Japanese-Games-Shop.com News

Yamato The White Fighter by Takahashi Yoshihiro Now Available!

noreply@blogger.com (David Hurley) — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 14:27:00 +0000

Takahashi Yoshinori is famous in Japan as the creator of some of the most violent, and at the same time most appealing, manga stories to be published in Shonen Jump monthly comic for boys (but also read by quite a few girls).

In Takahashi Yoshinori's manga world it is very much a case of dog-eat-dog. He made his mark both in Japan and in Scandanavia with the publication of Ginga Nagareboshi Gin, a story about a Japanese Akita dog called Gin who goes in search of his father, Riki, deep in the Oku mountains of northern Honshu, where both humans and dogs are menaced by a sleuth of wild bears.

In the wake of that success, Takahashi created the Weed series, about the son of Gin. Then he brought out a prequel that describes the life and times of Gin's father, Riki, and his father, Shiro.

I just added Ginga Densetsu Riki to my site as these comic books, published in 2003 and 2007, are no longer so difficult to get on the secondary market.

Takahashi Yoshiro has also written a manga series called Shiroi Senshi Yamato, or Yamato the White Fighter. The story set in the world of Japanese Tosa fighting dogs. The fights depicted in the manga series are quite brutal, although the aim of Tosa dog fighting is not to fight to the death, but to fight until one dog loses spirit within a bout of up to thirty minutes.

If a dog loses the fight, but shows an undaunted spirit, then it stands a good chance of winning the competition on spirit alone.

The series is available in Ten volumes, and I have made every volume available as there seems to be a reasonable supply of them at the moment... although the secondary market fluctuates from week to week, as you will appreciate.

See: Japanese-Games-Shop.com/manga.html

New Japanese Study Dictionary Added To Listings!

noreply@blogger.com (David Hurley) — Tue, 27 May 2008 08:48:00 +0000

I just removed the Japanese Buddhist Proverb Dictionary from my listings as it seems no longer to be available.

However, I have replaced it with an excellent Japanese language study tool:

The "Yoji Jukugo Jiten"

That is to say, being interpreted, the "Four-Character Japanese Idiom Dictionary".

As readers of one of my other blogs will be aware, Japanese words or idioms consisting of four characters (or Kanji) are the ultimate challenge of language proficiency, so getting some of them learned by heart is a must for the ambitious student of Japanese...

Here is a small selection of the yoji jukugo featured in the dictionary:

Isshokenmei Isshokenmei ni yarimashita (I gave it everything I had.)
Jigojitoku Jigojitoku da. (You brought it upon yourself.)
Anchumosaku (Groping in the dark.)
Bozenjishitsu (So completely disoriented that you have lost sight of yourself.)
Gyokusekikonko (A jumble of jewels and rocks; a mixed bag.)

The dictionary costs just $3.50 and is available from http://japanese-games-shop.com/nihongo.html

David Hurley
http://japanese-games-shop.com

Spring Pruning and Planting!

noreply@blogger.com (David Hurley) — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 08:30:00 +0000

The cherry blossom season has come and gone in Hiroshima and now the dogwood trees are out in bloom.

Meanwhile, over at Japanese-Games-Shop.com some pottering, pruning and planting has been going on behind the scenes....

Some items have been pruned from the listings.

OUT:

Various sized mahjong dice - hardly an "in demand" line since most sets come with dice supplied. Then, when an order comes in I can rely on my supplier to be "out of stock" in the particular size and colour I require!!
Plywood Shogi boards. Supplies became erratic in this neck of the woods.
Beige Shogi cloths... Supplies seem to be erratic but a few still get through...

NEW LINES COMING SOON

An "curvacious" style of high-quality hand-crafted Shogi koma.
Glass Shogi sets!!
Plastic Shogi playing mats.
Igo boards
Igo stones
Igo bowls
Novelty character (Doraemon?) mini igo sets

In short, authentic Japanese games lovers, "Watch this space"!!

David Hurley

http://japanese-games-shop.com/

How to Read a Mahjong Tile Before it is Your Turn to Take it From the Wall!

noreply@blogger.com (David Hurley) — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 23:30:00 +0000

This is an article I recently posted to Articlesbase.com about the practice of "thumb-reading" tiles in Japanese mahjong.

===

Modern Japanese mahjong tiles are made of a synthetic nylon material with the symbols for the suit numbers, winds and dragons stamped onto the face of the tiles. The face of every tile in a set can be distinguished not only by the design that you see, but also by the design that you can FEEL when you rub your thumb across the face of the tile!

