Hello again from J-List, your neighborhood friend in Japan.
Have you ever spoken to a Japanese person and wondered why they make agreeing noises while you’re talking? This is aspect of Japanese speech called “aizuchi,” basically “agreeing sounds” that speakers make when having a conversation. In Japanese, I could be explaining something that happened to me, and the person I’m speaking to would say things like “ee” (yes), “so” (that’s true), and “ne” (a general word of agreement). It may sound funny, but in Japanese, it’s necessary to show that you’re listening to the other person — not making these noises shows you’re not paying attention, and the person you’re talking with is likely to ask you what’s wrong. The trouble is when you carry aizuchi into English, and butt into what the other person is saying with “that’s right” and “yes.”
Well, I’m sorry to say that Sachiko (who worked at J-List two years ago) hasn’t had much luck getting a career as a “talent” since she moved to Tokyo. She’s working at a company that provides Internet telephony services, and is doing well. However, Kaori and I were surprised to learn that the daughter of our old boss (the owner of the school we used to work for, which has since gone bankrupt) has debuted as a singer and is now famous all over Japan. It floored us to learn that Yumiko-chan, the half-Japanese, half-American girl who was a silly 13-year-old when I last saw her (I remember playing Nintendo with her at her house) is now Fukuhara Yumiko, and is being managed by the same company that manages Max and Speed’s Uehara Takako. She’s even singing the title song to a Japanese drama. See her picture at http://www.rising.ne.jp/web/release/fukuhara_what.html . It just goes to show, you never know.
Do you detect the scent of minty freshness? There’s something new in the air, and I’m happy to report that it’s…..CM-Watch! CM-Watch (http://www.cm-watch.com) is a site we launched where you could download Japanese TV commercials (called “CMs” in Japanese), but the site had been on hiatus while I grapled with being too busy to update the page. Thanks to the hard work of my good friend James, the new webmaster, CM-Watch lives, and with new Japanese TV commercials for you to check out. CM-Watch is a little service we make available to you, the Japanophiles of the world, because we think Japan is such a nifty place. Enjoy! (Requires Quicktime, available at http://www.quicktime.com/.)
For this evening’s update, we’ve got a nice volley of cool things from Japan for you, including:
- First, some excellent new magazines, including the new Gal’s Dee (featuring the slender but busty Yoshizawa Nanako), a new issue of the always-popular and never-enough-in-stock OK, and more
- For magazine/CD-ROM combo lovers, we’ve got a rare item — Live Gal’s Shower, which features both a full-color magazine as well as 2 CD-ROMs (Mac&PC Compatible) filled with excellent “bukkake” fun for you
- If you love Japan’s beautiful photobooks, we’ve got several all-new hardcover photobooks, including the lovely nude photobook of the Cherry Bombers (the “anti” Mini-suka Police). We also have fresh stock of several of the “Bishoujo Memorial” photobooks.
- We’ve gotten in more stock of the very nice Cho Very Good photobook vol. 2, featuring a slew of Japan’s most lovely AV idols
- We have a major update to our manga pages, with fresh stock of dozens of excellent manga, including some of our most popular manga and items that had been backordered for many weeks (and which might not be available once our current stock runs out). Remember to check both page 1 and page 2 for new items
- For doujinshi fans, we have fresh stock of the Great Work of Alchemy erotic doujiinshi, featuring great erotic themes
- We’ve got fresh stock of the popular Crystal Card 2000 vol. 2 series, featuring beautiful collectible cards of Japan’s most lovely AV idols
- For hentai fans, see vol. 3 & 4 of Ohno Tetsuya’s very lovely Mei King bishoujo anime DVD — we’ll be the first to admit it’s a pricey series, but the beauty of these characters makes it worth it
- If you love SOD’s daring brand of “Indies” AV, we’ve got another nice item for you — a new “teasing the penis” series video, featuring four “kogal” types who have great fun with some lucky cocks
- Also for SOD, a great item for “chikan” (pervert on a train) fans: a super DVD featuring two complete hours of train-touching play and more
- For fans of Love Hina and Card Captor Sakura, we’re happy to announce that our order of these “bilingual” comics has come in, and we’ve posted the items to the anime & toys page. These great manga include both English and the original Japanese, and are great for collectors or students
- For fans of Japan’s lovely idols, we’ve got a daring DVD directed by the famous AV director TOHJIRO of Soft on Demand, who films the lovely Matsumoto Miku in ways that are far more erotic than filming her nude would be — a truly amazing “hybrid” idol DVD (it’s region-2 unfortunately)
- We have fresh stock of our silly “Looking for a beautiful woman” sticker on the Signs, Stickers and Headbands page
- We’ve got a bunch of new items on our Wacky Things from Japan pages, too, including the ultimate belt clip for your portable phone (go ahead, be Japanese), cute little “Hello Kitty” bottles that you can use to carry shampoo, contact lens solution, and other things, and more!
The link to the Anime categories was broken during the weekend, making those pages inaccessible. The link has been fixed — sorry about that. Other than this hiccup, the “cartless” shopping cart is working well, and there have been no more problems with orders at all. The new J-List page is coming along nicely, and will include all the features that have been requested for so long, including full product search. Thanks for your patience while we work on the new site.
