Hello from Kota Kinabalu, a city in Western Borneo, Malaysia, where I’ve brought my family for some relaxing fun, just like they do in those “southern island” episodes you see in anime. While I’m gone, the hardworking J-List staff will be making sure all orders are shipped out in a timely fashion.
Visiting a new Asian country after living for so long in Japan is always a lot of fun. Japan, of course, is one of the most homogenous countries on Earth, with 97% of people believing themselves to be of the same genetic Yamato Japanese stock as everyone else. In reality there’s plenty of Chinese, Korean, Mongolian, Russian, Ainu, Okinawan and (thanks to me, at least) American blood sloshing around in the veins of modern Japan, though by unwritten social compact Japanese agree to never “see” such minor differences in each other. (This is known as the Myth of Japanese Uniformity, and it’s a big reason why Japan seems to be such a harmonious place.) Malaysia is about as different from Japan as a country can get, a melting pot of Malay, Chinese, Indian and indigenous cultures, with influence from surrounding countries as well as from its British colonial history (which is why there are so many roundabouts here). In addition to “surfing” the chaos that comes with visiting any new Asian country, we’ve really enjoyed the food here, which we’ve been able to navigate with the help of some helpful locals on J-List’s Twitter feed.
2015 marks the 20th year of my involvement with English-translated visual novels, known by several other names, including dating sim-games, eroge or “gal games” (though these terms are often not accurate, depending on the details of the game in question). I got my start with these games while casting around for something interesting to do with the Internet, which had officially exploded in 1994, and I had the good luck to contact the president of a game maker called JAST, known for some now-classic H-games. He was open to our ideas of translating games for the English-speaking market, which was the beginning of JAST USA, which has been a successful licensor of English games as well as a distributor for other companies, as there were no distributors for unique 18+ games in the U.S., unlike Japan. (We started J-List as a side business for the visual novel side of things, though it kind of took over.) Over the years I’ve translated, mastered or otherwise been involved in publishing more than 80 visual novels, and I sometimes think they’ve affected my outlook on life just a little. For one thing, I usually find myself believing that any problem in life can be solved, any “game ending” achieved, just by finding the correct choices that are needed to unlock the desired outcome. I also occasionally realize that my life has reached a “choice point” in which deciding between choice A and choice B will move me to a different “game route,” a concept presented visually in an episode of Shirobako in which two characters had to make choices about their future careers. Unfortunately, I’ve yet to discover how to save games along the way, enabling me to start my game over again if I make a bad choice. If I figure that part out, I’ll be sure and post it here.
A new year has started, and what better way to celebrate than with a J-List Fuku-bukuro grab bag. We have great ones this year, filled with wonderful anime + toy items, kawaii fashion and cultural items, plus the always-popular “naughty” grab bags shipped from Japan and San Diego. The grab bags will be removed in a couple weeks so grab yours now!
