Greetings again from the other side of the Pacific!
We’re safely back in Japan now — although it was really an ordeal, getting our massive boxes and suitcases back in one piece. Japan, like most countries, places limits on the amount of merchandise you’re allowed to bring into the country without paying duty, but I’m quite good at squirreling my way through customs without paying anything. If you’re ever coming into Japan with a lot of boxes, tell the man you’re bringing in American cereal, pickles and other foods you can’t buy in Japan — apparently they’re used to that and won’t question it.
There are some things you just don’t get used to. While I have gotten quite good at switching from the right side of the road to the left when going to and from the U.S. and Japan (you just make sure you look for other cars and go the same way they’re going, it’s only hard when there are no cars around you), I can’t for the life of me seem to get in the correct side of the car on the first try. It’s a great joke with all of us — start to get in the wrong side of the car, then walk around to the other side as carefully as you can, so one notices your goof.
Because names in kanji have some meaning that’s not necessarily present in Western names, it’s usually interesting for foreigners to find out what those meanings. Many Japanese are made up of kanji for some of the simplest words — ta (rice field, also read “da”), ishi (stone), naka (inside), yama (mountain) and so on. People who have names like Yamada, Tanaka and Ishida probably came from farming backgrounds, although somehow all Japanese will tell you that their ancestors were Samurai. The last names of the J-List staff are a little more complex: Tomo Fujita (fuji = wisteria flower, ta = rice field), Yasu Nieda (nie = victim, da = rice field), Harumi Shibuya (shibu = tasteful, ya = valley) and Chiharu Yanai (ya = arrow, nai = “inside”). Hmm, maybe their ancestors really were samurai after all.
For our first update to the J-List site after returning to Japan, we’ve got a bunch of excellent items for you, including:
- First, we’re announcing a new category of DVD product for AV collectors, the Pure Beauties Collection from Asiaview Entertainment. These soft porn DVDs capture some of the most lovely AV idols Japan has to offer, like Akira Fubuki, Madoka Ozawa and Bauko Eichi. Because many of the models are retired, these DVDs are a great
- We’ve got some great new magazines, including the new Dela Beppin and Bejean, both brimming over with lovely girls
- For photobook fans, we’ve got some excellent new items, including the excellent Top GT Race Queen book with the top-RQ’s (including Toko Ushikawa and the Chinese Race Queen Yinling)
- Also for photobook fans, fresh stock of most of the popular Tennyo erotic nude photobooks including Maiko Kazano, and fresh stock of Mami Gotoh’s “Morning Baby”
- If you love hentai art books, check out the excellent erotic work, “The Science of Wet Girl,” filled with some excellent
- Also: fresh stock of the long-selling Yui Shop erotic art books (both volumes)
- For manga fans, you know we’ve got some excellent new works for you, including a new erotic manga my Marshmallow Juubaori (creator of Alice First/Alice Second), the erotic tales of a sexy private investigator, and more — as well as fresh stock of several popular sold-out books, too
- For SOD DVD lovers, we’ve got two great offerings for you: the new Do Lesbian, featuring lesbians who have sex with other girls they’ve just met, and Airi Kago’s incredibly erotic Idol Semen vol. 4
- We’ve gotten many requests to carry the products of Ai Kurosawa, a lovely new busty AV idol whose star is rising fast. See her new DVD in stock now, too
- Anna Ohura is still queen of the busty AV world in Japan, and we’ve got a killer new DVD featuring the lovely Anna-chan in some seriously erotic video footage — and it’s uncensored!
- For collectors, we’ve got the debut video of the lovely “Latin AV actress” Emily Yoshikawa, a truly beautiful girl who is half-Japanese and half-Dominican Republic (and she speaks Spanish)
- J-List offers “reserve subscriptions” which allow you to get the latest issues of a wide variety of Japanese magazines each month. Now we’ve added Animedia, a popular anime magazine that comes with lots of extras, and Roadshow, a magazine for fans of Western and Japanese film
- For fans of Licca-chan, the super-cute line of dolls, we’ve got two very cool “Neo Licca” PVC straps for your portable phone (or you can use them as a keychain, or a camera strap) featuring “kogal” (high school valley girls) versions of Licca
- On our English manga page, we’ve got fresh stock of the Love Hina Bilingual Comics, which feature English and Japanese side by side, along with the new volume, vol. 7
- On our popular Japanese snacks and food page, see fresh stock of Shigekix, the very sour “hard gummi” (very chewy gummi candy) in lemon and cola flavor, as well as a delicious Japanese mustard
- On our Japanese signs & stickers page, we’ve got fresh stock of some popular wooden signs with funny messages on them, along with very cute metallic cute pins, for fans of Hamu-Taro and Thunder Bunny
- For those studying Japanese, find fresh stock of our $4 E-J and J-E dictionaries, along with some very cool notebooks with funny English printed on them
- Finally, our Wacky Things from Japan main page includes a new way to scoop rice, Japanese document protectors that are great for protecting your bank book, passport and other important documents, date magnets that let you organize your life better, and more!
Sant to know why adult video actresses choose to go into their unique careers? Want to know what it was like for Kurumi Morishita or Rin Tomosaki their first time performing? Check out J-Mate, at http://www.jmate.com, the only place where you can read translated interviews with Japan’s lovely idols, so you can find out their personal feelings and thoughts firsthand.
