Greetings from all of us at J-List!
With the Japanese recession continuing for so long, it’s become quite common to see companies suddenly go out of businesses. It seems that taking a trip to the next town will always bring some new discovery of a new business here or there that has closed its doors. Even establishments that never used to go out of business in the “old” Japan, like convenience stores, now close regularly. While there are many reasons why business is bad in Japan, I have to lay a lot of blame at the feet of Japanese managers and owners who just plain seem to lack inventiveness and fresh ideas. Lack of leadership, especially in areas of management, seems to be the primary challenge facing Japan these days. Some of the things businesses do are just silly, too. We used to shop at a local electronics store called Plug City, but one day they announced a “closing sale” and sold all the products in the store at a deep discount. We were sad that our favorite store was going under, and started buying from another shop (K’s Denki). It turned out that Plug City wasn’t actually going out of business at all, just closing their store for a month to redo the fixtures. If they had posted this somewhere in the store, we might not have given up on them and found another shop to patronize, but instead, they lost us as customers as we got used to buying from another chain.
Something that makes Japanese people happy no end is when Japanese become famous outside of Japan. Nothing tickles Japanese more than having baseball players like Nomo and Ichiro, writers like Kenzaburo Oe and Yukio Mishima, and directors like Akira Kurosawa and Hayao Miyazaki hailed in the international community. In a recent issue of Time, my wife was reading about the popularity of plastic surgery throughout Asia, and saw SMAP member Takuya Kimura (the “Brad Pitt” of Japan) and Norika Fujiwara in the issue. She was overjoyed to see two Japanese stars in such a famous magazine as Time! Sadly, she was reading the International Edition of the magazine, which is of course loaded with articles of extra interest to people living outside the U.S., which aren’t necessarily printed in the U.S. version of the magazine. I didn’t have the heart to tell her…
If you ever visit Japan, it’s good manners to bring a gift, called “omiyage” (oh-mee-YAH-gay), to Japanese you will be visiting. Some items, like boxes of chocolates, beef jerky, and macadamia nuts from Hawaii, are so famous that they’re almost cliched. Some other items you might want to consider include vitamins (they’re incredibly expensive in Japan) or a carton of cigarettes from your home country (find our of the intended recipient smokes first, of course). I’ve noticed a lot of expensive high-end toothpaste that’s sold in the U.S. is available through mail order in Japan, often at laughably high prices (three tubes of whitening toothpaste for $60, etc.), so maybe some high-quality toothpaste might be a nice gift. And with the popularity of Starbucks in Japan these days, one of our favorite gifts for Japanese friends are the large 10 lb bags of coffee. You can’t go wrong with something like this.
We have some great products for you today, starting with:
- For fans of one of the best-selling items in J-List history, the Hello Kitty vibrating shoulder massager, we’ve got a great new version — a deluxe large-size massager great for massaging your back, neck and various other places
- If you love Japan’s Race Queens, we’ve got a special item, the brand new Top GT Race Queen Guide for 2002, featuring the hottest RQs, including Toko Ushikawa (!)
- For fans Japanese lovely swimsuit idols, we’ve got a super “pocket” photobook featuring the lovely Aki Kawamura
- Also, a rare item for bikini and swimsuit idol fans, a collection of 106 sexy “fresh talent angels” courtesy of Fuji Television
- We love cute licensed goods from Sesame Street, Peanuts and so on that are only sold in Japan — and we’ve got fresh stock of some cool Sesame Street pens for you today
- We have fresh stock of the cool “Cup Noodle Mug Cup” that looks like a cup of ramen but is a great coffee cup
- For fans of our Japanese snack foods, enjoy the delicious chocolate and strawberry Pucca, delicious “fizzy” gummi cola candy, new furikake, and more!
- For fans of cute things from Japan, we’ve got little bottles of Japanese “drinks” that contains cute little erasers — very cute and wacky
- If you love Domo-kun, the scary monster that is the spokesman for Japan’s NHK broadcasting network, we’ve got limited stock of two cool plushes
- One of the most popular anime series in Japan today is One Piece, a bizarre anime show about pirates — we’ve got Bandai’s deluxe Going Merry ship (that’s also a game you can play) in stock now
- We also have a bizarre figure series based on Marilyn Manson and designed by a talented Japanese sculptor — very freaky
- Finally, look for fans to keep you cool, new Hello Kitty items for your little ones, a deluxe new bento box set, and more!
For our adult customers, we’ve got many new 18+ products, including:
- First, we have some nice new and reduced magazine items for you, including new magazines on the “under $7” page
- For fans of Japan’s lovely hardcover nude photobooks, we have a great 4-book set of photobooks featuring famous nude idols from Japan
- If you love the uniquely Japanese vibrators and sex toys we’ve added in recent months, check out the very cute “Rabbit Rotor,” a little vibrating bunny that has many protruding parts to bring much pleasure — and it’s so cute
- For doujinshi fans and collectors, we’ve got a super volley of limited stock doujinshi for you, with two dozen all-new books posted including some very rare and cool items
- Also, we’ve got great hentai manga items for you, including new books by Angel Comics, AV Comics and more
- Also, freshly stocked comics including more volumes of the famous Pururun Seminar series
- For DVD lovers, we’ve got another huge list of new offerings, including the new “Jun Kusanagi,” the lovely Cocolo, who has a beautiful body and sexy “Kubire” (the name for the dip in a woman’s body between her breasts and hip) (region free)
- There’s more “Amateur Bukkake” fun from Soft on Demand, as cute, naive girls go into the Magic Mirror Bus and receive semen from men (region free)
- Enjoy the lovely performance of Sayaka Tsutsumi, the hottest star in Japan AV today, in “Lovely Semen” (region free)
- For region free DVD player owners, enjoy a new erotic “Black Date” with Shinobu Rei, the erotic indies AV idol (region 2)
- From Moodyz, a new release from the Moodyz Musume idol group, who perform hardcore love for you (region 2)
- Finally, a bunch of newly stocked DVDs, including Love Semen (a special bukkake item), Adult Video Wrestling, Do Lesbian, and more!
Remember that for the rest of the month of September, we’re offering free shipping on all Peach Princess games. It’s a great opportunity to try out the games you haven’t played yet, or if you’re new to Japanese love-sim adventure games, try your first.
