Hello again from Japan, where it’s good manners to turn your car’s headlights off while waiting at a red light (to avoid blinding the person across the intersection from you).
We’re in the middle of June now, and that is dreary news for everyone in Japan: the month-long rainy season will be starting any day now, transforming the Japanese islands into the Pacific Northwest for four weeks of drizzle, rain and general grayness. Coming from bright, sunny San Diego as I do, it’s sometimes hard to fight off the blues during all that rain. The only thing worse than the long gray of the rainy season is what comes after: Japan’s sweltering real summer with its 100% humidity is always difficult to bear.
In preparation for that heat, we’ve purchased some new electric fans to help keep cool. There’s a real “electric fan gap” between Japan and the States, with Japanese companies producing some wonderfully high-tech gadgets, from tricked-out units that have remote controls, timers so they turn off after a set number of hours, selectable rotation settings, and more. I bought some fans that feature what the Japanese call “minus ion” (negative ions, like the fresh air after a thunderstorm has passed), although I can’t say for sure if my ions are being negatively charged or not. Another feature I like is “natural wind” — the fan alters its speed randomly to simulate the wind blowing in from outside. One thing the Japanese haven’t invented, however, is the slim, square fan that sits on a windowsill and blows air in directly from outside, which are quite common in the U.S. Fans with many features cost between $40 to $90 each. The windowsill fan I got at Walmart and brought back with me was around $7.
The Japanese use a lot of English in their daily lives, but it’s often impossible to identify it sometimes after the Japanese get through with it. If you ask your boss for a raise, but he says no, it’s “NG” (which stands for “no good”) — a TV “blooper” is also called an NG. The letter “W” stands for “double” to the Japanese, thus a washing machine might be advertised as “W (double) Power.” If you want to check your weight, you’d better ask for a health meter — the English term “scale” is used in Japanese, but only meaning something’s size in relation to something else. Sometimes Americans are confused by alien terms that are British English — I didn’t know that the hood of a car was a “bonnet” in British English until I came to Japan. If you want to tell someone to not worry about something, you can say “Donmai!” which comes from “Don’t mind!” Similarly, when someone is backing their car up, you can tell them it’s okay to come back further by saying “Orai!” which comes from “Alright!” Many English words have been imported into Japanese, but with different pronunciations — “energy” is pronounced with a hard “G,” and “vitamin” comes out like “bitamin” (bee-TA-min). Finally, many of the foreign words used in Japan, like “anket” (a questionnaire) and “arubaito” (a part-time job) don’t come from English at all, but that doesn’t stop the Japanese from trying to use them during English conversation class.
For the new update, we’ve got some excellent products from Japan for you. They include:
- First, for fans of the super cool Ghost in the Shell figures from Shirow Masamune, we’ve got a great new limited edition all-black metal version of the figures, with full sets available to buy (no need to buy dozens of duplicates to complete your set)
- Also for fans of “shokugan” (small toys that come with ramune candy inside), we’ve got a single full set of Heidi, Girl of the Alps, a unique and rare item
- For Totoro/Miyazaki fans, a huge volley of newly restocked items, including several Totoro and Neko Bus plush toys, the popular Totoro magnet set, sitting Bou plush and the Fox Squirrel from Laputa/Nausica, more music boxes, and moer
- If you love cute Japanese swimsuit idols, check out Yui Ichikawa’s lovely new photobook, shot on location in beauty Italy
- For fans of Japanese film on DVD (with subtitles in English), we’ve got the popular Water Boys, a very entertaining movie about an unlikely topic, men’s synchronized swimming (region 2)
- For fans of Japanese pro wrestlers, we’ve got two cool rare figures, Kenta Obashi and Kokushimusou, in stock now
- Also, we’ve got a cool oversized version of the American kick boxer who has taken Japan by storm, Bob Sapp
- For fans of Japanese snacks, we’ve got delicious miso soup and “tuna mayonnaise” fried rice mix, a new flavor of the delicious Poifull, and sweet Momo Choco (Peach Chocolate)
- Also, Chip Star, the famous knock-off of Pringles by Nabisco sold in the Japanese market for years — try new salad dressing flavor!
