Japan-based online shop J-List is looking to hire a native English speaker who’s already living in Japan, preferably the Tokyo/Kanto area.
If you have useful knowledge of and passion for anime, manga and general “otaku” culture, especially currently popular shows and trends, you may be the type of person we need.
Experience with Photoshop and experience with web design are also plusses.
Check out this new reincarnation of the Hello Kitty vibrator massager.
The vibrator massager outfits Hello Kitty in a horse costume that gives it a cute oversized head, a petite, stick like body and 7 small rounded studs on the bottom.
Simply press a button on the side of the head to turn on. A key chain attachment lets you hang it from a bag or backpack as a cool decorative Hello Kitty charm.
Price: $98.00 for a full set of six colors (pink, red, green, orange, blue, and yellow)
Help for that nagging constipation is here at last! According to Tokyomango, “if you wipe your shit with this stuff your bowel movements will improve. I don’t think there’s any science to it, but there is a little diagram pointing to the constipation pressure point on your hand.”
But in fact, there are other useful kinds of toilet paper available too: “The yellow roll facilitates pooping; the pink and green are more educational, teaching you has-been words (in Japanese they’re called “dead words,” words that used to be popular but aren’t anymore) and Chinese characters for different fish species, respectively.”
Fortunately, in addition to their famous (or infamous) Hello Kitty toilet paper rolls, Jbox also carries a full range of practical and educational Unchi ga Yokuderu toilet paper:
This cool roll of toilet paper is a unique book of knowledge at your fingertips in one of the most unique places you can put it — your bathroom. Enjoy looking over the great hints, tips, and general miscellaneous knowledge on a roll of TP, as you relax in the “private library.” Pictures, Japanese text and a smattering of funny English mix to give you messages like “Drink something cold soon after waking in the morning.” Great for encouraging excrement on the toilet. Also learn the names of Japanese items and food via pictures with vocabulary underneath them. Great fun, and a wacky gift for anyone who is constipated.
Only his or her hairdresser knows for sure. I happened to be listening to the CBC radio (like NHK only Canadian) today and they said there was a big Cospay Con in a horrible suburb of Toronto that got 15,000 people attending.
Although they were (of course) dressed up in funny Japanese anime costumes, this seems a good thing. However, the report brought up Crossplay, which I had never heard of before.
According to Wikipedia, “Crossplay is cosplay in which the person dresses up as a character of the opposite gender. As the name implies, it is a portmonteau of crossdressing and cosplay. In most countries that play host to hobbyists who would call themselves cosplayers, female-to-male crossplayers (females costumed as male characters, sometimes abbreviated “FtM”) are far more common, due to a variety of social and cultural factors.”
There seems to be some degree of social stigma attached to this form of cosplay but the FtM variety is usually no problem, since girls have no problem wearing pants and something like 90% of the good anime characters are male–so they probably get sick of being Sailor Moon all the time. But obviously a guy wearing a dress involves a bit more social stigma (at least) so that is rarer. MtF crossplay is far more common abroad than in Japan, apparently.
There is a pretty good very recent article on this in TokyoPop titled “Let’s Cosplay: Crossplay.” It’s worth a read if you are interested, but begins like this:
Twenty-three random cosplayers; twelve crossplayers–it’s striking when you think about it but this is the typical ratio at most events. A scream chased me across the Dealers’ Room: “Hey, Dr Black Jack, are you a boy or a girl? Cause if you’re a boy, I’ll totally leave my boyfriend for you!” I almost felt bad answering: “Sorry, I’m a girl.” Even then I could tell she considered it a minute before answering, “Oh, well.”
It ends up after a rather interesting discussion like this:
Cosplayers build giant weapons because we like the way warriors in anime explore the nature of violence and individual strength; we build mecha because we like what mecha says about warfare; wings because we like the theology debated through anime’s angels and demons; cyborg body parts because we are interested in the future potential of technology. Crossplay is just like these, a way of engaging in one of the oldest, most widespread, and most interesting themes of shoujo and of anime and manga as a whole, and if seeing a male Catgirl Nuku Nuku walk by makes you think about the fact that strap-on breasts are more unsettling than strap-on cat ears, then that kind of question is itself what crossplayers love most about anime.
