Hello and T.G.I.F. from everyone on the J-List team!
It’s fall, and that means it’s the season for school sports festivals, held from one end of Japan to the other this time of year. Kids run relays, perform synchronized dances, and generally celebrate sports while their parents look on with pride. Along with the start of the school year in April, this is a major chance for electronics makers to sell video cameras to mothers and fathers who want to record these events for posterity. See Panasonic’s latest TV commercial designed to pluck the heartstrings of parents, at http://www.jlist.com/panasonic (Flash required). The voiceover goes: “Half a year has passed since the cherry-blossoms and the start-of-school ceremony — look how fast they run! The 3-CCD ‘heart-sized’ DigiCam 200.” Panasonic has some beautiful autumn-themed wallpaper for your computer, too, at http://www.jlist.com/wallp
Despite being a rather crowded place — Japan crams half the population of the U.S. into an area the size of Nebraska — Japanese do love their cars, and TV commercials never fail to feature images of a solo driver on the open road, usually played by foreign stars like Rod Stewart or Antonio Banderas. While the lion’s share of cars sold in Japan are made by domestic car companies (natch), it is also very stylish to drive a “gai-sha” or foreign-made car. Germany’s Big Three automakers have pole position in the Japanese import car market, but American cars are also popular too, especially established brands like Jeep Cherokee and Ford Explorer. Saturn tried their hand at the Japanese market — we bought the first Saturn sold in our prefecture — but had to get out due to lack of acceptance by consumers here. Now the Saturn dealers have been converted to generic “GM” dealers, selling Chevy Astros, which the Japanese prefer. Of course, the concept of “foreign” car has less meaning these days, since Ford owns controlling stock in Mazda and sells many “Fords” here that are actually just re-branded Mazda cars.
Happy birthday to J-List! It was eight years ago that we started bringing our unique brand of wacky Japanese pop culture to the world, which seems like an incredibly long time for us (especially in Internet Time). Through it all, we’ve been blessed with many loyal customers, and we thank you all for your kind support. This month, we’re having a special $1 shipping sale on all English-translated dating-sim games. Combined with our regular buy-4-get-20%-off special, this is a fantastic opportunity for you to pick up a few of our great H games. All titles are stocked in San Diego, and games are shipped out daily to you.
We have a great line-up of products for you today, starting with a new wacky J-List T-shirt! The Japanese are big fans of product parodies, and we’ve come up with a new design mocking Suntory’s Boss Coffee, the leading brand of canned coffee in Japan, famous for its image of a hard-assed boss on the can. Our version is BOZU, which is Japanese for a bald-headed Buddhist priest. Totally wacky, and any Japanese who sees it will fall on the floor laughing. There are some fun Flash Boss Coffee games for you to play, http://www.jlist.com/boss
Oops! The “three days update” link in Wednesday’s email had a typo that caused 404 errors for some users. Sorry about that — the link below this works fine.
For the special first-of-month update, we’ve got some excellent products from Japan for you. They include:
- First, for fans of PEZ candy dispensers, we’ve got some cool items made exclusively for the Japanese market, including PEZ pens, mechanical pencils and more
- We’ve gotten stock of the long-lost vol. 2 of Goth & Loli Bible, the famous documentary of all that is gothic in Japan — very cool
- We have a great new series of “one coin figures” based on Predator 2 featuring incredible sculptures of the Predator and his environment, very cool figures by Japan’s famous Kotobukiya company
- Then for Naruto fans, a special treat: a set of cool Naruto headbands in different colors, so you can transform into ninja
- We have more authentic Japanese chopsticks from Japan, of very high quality
- For fans of delicious Pocky, we have a new taste this year, Pocky Decorer Chocola du Caramel, yummy caramel-chocolate Pocky that’s “just like a decoration cake on a stick:
- Other yummy treats include delicious caramel corn Japan-style, traditional baked rice crackers, and vitamin C candy
- Also look for various restocked snacks, like bontan ame candy (the candy where the wrapping is made of rice, so you can eat it, wrapper and all), tasty Natchan orange candies, and charcoal-roasted coffee candy (yum)
- Bento fans, we’ve added stock of several bento boxes, including the stylish I.Kotoba bento set
- Next we have two great items for G-Taste fans: a sexy figure of Mai Kannazuki and gashapon (capsule toy) figures of his other characters
- Reach out and touch Japan’s comedy world with the 15th anniversary DVD release of Downtown, commemorating the stellar careers of Matsumoto and Hamada, the most successful comedy duo in Japanese entertainment history
- Next, we have a fun Shower Bon Bon for you, which you drop into your bath, and out pops a cute toy for you — Let’s Bathtime!
