Hello again from Japan, where Velcro is known as “magic tape.”
What color are your eyes? All Japanese people have brown eyes, although if you ever ask them what color their eyes are, they’ll tell you “black” (because the center of the eyes are black, as opposed to the iris). Japanese are often interested in the eyes of foreigners, since they come in different colors, something totally unknown in Japan (although they do have color contact lenses here). Yet when I tell them that my eyes change color depending on what I’m wearing, changing from green to hazel to blue (they do), they usually don’t believe it’s possible. The other night, my wife and I went to our Spanish class, and my teacher, a Japanese who grew up in Peru, asked me if I saw the world through a blue or green tint because of the color of my eyes.
One of the social elements at work in Japanese daily life is the “myth of Japanese uniformity.” Just as Westerners who haven’t had much experience with Japanese people might say “they all look alike” to them, Japanese have a tendency to act as if the Japanese race was completely pure and unified, with everyone looking pretty much the same as everyone else. Japanese all have the same color eyes, it’s true, but their other features can be extremely varied — hair color and texture, skin shade, shape of the nose and face, height, and so on. Inside the “unified” Japanese gene pool there are genes from the Ainu, the original inhabitants of Northern Japan, as well as Korea, China, Russia, South America, and increasingly, America and Europe (like my kids). All of the genes create more and more variation in what Japanese people look like, yet Japanese tend not to “see” these differences, and go on believing that Japanese all have very similar features. This is quite a useful thing, since it removes internal strife inside Japan, although it’s an odd concept to get used to.
We’re happy to announce that we’ve gotten in fresh stock of one of most popular T-shirts, the blue and yellow “Hen na Gaijin” (I’m a strange foreigner) shirt. For whatever reason, one of the first phrases a foreigner learns upon coming to Japan is this one, so we made one of our famous funny Japanese T-shirts out of it. We’re also happy to announce new sizes available for our funny Japanese T-shirts — we’ll now carry size S through 3XL, so our smaller and larger customers can wear our unique shirts as well.
For the new update, we’ve got lots of new items for you (surprise, surprise), including:
- First, we have some really nice new magazines again, including amateur, kogal, and hitozuma items, as well as more discounted magazines for you
- For photobook fans, we’ve got some positively beautiful new items, including the first hardcover photobook of Ruri Anno, and beautiful hardcover photobooks by Naomi Toki and Garo Aida
- Also, a major restock of many popular photobook, including Tennyo (Ichigo Milk, Koharu Tohno), and the extremely popular new photobooks of Rio Sannomiya and Megumi Osawa
- J-List carries some excellent “gouka-bon” books, or high-end bondage photobooks, and we’ve gotten some excellent items for you
- Also: we’ve gotten in another great panty stocking fetish book, Panst Best, with some extremely lovely, leggy gals
- If you like playing authentic Japanese bishoujo games, we’ve got another complete game plus artbook for you, the popular game Hyakka Ryoran
- We have excellent new manga for you, including The Queen Bee by Kira Hiroyoshi, as well as another restock of popular hentai manga for you
- For doujinshi fans, we’ve restocked our popular TGWOA hentai doujinshi for you — check them out
- For DVD collectors, we’ve got some more excellent items for you, starting with Maiko Kazano’s very erotic new soft porn release from Bauhaus (region free)
- From Soft on Demand, a DVD release starring Haruna Miwa exploring improper sexual love (region free)
- Another great item for fans of Sexual Adult Westling, see the new 210 minute production with some excellent hardcore, in and out of the ring (region free)
- A new series from Zone Works brings you 2 hours of high-quality adult video performances by Japan’s top idols — see Yuna Akimoto, Kaori Shimizu and Bunko Kanazawa, in stock now! (region 2)
- Another great indies release from the bold and sassy Wanz Factory, see a new performance by Nao Oikawa (region 2)
- For hentai anime fans, we’ve got a new hentai DVD by the creator of Let’s Go Marine-Chan! (region 2)
- Finally, Tomo has restocked many DVDs, including the How to Perfect series, All Nude Soccer, Ai Nagase’s dynamite 3-hour DVD and many more titles!
- Japan is getting ready for the World Cup, and J-List has cool new items for you, including the official FIFA World Cup trading cards (with players from all over the world), another set of the Japanese players (including Nakata-kun), and an incredibly cute “International Soccer Mascot” toy created by Jun Planning
- For fans of collectible trading cards, we’ve got the ultimate “character card guide” which contains character information on hundreds of popular anime, bishoujo anime and game card series
- For fans of the lovely idol and actress Yumiko Takahashi, take yourself back to the Golden Nineties with a great movie data photobook of her
- For fans of our idol and Race Queen items, check out the newly restocked products, including Yuko Ogura’s lovely photobook
- A very cool item: authentic Japanese “tatami cushions” featuring Hello Kitty and Totoro images
- J-List stocks from-Japan anime DVD releases, and we’ve restocked all the Hayao Miyazaki titles we carry (all of which have English subtitles and soundtracks on them)
- We have some nice Japanese snack items in stock, including all-new furikake, rare “salt candy” from Okinawa, delicious Strawberry Milky candy, and one of my own favorites, chocolate-filled fish-shaped pretzels, Pucca
- Also, a deluxe giant size package of Japanese mugicha (barley tea), the #1 drink enjoyed by the Japanese in the summer
- We have some excellent robot toy items for anime fans, including a Bandai Patlabor mech, a deluxe robot tank from the Another Age Playstation game, and a die-cast Getter Robot limited edition toy!
- Also: a plush little sea lion that’s also sushi (hard to explain, but very cute), and several cute pretty anime figures
- We’ve restocked our kitchen and bento items, adding fresh stock of several bento boxes, new tofu and “ham and cheese” boxes (yes, a special container just for ham and cheese), and more
- Finally, look for a handy way to carry your portable phone with you, and an extra-cool safety strap for your wrist, fresh stock of several popular Hello Kitty items, and more!
The J-Mate site has been updated again, with a new review of Hitomi Hayakawa’s excellent softcore DVD release. You can read the real English-translated interviews of dozens of the most famous AV stars here, so as well as read reviews and see screenshots from J-List products. See it at http://www.jmate.com/
The Peach Princess webpage has been totally redesigned, so if you enjoy the excellent English-language bishoujo games they sell, we hope you’ll check out the new site. You can also participate in discussions about bishoujo games and anime on their excellent BBS. The URL is http://www.peachprincess.com/
