Hello again from Japan, where the most common kind of coffee ordered in restaurants here is known as “American coffee.”
One of my favorites from my YBIJTLW list, located on my personal homepage: “You’ve been in Japan too long when it takes you several seconds of deep thought to recall the first name of the President of the United States.” It’s true — you’d be surprised what living in a foreign country can do to your ability to recall seldom-used information, or even remember some English vocabulary words. Try going years without ever hearing or uttering difficult words, like “gynecologist” or “irreplacable” — they can be quite difficult to dredge up from the depths of your memory, even if English is your native language. It’s especially bad for native English speakers who work as English teachers in Japan, because you can go for months without hearing any English except the simplified utterances of your students, which invariably begins to affect your English in a negative way. In the same way that living in a country like India or New Zealand would begin to affect your own spoken English over time, living in Japan can takes its toll, too.
One of the core concepts to Japanese society is an unstated belief that all Japanese are basically “the same” (known as the Myth of Japanese Uniformity). While Japanese would be insulted at anyone insinuating that “all Japanese look alike” to foreigners (although I’ve been told by Japanese that all foreigners look alike to them), they do have a tendency to see all Japanese as coming from the same stock and having the same features, which is a useful social engine for creating a unified national identity. Here’s the rub: in reality, there is a wide variety of features among “Japanese” people, with obvious influences from Korean, Mongolian and Ainu blood, differences in skin color and the depth of facial features, size of the eyes, and so on. Conveniently for their harmony-based society, the Japanese don’t “see” differences in facial features of their own people, allowing everyone to get along on a more even plane.
One group that is somewhat outside this umbrella of uniformity are the Ainu, the indigenous people who lived in Japan from prehistoric times. As culture took root in the Kansai region of Japan, rising with Buddhism and trade after 593 A.D., the Ainu people got pushed further and further north. Now the “Ainu” (defined as people who describe themselves as Ainu, as opposed to people with Ainu blood in their veins but who consider themselves Japanese) live mainly in Hokkaido and on smaller islands, including the disputed islands occupied by Russia after World War II. Ainu living in Hokkaido often come into conflict with the Japanese government, such as when the government wanted to build a dam that would displace hundreds of Ainu.
For bishoujo gaming fans, we’re happy to announce that Viper Paradice, one of the freshest and most entertaining concepts in the English hentai gaming world, is in stock and shipping now! This is a great game in which you assume the role of one of four lovely females from the Viper games, and play against other human or computer-controlled characters to get points and collect all the erotic Viper movies. A great new game from Hobibox Europe, and in stock in San Diego!
For the new update, we’ve got lots of nice items, including really cool backpacks for kids featuring Hello Kitty and “Shinkansen” (the Sanrio characters for boys who love trains), more of the excellent Totoro music boxes (great for collectors) and plush toys, great new bento boxes, fresh stock of only-sold-in-Japan Star Wars plush toys and other items, more of the cool Jin-Roh figures and Japan Hot Wheels, stock of the excellent Original Pocky and Men’s Pocky, a great line of anime toys based on classic anime shows, and more! For our adult customers, we’ve got some very nice items, including a new photobook by the lovely Maiko Kazano, new and restocked hentai manga, a great erotic new DVD release from Akira Watase, fresh stock of dozens of top-selling adult DVD titles including the Very Best of Million, Desire Lesbian and CC Idol, fresh stock of rare back-issues of Urecco, Gal’s Dee and others, and much more!
Do you love the anime films of Hayao Miyazaki? One of his best-ever films is coming out on DVD in just a few days — Castle in the Sky, Laputa. It’s available for preorder from J-List, so reserve your copy now! Laputa is one of the best of all the Studio Ghibli works, and is an excellent film that no anime fan should be without. The Japanese release contains the full English dubbed version, as well as English subtitles. It’s a region 2 release.
Remember that J-List sells region-free DVD players that allow you to view DVDs from all over the world, even PAL DVDs from Europe. And, the two Sampo units we sell have a feature (unsupported, but it works well) that removes Macrovision, making the players “VCR friendly” — a great additional feature for you. Best of all, our players are very affordable, with the Sampo DVE-612 starting at just $109. All DVD players are stocked in San Diego for your ordering convenience.
