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Greetings From J-List

6/19/2013

There are many differences between Japan and America, and one of the biggest is food. Obviously the things that I eat while visiting the U.S. are very different from what I'm used to back in Japan, with less fish (either cooked or eaten as sushi or sashimi) and of course no large portion of steamed white rice with almost every meal. While I've been in San Diego, I've been visiting several restaurants I want to eat at "just once" -- my favorite Mexican restaurants near the J-List San Diego office, the local In-N-Out Burger, the Cheesecake Factory -- but these meals can add up quickly, and I know when I get back to Japan I'll be going on a big diet. Another problem with being in the U.S. is finding unsweetened beverages -- many restaurants, the local Subway sandwich shops included, have been replacing normal iced tea with super-sweet Honey Green Tea® and Raspberry Blast® flavors, which are impossible to drink after 20 years of consuming healthy unsweetened barley and green tea in Japan.


Bullying is a very sad aspect of Japan; there are many foods to eat "just once" while in the U.S.

One sad aspect of Japan's society is いじめ ijime (pronounced ee-jee-MEH), the cruel bullying that happens in school, sports and other social situations. We're all human, of course, and various forms of hazing can be found in any group, from college fraternities to making the new guy at McDonald's count all the pickles in the pickle bucket as an initiation ceremony, but it's become a real social problem in Japan. There are some reasons why ijime is especially bad in Japan, including the strictness of the top-down senpai-kohai relationship system and Japan's custom of organizing students into classes which never change for the entire year, so instead of each student going to a random classroom each hour, you've got the same people around you for 7 hours a day, six days a week. (Yes, Japanese students have to go to school on Saturdays.) Of course, ijime can happen to anyone, and my wife even had problems with some of her co-workers at a company she used to work at. Once, everyone was going out to a French restaurant, and they told her to dress in normal, everyday clothes, but when she arrived wearing jeans, she saw that everyone else had secretly dressed up just to embarrass her. My half-American daughter has also experienced some ijime in her almost-homogeneous school from time to time, like the cruel girls who told her she couldn't join their club "because their Tamagotchis didn't understand English." The topic also comes up in our excellent English-translated visual novel YUME MIRU KUSURI: A Drug That Makes You Dream. One of the girls in the game is a transfer student who's being bullied by her classmates, and you must find a way to protect her and eventually form an, ahem, special bond with her.

It's been seven months since the return of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), the pro-business conservative party that ruled Japan for much of the postwar period. Mr. Abe (pronounced "ah-beh") had a brief stint as PM back in 2006, when he was heralded as the youngest Japanese leader ever, but he quit after only a year for "health reasons" brought on by frustration over the fact that young leaders have very little political capital and generally can't get anything useful done. His return to power last year was made possible by China and South Korea, who had spent so many months whipping their own people into an anti-Japan frenzy, over the Senkaku/Daioyu Islands in China's case, and as part of the normal election cycle for South Korea, all of which angered Japanese voters enough to return the LDP to power. Abe promised to get Japan's economy humming again, and unleashed a program of monetary easing and public works projects which have worked wonders for the economy so far. Last week he announced his third volley of reforms which promised to break down many of the barriers harming Japan's international competitiveness, but the changes fell far short of what economists say is needed. Hopefully after the upcoming Japanese election we'll see some bolder reforms.

Remember that J-List recently executed a big permanent price drop on almost 50 of our popular English-language eroge and dating-sim games, making it easier than ever to pick up some awesome games to play! We've permanently lowered prices on almost 50 of our great visual novels, from The Sagara Family to Yume Miru Kusuri to Kana Little Sister and Brave Soul. Prices have been lowered by $5 or $10 on a huge number of games, so it's a great time to browse the reduced-price visual novels and eroge and see which titles you'd like to pick up!

Today's New & Restocked Items

Dengeki Girl's Style July 2013

Dengeki Girl's Style July 2013

Dengeki Girl's Style is a bimonthly magazine dedicated to all the awesome otaku girls (aka fujoshi), and the new issue has just come in. Whether you love the hot guys in otome games or are a fan os Yaoi, BL and other awesome pop culture genres, there's lot of good stuff in this issue. VIEW PRODUCTS

New and Restocked NSFW / 18+ Products

Sailor Warriors Sailor Moon Parody ***DVD Blu-ray Special Package***

Finally, Restocked Ero DVD & Blu-rays for All

Enjoy a huge restocking of ecchi JAV titles, including the great works by those awesome Sailor Moon and Hatsune Miku parody Blu-rays, the Akiho Yoshizawa 10th Anniversary box, Yuna Nanjo's New Face Debut, Blonde Bishoujo with Abigaile Johnson, Super High Class Ero Esthetic with Nozomi Asou, the dreamy Aimi Yoshizawa's newest SOD release, Risa Tachibana's Super High Class Soap Lady, the best works of Company Matsuo, plus Anri Okita's Shameful Body. Enjoy! VIEW PRODUCTS