Hello again from Japan, home of the world’s only indoor skiing facility — the Ssaws ski slope near Tokyo Disneyland, a basically a giant refrigerator with snow inside for you to ski down all year round.
First, some notes about the site. We’ve been making improvements and upgrades to the J-List server over the weekend, which will improve speed and help us adding new features in the future. As always, if you notice anything wrong with the site, please mail us and let us know. If there’s ever a problem with checkout, you can use the secure email form to give us your order information that way.
If you’re going to live in Japan for a long time, at some point you’re going to have to learn to be at peace with standing out in a crowd. No matter where I go in the city we live in (Isesaki, pop. 140,000), there’s a good chance I’m going to be the only foreigner in a given place, and will attract a certain amount of attention. Whether it’s kids, showing curiosity and staring at this giant foreigner (the Japanese tend to think that all foreigners are very tall, even if they are the same height as other Japanese), or Japanese housewives bending their ear to your phone conversation, trying to pick up what you’re saying to test their own English ability, a gaijin in Japan is always sort of ethereal here, always floating above the surface just a little. Back in the 90’s, I liked a Japanese band called Personz, and went to a concert when they were playing in my city. Not only was I the only gaijiin gaijin in a crowd of 5000 Japanese fans — since most of them were in junior high school, I towered above them, so that everyone in the crowd could see me from any angle. It was a fun concert, but also one of the weirder experiences I’ve had in my life. This winter has been especially cold, and I’ve combated the weather by wearing my father’s fur cap,an incredibly warm hat that would protect anyone from a Siberian winter quite easily. However, fur caps are not exactly common in Japan, so I get to stand out even more than I already do. I just make the best of it and pretend I’m Russian.
As you can expect, sushi is pretty popular here in Japan, although in land-locked Gunma Prefecture, right in the middle of the main Japanese island of Honshu, we’re as far from fresh fish as one can be in. The Japanese are great fans of raw fish on rice (sushi) or cut and beautifully arranged by itself (sashimi), although most other Asian countries dislike eating raw things from the sea. There are many sushi restaurants near us, including expensive establishments where a sushi master chef cuts the fish for you (you have to have a license to prepare sushi in Japan), as well as the more affordable “mawari-zushi” (“revolving sushi,” i.e. conveyor belt sushi). Some of the conveyor belt sushi places are quite good, but with the deflationary spiral Japan is in now, restaurants are often competing on price, not taste. Personally, I’d rather pay a little more for good sushi than settle for “cheap” sushi. In my years in Japan, I had never had a chance to try fugu (blowfish), which is famous for being poisonous if not prepared correctly. A few months ago, while entertaining some gaijin friends, we tried some, amid many Simpsons references — it was delicious. The best sushi I’ve managed to find in all Japan is a place called Edokko, in Narita City (near the airport), a fabulous place with “neta” (the fish part of the sushi) so big and fresh it falls off the rice. If you ever have a layover in Narita and want to have some good sushi, go to the Narita City train station, find any taxi driver and say “Edokko sushi?” and he’ll take you there.
For the new update, we’ve got some excellent products from Japan for you. They include:
- First, for fans of Ultraman, we’ve got a great item for your car — a plush Ultraman that displays signs like “Thank you” to drivers behind you — so cute!
- If you love Japanese snack foods, we’ve got several nice items, including creamy Almond Pucca (fish-shaped chocolate cookies), delicious Japanese “Fruche” dessert mix, and one of our favorite items, Wata Pachi (cotton candy with exploding pop rocks inside and Wata Gum (cotton candy that turns into gum in your mouth)
- We’ve added stock of popular food items, too, including delicious dried ika (don’t ask what it is, just eat it, trust us), and miso soup with abura-age (fried tofu curd, although it tastes better than it sounds) in stock
- For fans of Race Queens, and their non-racing counterparts, known as Campaign Girls (or Cam-Girls), we’ve got a great new photobook in stock
- Also, a great hardcover photobook featuring eight lovely Japanese models captured for all eternity by the camera
- And speaking of lovely Japanese models, we’ve restocked Yuko Ogura’s best-selling photobook “Koi-gogoro” (Love Heart)
- For fans of bizarre Japanese television on DVD, we’ve restocked the hilarious OH! Mikey, a comedic drama made using fashion mannequins as parodies of Americans living in Japan — all three volumes are in stock! (region 2)
- Also, a great new Japanese film on DVD, complete with English subtitles filled with tributes to Japan’s famous samurai movies of the past (region 2)
- For Morning Musume fans, enjoy a great item — a deck of standard “Mo-Musu” playing cards that are so cute!
