Hello and TGIF from all of us at J-List!
Japan is in the middle of a “Minus Ion boom” right now. Although were not sure what it’s all about, virtually all manner of products being advertised on TV in Japan boasts “minus ions” as a major benefit to improving your life. Refrigerators produce “minus ions” to clean themselves and be more energy efficient, air conditioners spread them in your room to relax you, and vacuum cleaners spit them out to clean the air you breathe. We’re pretty sure it’s a lot of marketing silliness, but there’s not a single category of product that hasn’t latched onto the term.
“You’ve been in Japan too long when you’re speaking English with your gaijin friends, but all references to money are in Japanese.” This is a funny phenomenon, but true: even when speaking English, gaijin living in Japan will tend to use Japanese for numbers and yen money amounts. The reason is that the Sino-Japanese numeric system, which came from China, is clunky when converting to the Arabic numeric system. The number system revolves around the unit 10,000 (“man,” pronounced “mahn”), rather than 1,000; thus, the number 10,000 is “1 man” (ichi mahn), 20,000 yen is “2 man” (ni mahn), 100,000 is “10 man” (juu mahn) and so on. The conversion from one numeric system to the other is just frustrating enough that most foreigners will be happy to leave their numbers in Japanese, if the person they’re talking with understands the words. Thus a gaijin living in Japan is likely to say, “I bought a new cellular phone, but it cost me 2 mahn en” (20,000 yen), or, “My car broke, and it’s going to cost 10 mahn en to fix it” (100,000 yen).
Sales of our 2003 calendars have really exploded since we got our stock in on Wednesday. The J-List staff has worked hard to get all the preordered calendars out the door quickly, so customers can get their orders in a timely manner. Please look through the anime, idol, JPOP and nude calendars we’ve gotten in stock and see which you’d like! Happily, items ordered by our three most popular shipping methods, SAL, airmail and EMS, are all air-based shipping methods, thus there should be no delay from the dock closures. Preorders for calendars are still being accepted, too, if you want some of the items that are still being printed. But time is running out, so please get your order into us soon. Thanks!
We posted a link to a page with pictures of Yasu performing many Japanese gestures. Unfortunately our mailing list server software “cleaned” the link, breaking it, sorry about that. The link is here.
Well, the upgrade to the J-List website is complete. The new system loads pages significantly faster, and we think you’ll like it a lot. As always, if you experience any strange behavior from the J-List site, please let us know right away. Thanks!
For the new update, we’ve got another great selection of unique products from Japan for you, including:
- First, we have some great and rare Japanese toys in stock, including a die-cast toy of the Yamato from Yamato/Star Blazers, a super music CD and Kubrick figure set for fans of Kamen Rider
- We love Furuta’s series of Captain Harlock toys with candy inside but our stock of them is finally on its last legs. Because most customers want to know which toy they’re buying, we organized the remaining Harlock toys into sets so you can see exactly what you’re getting — check out these excellent items before they’re gone!
- Korean women are among the most beautiful on the planet, and Japanese photographer Yamagishi Shin captured 30 of them in a new photobook we’ve got
- Also very lovely, we have not one but two great photobooks for fans of the lovely former Race Queen Fumika Suzuki, which really captures her grace and sexy style
- J-List stocks all the excellent Studio Ghibli DVD releases, which feature English subtitles and other great features! We have gotten in fresh stock of Kiki’s Delivery Service and Whisper of the Heart (aka If You Listen Closely) (region 2)
- The Uniforms Around Town art book that shows famous Japanese waitress uniforms (including details on how to make them) was such as hit that we got more stock in — on the site now
- New rare Hello Kitty items include a new bento box that’s really nice, a cute kitchen party set for your little one, and more (we do have about 300 different Hello Kitty items in stock at any given time)
- For Hamtaro fans, we’ve got more only-from-Japan items for you, including cute “print sticker gum” that comes with a sheet of green apple flavored gum and fun stickers
- For fans of the very cute line of plush dogs from Japan called “The Dog,” we’ve gotten in a major restocking, with many cute pets in stock for you, including small, medium and large sizes, and many different breeds (also, Yasu is proud of the new photos he took of these little guys…)
- We always sell a lot of Japanese fude (FOO-day) pens, which allow you to write as if you were writing with a beautiful Chinese writing brush
- Also, we love to promote the study of Japanese, so we’ve restocked the Check Set (a Japanese system of memorizing anything using colored sheets and special pens) and other great items
- Finally, look for a handy map of the Tokyo area, more Japanese days of the week magnets, and fresh stock of the always popular Japanese beginning driver magnets you stick on your car.
For our adult customers, we’ve got many new 18+ products. The new items include:
- For fans of Urecco Gal, the magazine that captures the stylish and erotic Japanese “kogal” style so well, we’ve got a great new issue
- Also, we’ve got several nice amateur magazines featuring real couples in real Japanese love hotels
- For fans of Japanese hardcover photobooks, the dynamite offering by Hikari Kisugi is not to be missed — it’s got some of the best erotic photography we’ve seen, and we should know
- J-List carries many interesting items from Japan, including Russian nude idol Yulia Nova’s photobooks and videos, which are not available anywhere but Japan (go figure)
- For hentai manga fans, another volley of excellent books, including Mizuki Sasaki’s Vibration, an extremely high-quality adult comic work
- Also, a major restocking of popular comics that had sold out, with more than a dozen titles back in stock for you
- For yaoi fans, we’ve also got a great new anthology style comic, for fans of Japan’s famous homosexual comics
- Before there was hentai manga, there were erotic ukiyoe paintings, known as “shunga” or spring pictures. We’ve got a nice erotic ukiyoe work in stock for you too
- For fans of our unique Japanese adult toys, we’ve got some new items for you, including a uniquely Japanese vibrator (complete with fine-tip brush), and a replica of the inflatable “lotion mats” seen in Japanese soaplands
- Also, a very interesting latex “clitoral cap” that’s a popular item among females in Japan
- For adult DVD fans, we’ve got some great items for you, starting off with Akira Watase’s very erotic new offering from Million, very sexy and nice (region free)
- A great sampler DVD from Hot Entertainment brings you 4 hours of adult releases on one disc for just $15 (region free)
- From Soft on Demand, enjoy the sperm lesbian and nakadashi performance of Aki Okina, a fresh and lovely AV idol (region free)
- From Dogma, Ran Asagawa and Aki Sawamiya show you how female doctors and nurses relieve their sexual tension (region free)
- Wanz Factory puts the lovely Aki Sawamiya through “special AV idol training” intended to make her a better adult video actress — the results are very satisfying (region 2)
- From Pink Pineapple, we’ve got vol. 2 of the popular Let’s Go Marine-chan Japanese hentai offering (region 2)
- Finally, look for several restocked DVD items, including the excellent Rio Sannomiya Double United, the “Latina” Japanese star Emily Yoshikawa’s Poison and the 24 Faces of Sayaka Tsutsumi.
Like Star Trek or the Lord of the Rings? Then logic dictates that you see the video of Mr. Spock singing the Ballad of Bilbo Baggins if you haven’t yet. I found a link here: http://www.game-revolution.com/download/trickyl/goodies/Video/baggins.mov (not sure if it will stay up when everyone on the list accesses it, but search Google if it stops working). Quicktime required.
If you like these little updates from Japan, they’re archived at my personal homepage, http://www.peterpayne.net/ (all the way back to 1997, wow…). I’ve added the updates for the past three months to the site, in case you missed any and want to check them out.
