Greetings from Japan, where people bow while talking on the phone (I do it too…).
There are a lot of words that the Japanese invent that are fun to learn. One word that most fans of anime learn pretty quickly is the “H” (the letter H), which when said with a Japanese accent sounds like “ecchi” (also written “etchi”). Said by some to stand for the first letter of the word “hentai” (which means “sexually perverted” in Japanese), the word “H” is basically used to describe any kind of sexual situation or person. If a person thinks about sex too much, he is “ecchi,” and a euphemism for having sex in Japanese is “H suru” (literally “to do H”). Whatever its origin, “H” (ecchi) is a part of Japanese culture and language, be it in anime, manga, television dramas and so on. For a rather deep discussion on the word “H” and related words, see this page: http://home.attbi.com/~kagamix2/H_does_not_mean_hentai
Studying the names of Japanese companies can be interesting. For example, I’ll bet you never knew that Kyocera is short for “Kyoto Ceramics.” The number one car company in Japan is Toyota, which is located in Toyota City, Aichi Prefecture (near Nagoya) — but the company came first, and the city changed its name to Toyota City in 1959 “to reflect its bright prospects to develop and prosper as an automobile city.” The number two Japanese car company is Honda, founded by Soichiro Honda to make motorcycles after the end of World War II. Mazda, which is more than half owned by Ford now, is really called Matsuda in Japan, but they came up with the name Mazda so they could sound less Japanese in foreign markets. Datsun’s name has an interesting story — DAT were the first letters of the names of three founders, and they considered the company they were founding to be their son, thus DATSON. However, “son” (with a long vowel, so that it rhymes with bone), means “loss” or “disadvantage” in Japanese, so they changed it to “sun,” a much more cheerful word. Datsun was later bought out by one of its distributors, Nissan (which means “Made in Japan” — if you said “America-san” it would be “made in America”). Subaru, based near J-List, is the Japanese name for the star cluster we called the Pleiades. Some popular beer companies are Asahi (“morning sun”), Kirin (named after a magical Chinese dragon), and Suntory (the president’s name as Tori-san, so he reversed it to come up with the name of his company).
There’s no doubt about it — the Japanese really love their tea. While in a 7-11 recently, I counted no less than a dozen brands of bottled or canned tea for sale, mostly variations on Japanese green tea and Chinese oolong tea. In addition to the normal Western canned tea like Kirin’s Afternoon Tea, which are the only teas with sugar added, many brands competed for shelf space, including Kirin’s Nama-cha (lit. “fresh tea”), Sapporo’s Kyo-ryoku-cha (Kyoto-style green tea), Asahi’s Marocha (“mild tea”), the popular Soukenbi-cha by Coca-cola, various blends of jasmine tea, and a new tea that labels itself as the traditional tea of Okinawa. As Japanese get older, teas to help control blood sugar are also experiencing a “tea boom.” As the market for bottled tea products heats up, manufacturers come up with ways to get you to buy their products, offering larger or smaller packages, keychains that you get free with the bottle of tea, and so on. Unlike the U.S., where adding sweetener to products is an unfortunate requirement in most cases (bottled green and oolong tea we’ve bought in the U.S. even contained honey to sweeten it, something inconceivable in Japan), all Asian teas are completely unsweetened, and the unaltered, slightly bitter taste is really delicious. In the summer, the Japanese love to make mugi-cha (a tea made from barley), and we’ll be there, making it available to everyone in teabag form.
At J-List, we love Japan’s interactive love-sim games, and we carry virtually every English hentai game in existence. We’re happy to announce the $1 shipping sale on all hentai games this month, which makes it a great time to complete your collection of great games! Don’t forget that we give a 20% discount with any four or more games, and you can use this discount on top of the $1 shipping sale. All titles are included in this great sale, including G-Collection’s newest title, which we’ve posted to our site today.
For the new update, we’ve got some excellent products from Japan for you. They include:
- First, for fans of Hayao Miyazaki’s films, we’ve got a super plush “Kitsune-risu” (Fox Squirrel), sidekick of Nausica of the Valley of the Wind and also seen in Castle in the Sky Laputa — it’s really soft and great to touch
- We’ve got a great selection of snack items, including McVitie’s chocolate cookie balls, dried squid (it goes really good with beer, trust us), tasty salmon furikake, and more
- For fans of Japanese gum, we’ve got Dakara gum, a delicious flavor similar to Pocari Sweat (it helps replenish your body’s minerals, great for athletes)
- Also for fans of Japanese gum, we’ve got an item that isn’t gum at all — but sticky notes that look like famous brands of Lotte gum!
