Hello, and “akemashite omedeto gozaimasu” (lit. “congratulations on opening the new year”) from your friends in Japan at J-List.
2001 arrived in Japan a few hours before the U.S., and everything was as it should be: the soft sound of Japanese bells and hope for the new year, people enduring the cold to do their new year’s prayer right after midnight, the calming presence of NHK watching over the nation, keeping us safe. New Years’ Day is a day to relax, spend time with family, put your feet in the kotatsu (a kind of low table with a heater inside, which has a blanket over it to keep your legs warm), and of course eat lots of mikans (mandarin oranges).
After the usual happy-new-year TV shows ended on Jan 1, my wife and I found an interesting TV show where a panel of politicians and writers debated what Japan needed to do to survive and prosper in the 21st century. The panel included many Japanese-fluent foreigners from the U.S., Canada and several other countries, who offered their viewpoints to the others. Japan is a country with a lot of problems, from an economy lacking energy and “genki” to growing social problems , and they think quite deeply about what can be done about it.
One of the biggest problems Japan faces is a total lack of inflation — amazingly, a package of boil-in-bag curry costs only a little more today than it did 30 years ago! Aside from very moderate train fare increases, and one telephone rate increase, I can’t think of a single product that costs more today than it did when i came to Japan in 1992. This lack of price growth is one of the key reasons why Japan’s economy can’t get any real forward motion and start growing again.
For our first update in the new year, we’ve got some really special items prepared for you, including:
- First, we’re happy to announce that all our JAST USA and Milky House adult anime CD-ROM titles that cost $34.95 have been reduced in price to $24.95 — a $10 savings for these great uncensored English language hentai games
- We have excellent new magazines, including new issues of Video Boy, Best Video, and the popular Cho Very Good (kogal sex magazine)
- We’ve got a bunch of excellent and all-new photobook items posted to the Photobooks page, including a truly breathtaking item: Sweet Trap, featuring the fantastic nude photography of Japan’s five hottest AV actresses
- For our bondage and S&M photobook fans, see a new issue of the popular Slave Mania
- We’ve got even more popular past issues of the excellent Nowon from the early 1990’s
- We’ve posted another half-dozen all-new adult manga volumes, including some really excellent works by Angel Comics and Do Comics and AV Comics — many back-in-stock classic issues, too
- We’ve lowered prices on our stock of the excellent Viper series erotic parody manga, on the Parody Manga page
- For Yaoi fans, we’ve got some new manga for you as well — see the new items posted now
- For fans of Japan’s excellent adult videos, we’ve got great new offerings by Morino Izumi, as well as Nakanishi Sayaka’s “Mejiri”
- Also, we’ve got even more greatly reduced priced adult videos posted to our Videos (discount) page
- We love Japan’s dynamite code-free adult DVDs, so we’ve got two killer titles in — Nagase Lum’s wonderful “Sexual Excitement” and the slender, stylish Honjoh Sayuri’s “Premium”
- For our newly christened Hentai DVD page, we’ve got two new items: Soft on Demand’s Fragile Hearts (vol. 2) and Kakyusei vol. 2 (the *director’s cut*)
- We’ve got several JPOP CD singles posted to the Anime & JPOP Magazines page (on the Anime master category)
- On the Anime & Toys page, an authentic Japanese kendama, and the perfect item for the Cutey Honey fan in you
- Even lower prices on our remaining stock of calendars
- For fans of Japanese tea, we’ve got a delicious new variety, healthy and delicious Genmai-cha, a green tea with toasted unpolished rice in it
- On the Wacky Things from Japan, another wacky dictionary for those who read or are studying Japanese: a “four character word” dictionary, filled with four-character compound Japanese words similar to our wacky T-shirt messages
- We’ve got new wacky Japanese stickers on the Stickers & Headbands page: “No Smorking” (sic) and “I’m Safety Driver”
- Other cool items on the Wacky Things from Japan page this time include more handy Japanese traditional cloth bags (for carrying just about anything), and an instant trash holder — a nifty plastic arm that holds a trash bag for you just about anywhere!
We’re looking for an experienced webmaster who can help us run and update a new site which will offer interviews with Japanese AV idols and more. Interested persons should submit examples of past or current work and let us know what kind of background they’ve got. Thanks!
