animerevue

Hard Pretz -- Consomme Flavor

The Japanese snack Pretz is an all time J-List favorite, and have been made in a huge range of tastes and flavors. This light and yummy baked snack from Glico is a great treat that's light and fun to eat, and a healthy alternative to potato chip snacks since they're baked, not fried. 'Hard Pretz' (Katayaki) is a variation in the Pretz snack line that has crunchier snack sticks than regular Pretz. This flavor is their mild and delicious Consomme flavor. Great for fans of Pocky and other Japanese...

Hard Pretz -- Consomme Flavor

The Japanese snack Pretz is an all time J-List favorite, and have been made in a huge range of tastes and flavors. This light and yummy baked snack from Glico is a great treat that's light and fun to eat, and a healthy alternative to potato chip snacks since they're baked, not fried. 'Hard Pretz' (Katayaki) is a variation in the Pretz snack line that has crunchier snack sticks than regular Pretz. This flavor is their mild and delicious Consomme flavor. Great for fans of Pocky and other Japanese...

Today is Inventory Day here at J-List, when we have to count the many thousands of excellent products we stock. It's quite a job, with our entire 15-person staff counting all the items throughout the day, so we make it fun by ordering lunch from Pizza Hut, which 99% of Japanese think is Pizza Hat. Anyway, we mis-calculated the number of people who'd be eating and didn't order enough quite pizzas, making me worried that there might not be enough food for everyone. However, I'd forgotten about the Japanese tradition of enryo (en-RYO), a word which means constraint, modesty or to refrain from doing something, and when we opened the pizza boxes and told everyone to dig in, it took five minutes or more for the Japanese staff to start eating. The girls would take one piece and say they were full, and we had to literally put the pizza slices on plates and press them into people's hands to get them to eat. In the end, there was just enough pizza to go around. It's difficult as an American to completely understand a concept like enryo, but part of the reason it was so hard to get everyone to start eating was, no one wanted to be perceived as being first to grab for food, so they stood around saying, "No, after you" to each other. This was probably due to having so many people in the same place at once. If there had been only 2-3 people and a single pizza, they'd have been less self-conscious.

We did not get the Macross Frontier pizza special they're running, because you have to order medium pizzas for that, and we needed larges this time. Are they implying that otaku don't have friends, or what?

Manga is the name given to Japanese comic books, although most people over the age of 35 or so will use the word to describe animation on TV as well. The word literally means "whimsical pictures" and was coined by Edo Period ukiyo-e artist Hokusai (the dude who painted the famous Red Fuji and Great Wave Off Kanagawa pictures you may have seen) to describe a book of woodblock art he'd done. Although manga can be associated with obsessive otaku culture, there really isn't a single Japanese person who didn't grow up with a favorite manga that they still feel nostalgia for, whether they're an active fan now or not. On Sundays our rural liquor shop gets the new issues of the popular weekly manga magazines, a day earlier than the large chains and convenience stores, one of the few bones thrown to small retailers in Japan. I always marvel at the customers who stop by to pick up the new issue: elementary school and junior high kids, of course, but plenty of adults, including a businessman in a really nice BMW who makes small talk with me and, since we live next door to our city's mayor by some strange coincidence, the deputy mayor of our city. This year marks the 40th anniversary of Shonen Jump, the popular manga weekly, and Japanese canned coffee maker Roots is putting on a major advertising campaign for its new coffee called "Innocent Blend" (I am not kidding), showing panels from the great Jump comics of the past, from YuYu Hakusho to Dragonball Z to Saint Seiya all the way up to Death Note. So everyone celebrate manga by, er, drinking some canned coffee, or something!

Gokuh: "After he shook hands with me, he wiped his hand off when he thought I wasn't looking!"

L: "I hit the snooze button on my alarm clock twice this morning, and ended up being late."

Here are some more. This is from Kimagure Orange Road, the novels for which I translated back in the day. This is from the last volume when the love trianble between Hikaru, Madoka and Kyosuke (who is a secret esper) is resolved. The ad says, "I went to make a purchasae with my 'point card' but it had expired..."