- We love the high-quality Totoro music boxes from Sekiguchi and Sun Arrow — see two great new ones in stock today
- For Hello Kitty fans and students of Japanese, some cute Kitty storybooks which tell many different classic takes through the eyes of Kitty
- Also, fresh stock of several only-sold-in-Japan Kitty items including Kitty chopsticks, Kitty corn flakes, and Kitty “hot springs” powder for your bath
- We love cool Star Wars items sold only in Japan, and have restocked all of the fun Star Wars lighting keychains for you
- If you love Inu Yasha, we’ve got a super cute bracelet-style character keychain in stock too
- For fans of Ichiro, the famous baseball player, we’ve got some cool Ichiro figures in stock, showing him in various poses and uniforms
- If you collect the only-sold-in-Japan Hot Wheels cars, we’ve restocked several of them, including the rare all-white Mach 5 from Speed Race (aka Mach Go Go Go)
- For anime fans, we’ve got fresh stock of the first series of high-quality trading cards from the Chobits anime, as well as a rare item — the Laputian Robot from Miyazaki’s classic anime
- Finally, find more wacky things from Japan, including a wonderful toy set from Japan of the past, a nifty tray for storing jewelry or any small objects, a package of handy “money envelopes” from Japan, some cool Japanese “toilet” stickers, and more!
For our adult customers, we’ve got many new 18+ products. They include:
- For fans of excellent adult magazines from Japan, we’ve got the new issues of Penthouse Japan and Penthouse Special, Japanese magazines with all-Japanese famous models
- Don’t miss the erotic photographs of Kyoko Fujikawa in a new issue of UH, dedicated entirely to her loveliness
- For photobook fans, be sure and see the lovely Maiko Kazano in a devilishly sexy new photobook offering
- We’ve got some excellent new hentai manga for you, including a great erotic fantasy comic from Tsukasa Comics, classic manga reprints from Action Comics and more
- Yasu has also served up fresh stock of more than a half-dozen popular hentai comics that had been sold out — check them out!
- Also, for fans of Sailor Moon hentai, a great all-Sailor Moon hentai doujinshi from the Okachimentaiko
- For our adult DVD collectors, we’ve got some great new items for you today, starting with a collection of 36 super “Charisma Heroines” from TMA’s works, including Manatsu Hirose, Kyoka Usami, and more (region free)
- At Dogma, the famous bukkake directors Tohjiro and Kazuhiko Matsumoto (of M’s Video Group) are having a “bukkake battle” to see which director can make a better production — see both productions, Kurumi Morishita and Fuka Sakurai’s “Sperm Lesbian 2003” and Kurumi Morishita’s delightful “Kuru Milk 2003”, in stock now! (both region free)
- For men who want to be belittled by women, see a new production from SOD, “A Woman Rebukes a Man,” in which five beautiful women treat men like dirt to their great satisfaction (region free)
- For fans of the great sex of Akira Watase, see her new release from Audaz Japan, one of the top indies studios of Japan (region 2)
- Also, see a great “The Best of WAAP Entertainment in 2002” production featuring the best performances from this fascinating company — 200 minutes! (region 2)
- Finally, look for restocked DVDs, including the popular French Gals Deluxe (the bad girls of France), fresh stock of the popular “Les Room” series, and Akira Watase’s delicious Bondage mania.
Remember that J-List goes out of their way to carry virtually all English language bishoujo games for you from our San Diego location, with titles by JAST USA, G-Collections, Himeya Soft and Hobibox always in stock. We’re having a “$1 shipping sale” this month, so get all the games you want and pay just $1 for shipping per game (US/Canada customers; international customers pay just $2 per game). Get 4 or more games and get a 20% discount, too — but don’t delay, as the month is half over!
Also remember that J-List carries a whole line of products that help you learn Japanese, such as hiragana and katakana notebooks, practice notebooks for learning to write Japanese, vocabulary notebooks, and more. Look on the “notebooks, study aids” sub-category under “Wacky Things from Japan.” We love spreading interest in Japan in any form possible, and certainly encourage anyone trying to learn this really fun language!
