Hello again from all your friends in Japan!
Now that the ban on Japanese cultural imports has been lifted in South Korea, there’s lots of evidence of sharing of culture between the two nations. More and more Korean stars are becoming commonplace on Japanese TV, like my favorite, the lovely Yoon Son Ha (her Korean-Japanese accent is so cute). The popular South Korean war film Brotherhood (in Korean, Taegukgi Hwinalrimyeo) is playing in theatres in Japan right now, and when Korean actor Bin Won came to Japan to promote the movie he was surprised to see 500 screaming Japanese fans at the airport to see him. We’re glad to see this new cultural sharing between South Korea and Japan and hope to see more of it in the future.
Japan is experiencing a real “bug boom” right now, as millions of elementary school kids learn everything they can about various kinds of beetles like the Goliath Beetle, Rhinoceros Beetle, Eastern Hercules Beetle and a Japanese variety called Ookuwagata. Part of the interest in bugs is being fueled by the popularity of Mushi King (“Bug King”), an arcade game by Sega which spits out a bar-coded insect card that kids use to fight other 3D animated insects. My son loves this game and has a complete collection of the cards, which have information about the bugs printed on them. Last weekend we took the kids to a nearby Insect Zoo which happened to sell various kinds of beetles, and sure enough, my kids conned us into buying two of them as pets. We’re now the proud owners of two red-backed Ookuwagata, which sleep in their cage in a dark corner of my son’s room.
There’s a fun game Japanese kids play, called Shiritori (lit. “take the rear end”) Game. To play, someone thinks of a word — say, chopsticks, which is “hashi” in Japanese. Then the next person takes the last syllable — “shi” — and thinks of a word that starts with this syllable, say, “shika” (deer). The next person continues, with a word that starts with “ka” and so on. In Japanese phonetics, the only consonant that can appear by itself without a noun after it is the letter “n”, so in Shiritori Game, saying a word that ends in “n” (such as lion, “raion” in Japanese) ends the game for that person. This game is played by virtually all children in Japan and is a fun way for kids (or gaijin) to pick up and reinforce vocabulary words. It’s a great game to play in the car, too.
We love Japan’s interactive dating-sim games, which are a huge category of software here — approximately 25% of all software in Japan are interactive love-sim games of one kind or another. Today we’re announcing preorders for two upcoming games from Hirameki, which are DVD games that will play with any standard DVD player, as well as PC/Mac with DVD drives or Sony Playstation/Xbox. In Hourglass of Summer, you suddenly “timeslip” to the end of summer vacation, surprised to learn that your girlfriend Kaho has been killed in an accident the day before. Can you save her by finding a way to go back in time? An adventure of a lifetime, a summer that crosses the boundaries of space and time. Then in Tea Society of a Witch, you must interact with three magical beings and find a way to allow humans to once again live in peace with the mages of the World of Magic. Two great non-H interactive anime games!
For the new update, we’ve got some excellent products from Japan for you. They include:
- First, we’ve got a real treat for Shirow Masamune fans — the new Intron Depot figure set, series 3, featuring his amazing original characters and lovely females, who come alive as high quality soft vinyl figures for you
- Then for Ultraman fans, we’ve got newly recreated sets of the dynamite Ultraman Bobblehead toys, with excellent sets in stock for you to buy
- The gorgeous Tamao Sato appears in a fabulous new “Monthly” photobook (although they don’t come out monthly so this name is meaningless) — shot against a traditional Japanese background, she is really lovely
- Want to add a touch of Japan to your kitchen? We have dynamite all-purpose containers for holding sugar, coffee, or just about anything — they feature the super cute Hello Kitty and Teddy the Teddy and My Melody
- Also for Kitty fans, we’ve got some great oil-removing sheets for you, which allow you to remove excess oil from your face, featuring super Kitty-chan designs
- Another fun Sanrio item: a super elastic My Melody toy that you can stretch, punch and squeeze to relieve stress
- Interested in Japanese cosplay? Enjoy some great restocked items including Goth Loli vol. 2, loaded with great photographs of gorgeous goth outfits and more
- Enjoy one of my favorite things in the world, a nice dip in a hot springs bath, with new onsen powder we’ve got in stock for you
- For fans of the super cute character series Frog Style, we have a dynamite treat for you: sets of extremely colorful lemon ramune candy, with outrageous and cool designs on each one, available as a set for collectors
- We’ve got some great snack items for you today including delicious “Lemon and Pepper” flavored Pretz, a classic Japanese rice cracker that we highly recommend, and a selection of fun low-priced treats you can try out
- Restocked snack items include more traditional Okinawan Black Candy (Kuro Ame), tasty miso soup, restocked flavors of Pretz, sake candy, and one of my favorite items, Poiful fruit-flavored jelly beans
- We also have restocked gum for you: sugar-free Black Black with Xylitol, Blue Berry and Plum gum, and tasty “Watering Kiss Mint” that quenches your thirst
- Godzilla fans, we’ve got a cool new trading card series based on the new movie — they are really cool!
