Hello again from all of us in Japan!
The first anniversary of the World Trade Center disaster was a sad and sobering event here in Japan. The ceremonies taking place in the U.S. were covered in depth by the Japanese news stations, who did many hours of reporting on the sad anniversary. Takeshi “Beat” Kitano, the Japanese director and actor, was on hand to give his thoughts on the attacks. Japanese viewers were then shown the shocking footage of the inside of the WTC filmed by the French brothers Jules and Gideon Naudet who were making the documentary on firemen in New York during the attacks, some of the most riveting images I’ve ever seen. 24 Japanese were killed in the attacks, mostly workers at Japanese banks which were located in the building. Japanese have a great respect and love for America, and it was a great honor for them to have been able to work in such a prestigious building. Happily, many hundreds of Japanese employees were able to evacuate in time and were safe.
One of the engines for change in Japan is provided by people like me: foreigners who live here and observe the society from the inside. When I came to Japan in 1992, one of the first things I noticed was children playing in moving cars, standing up in the back seats and waving out the windows. There was no law requiring child safety seats in Japan at that time; it just wasn’t part of the culture here. I have, at times, knocked on the windows of cars and told the drivers to please get child seats for their children. Another time, I caught a Japanese boy throwing his trash on the ground in a park, and I admonished him about keeping his country clean: he was wide-eyed with shock at being bawled out by an American speaking Japanese, and I think it took my words to heart more than he would otherwise have. Japan has been called the one country that cares what its foreign population thinks, and books about Japan written by gaijin living here are translated into Japanese and sell briskly. Of course, it’s very easy to take the attitude that everything different from how things are back home is “wrong” (e.g., the Japanese drive on the “wrong” side of the street compared to the U.S.), and everyone living in a foreign country has a tendency to do this sometimes. About 1% of the population of Japan is made up of foreign nationals, mostly from countries like Brazil, Peru, South Korea. Japanese seem to think this is a high number, but when we went to Germany, we were told that 9% of the workers were guest workers were from Turkey (we’re not sure if this number is accurate, but there sure were a lot of rowdy Turkish soccer fans when we were there).
Well, the great race to preorder 2003 Japanese calendars is on again this year, and we’ve already had hundreds of preorders for calendars, which will start to come in from our distributors around the end of September. It’s still too early to guess which calendars will prove the most popular, but as usual, anime calendars like Chobits and Totoro, nude calendars like Ryoko Mitake and Hitomi Hayasaka, and idol calendars like Yuko Ogura and Yinling of Joytoy are off to a strong start. If you haven’t seen the large calendars from Japan, with huge poster-sized sheets and beautiful printing, we hope you’ll preorder some calendars from us so you can experience them. These calendars also make unique and thoughtful Christmas gifts, too. See the calendar pages for more information.
Have you seen some of our ads on magazines? J-List advertises in magazines like Giant Robot and While You Were Sleeping. If you found J-List through one of these advertisements, please reply to this mail and let us know. We like to keep track of how effective our advertising is. Thanks!
For the new update, we’ve got a ton of new items for you, including:
- First, for all fans of the British sci-fi show Thunderbirds, we’ve got the cool 2nd series of Thunderbirds vehicles in for you (they’re really cool) — we have several sets available, too
- “Domo” is a very useful Japanese word that can be used in almost any situation. There’s a famous Japanese character called Domo-kun, and we’ve got several new products for Domo-kun fans and collectors, including a great plush square pillow, fresh stock of the cute Domo-kun plush dolls, and more
- For fans of Hello Kitty, several nice items, including some very nice Hello Kitty Japanese bento boxes (lunch boxes) that are great, a Kitty “pair mug cup” set, and more
- Speaking of Hello Kitty, we restocked what has become one of the most popular items in our history, the Hello Kitty vibrating shoulder massage — we’ve got 600 in stock now (they make wacky Christmas gifts)
- We love the cool Star Wars items released for the Japanese market, including the beautiful pre-painted figures by Kotobukiya — we’ve posted the new Anakin Skywalker 1/7 scale figure, along with fresh stock of the popular Darth Vader figure that is so cool
- We’ve gotten in fresh stock of several popular toy items, including the Totoro tin toy collection, the cool Bastard!! Gabriel deluxe figure, and the extremely cool Macross YV-21 die-cast fighter
- For Kubrick fans, we’ve added a new category for Kubrick toys so they’re easy to find — enjoy our stock of these unique Japanese toys
- New wacky and useful things from Japan, including cool “fude pens” (pens that write like Japanese writing brushes), Step Board to massage your feet, and fresh stock of our traditional soba noodle tray
- Finally, we’ve added a few new calendars that weren’t posted before, including Ichiro’s 2003 calendar, various other sports, character and wacky calendars, and more.
For our adult customers, we’ve got many new 18+ products. They include:
- For fans of Japan’s excellent adult magazines, we’ve got the new issue of Gokuh, brimming with top-quality Japanese AV idols like Nao Oikawa, Mai Hagiwara and Ai Kurosawa
- Also, for fans of Western women, we’ve got several issues of the surprisingly popular Bachelor, filled with beautiful models from America and Europe
- One of our all-time favorite magazines is Photo Shot, the “Eichi Mook” (a mook is a cross between a magazine and a book), and we’ve got some issues in stock for you
- For photobook fans, we’ve got some nice items, including the very erotic Mission Fetish, for panty and stocking fans
- If you love Japan’s erotic manga, we’ve got more volumes in stock for you, including some nice ones from Angel Comics, Fox Comics and more
- Also: courtesy of Yasu, a major restocking of some popular manga issues, including Irodori, Fetish Doll, the Yui Shop erotic art boks, and more
- Also, we’ve got doujinshi, including a dozen or more new doujinshi obtained at the most recent Comic Market, but they will go fast…
- For DVD lovers, we’ve got more items for you, starting with a new Les Max 4 Hours (vol. 2), featuring 4 hours of excellent lesbian AV for you (region free)
- Itsuki Ninoshita performs in a great new Fan Thanks Day from Soft on Demand, doing sex acts on her fans while wearing many famous anime costumes to say thanks for their support (region free)
- See the anal sex of 50 AV actresses and amateur girls in a new offering from Deep’s that’s great for anal fans (region free)
- We love the beautiful Maiko Kazano, and think you’ll enjoy her silky new soft porn release from Take Shobo (region 2)
- For fans of Wanz Factory’s bold AV style, see Natsumi Kawahama’s beautiful Hip & Vagina release, featuring excellent performances by this experienced woman (region 2)
- Finally, Tomo has restocked the DVDs on our site, including Go Go Kanabun Land, Magic Mirror Boxcar Special Set, Anna Ohura’s popular hardcore releases, Super Bishoujo Kiss, and DVDs by Akira Watase!
At J-List, we carry unique Japanese chewing gum from Japan, like Lotte’s popular Blue Berry and Black Black (menthol gum with caffeine in it), and Xylitol gums (Xylitol is an advanced chemical from Norway that halts tooth decay). Check out our Japanese gum section and see all the cool items we’ve got in stock for you.
