes, you read right) — it sounds funny, but it’s really good
- Also: a major restock of popular Mousse Pocky, including dark choco, white choco and the surprise hit green tea/matcha
- We’ve got a rare treat for Hello Kitty fans, collectible boxes of chocolate snacks that come with Hello Kitty traditional kokeshi (carved wooden dolls) and daruma (statues that bring good luck)
- Besides all the other cool things J-List sells, we carry Japan-release anime on DVD, including the very nice Hayao Miyazaki films that are being released here with full English subtitles and dubbed tracks. We’ve gotten fresh stock of the popular Princess Mononoke DVD that’s loaded with extras you can’t see outside of Japan (region 2)
- Finally, look for many odd wacky things from Japan, including new Japanese “fude pens” (pens that write like Japanese writing brushes), notebooks that help you master the hiragana writing system, beautiful Japanese writing paper notebooks, and more!
J-List also carries the Pure Beauties soft porn DVD series out of our San Diego office. Since we’re overstocked on many of these titles, we’re having a bit of a sale — look for reduced prices on these nice items, as low as $14.95 now.
The J-Mate site (http://www.jlist.com) has been updated, with a super interview with Ai Nagase, one of the biggest-selling girls at J-List and all throughout Japan. She gives a great snapshot of he life as one of the top AV idols in Japan and why she chose the life she chose. J-List sponsors J-Mate as a free service to our many customers as a way of saying thanks for your ongoing support. Remember if you ever want to review a Japanese DVD, game or anything else for J-Mate just email us. Thanks!
