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Greetings From J-List

5/21/2012

One of my favorite images of Japan are Japanese arches, called torii, written with kanji characters that mean "where the birds are" since birds like to perch on them. Unlike most traditional architecture which are based on imported Chinese forms, torii arches are a uniquely Japanese creation. Generally found near Shinto shrines, the arches are essentially "sacred gates" which mark the barrier between the unclean world we inhabit and the purified area around the shrine. Japan loves to come up with formal lists the "the best three" this or that in the country, and if you like Japanese arches you can make plans to visit the Nihon Sandai Torii or Three Great Japanese Arches someday. They are the famous "Floating Arch" at Itsukishima, near Hiroshima, the huge arch at Kasuga Shrine in Nara, and Kehi Jingu Shrine in Fukui Prefecture.


I love torii (Japanese arches); some of my favorite Japanese foods are not well known outside Japan.

I think it'd be impossible for a person to live in a foreign country if they didn't like the food there, and I'm happy to report my satifaction with this aspect of Japan. While Japanese foods like sushi, tempura, ramen and onigiri rice balls are quite well known around the world, there are other dishes I like a lot which you may not be so familiar with, as they're not "food memes" like Taiyaki or Takoyaki. One is soboro, which is a bowl of white rice with teriyaki flavored ground chicken and scrambled egg on top -- such a simple and honest dish, I could eat it all day. Next is chirashi-zushi, essentially a "tossed salad" of sushi pieces arranged over vinagered rice, traditionally served to celebrate daughters on Hinamatsuri (March 3), though I eat it whenever I can. Finally, there's masu no sushi, a delicious round disc of rice with trout sushi on top that's pressed into a bamboo frame, and you cut the sushi into wedges making it "sushi pizza." It's a delicacy of Toyama Prefecture on the Sea of Japan side of the country -- not the most accessible place in the world -- but if you ever find yourself at Haneda Airport in Tokyo they sell it there, too. If you're keen on making some of these dishes yourself, we've got a nice lineup of cookbooks and related books you might want to browse.

Dialects are part of the wonderfully complex world of human language, and Japanese has many distinct dialects in use, although only a handful could ever be accurately perceived by us gaijin. While anime series featuring a token character speaking Osaka-ben is a common trope, accents from other parts of the country are more rare. One exception was the character Yozuru from Nisemonogatari, who speaks a version of Kyoto-ben that's very elegant and stylized (to say nothing of sexy)...but which would be quite difficult for non-Japanese to understand if watching without subtitles. I was reminded of how hard unfamiliar accents can be when my wife and I went to Australia. I was fine conversing with random people I met in pubs, but my poor wife (who learned most of her English in the Los Angeles area) had the hardest trouble understanding what people said to her.

Last time we posted the School Days Deluxe Collector's Edition, a gorgeous Japan-style game release with cool stuff inside for fans including an original oppai mouse pad by School Days artist Junji Goto and more. School Days is one of the most famous eroge ever made, for a couple different reasons. First, it's fully animated, with every bit of the 12GB game game fluidly moving as you make choices that affect the lives of the game characters. The fully translated game is also 100% uncensored, and includes all the new material from the "HQ" Japanese release. If you already preordered the normal edition and want to change your order to the DX version, use the handy form we've set up here.

Today's New & Restocked Items

COSnap! vol. 03

COSnap! vol. 03

Be amazed when you open the pages of COSnap magazine -- made for the serious cosplayer and casual admirer alike. Over 100 pages of top-quality photographs featuring the best cosplayers in Japan. Whether you're looking for concrete ideas for this year's cosplay season or just love browsing the top-quality cosplay photos, you need this issue! VIEW PRODUCTS