Hello again from Japan, the country that loves to wrap cookies individually.
The case of the poor seven-year-old boy who was murdered in Kyoto has been solved. The murderer, a troubled 21-year-old youth, turned himself in to investigators, only to run away during questioning. He climbed to the top floor of a nearby apartment complex and jumped to his death. The story has been all over the morning wide shows (they seem to love to show camera views peering down from the balcony where the man jumped, to show what his last view would have been). Unfortunately the man left no diary or notes to give a clear indication as to why he did what he did. It’s a sad ending to a sad story.
The Japanese government continues its policy of lending money to banks at 0%, in order to keep interest rates ultra-low and promote growth in the economy. It’s therefore cheap to borrow money — if you can find a bank willing to lend it to you — but the return on savings is the lowest in the world. A standard bank saving accounts account gets you .02% annually — so if you keep $1000 in a bank for a year you’ll get just $2 for your trouble. American-style money market funds have become popular, but they still only offer around 2-2.5% to investors. Meanwhile, E*Trade is pushing online investing strongly here, as Japan continues to change as a result of outside pressure.
We’ve got some nice items for you today. Updated items on J-List include
- The new issue of Urecco, which features some of the hottest and most beautiful AV idols and models in Japan today
- A slew of new adult manga to the hentai manga page, including some very nice S&M and bondage manga (and a new offering by the popular Araki Kyoya)
- A selection of new special-order videos, including several nice new “costplay” (costume fetish) and bondage videos
- New JPOP CD singles, for fans of our low-priced JPOP CDs
- More!
We’ve gone through and reduced prices on nearly all of our in-stock manga and dojiinshi, to help make room for great new items. There are some cool items there, in stock and ready to go out to you, so please take a look at the reduced items. Thanks!
