Greetings from J-List March 8, 2000

Greetings from J-List, your friend in Japan.

Three people are dead after two trains collided head-on on the Hibiya Line in Meguro, Tokyo, in a terrible train accident. By chance I was in Tokyo today, so I got a quick call on my “keitai” (portable) by my wife to see if I was alright. Japan’s train safety has been called into practice in recent months, after several instances of concrete falling from Shinkansen tunnels.

In Tokyo, I stopped by Akihabara (the holy Mecca of electronics) to check out what all the fuss over the Playstation 2 is about. While I have to admit that the extra polygons supported by the game’s graphics chips made for some of the smoothest 3D I’ve ever seen in a game console. I found the frame rates of some games to be rather low and limited. Given that high cost of the specialized chips means Sony is supposed to lose money on the console for two years or more, weak sales after the initial rush could turn PS2 into Vietnam for the company. As for the boy who had his Playstion stolen, all is well, and he’s got a new unit, thanks to his grandmother — see the story on ABC News at http://abcnews.go.com/wire/World/reuters20000306_220.html

We’ve got some great new items on the plate for you this evening, including:

• Great new magazines, including the new issues of the very popular Gal’s Shower, Nippon Mini-Suka Club and Okay!
  
• A half-dozen or so new erotic manga, on the hentai manga page, including a great new busty manga by Ichiro and Sanwa Comics
  
• For members of the Second Otaku Generation, we’ve got more of the excellent die-cast metal Yamato ship models, including the Andromedia and Desslar’s flagship, along with a new Yamato and Captain Harlock’s Arcadia, on the anime & toys page
  
• New photobooks, including a great new idol photobook (covering Japan’s lovely idols)
  
  Many great additional copies of items that had sold out before, such as Hitomi Ryo’s “Virginity” and the excellent Nowon (on the photobooks pages)
  
• New gouka-bon photobooks, including books for fans of older and married women (“hitozuma”)
  
• Three great new tapes in the very erotic Deep Kiss series, which films Japanese women kissing other women then gets their reactions
  
• Finally, that rare gift you’ve been looking for, a great puzzle map of Japan!
  

If you want to amaze and impress the Japanese people in your life, J-List has zany, esoteric T-shirts with Japanese slogans like “Dare to be stupid” “Looking for a Japanese Girlfriend” and an excerpt from the Japanese constitution. See them all, along with our “Japanese English” shirts, on the wacky shirts page.