- We have stylish tissue box covers, which allow you to make a box of tissue fit into any room
- We’ve added stock of the popular Chiaki “GoGo Yubari” Kuriyama DVD which had sold out in record time (region free)
- We have fresh stock of the classic Japanese daruma — color one eye black and make a wish for the new year, and if your wish comes true, color the other eye
- For fans of Tomica die-cast Japanese cars, we’ve restocked the popular Prius
- If you’re studying Japanese, we’ve added kanji study cards, something I personally wish I’d had when I was studying at SDSU in the 1980s
- Finally, a great way to grind-up sesame seeds, more traditional Japanese hand-towels, classic Japanese wind chimes, fresh stock of sushi tea cups, and more!
For our 18+ customers, we’ve got many new products. The new items include:
- For fans of Japan’s elegant 18+ magazines, we have the new issue of Bejean, featuring incredibly beautiful models like Hitomi Hayasaka, Mitsu Amai and more — comes with a life-size poster of Nana Natsume too!
- We have another gorgeous photomagazine in the “Monthly…” series, this time starring Reiko Miura
- Then we’ve got a fabulous photobook featuring the lovely body of Emiru Momose, a delightful creature from Japan
- Enjoy some great “new half” action too, with the new She-Male Gold
- Then enjoy a great color magazine + DVD combo item featuring all-femele action, 130 minutes worth on the DVD! (region free)
- For fans of Bastard!!, the classic boys’ fantasy comic, we have a deluxe item: a super large-size book version with all the sexy artwork intact
- Then we have a selection of top-quality H comics from Japan, including the incredible “last” manga offering by bold artist Pirontan, the twisted life of sexy Erenoa, and a “Brilliant” anthology of works by talented manga-ka (comic artists)
- Doujinshi collectors, we also have new fan-created parody comics for you, mocking all the top shows from Japan
- Also, you can preorder Yohei Kozou’s incredibly new CG collection, which J-List is able to make available without censorship of any kind (yay)
- Next we have a great Japanese toy in stock, a cute little bunny that’s really a personal massager
- For our DVD customers, enjoy some amazing new offerings starting with an “Estrus Picture Diary of Marshmallow Hips” (region free)
- Then from SOD, a bold offering combining the Gothic fashion style with what they do best, featuring two incredibly beautiful actresses performing in high goth style (region free)
- Then enjoy a super “oppai collection” from SOD featuring 30 top-name stars famous for their beautiful bodies (region free)
- From Moodyz, enjoy the best moments of “gokkun” with a great new offering featuring six gorgeous girls (region 2)
- Then from Waap Entertainment, enjoy a former Miss Kyoto runner-up and race queen who perform in a stylish city hotel, a great new item (region 2)
- Finally, look for fresh stock of the best-selling DVD by Mihiro, one of the most tantalizingly beautiful girls in Japan today (region free).
The J-List search system is quite flexible, allowing you to call up what you’re looking for easily. First of all, since Japanese names are reversed when writing Japanese-style (so that the last name comes first), the search system will bring up the same results for “Yuko Ogura” as for “Ogura Yuko.” You can also extend your search by searching for strings like “race queen and DVD” (to find only race queen DVDs, not, say, photobooks with race queens), or “hot wheels or tomica” to bring up products matching either of these terms.
Remember that J-List carries something that’s almost impossible to get outside of Japan: authentic Japanese high school uniforms, made just for you by the famous Matsukameya of Nagoya. Each uniform is sewn just for you, to the sizes you specify on our detailed chart, and the quality of these uniforms is not to be believed. If you love Japanese “cosplay” and want to try on a real Japanese high school uniform (the company takes pride in offering sizes large enough for men to wear the girls’ uniforms, if you so desire), please see the excellent items we have on our site. We also have boys’ high school uniforms too!~~