And that is just what many of the more experienced Japanese mahjong players like to do in the course of a game - use feel the concealed face of the tile next to be taken from the wall with their thumbs! Yes, not a few seasoned hands have become competent at tile-reading by rubbing the indentations on tile-face with their thumbs.

It takes hours of practice to get to the point where you can accurately distinguish each of the 34 different tile faces of a standard Japanese mahjong set with your thumb, and there seems to be little advantage in being able to do so. It is a diverting party trick and it also adds some kudos to a player's game if the player can pluck a tile from the wall, announce what it is and discard it without so much as glancing at it. Mahjong is most exciting when played swiftly, so being able to read a tile without looking at it may be said to help the cause of speedy play, but apart from that there does not seem to be much practical profit in taking the trouble to learn the skill.

However, there is one case where a "thumb-reader" could glean some useful information about an opponent's tile. Experienced mahjong players enjoy playing a fast-paced game so if one player hesitates before discarding a tile, the player to his right is likely to have reached for "his" tile on the end of the wall before the first player has discarded. An experienced tile-reader places his thumb under the tile on the wall that he is about to take so that he can "read" it while waiting for his turn.

But then, when a discarded tile is claimed by another player as an open "Pon" the sequence of play is broken and the player who was waiting to take a tile - and who has now "read" it with his thumb - is passed over so the tile will most likely end up in another player's hand. In that case the "thumb reader" will know what the tile is and will perhaps pay attention to where it is placed in the other player's hand.

Some people might object that such a practice is a form of cheating, but others counter that it is just part parcel of the Japanese approach to the game.

Of course that is not to say that the player who took the tile from the wall cannot resort to some deceptive tactics of his own by adding the tile to a random place in his hand while appearing to concentrate on placing it carefully into position so as to mislead the "thumb-reader" as to the construction of the hand.

Whatever your attitude towards players reading tiles with their thumbs may be, that it can be done at all shows you how sensitive the human thumb - or "oya-yubi" in Japanese - can be.

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/art-and-entertainment-articles/how-to-read-a-mahjong-tile-before-it-is-your-turn-to-take-it-from-the-wall-367683.html

About the Author:

This is the place where I try to persuade you, my fellow Japanese mahjong fanatic, that you ought to hot foot it over to my website, Japanese-Games-Shop.com and blow a large chunk of your hard earned wages (or ill gotten gains) on a seriously expensive, exclusive, utterly exotic, Japanese mahjong set. I recommend the Nintendo Yakuman New Ivory Japanese Mahjong Set, possibly the most expensive Japanese mahjong set this side of the Milky Way.

NEW Japanese Gift Certificates!

noreply@blogger.com (David Hurley) — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 14:32:00 +0000

Thanks to the versatility of Paypal, I have been able to add an exciting new feature to the front page of Japanese-Games-Shop.com - Paypal Gift Certificates!

That means it is now possible for you to solve your present-buying problems by sending your friend or relative a gift certificate which can be cashed in at my website!!

Gift certificates range from an economical $10 to a positively generous $1,000 (just in case you'd like to treat your loved one to a pair of hand made Jun Hitoe vases from the Nishimoto Gallery ).

===

Property For Sale in Japan!

If you think buying your own house in Japan would be expensive, think again...

You can get a detached two-storey house in a pleasant hillside location not far from Hiroshima Station for just ¥9,000,000, or $90,000. True, it is in need of renovation, but the property company whose books it is on informs me that they can completely renovate the interior for ¥5,000,000.

For further details, drop me a line via the form on the front page of Japanese-Games-Shop.com

David Hurley

http://japanese-games-shop.com

Japanese Card Game: Iroha Karuta

noreply@blogger.com (David Hurley) — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 14:41:00 +0000

One traditional card game which some Japanese people still play over the New Year's holidays is karuta. The word "karuta" comes from the Portuguese word for playing cards, "carta".

A karuta deck is divided into two sets of cards. One set is called yomifuda or "reading cards", and the other is called torifuda or "taking cards." You need at least three people to make a game of karuta, the reader and the competitors.

The torifuda are spread out face up. The reader takes a card from the top of his yomifuda deck and reads it aloud to the players. The players immediately try to find the card that matches the reading. After all the cards have been taken, the winner is the player with the most cards.

There are two types of karuta game, "uta-karuta" and "iroha-karuta".

