Hello again from all your friends in Japan!
With tensions in Iraq increasing every day, Japanese are nervous about what will happen once the war starts, as it seems it must. Individually, Japanese are probably the most pacifist people in the world, and most Japanese oppose the idea of fighting a war to depose Saddam Hussein. The Japanese are constitutionally bound to oppose war, and in the generations since World War II, the idea of Japan ever again fighting a war with another country has become extremely repulsive to people here. Although most Japanese are uneasy about the war in Iraq, there was never a serious question about Japan supporting whatever action the U.S. takes in the future. Japan has a very close relationship with the U.S. and values this special friendship greatly. Among the nearly 40,000 recipients of the J-List Updates emails are several dozen men and women in the U.S. military, who will no doubt be involved in the war in some way. We sincerely thank them for their dedication and pray for their safety, and also for a speedy resolution to the conflict.
Does your city have a Sister City? Back during the 1980’s and 90’s, when the Japanese economy was heathier, a major buzzword was “internationalization” (kokusai-ka), which presumably means “Let’s interface with people from other countries and learn from each other.” Japanese cities formed relationships with many cities around the world, exchanging ideas and culture, setting up student exchange programs, and so on. Our city of Isesaki, Gunma Prefecture is Sister Cities with Springfield, Missouri, and every year some representatives from that city come here to learn about Japan, or to teach in the local AET program. While visiting the beautiful city of Yokohama, I have run into people I studied Japanese with back in my SDSU days no less than three times — an incredible coincidence, if you consider how many million people live there. However, San Diego is Sister Cities with Yokohama, and the three students I’d managed to bump into had gone to Yokohama on Sister City-related programs of various kinds. If you’re interested in coming to Japan in the future, see if your city has a Sister City program of some kind.
Have you ever wondered who’s on Japanese money? Well, we’ll tell you. The Japanese 1000 yen note features the famous 19th Century novelist Souseki Natsumi, who wrote such famous books as “I am a Cat” and “Kokoro.” As part of the Japanese education system, the first sentence of famous novels is memorized by students, and nearly all of his novels are famous. The 5000 yen note sports Inazo Nitobe, one of the “forefathers” of modern Japan, and among the first Japanese to become fluent in English (he was a student of Professor Clark, an American who started Sapporo University, and left the famous words “Boys, be ambitious”). He toured Europe and the U.S. to observe elements that were desirable in the “new” Japan. The 10,000 note, pretty much the “basic” unit of currency in Japan (roughly equal to $100 in value), features Yukichi Fukuzawa, another modernizer in the Meiji Period, and founder of Keio University. The old 1000 note, which went out of circulation about 15 years ago (but you still see them sometimes) was Hirofumi Itoh, the first Prime Minister of Japan (but he was assassinated, in the tradition of Meiji-era Japanese politicians).
For the new update, we’ve got some excellent products from Japan for you. They include:
- First, for fans of our region free DVD players, we’ve gotten in another dozen units of the OITO Technologies DVD player, the well-designed unit that’s got a small footprint and is fully region free and VCR friendly
- We love beautiful Japanese swimsuit idols — be sure and see Eri Murakami’s delightful hardcover photobook
- Also, enjoy the lovely photobook of May Iikubo, a charming sexy idol from Japan, as well fresh stock of photobooks by Morning Musume’s Rika Ishikawa and the sultry Yoko Matsugane
- For Hello Kitty fans, we’ve got a great Sanrio coloring book and sticker set, with all their popular characters represented, as well as really fun “Fishing with Kitty” game and limited fresh stock of the Hello Kitty USB hub
- If you’re a fan of Japan’s wildly beautiful Race Queens, don’t miss the new Top GT Race Queen trading card series, with some incredibly lovely models
- For fans of our popular Japanese snack treats, we’ve got some great new items, including Himo-Q (a 1.2 meter long gummi string, one of my favorites), delicious dried squid that goes great with beer, Pinky peach mints, and delicious Hello Kitty boil in bag curry!
