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Greetings From J-List

1/27/2012

I've written before about how one of the more pleasant aspects of living in Japan is that people tend to be honest and upstanding, and chances are if you lose your wallet or camera it will be turned in at the local "police box," as the tiny two-man police stations that dot Japanese cities are called. That's not to say there's no crime in Japan: as with all countries, there are thefts, assaults and the occasional murder, but in general the chances that crime will affect a given person are low. Sadly, one type of crime is still too common, the bank transfer frauds known as Ore Ore Sagi or "It's me, it's me! Scams." Usually they take the form of an elderly Japanese person receiving a call from a "grandson" with a cold (hence the change in his voice) who says, "It's me, it's me! Don't you know your own grandson?" The swindler then proceeds to tell some lie about how he's gotten in an accident or made a costly error at work and needs $5000 transferred to his bank account right away to fix things. The problem is bad enough that police are often posted by bank ATMs to ask patrons if they've received any suspicious calls, and the ATMs themselves display warnings when transferring money. These types of crimes are reportedly less common in the Osaka area because criminals can't mimic the Osaka-ben dialect as easily.


Characters in anime often speak in unique ways; bank transfer scams are still a problem in Japan.

When I started studying Japanese I was anxious because I knew the grammar would be unlike anything found in English or the smattering of Spanish I'd taken in high school. Happily I found that, to me, the grammar and syntax wasn't that bad -- I learned to memorize base sentences and switch out the nouns, verbs and adjectives until I was comfortable using them, and of course I read lots of manga to pick up new vocabulary words. One unique aspect of Japanese is that there are grammatical "particles" which mark certain words, clearly indicating the sentence subject, object, etc. Here are a few examples in case you're curious:

wa and ga

The "subject" and "topic" markers of sentences, and if this sounds a little vague, join the "confused by wa and ga club." In a nutshell, wa is the master subject marker of a sentence, and ga is used in certain situations, including questions or when you need emphasis.

Example: Nihongo wa muzukashii. Dono hen ga muzukashii? (The Japanese language is difficult. What part is difficult?)

o

The object marker for sentences, by happy linguistic chance, is "o." Can they get any more convenient?

Example: Kinou eiga o mimashita. (Yesterday I saw a movie.)

ni

Filling the role of "to" (as in where you're going, or to whom an action is directed), and "into" for verbs like to enter. It's "in" spelled backwards so it's another easy one to remember.

Example: Neko wa hako ni hairu. (The cat goes into the box.)

ka

A marker for questions.

Example: Kore wa zombie desu ka? (Is this a zombie?)

ga, keredomo, keredo, kedo

These all mean "but," ranked from most polite to most informal.

Example: Ugoite mo ii keredo, totemo kiken yo. (It's okay to move, but it's very dangerous.)

It's often the case that words a person chooses to use say a lot about their character, like a tomboy who uses the first-person pronoun usually used by males. In the anime Bakemonogatari (and the new sequel Nisemonogatari), it's common for characters to always use the word keredo (above, meaning "but"), which provides an oddly formal and precise quality to everything the characters in the show say, though no one really talks like that.

Akihabara is the area of Tokyo famous for its Electric Town shopping district and for being the international center of otaku culture. It's a popular destination with foreign visitors to Japan, and you can always tell the train has arrived there because all the gaijin will get off suddenly. But Akiba, as it's often called, hasn't always been the Holy Land for anime and computer nerds. In 1869, after a devastating fire in the area, the Meiji Emperor ordered a temple built for prayers against future fires, which people started referring to as Akiba-sama, a Shinto/Buddhist deity believed to protect against fire. When the area was ordered cleared of trees to prevent further fires from reaching the more populated areas of the city, the field (hara) that resulted was named Akihabara, the Field of Autumn Leaves. After World War II, shops selling vacuum tubes to students attending a nearby technical school appeared, and this formed the base of the electronics retailers that are so famous now. During the 1990s, home electronics and computers were available just about anywhere, making Akiba less important as an electronics hub, and shops specializing in anime CDs and videos, doujinshi comics and PC dating-sim games started to take over.

Valentine's Day is not far off, but there's still plenty of time to order if you want to get some good chocolate and other items from J-List. We recommend the awesome lineup of Japanese Kit Kat we've posted this week, along with favorites like Meltykiss. Also recommended is the new Pocky Decoration Mold -- just melt chocolate in your microwave, add a Pocky stick and let it cool. You'll have the most delicious Japanese treat around!

Today's New & Restocked Items

Chocopa Plushy Phone Case (Choco Panda)

New 'Chocopa' Products from San-X (Choco Panda)

If there was an award given for the cutest product of the year, we'd have a winner! These adorable new creations from San-X feature Chocopa, the Chocolate loving panda, with some amazingly cool accessories like cell phone cases and accessory bags. VIEW PRODUCTS

Diablock Colors Shoes Blue/Yellow -- size 17cm

Amazing Diablock 'LEGO' Shoes for Kids

LEGO-style building blocks are one of the world's most popular toys, and that's true even in Japan. Let your kids take the joy of LEGO everywhere they go with these colorful Velcro sneakers from Diablock, Japan's premier building block manufacturer. VIEW PRODUCTS

Tokyo Limited Kit Kat Orange Sky Tree ver. **Preorder**

Today is Japan Kit Kat Day, Apparently *Preorder*

Japanese Kit Kats are among our most popular products, and our customers love to taste the unique types of Kit Kat made for the Japanese market by Nabisco. In addition to the Sakura Green Tea Kit Kat we got in last time, we've posted Kit Kat Message Packs for students taking tests, plus Tokyo Sky Tree limited Kit Kat! VIEW PRODUCTS

New and Restocked NSFW / 18+ Products

Otonyan vol. 6 Joso Boy Special Magazine

Otonyan vol. 6 ~ Joso Boy Special Magazine

For fans of the popular joso trend in Japan today, meaning boys wearing female clothes, here's a great issue of Otonyan magazine. This is a great item if you're a fan of "trap" themes and think Hideyoshi from Baka Test is awesome. VIEW PRODUCTS

Sisters Together -- Riko Yamaguchi Riku Yamaguchi

Super Restocked DVDs & Blu-ray Discs

Finally, see a big restocking of ecchi JAV goodness, including the AV debuts of Miku Hasegawa and Nanami Kawakami, former AKB48 star Riko Yamaguchi and her younger sister Riku performing together, Stop the Time! Wives SP, Sex Within 4 Seconds Special, Bakunyu 7 Private Teachers, Ero Body Swimsuit, plus the 107cm K-Cup Private Video in Hotel with Rin Kajika -- nice! VIEW PRODUCTS