Another favorite of mine, Video Girl Ai, which is 1000% times better than the short anime they made, although the anime had Noriko Sakai to make up for it. This is Ai saying, "This guy only makes jokes that make himself look bad." Which is very funny when read in Japanese, very funny.

For the Bleach fans. This says, "S- So she was really trying to break up with me!?"

No work is ever created in a vacuum, and everything is constantly being influenced by everything else. Every time I watch Silence of the Lambs, I marvel at how blatantly the X-Files draws its core inspiration from the film, right down to the geeky Lone Gunman characters who help out on the case, and I'm sure the creator of CSI: Las Vegas got his idea for that series while watching Manhunter, the 1986 film that introduced Hannibal Lecter (the 2002 film Red Dragon is a remake of Manhunter). The world of Japanese animation is not immune from taking inspiration from other sources either, for example the many cues Fist of the North Star takes from The Road Warrior, or my pet theory that the "magical girl" genre of anime rose in response to the popularity of My Wife is a Witch, aka Bewitched, which was popular in Japan during that era. If you've seen the film The Matrix, you know how Hollywood has been influenced more than a little by the world of anime. While a lot of the inspiration for the movie obviously comes from Shirow Masamune's hard-hitting Ghost in the Shell sci-fi series, a larger part of the story is a tribute to Megazone 23 (pronounced "two-three"), one of the breakthrough anime concepts of the 80s. In the series, the population of Tokyo thinks its the end of the 20th Century, but in reality it's 500 years in the future and everyone is living inside a space ship. Many elements of the Megazone series are borrowed for the Matrix, including the hacker-as-semi-messianic main character idea.

MZ23 the first was one of the great Haruhiko Mikimoto creations. He could snare fans with any illustration on a record album, a model box, you name it...

Part II has radically altered designs, although I didn't dislike it as much as I used to. This was the best anime sex scene of its era, though, You know you're an old-school anime nerd when you can say honestly that a girl has broken up with you over differing opinions on Megazone 23 character designs.

Part III is a new generation, several hundred years into the future. A lot of the Hacker Neo stuff comes from this one.

Clalaclan Philias 1/8 Figure Noir ver. ~ Shining Wind *Preorder*

An elegant creation from Kotobukiya, this is a high quality figure of Clalaclan from Shing Star. At 1/8th the scale and measuring 20 cm (8 inches), this is a lovely PVC figure that will keep looking great for you years on end. Here she is, fully painted, and dressed in her best with a revealing black Noir style gown and bending over her shield in a seductive pose. As an added treat, the dress is cast-off to reveal more of her curves. A great keep sake for anyone who absolutely loves high...

Here are today's "really cool products" that I've picked out for you, out of the 30+ new items we've added to the J-List and JBOX.com sites today. Note that some products may be "not safe for work" but that all links will allow you to redirect yourself either to the J-List or JBOX.com websites. To see all the J-List products, check out J-List or the JBOX.com updated products link.

Trick Star -- Sayaka Tsutsumi

We positively love Sayaka Tsutsumi, the new "queen of sell videos" (i.e., indies) because she is a bright, happy and totally erotic girl with a cute face and delightful sexual style. In this hardcover photobook she wears many faces, some pure and playful, some very erotic and experienced, and the result is very pleasing. Three cheers for Sayaka Tsutsumi! (More like this) (Direct link to this product)    

Sweet Goddess -- Mika Kano

The dynamic duo known as the Kano sisters have taken Japan by storm, giving advice to women on matters of beauty, exercise, and even kissing. The self-proclaimed "Beauty and life consultants" has literally earned themselves millions with there books photo albums, and DVDs which has helped them reach celebrity status. No special media event or function would be complete with out a sudden appearance by the Kano sisters, who often arrive in slinky gowns that hug their voluptuous body. The news...

Fate/Stay Night Visual Collection

The visual novel game, anime, and manga phenomenon known as Fate has been sweeping Japan for years now, and shows no sign of fading. In commemoration of all the great posters featuring its famous characters like Saber, Rin, Sakura, and more, they've been gathered from the pages of Megami Magazine and collected right here! This visual collection features 28 A4-size, double sided full color posters, printed on high quality cardstock, great for display on your walls or preservation in this...