Hello and TGIF from your friends in Japan!
Living in Japan means being at peace with standing out in a crowd. Wherever I go in Isesaki (pop. 140,000), I am reasonably sure I’m going to be the only gaijin I run into all day. Last weekend my daughter, who is in Japan Girl Scouts, participated in a huge festival which also included all the local Boy Scout and Cub Scout troops in our city. As usual when I’m around Japanese kids, I instantly occupy center stage, and everyone wants to talk to me, or show me something, or pull at the hair on my arms. (I have lots of blonde hair on my arms, which fascinates Japanese kids no end.) Being the focus of so much attention is not always easy, and I’ve had foreigner friends who couldn’t take being stared at all the time and went home. They said it was like living in a fishbowl. I never felt that way about it — standing out is just something you have to get used to, or even use to your advantage if you can. Whenever I’m around kids, I take my sunglasses off, even if it’s quite bright outside. Japanese don’t usually wear sunglasses, and having them on might make me look scary to the kids. It sounds corny, but I try to represent America and make a good impression on my Japanese hosts whenever I can.
Religiously, Japan has interesting history. The original religion of Japan is Shinto, an animalistic religion that worships the “spirits” (kami) in natural objects like trees and rocks. Buddhism came in through Korea and was “grafted onto” Shinto, so that the two are often inseparable, and Japanese often don’t know if a certain ceremony they’re performing is one or the other. True to human nature, there are many, many sects of Buddhism, with differences so minor that I can’t tell them apart at all — Japanese get equally confused when trying to tell what’s different about Catholicism and the many Protestant churches that exist. As a rule, Buddhism is a quiet part of Japanese life, and you never encounter “evangelists” trying to spread their flavor of Buddhism to others. The exception is the church of Soka Gakkai, an interesting evangelical sect of Buddhism that was founded in 1930, and even has their own political party (the Komeito). I’ve happened to know several members of this church, and they’ve always been very forward about their religion, actively trying to tell others about it and spread the word about their beliefs. Their website, if you want to see more about them, is here: http://www.sgi-usa.org/ There are many Christian churches in Japan, too. Two of my early surprises when I came to Japan back in 1992 were being invited to mass in a friendly Baptist church that was no different from any you’d see in the U.S., and talking with Japanese Jehovah’s Witnesses who were passing out copies of the Watchtower in front of the train station. It was not what I expected to find when I came to Japan, to say the least.
We’re right in the thick of 2004 Calendar Season right now, a time when you can order from our extensive list of hundreds of Japanese anime, idol, character, sports and other calendars. This is the Year of Shirow, and Shirow’s 2004 calendar is in first place sales-wise, followed by other popular anime calendars like Studio Ghibli, Inu Yasha, Spirited Away and More Blue Than Indigo. The Joy of Sushi is extremely popular, as is this year’s Domo-kun calendar. And calendars that capture a unique part of Japan, like Tea Room Prints, Road (showing aesthetically beautiful kanji), and Noriko Sakai in kimono, are also among the top sellers. Remember, we can’t guarantee calendar preorders past the first week of November or so, so we highly recommend that you get your calendar order in as quickly as possible. To help you browse our stock, we’ve added a “view all calendars” link which shows all items (except for the nude calendars).
For the new update, we’ve got some excellent products from Japan for you. They include:
- First, for fans of Shirow Masamune, we’ve posted his deluxe new poster book, which includes twelve large posters in a beautiful box, for preorder — it’s due to be released in December
- Also, we’ve got the wonderful Ghost in the Shell Stand Alone Complex, a DVD that compiles the best of the GitS new anime series, adds director and artist comments, how CG work was done, and more
- Also, we’ve finally got stock of the dynamite Shirow 2004 calendar, don’t miss out on yours!
- Also, the delightful photobook of swimsuit idol Nozomi Takeuchi which shows you “all about Nozomi”
- We have some great toy items for you, including a soft vinyl Tony the Tiger from Kellogg’s, a famous icon here in Japan
- Also, the super cool Panda-Z, a really great panda robot piloted by a panda, modeled after the famous Mazinger Z (aka Tranzor Z in the US)
- For those who collect cool trading cards from Japan, we’ve got some great Morning Musume cards for you
- For fans of the sexy G-Taste, we have dynamite “trading figures” that look great, created by Hiroyuki Yagami
- Also, a really unique series of miniature candy toy figure, the Great Mystery Museum Collection, featuring detailed replicas of bizarre artifacts from all over the world — just to cool!
