Hello again from all of us in Japan!
When Japanese think of foreigners, they think of overly tall, blonde Americans with huge feet, trying to find their way to the right subway line. In actuality, the vast majority of foreigners living in Japan are not Westerners, but are from both Koreas, Brazil, Peru, and China. Officially, 1% of Japan’s population are resident foreigners, although that number doesn’t take into account people who are here illegally, so the number is probably higher. Isesaki, the city we live in, has a much higher foreign population (3%) due to a lot of factories based here. The area with the highest percent of foreigners in Japan is just down the road: the town of Oizumi boasts a population of 30% Brazilian and Japanese of Brazilian descent, and they have a really fun Carnival festival in the summer.
The largest group of foreigners in Japan, the Koreans, are very interesting because many of them were born and raised right here, and often don’t even speak Korean unless they attended one of the Korean-only private schools that pepper the country. To an American like me, it’s odd that these people would not be considered Japanese, as all children born in the U.S. get to be American citizens automatically. But the relationship of Korea and Japan is a very complex one, and more or less by mutual agreement of both sides, Koreans often live for generations inside Japan, never allowing themselves to become culturally assimilated. Or is it the Japanese who keep the Korean population from truly becoming part of Japan? I couldn’t possibly say for sure. On the one hand, it’s not difficult for anyone (even white-boy gaijin me) to get Japanese citizenship as long as he meets certain reasonable requirements. Japan is always very sensitive to possible accusations of racism, so there are no groups that aren’t “allowed” to become Japanese citizens. Many Koreans object to the Japanese requirement that all persons wanting to become naturalized must take a Japanese name, e.g. Taro Yamada. Koreans living in Japan make sure they only hang out with other similar-minded Koreans (e.g., South with South, North with North), lest questions arise about their loyalties. There is, unfortunately, a lot of organized crime related to North Koreans, everything from making North Koreans born in Japan pay protection money to “support” relatives back home, to the highly refined manufacturing of cocaine for import into Japan.
For the new update, we’ve got some excellent products from Japan for you. They include:
- First, for fans of the classic anime Cobra, we’ve got a rare treat: Cobra action figure toys, and we’ve got full sets available, too (but only two)
- For anyone who loves Hot Wheels, we’ve got the only-released-in-Japan Hot Wheels Delorean from Back to the Future III, incredibly well detailed and very cool
- We’ve got nice items for fans of Japanese idols and Race Queens, including a beautiful all-idol magazine and the lovely hardcover photobook of Aiko Itoh
- If you collect Japanese CD singles, we’ve got the perfect case for you to organize them with
- We’ve got some nice new Hello Kitty items, including Kitty envelopes that are so cute, as well as fresh stock of several popular items
- Also, if you love Hamtaro, we’ve got some supremely cute Hamtaro items including a great character scarf for when it’s cold out
- For fans of Japanese snacks, enjoy delicious Ochazuke, a kind of dried food containing green tea, nori, and rice crackers which you pour over rice, then pour boiling water over the whole thing and eat it
- We’ve also got, delicious Hi-Soft caramels from Morinaga (“Healing you softly with an Angel’s Heart,” delicious Japanese green tea in tea bags, and Kiss Mint gum
- Also, an item that’s selling incredibly well, thanks to a mention in the most recent Wired Magazine: Black Black, Lotte’s original caffeine gum that wakes you up
- We’ve got a super cute camouflage hat for anyone who wants to emulate what’s stylish right now in Japan
- Finally, there’s a cool large envelope to protect your documents, some “high sense creation” keychain/phone straps,
For our adult customers, we’ve got many new 18+ products. They include:
- For fans of dynamite erotic photography, enjoy the fabulous Ultimate Heroines, filled with incredibly bold and sassy photos
- Also very cool, the new issue of Do-Up, filled with super amateur girls aged 19-22, performing with their boyfriends in love hotels
- We love Japanese photobooks, and Hiroko Suto has a fabulous and very high-quality glossy one for you
- We’ve got more issues of Up! You, which is “the world’s beauty catalog” and features many rare lovelies Russia, Europe and more
- We’ve got excellent erotic manga for you to today, with several all-new volumes by Tsukasa and other studios, including the excellent “Flesh Bride”
- For DVD collectors, we’ve got more excellent items, starting with Gymnastics Girls, a superb DVD for fans of leotards and the slender bodies of Japan’s famous AV idols (region free)
- For fans who love their women more solid, we’ve got a great Big Breast Body Doll featuring Sakura Sena, a girl with a fantastic 101 cm K cup (region free)
- For fans of the lovely Eri Yukawa, that busty and sexy AV star, we’ve got a super 2-DVD bukkake fetish offering from Moodyz that you won’t want to miss (region 2)
- For lovers of fine hentai anime on DVD, we’ve gotten in the boxed sets of Immu Seisen vol. 1-3, ready to ship out to you
- Look for freshly updated DVD titles, including Mizuho Kano Special (featuring the lovely Jun Kusanagi, her AV name), Eri Yukawa’s erotic bondage DVD, and Sally Yoshino’s Indecent Beast City, and new DVDs by Ami Ayukawa
- Finally, the J-List January DVD Sale is still going strong, although January is at an end — if you want to take advantage of our buy-4-get-25% off sale, hurry! We’ve got hundreds of DVD items included in the sale for you, so look for something before the sale ends!
J-List carries many great funny Japanese T-shirts, with many funny messages on them like “I want to be Japanese” and “Dirty American Devil.” Please note that we’re always closing out our current shirts to make room for new ones, so that the shirt you are planning on getting next week might not be there when you to back for it. We’re EOLing some shirts, such as Philosophy of Hentai, Men Over Women, the yellow Mother shirt and others, and no more will be printed. Since we invariably get a lot of customers who ask to buy this shirt or that when the last of them are gone, we recommend you get the shirts now, while the size you need is in stock. Get 3 or more and get 10% off!
Are you using Paypal? Paypal is a very convenient system for paying for things securely online, and is a great way to pay for just about any purchase. J-List gladly accepts Paypal for orders (you can choose “Paypal” as the payment method when checking out and we’ll send you a link to click on to make payment), in addition to other payment methods such as secure credit card payments, check/money order, and in extreme cases, cash through the mail. Paypal is especially handy for our customers in Europe, since payments may be made in Euros or British Pounds. As this convenient service attains more and more “critical mass” we hope customers who have need of this convenience will use it.
The Top 5 list has been updated so you can see what items have been selling well over the past week. Click the link to bring up the items, too.
That’s all for now — have a great weekend!
