Exploring Anime Thighs and Fan Service, Plus the Kanji of the Year
One of the modern wonders of the world is EMS shipping, which magically transports fun products in Japan to your doorstep in only a few days. Thursday marks the end of our Half Price Shipping EMS Sale, though. Make an order of $50 or more before now and Dec. 14, and you’ll get half off your EMS shipping! Go make an order now!
One thing I’ve observed is, a lot of fans seem to have a love-hate relationship with fan service in anime. On the one hand, they criticize the genre as being about nothing but anime tiddy and pantyshots, while presumably sharing (or at least “providing engagement” as we say in the social media biz) with memes related to those same anime tiddy and panties. I personally think that a little fan service, if done right, can do a lot to bring fans into a new show. Recently I came across a “quiz battle” anime called Nana Maru San Batsu that caught my eye by demonstrating an extremely precise knowledge of two of my fetishes: the zettai ryouiki “absolute zone” plus the cute way girls push their hair behind their ear. The next thing I knew, I was watching and enjoying the show, which is about a boy’s love of competitive quizzes and how he learns there’s more to life than answering trivia questions. (For example. there’s zettai ryouiki.)
It’s that time of year again when we look back at the past year in Japan sum it up with a single kanji character, called Kanji of the Year. A lot of things happened this year, some good, some bad, and some which seemed positively terrible at the time, but didn’t really end up affecting us that much. The candidates for this year’s kanji included 政 sei, meaning politics, to express the energy the various political parties put into the October general election; 変 hen, or change, to describe how much things have changed this year; and 米 bei, which means “rice” but refers to America, due to how much of Japan’s attention was focused on U.S. events. The kanji that won out was 北 kita, or north, representing the anxiety Japanese feel about the endless missile tests by North Korea. Previous kanji of the year have included 金 kin, or gold, expressing joy over the Japanese wins at the Rio Olympics in 2016; 安 an (safety), referring to Prime Minister Abe’s hotly-debated security bill in 2015; 税 zei (tax), marking a consumption tax increase in 2014; 輪 wa (ring), signifying Japan’s joy at winning the 2020 Olympics for 2013; 命 inochi (life, specifically the preciousness of life) for 2006, a year when there were many suicides; and 絆 kizuna (bond, as in the bonds that tie us to one another) after the terrible trials of the earthquakes and tsunamis of 2011.
Although there’s still one more day left in our 50% EMS shipping sale (it ends at midnight on Thursday, California time), we’re starting a fun new promotion, giving you something to browse and buy while you get 10x J-List Points — a massive 20% off your order, given as J-List Points you can buy anything with! For the next 24 hours the special discount is on Japanese snacks. Make your order now!
We’re doing one more fun promotion for the next 12 days, too: the Twelve Onaholes of Christmas. Every day we’ll highlight a new onahole toy which has proven to bring many smiles to the faces of our customers over the years, and offer them a huge 10x J-List Points discount, allowing you to score some amazing toys for the holidays. Have a Merry White Christmas!