- For fans of the meticulously designed small toys sold in Japan, we’ve got a great series recreating the famous birds found here — it comes with delicious chocolate and peanut snacks
- We’ve got some cool recreations of trucks driven by Japan’s “boso zoku” truck gangs, and really cool Nissan Cedric police car toy from Tomica
- Also, another of our popular items, wonderful Japanese erasers that are fun to collect and use — full sets in stock
- For anime fans, we have a great plush figure of Luffy from One Piece, really rare
- Also, look for fresh stock of a really cool item, the Chobits bilingual manga, which include both English and Japanese dialogue
- If you love Be@rbrick toys from Medicom Toy, we’ve got a great new series including the cool Horror Bearbricks
- For anyone looking for a handy dictionary, we’ve got some nice pocket-sizes ones in stock for you (Japanese-Japanese and English-Japanese)
- We carry many fun supplies for studying, or for your office, like a cool Hello Kitty super-soft eraser, petite highlighting markers, and notebooks with funny English on them
- For Totoro and Hayao Miyazaki fans, we’ve got some great items, including fresh stock of the Neko Bus (cat bus) soft doll, more of the popular Ghibli plush keychains, and the Princess Mononoke music boxes!
- Also, an item I personally love, the Cup Noodle coffee cups are back in stock — they make great gifts
- Finally, look for a major restocking of our popular bento boxes and chopsticks from Japan, more fun Starbucks parody coffee chocolates, Japanese tea and more!
For our adult customers, we’ve got many new 18+ products. They include:
- For lovers of quality adult magazines from Japan, don’t miss the new Celeb Girls, a super magazine with nothing but the most famous girls in it, like Maiko Kazano and Hitomi Hayasaka and even Fumika Suzuki
- Also, check out the lovely Eichi Mook “Fetish Heaven” featuring lovely girls in famous costumes — a double thick magazine for you
- Also, for fans of Japan’s delicious hardcover photobooks, enjoy positively wonderful offerings by Emily Yoshikawa (Japan’s first “Latino” AV actress), and a beautiful first nude photobook by Kyoko Nakajima, freshly turned 18
- Also, for fans of Japan’s highly developed mini-skirt, stocking and leg fetishism, check out the battle of “tight skirts vs. pleated flare skirts”
- For fans of our popular hentai manga from Japan, we’ve got a strong update, with several great new volumes of adult comics, including hardcore hentai and sweetly erotic manga in stock
- Also, for collectors of Shirow Masamune’s works, a set of rare Japanese novels of the Jashin Hunter series, complete with his superb artwork
- We’ve got fresh stock of several popular yaoi manga, including the b-Boy Zips series, which feature homosexual manga centered around a different theme for each volume
- For fans of great bishoujo games, see fresh stock of the Brave Soul Complete Data art book, back in stock again
- If you love Japan’s excellent adult DVDs, we’ve got a huge volley of them for you, starting with a superb 3 hour compilation of Aika Miura’s best works, when she was 19-20 years old (region free)
- For fans of Japanese lesbian erotica, enjoy a whopping 4 hours of “Lesbian Heaven” from Kuki (region free)
- See the lovely Ruri Anno full the “selfish requests” of “unjust semen maniacs” in a super new bukkake release from Soft on Demand (region free)
- Worship the beautiful asses of three beautiful “oshiri idols” in a new release from Natural High, complete with a primer on anal sex (region free)
- From Waap Entertainment, a superb new Dream Shower bukkake release, featuring the beautiful and erotic Moe Yamasaki (region 2)
- From Audaz, a super value-priced erotic release featuring a host of their hottest stars, done in prime Audaz style (region 2)
- Finally, fresh stock of several popular DVD titles from Japan’s top indies and pro studios, including Black Swap in LA, Super Bukkake with Eri Yukawa, Bondage Battle 3 and more.
Also remember that J-List makes dozens of magazines available through our “reserve subscription” system. Basically, we’ll pre-reserve the current issue of each month’s magazine for you and have it in the mail to you by the time it’s in bookstores here in Japan — a few days earlier, since we get our stock earlier than most bookstores. See the magazine subscription pages or search or search for “subscription.”