- Got milk? Then you need Futayaky-kun, handy milk sealing clips that allow milk in paper cartons to last longer
- For fans of CLAMP, the manga artists who created Cardcaptor Sakura, Rayearth and Chobits, we’ve got fresh stock of their dynamite new manga
- Totoro fans, we’ve restocked some awesome items for you, including the deluxe large-size Totoro cuckoo clock, several soft Totoro plush toys, and the excellent Totoro aluminum bento box
- Domo-kun fans, we haven’t forgotten you — we’ve got fresh stock of several of the most popular Domo items, including the large plush Domo-kun, the large and medium Domo cube plushes, and more
- We’ve also got more traditional Japanese dishes for you, including a very convenient miso soup bowl
- Finally look for more great Hello Kitty items including the awesome Sanrio Ice Cube Tray and fresh stock of the Kitty Desktop Vacuums, restocked fude pens for brush writing, and more.
- For our 18+ customers, we’ve got many new products. The new items include:
- For fans of Japan’s delightful H magazines, we’ve got the Shuffle, with authentic Tokyo girls in love hotels and great photography
- Then enjoy the popular Japanese magazine that features girls from the U.S. and Eastern Europe, including some girls who are hard to find
- From the lens of Hiraokanovsky Kuratachenko, the parodically Russian-ified pen name of Japanese photographer Hirano Kurata, a great new Joytoy series book with bold mix of communist and Asian sexy imagery
- Also very cool, we’ve got the new photobook of Momo Mizutani, with loads of luscious photographs of one of Japan’s most gorgeous ladies
- We have a great restocking of popular photobooks, too, including great offerings from Kaoru, Ran Asakawa, Yoko Matsugane, Yuko Ogawa and more
- For Japan’s H manga fans and collectors, we’ve got some dynamite new works for you, including the amazing new WANT from Tenma Comics, a superb “Twin Tail” anthology manga, and an interesting work exploring the nature of infidelity
- Also, we’ve got another great restocking of manga for you, including Female Panther 1-4, Neo Gentle Casty, the Illustrated Maya Miyazaki, What? – N? and many more great books
- We have some dynamite new DVDs for you, starting with 4 hours of “ii onna” (lit. “good woman,” i.e. especially beautiful women performing for you (region free)
- Then, a great title from Hajime Planning, famous Japanese AV director asks beautiful Tokyo girls to get their friends to be in a video, in a great new “Best Friends Series” release (region free)
- Then from SOD’s Hibino label, enjoy a new concept: “The Wife who put on the Swimming Suit,” a fun hitozuma themed offering (region free)
- From Deep’s, a Female Hospital Memorial featuring the most moments of their popular all-woman nurse concept series (region free)
- Moodyz brings you a great new offering, Leg & Foot Infinity, a great collection of amazing high-end themes that you will enjoy watching (region 2)
- Then from Waap Entertainment, a great new “gokkun” themed release, featuring amazing and experienced women who perform for you (region 2)
- Finally, look for many restocked DVDs, including Mai Hagiwara’s great recent titles, Hiyori Shiraishi’s Masterpiece Concentration release, Aoi Sora’s Devil’s Training, and more!
J-List carries over 2000 unique products from Japan, from full sets of cool miniature toys from Japan, to unique Totoro and Hello Kitty products to cool Shirow Masamune collectibles, we’ve got something for everyone. But there’s one reality about Japan: although you may have heard that Japanese businessmen are long-range planners, in reality virtually all of the products we sell have very limited production runs. Most items can’t be ordered through our distributors once the initial stock is gone, which invariably causes frustration for customers who waited to get the item they wanted. Our advice is when you see something cool on our site, get it before it disappears. Similarly, we’re always closing out our popular wacky Japanese T-shirts so that we can make room for new designs. If you’ve got your eye on a T-shirt or three, don’t wait to get them!
