Hello from Japan, where some English words don’t always mean what you think they mean — for example, a “manicure” means painting your fingernails, and lipstick is called “rouge.”
One of the biggest changes to come to Japan during the decade-long Japanese hangover after the bursting of the bubble economy, has been the complete removal of “shushin koyo” or the lifetime employment that most Japanese working for established companies enjoyed for most of the 20th century. Ever since the day Sony announced a major round of layoffs in the late 1990s — something that just wasn’t done in Japan until the company took the bold step — there has been silent acknowledgement that all employees are subject to potential “risutora,” or restructuring, the word the Japanese use for laying off employees. Japan has had trouble coming to grips with a high rate of unemployment, especially for workers over age 50. At the same time, people in their 20s are less interested in joining companies as full-time employees, and are often happy to remain “freeters,” or people who work at part-time jobs, changing jobs frequently when it strikes their fancy.
Today is Respect for the Aged Day, a national holiday. There is a high percentage of elderly Japanese, and thanks to the low Japanese birth rate, that number is going nowhere but up, and this day was created in 1966 as a day to celebrate longevity and respect elders. We’re going to take Jiichan and Baachan (that is, grandpa and grandma) out for a popular treat in Japan, yakiniku, or Korean style barbecue. Yum!
Announcing the start of 2004 calendar season! Every year at about this time, J-List lists hundreds of fabulous large-format JPOP, anime, idol, art, movie and adult calendars for Japanophiles who want to have something special on their walls in the coming year. Japanese calendars are really beautiful things, with giant poster-sized sheets, high-quality glossy printing, and fabulous photographic and art images for you to enjoy. Since J-List wants everyone to love Japan as we do, we go the extra mile for you, making over 200 unique and special (and sometimes quite bizarre) calendars available to everyone. No matter what your taste, you can find something worth getting — and these calendars make fantastic Christmas gifts too!
To order, just add any calendars you want to your shopping cart and check out normally. We’ll automatically separate all calendars from other items you order, so that they can be held without being charged until we get the calendars in stock and ready to go out to you. In order to ensure that your calendars reach you in perfect condition, we’ll need to send them in strong mailing tubes which we’ve got here. Mailing tubes are $2 each, and two calendars can be rolled carefully and sent together in one tube. Order 4 or more calendars, and your tubes are free. We expect to start to get the calendars in around the middle of October. Note that the window for these special order calendars is very narrow, and preorders will have to be closed by the end of October…so we humbly recommend that you get your orders in as quickly as possible!
A note about the images on the website. The company that publishes these calendars is a very old one, with a century of history, and they don’t make the image files for the calendars available in a digital format. We scan small thumbnail images from a large poster which the company sends us, which makes the images kind of blurry. But rest assured, the printing on the actual calendars is all beautiful, full resolution color printing with great quality. To help you decide which calendars you’d like, we’ve added reference images to the calendars, with art that is representative of what should be inside this year’s actual calendars.
In addition to the 200+ calendars we’ve added to the site, we’ve got some excellent products from Japan for you, too. They include:
- First, for fans of the timeless Macross 1984 movie, we’ve the Catseye fighter that Misa flew in during the battle in Saturn’s Rings — another really cool toys that really transforms
- We were amazed at how fast the Alien Kubricks sold out — in less than a day! So we’ve added more of these really cool detailed toys from Japan’s famous Medicom Toy maker
- Also, look for fresh stock of popular miniature food toys, including Japanese food, Chinese food and desserts
- For Evangelion fans, a rare Eva 02 toy that you can really have fun with
- Hiroko Sato has a delightful photobook for you, hardcover with lots of cute photographs inside for your enjoyment
- For anime fans, check out cool notebooks and notepads of Naruto which we’ve got for you
- For fans of our Japanese snacks, we’ve gotten in some nice ones, including seaweed & potato snacks, miso stewed salmon, and wasabi nori!
- We have a very nice new bento box set that comes with everything you need for a bento picnic
- For Kitty fans, a cute Kitty plush that you can change the clothes of — so cute
- Also, a cute Kitty kigirumi toy, Kitty wearing a panda costumes
- Harry Potter fans, we’ve got a rare item — Harry Potter ChoroQ cars, although stock is very limited
- For fans of Japanese food, find more easy-to-use chopsticks in stock, great for full sized hands
- Then, for fans of Japanese film, we’ve got Resurrection, a touching story of death and l ife, starring Tsuyoshi Kusanagi and Yuko Takeuchi
- For Totoro and Miyazaki fans, we’ve restocked the great Spirited Away plush toys and keychains, including Bou and the No Face window mascot
- Find fresh stock of Yuko Ogura photobooks, Race Queen photobook, and more — until they sell out again
- Finally, we’ve got plenty of cool and wacky things for your kitchen, office or kitchen — check out all that we have for you!
For our adult customers, we’ve got many new 18+ products. They include:
- We’ve got the great new issue of Gokuh, the oversized erotic magazine that’s filled with superb angels for you, including a giant poster too
- For photobook collectors, enjoy the superb G cup 100 cm giant breast idol Yuria Yoshinaga — you won’t forget her beautiful body
- Then enjoy the sexy anime cosplay of Sayaka Isoyama, who dresses up in many fun costumes to make your fantasies come true
- If you love hentai manga, enjoy some great new works, including a large format deluxe book by a famous hentai illustrator, Miho Hirose’s delightfully erotic “Call Me!!” and more
- Also, look for a major restocking of over a dozen popular books that had been sold out, including Tag, Love Colle 2, and Immoral
- For our doujinshi fans, we’ve got some great new books in for you, brand new erotic doujinshi that just came out at this summer’s comic market — also, we’ve restocked popular books by Okachimentaiko, TGWOA and more
- Also, we’ve got a great hentai CG collection for Lum fans, courtesy of artist Fujio Okamoto
- Also, we’ve got a nice new yaoi comic that tells the story of how Lucifer fell from Heaven — it’s quite a believable story ^_^
- For our DVD customers, enjoy a great bukkake festival with Nao Oikawa and Maria Yumeno (region free)
- Then enjoy some great sex with Akira Watase, the super-erotic indies idol — she stars as the ultimate love slave in a new work from IEnergy (region free)
- Moodyz’ “Clothed Female, Naked Male” series continues with 110 minutes of “girls who want to see penises” — great for fans of the Japanese fetish known as “penis study” (region 2)
- Then, the incredible Bunko Kanazawa stars in a a new Dream Woman bukkake production from Alala Kurosawa, featuring some of her best bukkake facial work you’ve ever seen! (region2)
- Finally, there are various restocked DVDs, including lesbian “deep kiss,” fun in SOD’s Magic Mirror go-anywhere adult video studio, and more!
Interested in learning Japanese? Remember that J-List loves Japan and always wants to promote the study of Japanese all over the world. To that end, we carry cool things like study cards (blank cards that make it easy to study vocabulary), and the spiffy Zebra Check Set, a system that helps you memorize anything and test your memory. See the “Notebooks, Study Aids” category inside Wacky Things from Japan for these items. Also, be sure to see Peter’s general overview of the Japanese language and his advice for students or would-be students, at http://www.peterpayne.net/
