Hello again from Japan, the home of such products as Mapple (map book), Crunky (crunchy chocolate) and Quickle Wiper (floor cleaner).
Since Japan is such a small country, with half the population of the U.S. yet only 1/25 the area, people here have to be somewhat innovative when it comes to how they use their land. I see this smart use of space quite often: building a baseball field in the floodplain of a river or creating gas stations with pumps built into the roof, with a long hose reaching down to the car. They also have these funky tall parking garages that are basically giant elevators which store cars vertically. Graves are very space-saving, too: a small plot can hold the bones and ashes of dozens of family members. Think of old castles or temples and Kyoto might come to mind, but the culture of Gunma, where J-List is based, is ancient, too. Gunma has the highest number of “kofun,” or burial mounds, which were built between the 3rd and 7th century, before kanji and Buddhism entered Japan through Korea. Since it’s forbidden to build on land occupied by a burial mound, the Japanese often erect parks around them, which provide children with a fun place to play while instilling them with a sense of their country’s past, another innovative way to make use of land.
The history of Japanese companies can be interesting. One famous company is Glico, purveyors of Pocky, Pretz and many other delicious snacks from Japan. At the start of the 20th century, the son of Riichi Ezaki died suddenly. Saddened, Ezaki went a seaside fishing village where he happened upon some children playing. They were exceptionally healthy, which caused Ezaki to look into the reason for their good health. He determined that a compound found in oysters called glycogen was a factor, and in 1919 he resolved to found a company that would manufacture sweets for Japan’s children that would improve their health, to be named Glico, after the glycogen compound. The now-famous image of the Glico Running Man was adopted because one piece of candy contains the energy you need to run a 100 meter dash. He had trouble gaining traction against the other two large confectionery companies, Meiji and Morinaga, until he thought of an idea: package an omake (oh-MAH-kay) or small toy with the candy, which greatly increased sales. Pocky was created in 1965 and was in instant hit. The name comes from the sound the biscuit sticks make when broken (pokki!). J-List sells over 100 varieties of snacks including all flavors of Pocky (at least until Japan’s humid summer arrives, when we temporarily remove them from stock).
J-List loves to bring you hard-to-find products from Japan, and we’ve been happy to make the DVD films of Hayao Miyazaki available to you over the years, like My Neighbor Totoro, Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind and Spirited Away. Now there’s a great new Ghibli DVD that features a documentary of the Ghibli Museum in Tokyo, interviews with the creators, and shows the actual locations in Europe that the director has based his films in. The DVD is fully subtitled so you can enjoy all the great information. The disc is region 2, another great excuse to get a region free DVD player if you don’t have one already ^_^
