It’s a cold Thursday evening in Japan now, as I finish up today’s update. I would have been finished hours ago, but I got the sudden urge to take the afternoon off and hit my favorite sauna for some relaxation, Japan-style.
The Leonid Meteor Shower, which peaked over Israel and Europe twelve or so hours ago, was watched quite closely by the evening Japanese news shows, who had teams of reporters all over the world. It was a great show, if you happened to live near the peak area and didn’t have cloud cover to block your view. The footage taken by a special NASA plane, flying above the clouds, recorded hundreds of beautiful meteors falling like raindrops. Unfortunately, Japan completely missed the show. Cheers to everyone who caught some meteors.
There’s no such thing as Thanksgiving in Japan, so Japan has started its Christmas Season officially. Everywhere you go, the music played in coffee shops and department stores has changed to bouncy Christmas songs — every store seems to be selling the “Jitterbug” Santa, that moves his waist from side to side to music. Convenience stores such as Seven Eleven, Lawson and Sun Every have all started reservations for this year’s “Christmas Cake” — a unique (?) Japanese tradition that was likely created by retailers.
Tonight’s update is a nice one. First of all, we’ve got a huge bunch of all-new adult “wide” manga posted to manga page 2. Some of the new books are truly excellent. There are some interesting “one-shot” magazines posted to magazine page 2, including some special and older magazines, for fans of girls who have retired. There are some interesting new items on the anime toys page, and some some new in-stock videos on the video page. Many of our dojinshi (both on the dojinshi and yaoi pages) have been reduced in price, too, so please check out the great bargains. We’ve got fresh stock of the very popular Bejean and Crystal Card AV idol cards, too (although they may go out of print soon).
Remember that J-List has a huge variety of monthly magazines available by subscription, including magazines for fans of anime, hobby modeling, JPOP, photography, Sony Playstation and Sega Dreamcast, yaoi comic art, and more. These magazines are valuable windows into contemporary Japanese life and culture, and are a great way to see a little piece of Japan every month. Each magazine has been chosen partially on the basis of its value to readers who can’t read the Japanese text — lots of color pictures and artwork, for example. Check out the great “reserve subscription” magazines
