Although I do my best to be a gentleman, there are times when I've inadvertantly been less than chivalrous to the opposite sex during my years in Japan. I learned early on that reading manga was a good way to help my Japanese improve since it offers "living" examples of spoken language you won't find in a textbook...though the series I chose was the post-apocalyptic Fist of the North Star, which lead to some embarrassment when talking with Japanese females while I un-learned all the hilariously manly-sounding words. Gaijin-in-Japan Rule #26 states that the likelihood of mis-pronouncing the word "mango" goes up the prettier your waitress is, and most foreigners in Japan have made this particular faux pas. For women the line between oneesan (meaning older sister, or a young woman aged 18-25 or so) and obasan ("aunt," or any older woman above the age of 35) can be a fine one, and I've accidentally caused offense by choosing the wrong word for a person I was addressing. Then a couple of months ago I was walking in Akihabara and happened by a shop where two female employees were showing off Apple's iPhone 4S. I'd been meaning to try the just-released Japanese version of the Siri "voice assistant," so I asked the girls to show me Siri...which lead to a gasp of shock, since Siri (pronounced shiri) means "butt" in Japanese, and the shop employees apparently had not known about this feature of the iPhone.

Siri (shiri) means "butt" in Japanese; the Japanese eat some interesting "Western" foods.

You probably don't think of Japanese foods like omurice (an omelet served over rice with a ketchup heart drawn on top) or katsu (Japanese pork cutlet) as "Western" foods, but in Japan dishes like this are all referred to with the word yohshoku, meaning foods from Europe or the U.S. The yoh kanji (which literally means "sea") is found in quite a lot of common everyday words, like yohfuku, which the Japanese use to mean "clothes" though it actually denotes Western style clothing, e.g. shirts, jeans etc.; youma, a Western-style living room with a sofa and chairs instead of tatami mats; or yohshiki, meaning "Western-style" like a toilet you sit on rather than squat over. The opposite of yoh is wa, a character that denotes peace, harmony and Japan, and if you want to eat Japanese food, the word you want is washoku. If you're interested in exploring Japanese variations of "Western" foods, we've posted a new cookbook you might want to check out.

The U.S. presidential election is going strong, with candidates trading barbs in the news media about their various policies. Elections in Japan are much different than in the U.S., and I thought I'd talk about them today. First of all, Japan is organized around a British-style Parliamentary system, so people vote for the representative of their chosen party, with the Prime Minister being chosen by whatever party wins a majority. Just as companies aren't allowed to make direct comparison to other products in advertising, it's rare that Candidate A would specifically tell you why he was better than Candidate B, and few of the really negative aspects of U.S. elections are seen in Japan. In the U.S., an advantage is given to whichever party is best able to use new technology to get their message out, but in Japan candidates are forbidden from using services like email, Facebook or Twitter...though I'd prefer these methods to the current "drive around in a loud-speaker car shouting your name outside Peter's house" way. Another big difference between Japan and the U.S. is that religion of a candidates is never discussed, and is totally unknown except with politicians affiliated with the New Komeito Party, which was founded by the Sokka Gakkai, a young "evangelical" Buddhist religion founded in 1930. I wondered whether this policy extended to the U.S. election and sure enough, none of the Japanese staff of J-List had heard that Mitt Romney was a Mormon, and that this was a rare event in U.S. political history.

There sure has been a lot of good news for fans of English visual novels. First we announce the School Days Deluxe Collector's Edition, and now we've got more happy news: the epic English eroge Koihime Musou, the smash hit eroge from MangaGamer, is in stock and shipping in San Diego. This fantastic game, which recreates the classic Romance of the Three Kingdoms story with cute bishoujo characters, is one of the best games ever released in English. The game is 100% DRM free, and restores the excellent voice cast in the game which was removed from the initial release due to licensing issues. It's got an all-star voice cast, too, including Norio Wakamoto. Order Koihime Musou now!

For the new update, we've got some excellent products from Japan for you. You can view all new J-List products by clicking this link.

Today's New & Restocked Items

New and Restocked NSFW / 18+ products