No matter how delicate and beautiful some anime stories might be — such as Time of Eve, about a coffee shop where humans and androids can interact freely without the usual social differences that exist in their society — in the end a lot of anime fans will turn to hentai, either in animated form or the excellent visual novels and RPGs we publish. This is normal, of course, since we’re all human, and basically have 4 billion years of evolution telling us to think naughty thoughts. I think hentai as a genre is pretty cool for a few reasons, including that it’s totally fictional and separated from reality, and I’ve talked with customers who told me that hentai was the only kind of such material they could enjoy specifically because it was stylized and not real. Personally, the idea of supporting talented artists and animators who’ve spent years honing their skills so they can finally work in the industry over actual live-action people doing actual stuff on camera is appealing to me for a lot of reasons. So, which do you prefer?
Have you ever wondered how Japanese names work? Well, I’ll tell you. Japanese always have two names, a family name and a given name, which are written in kanji characters, or less frequently hiragana or katakana. Family names always come first — always Hatsune Miku, never Miku Hatsune — though this rule isn’t followed for foreigners, who always say or write their names in Western order. It’s quite common for a Japanese person to have a kanji name that no one can read, and we regularly struggle to read the names of doujinshi creators when posting products to the site. Kanji names always have meaning, like 小林 Kobayashi (the little forest) or 山田 Yamada (rice field on the mountain). Japanese can be very superstitious when it comes to names, and when our daughter was born, my wife insisted on choosing kanji for her that had the same number of strokes as her own name, so she’d have good luck. In the history of Japanese business, one man who stands out was 藤田田 Futaji Den, founder of McDonald’s and Toys R Us in Japan. His mother was a Christian who chose the unique 田 (rice field) character for her son because it contained a cross, which she was sure would protect him as he went through his life.
(Like a lot of foreigners, I thought it’d be cool to make kanji for my name, which is 飛偉多阿 平院. Unlike a lot of foreigners, I accidentally registered this as my legal name, meaning that I have to write it on insurance forms, etc. which is a big pain.)
J-List always has great anime figures on the site for you, from KanColle to Kill la Kill to Super Sonico, and you get a 10% discount when you preorder. Browse the newest figures now!