- Like Japanese baseball? We’ve got a great series of baseball cards featuring all of Japan’s top stars, including Hideki Matsui
- Also, look for a new series of great Yu-Gi-Oh card game from Konami, very cool and in Japanese
- For Hello Kitty fans, some cool and rare items from Japan, including a “car puzzle,” a handy plastic holder for important documents, a great Kitty “floating tumbler” for your bathroom, Kitty stickers that show your mood, and a fantastic high-quality Kitty “Charm Watch” that you will love
- Also, for those learning Japanese, a great Hello Kitty wall chart showing the hiragana and katakana syllabaries, as well as a cute ABC chart for little ones
- For your car, a handy Japanese holder that allows you to take even large bottles with you
- Finally, look for more funny Japanese signs, Hello Kitty giftwrapping paper, freshly restocked Canon Wordtank electronic dictionaries, and more!
For our adult customers, we’ve got many new 18+ products. They include:
- For, we’ve got some great adult magazines for you, starting with the new Gal’s Dee, which is loaded with super busty Japanese women who will blow you away
- Also, we’ve got the new Bachelor, an oversized magazine for fans of lovely busty women all over the world — this issue features a great opening series with Russian bombshell Yulia Nova and much more
- For fans of hardcore sex, enjoy the new issue of Aishite Ageru (“I’ll Love You”) featuring a virtual date with Chika Kawamura
- The great “KARAMI” photo magazine is always a popular item because each issue is dedicated to a certain lovely star — this issue features nothing but dynamite erotic photos of Asuka Sawaguchi
- Also, see fresh stock of several great photobooks including Mai Hagiwara’s Alive and Ran Asakawa’s erotic Reijo (“Love Slave”)
- For our manga collecting fans, we’ve got some great new books for you, including a great new offering by Masaki Kamitou, the erotic Love Dolls of Ai Yuri and “Bad Girl Play” with sexy maid girls
- Also, fresh stock of many popular books including the popular hermaphrodite works of Amanojack, the popular Alice First and Alice Second, and the superb Private Teacher from Kenji Kisuzuki
- Also, for yaoi fans, a great new manga of love and sex by Yuuki Amow
- And for doujinshi fans of the popular “dick girl” themes of Behind the Moon, enjoy limited stock of two sold-out doujinshi — but stock will not last long
- For DVD lovers, we’ve got some great items for you, starting with a super “Removal of the Ban” offering by the lovely Asuka Ozora, who performs some of her best sex ever for you (region free)
- In Japanese, the word OL means “office lady” (or female office worker), and there’s quite a fetish for these sexy, gorgeous ladies in their lovely company uniforms — explore this fetish with a new offering from Dogma starring four supremely erotic OLs (region free)
- Then enjoy a superb bukkake performance by the sweet but slutty Ran Asakawa in a new Endless Semen DVD, directed by master AV director Tohjiro himself (region free)
- Enjoy beautiful all-nude fetish and hoary sex in a new title by SOD’s IEnergy label, featuring seven top AV stars including Nozomi Momoi, Ai Nagase and more (region free)
- The lovely Chiharu Moritaka stars in a great new work from Soft on Demand, assisting your masturbation with super-fine “digital mosaic” that’s great to see (region free)
- From the bold and exciting Wanz Factory, see slender Rina Usui in a great new fetish, tickling — Rina-chan is bound and teased and tickled, and made to do many fun and bizarre things
- Finally, we’ve got fresh stock of several popular DVDs, including Anna Ohura’s “I Love H,” more underwater “Aqua Set,” Mirai Hoshizaki’s bondage offerings, and the best-selling Mizuho Kano (aka Jun Kusanagi) Special.
Remember that at J-List, we carry the whole line of unique Japanese chewing gum from companies like Lotte and Glico. Some of our most popular items are Lotte’s “Black Black” (menthol gum with caffeine, it will keep you awake!), delicious Sweetie (grapefruit) gum, and tasty Ume, Japanse plum. Check out all these items on our Japanese snack pages!
World-famous animation creator Hayao Miyazaki has a new project: a series of TV commercials for House Foods, a company that makes curry and other household foods in Japan. The commercials capture the happy, simpler era of Japan in the 1950’s, and are great to watch. We found them hosted on Nausica.net — the URL is here: http://www.nausicaa.net/miyazaki/newspro/latest_news.shtml
