Hello again from your friend in Japan! Pardon my typing tonight, I was up til 4 am watching the Macworld Expo keynote speech via webcast…
The Chinese language and writing system is to the Japanese very much what Latin and Greek are to the west: the source of all science and expression of ideas. Just as the words we use in English come from words in classical languages, kanji and the ways in which words are combined using Japanese characters to make new words are an interesting way to understand the language. Although now the Japanese have English to turn to when new ideas come along, needing words to label them — resulting in words like “DVD player” and “illustrator” being used as-is in Japanese, albeit written in the katakana syllibery — there are just as many cases where new names come from kanji, combined by joining kanji elements to make a new word.
There are several amusing phrases that speak to the Japanese and their relationship with Chinese characters, kanji. In Sazae-san, the long-running anime that captures in calming, peaceful tones the happiness of a traditional Japanese family, for example, Sazae and her husband, Masuo, sleep on futons with their son, Tara-chan, sandwiched in between. This is called sleeping in “kawa no ji” or “like the character for river” since it imitates the three lines of the character for river. Also
For this evening’s update, we’ve got some very nice new items for you, including:
- First, some great new stock of magazines, including the great Pink Gold, as well as several backissues from 1999
- If you love S&M photobooks and Japan’s high-end fetish books, we have fresh stock of several items, including a cool issue of Slave Mania
- There are several very nice photobooks posted on the Japanese photobooks page
- For leg fetish fans, more stock of the sold-out deluxe “Mini-Suka Super”
- We have yet *even* more 2001 calendars, including the excellent Haruyo Morita works, the World of Soba noodles, and a wonderful nude calendar featuring “Kaori, on the calendars pages
- For erotic manga fans, we’ve got another major update, with a half dozen all new books posted, as well as many very cool back from the dead” books that had been sold out in the past (but which we have extremely limited stock of on hand)
- Monday’s volley of dojinshi disappeared in record time, so we’ve got another for you — a bunch of excellent new adult dojinshi which we picked up at the winter Comic Market
- Fans of the dynamite Morishita Kurumi have reason to be happy, with her super 90 minute “Kuru-Milk” video, featuring Kuru-Kuru decked our as a Japanese kogal, right down to the tanned skin — it’s all very erotic
- Also for SOD fans, a super item called Sperm Lesbian, a neat featuring with two lovely AV idols performing hetero lesbian sexual acts (sometimes at the same time)
- To help us lower our stock levles, we’ve got even more discount videos on the discount pages, all with free shipping
- Newly added stock to our Wacky Things from Japan page include another really lovely “Japanese congratulations envelope” (used for giving money at weddings, but you can find a dozen uses for it), as well as a nifty “trash net” that removes link and other trash from your washing machine as you wash your clothes
- For Speed Racer fans, we have fresh stock of the oh-so-cool die-cast Mach 5 car, complete with all the excellent features of the original car
- Finally, by customer request, we’ve created “sampler boxes” of our unique Japanese snack foods, featuring different selections of some of the snacks we love most, including Pocky, Hi-Chu Kids, Wata-Pachi (exploding pop rocks and cotton candy), and of course, Japan’s wonderful varieties of gum. Three sets available, and all are shipped in special protective plastic cases.
While the vast majority of the Japanese adult and other DVDs J-List carries are zoned for “ALL” countries, meaning you can view them on any DVD player, we do our best to stock those discs that are zoned for region 2 (Japan and Europe).Virtually all anime DVDs, including our hentai DVDs, are coded for region 2, as are SOD’s DVD line. The country lockouts are frustrating for people in North America and Asia trying to view code-2 discs, but remember, there are several ways to view these DVDs, most of which are outlined at the top of the region-2 DVD page. I personally keep my Mac’s DVD drive set to region 2, and view all region-2 DVDs on my computer (you can change the code up to 5 times). Also