- For fans of great anime toys from Japan, we’ve got a lot of items, including a cool figure from Ruroni Kenshin
- Also, a great series of Robot Animation Heroines from the famous anime shows of the 1980’s by Sunrise
- We love Blythe more and more as we see her fans find J-List — we’ve got a deluxe Pucchi Blythe that comes with a hand-knit sweater, jeans, and many fun accessories
- For Gundam fans, a line of “Haro Capsule Toys” that come with a cute capsule shaped like the robot Haro, each containing a beautiful statue from the Gundam universe
- For fans of cool figures from Japan such as the Kubrick line, we’ve got a really rare series of “architectural character” shaped like animals — a rare item you should check out
- Tomy takes pride in the die-cast metal cars they make in their Tomica line, and we’ve got a great series of four classic Honda cars, a great item for collectors
- For Hello Kitty fans, we’ve got some beautiful items including two Hello Kitty “Hina doll set” that capture Kitty and Daniel in traditional Japanese poses
- If you’re a fan of the Japan-only Hot Wheels we’ve got fresh stock for you, including the hard to find Thunderbird Hot Wheels, fresh stock of the original Back to the Future Delorean I, and more
- For bento fans, look for a deluxe large bento box we’ve got for you, as well as a handy package of chopsticks for those embarrassing moments when you don’t have enough chopsticks
- For fans of authentic Japanese sailor uniforms that we sell, made by Matsukameya of Nagoya, we’ve got a new light blue color uniform available for order
- Finally, look for restocked items, such as real Japanese incense, sushi making molds, delicious miso soup, Hello Kitty bag sealers and more!
For our adult customers, we’ve got many new 18+ products. They include:
- First, for fans of great Japanese love-sim games in English, a new title: G-Collections’ Do You Like Horny Bunnies? — a game with an odd name but really cute hentai bunny girls, and lots of superb uncensored action
- For fans of Japanese adult magazines, we’ve got some nice ones, including bukkake and amateur magazines in stock
- If you’re a fan of Bachelor, the magazine that follows super-busty idols from Japan as well as all over the world, we’ve got their great 25th anniversary special issue in stock
- For fans of beautiful Japanese models in panty stockings, mini-skirts and high heels, enjoy the super erotic Panst Flash, featuring 208 satisfying pages!
- We love the beautiful Aoi Sola (ala Aoi Sora), whose name means “blue sky” in Japanese — see her erotic new hardcover photobook
- If you’re a fan of Japan’s highly developed bondage culture, don’t miss Bunko Kanazawa’s all-bondage photobook, which we’ve got in stock for you
- For fans of silver age Japanese AV, a new photobook featuring the hottest “Diamond Girls” including Kimiko Matsuzaka (!)
- For fans of the Viper series, a great official art book for Viper RSR, filled with superb art, sketch work and character designs
- For hentai manga collectors, see the excellent new volumes we have in stock for you, including Past Princess, a superb wide manga of fantasy and sex by Angel Comics
- Also, we’ve got a great restocking of popular hentai comics including Queen Bee, Saint Costume Play School and more
- Also for yaoi fans, we’ve got a new issue of Love Me in stock for you, as well as restocks of other items for you
- If you love doujinshi, don’t miss the excellent Suki Suki Lum-chan, a superb Urusei Yatsura erotic doujinshi we’ve got for you
- If you love Japan’s adult video world, enjoy some great DVDs, starting with Hitomi Hayasaka’s “2 in 1,” and including her first on-camera anal sex (region free)
- We love Ami Ayukawa for her sleek and elegant body and great sex — see a superb *4 hour* collection of her erotic performances in a new Blue File DVD release (region free)
- For fans of adult video pro wrestling, which is taking Japan by storm, a great DVD you won’t want to miss, with a sup 300 minutes of footage (region free)
- We’re big fans of Sally Yoshino and have carried her works ever since she debuted back in 1996 — now see the very best of Sally’s works with Soft on Demand on one disc (region free)
- Enjoy the sweet sex of Kirari Koizumi, as captured by Soft on Demand, in a new release for you (region free)
- For fans of the huge fetish of “black bukkake,” watch as Akira Watase and Miyoshino take on a whole bunch of black guys and American AV star Jessica in a new release from Moodyz (region 2)
- Finally, a variety of newly restocked DVD titles from Japan’s best studios, for you!
Remember that J-List is the only place you can get the excellent and authentic high school uniforms from Matsukameya of Nagoya. These are extremely well made uniforms that are famous all over Japan, and they’re just beautiful. They’re not cheap, unfortunately, but we know that you will be totally satisfied with the high quality of Matsukameya’s products. The company prides themselves on offering a huge variety of sizes for customers, so no matter what size you are there’s a uniform for you. Please browse the great Japanese high school uniforms we’ve got for you!
