Well, another Anime Expo has ended, and we’re all extremely tired from that incredible experience. There were 110,000 fans at the show, and I think I mat about 100,000 of them, and sold most of them ecchi visual novels and onaholes.
Another anime season is upon us, and I’ve started scouting out which shows I want to follow so I can write about them here. As usual, our anime cup runneth over, and fans have more than 50 series to watch this season, far more than we can take in. One show I’m enjoying so far is Aho Girl, aho being the way you call someone “stupid” in Osaka dialect. It’s a hilarious anime based on a 4-koma manga about a stupid airheaded aho girl named Yoshiko and her childhood friend Akuru, who is constantly put upon by her stupid antics (and love of bananas). It’s a classic “straight man and wise guy” show, with Yoshiko’s boke (dull-witted comedic setups) followed by Akuru’s sometimes violent tsukkomi (sarcastic reactions). It’s funny to realize that the boke/tsukkomi dynamic goes far beyond anime, and can be seen in such varied places as Penn and Teller, Cheech and Chong, R2-D2 and C-3P0 and those old Mac vs PC commercials. So will you be watching Aho Girl?
I happened to see that this Saturday was my nine year anniversary on Twitter, and I’ve certainly enjoyed talking with so many people on that platform, and sharing shimapan gifs. Since J-List has been around so long, the tools we’ve used to reach out to our customers have evolved a lot, starting with our long-running email list (sign up if you’re not on it!), through the golden age of the blog, then to social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook, and more recently, Instagram and Discord. (Join us on any of these sites!) I really like social media, because it lets me have an almost personal relationship with fans from all corners of the world, who all feel about Japan the way I do. Also, because communication is two-way, I can do special detailed blog posts like this one, answering reader questions about Japan’s falling birthrate. If there’s any topic you’d like to see me write about here in these blog posts, let me know through social media!
We’ve always got great anime figures from Japan on the site, but recently we’ve been adding them so fast, it’s hard to catch them all. Browse the newest figures for today’s update, and remember, you get 10% off when you preorder!