I do think they have a point there–strap-on breasts are no more unsettling than strap-on cat ears (think about it) or they shouldn’t be anyway? I always thought that Cosplay was basically for fun among teenage girls and didn’t think that Crossplay had actual religious or philosophical aspects to it?
I also checked the J-List for Cosplay items and most of them involved either Hello Kitty or AV–the former more than a bit scary and the latter rather interesting (especially the Bunny Girls…).
This whole business of Cosplay seems more complicated than I at first thought. And some source also said that (really) most Japanese outside of Akihabara and Harajuku know basically nothing about it–it’s just something that mainly jumps off the screen for Western enthusiasts of J-pop?
We do have the only Maid Cafe outside of Japan in that same horrible suburb of Toronto that the Cosplay Con took place in, though. But I patiently wait to be enlightened on the whole matter of Cosplay and Crossplay. And then there’s the matter of Mana too–what’s that all about?
Though the Japanese are famous for having one of the healthiest diets on Earth, they seem to be doing everything in their power to get rid of it and eat themeselves to death.
Exhibit A: Tohato potato chips are carefully colored and flavored to provide you with the enjoyment of munching on strips of fatty bacon.
Erk. . . I can almost feel my arteries stiffening up. . .
Want this shirt? Buy it at J-List by clicking here.
A few years ago I used to be able to go to the Kuwano Textile Gallery in Tokyo near Omotesando and pick up a nice meisen kimono for around 20 to 30 bucks. The times have changed. I visited the store this year, and there was nary a meisen garment for under 80 dollars.
Young women have rediscovered the kimono, and you can see them out in Harajuku on the Sunday fashion parade. There’s even a term for these girls — not surprisingly they are called “kimono girls.” There are even some nice books documenting the trend which you can check out at J-List and are definitely worth having if you are at all into fashion.
The meisen kimono in particular has become very popular. These kimono were made in the first half of the twentieth century, and were characterized by a glossy sheen, and brilliant patterns. There is often a sort of “blurry” quality to the silks, as you can see from this photo.
For a long time, anything meisen was considered to be not-so-nice. It was definitely out of style and even a little bit embarassing, sort of like bell bottoms were regarded for a time in the US. I personally happen to love the prints, and have quite happily found a new, much cheaper source (which of course I don’t want to reveal). The bright colors have also caught the attention of today’s young people.
A few days ago I walked by Bergdorf’s in New York, and stopped in my tracks when I saw a Marc Jacobs skirt on display. The silk he had used was very definitely meisen.
Could it be the start of a new trend?
My wife doesn’t like it, but I regard Let’s Eat Moomba Spaceman as probably one of the best books ever written for children. The book, by veteran manga artist “You Suck” Hanakuma, tells the story of a lonely young boy who makes friends with a benevolent alien. The alien tries to make the boy eat excrement.
Hanakuma’s comic, Seishun Nigiri Panchi, has appeared in a number of different Japanese publications, most notably in the groundbreaking Garo manga monthly, and, more recently, twice each month in the consistently excellent Da Capo news magazine.
Eschewing the fawnlike eyes, clean lines and general cuteness of Japanese manga for crude but compelling artwork, more often than not Hanakuma’s style is playfully homoerotic, always perverse and, most importantly, funny.
Recurring characters include a bald loser, Hage, his punch-permed coworker, Afro, and their sociopathic boss, Bucho. A hapless female office worker is sometimes thrown into the mix, often only to meet a bitter end.
Hanakuma’s star continues to rise. Althought the manga artist graduated from high school to work in a small machine shop, his work is frequently featured at art galleries, most recently in New York, and one of his recent manga books, Tokyo Zombie, is currently being made into a live action feature film.
The Wasabi Brothers website hosts a typical Seishun Nigiri Panchi comic here.
Hanakuma is also an accomplished amateur wrestler specializing in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, and has written a book about his experiences called Sweat of the Ring.
Hanakuma has managed to transform his creations into a variety of pop-art or kitsch, depending on your perspective, and even Japan’s ultra-hip Kubrick Toys has produced a line of Hanakuma figurines.
Japundit readers in North America can easily buy Kubrick toys at J-List.
Check out these great new products available from J-List!
Click on an image for more information about it.
And be sure to tell them that JAPUNDIT sent you!