- Look for fresh stock of the popular completed figure of Aoi Sakurada from More Blue Than Indigo, a really special anime figure
- Also, for Totoro fans, fresh stock of several popular toy plush toys and other items
- For fans of Japanese snacks, enjoy great new varieties of “spicy” miso soup, seaweed onigiri mix, and more
- Also, a delicious new flavor of Pocky, rich chocolate with cocoa powder to give it a unique taste — only sold in the winter months in Japan
- Fans of the unique flavors of chewing cum from Japan will enjoy the return of Green Gum from Lotte, the gum with the fresh taste of, er, being in a forest
- We’ve restocked our Canon Wordtank electronic dictionaries, the best tools for serious students of Japanese
- Also, look for fresh stock of the popular Chobits Bilingual Manga, which feature both English and Japanese text in a beautifully printed manga volume
- If you’re taking medicine or vitamins regularly, we’ve got a really handy medicine organizer from Japan
- For fans of cute stuff, we’ve got some very happy slippers for your feet, some cute Sanrio pocket tissue, wonderful hot springs powder, and more.
For our adult customers, we’ve got many new 18+ products. They include:
- First, we’ve got the new issues of Video Boy and Best Video, both brimming with fabulous professional adult video stars from Japan
- For photobook lovers, enjoy the delightful freshness of “Love Pola” (love Polaroids) of models in real love hotels
- Also, enjoy the lovely photographs of Mei Kajiwara and the delightful Karin, who really shine in their new photobook releases, too
- We have great restocked photobooks, too, including High-Leg Venus, Eriko Sato’s wonderful Perfectness photobook, and fresh stock of the oh-so-flexible Miki Komori’s Straddle
- For hentai manga fans, we’ve got some superb items for you, including the new volume of Satoshi Urushihara’s dynamite Vampire Master – Dark Crimson, a superb nurse fetish comic from Nikopun Nise, incredibly buxom sluts in the office, and more
- Also, fresh stock of several popular hentai manga which parody famous anime and fighting game gals
- For yaoi lovers, a great new manga for you, Momo Can, in a deluxe comic format that features a special cover and color pages inside
- For fans of great hentai parody doujinshi from Japan, we’ve got even more all-new books posted for you, including Gundam,
- Ayumi Hamasaki is the top pop star in Japan, having ruled the music and fashion world for half a decade — see great sexual cosplay parody of the star in Ayu-Cos 2 (region free)
- From Dogma and bukkake creator Kazuhiko Matsumoto comes Hassha Go Go Go! featuring three Endless Race Queens in a festival of sex and semen (region free)
- From SOD, Explore “lesbian enlightenment” with Rua Mochizuki as she has her first on-camera lesbian experience (region free)
- Then from SOD’s Deep’s label, six lovely Tokyo dancing girls fuck up a storm for you, in Dance Dace Fuck Total Edition (region free)
- From Waap, we’ve got the latest in the Dream Shower installment starring the erotic Nana Kawashima in a great bukkake fetish DVD for you (region 2)
- Finally, look for a big restock of popular DVD titles, including busty Marina Matsushima’s Re-MIX Special, Ran Asakawa’s low-price Masterpiece Concentration, Bunko Kanazawa teasing your penis, and Sola Aoi’s top-selling Blue Sky.
The top 5 list has been updated on the J-List website, allowing you to see what products are selling well this week. Check them out!
The J-Mate website has been updated after a temporary hiatus — we were too busy to get anything new up. Newly added are in-depth reviews of Rina Usui’s tickling fetish DVD and G-Collections’ excellent dating-sim game, Do You Like Horny Bunnies? The URL is http://www.jmate.com
Remember that J-List carries a full line of Japanese snack foods, with many rare cult favorites in stock for you, like Japanese sushi gummi, Black Black caffeine gum, Pocky, and also the delicious and popular Felix the Cat bubble gum, which is famous all the world over (we’re not sure why, but based on the mails we get from customers, it is).