In "uta-karuta", popularly known as "hyakunin isshu", the reader reads the first two lines of a classical tanka (five line poem) and the players try to find the card with the last two lines written on it. To play that game you need to be familiar with the 100 poems that make up the card deck.

Iroha karuta are more accessible to the foreign student of Japanese as anyone who can read the hiragana can play. The yomifuda consist of a series of famous Japanese proverbs and the torifuda are illustrated with colourful drawings of the respective proverbs and have the initial kana in one corner of the card. Each letter of the hiragana syllabary has its own proverb.

I recently added a new iroha karuta deck to my site, the lively "Edo" set, evocative of a time in pre-industrial Japan when there was no concrete, no "bridges to nowhere" and all the men wore top knots and loin cloths.

The two proverbs shown in the photo on the right are:

Ino mo arukeba bou ni ataru. - A strolling dog will find a stick.
Nodo moto sugireba atsusa wasureru. - Once swallowed, heat forgotten.

David Hurley
Japanese-Games-Shop.com

"Pellucid & Energetic" Shogi Pieces Delicately Hand Carved On Japanese Boxwood

noreply@blogger.com (David Hurley) — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 22:39:00 +0000

Here are some photos of a "ryoukobori" style hand carved shogi set. "Ryoukobori" is a particularly delicate calligraphic font style which requires an immense amount of skill and concentration on the part of the craftsman.

I took these photos with the camera on my mobile phone the last time I visited my shogi supplier. We did not take the pieces (shogi-koma) out of their wrappers, so the photos are not the best and there is a lot of reflected light.

Even so, I think you can get a good idea of the quality of workmanship that goes into creating a hand-carved set of shogi pieces.

The shogi pieces photographed here have been carved out of Japanese boxwood ("tsuge"). Japanese boxwood is highly prized by craftsmen for its warm tone and fine grain.

On a high quality set the craftsman carves his name in the rear edge of one of the kings. On even higher quality sets the calligraphic style of the characters is carved on the rear edge of the other king.

In the photo on the left, the upper king has been engraved with "ryoukobori" and the lower king has been engraved with the name of "craftsman Sanpo," one of Japan's top shogi-koma makers.

I recently shipped a set of "ryoukobori" shogi pieces to a customer in America, and this is what he had to say about them when he received them:

"They are absolutely beautiful! You're right, the Japanese boxwood does have a warmer tone to it, also a tighter grain. And I keep wanting to call them "pellucid"-- I know the term doesn't strictly apply to an opaque two-dimensional surface, but as I look at the pieces the word somehow keeps coming into my mind. And the Japanese characters (to this Iowan whose "reading comprehension" of Japanese begins and ends with Shogi pieces!) have a very elegant & energetic look to them...

"The energetic aspect of the kanji on these pieces is something that comes forth more and more strongly to me, the more I look at them. " Paul Burgess

If you would like to order a set of hand carved shogi-koma, check out the range on offer on this page of my website.

As soon as I receive an order I contact my supplier and they will be carefully packed and shipped directly to your door by Express Mail Service from Japan.

David Hurley
Japanese-Games-Shop.com

Introducing the "Take" Mahjong Set

noreply@blogger.com (David Hurley) — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 07:59:00 +0000

The start of the year has certainly been busy and hectic (just how we like it at Japanese-Games-Shop.com). "Your Man In Japan" has been toiling away the hours on research, purchasing, adding new items to the range, publicizing them, dealing with new orders, packing parcels and hauling them to the post office, once it opened after the winter holidays...

Packing and hauling... packing and hauling... packing and hauling...

This week I have been holding two extended conversations with my suppliers and clients; one about a fine set of Japanese boxwood shogi pieces (report to follow soon), and the other about a new mahjong set that I have just added to my site. One moment I'm getting into the details of how different mahjong sets measure up to each other, and the next I'm admiring some finely crafted Shogi pieces, while trying to work out what my long-suffering supplier is telling me about the craftsman who made the set...

It was a bit of a shock when these pleasant activities were rudely interrupted by the beginning of college term and Your Man In Japan had to turn his attention back to the classroom. Don't get me wrong, I love teaching, but my New Year's Resolution is to take on no more teaching contracts and gradually whittle my teaching schedule down to just a few hours a week so that I can devote myself to my expanding my online activities. The last time I counted, I had five blogs and as many websites up and running and several domain names secured for further expansion... Here's a list of my active websites

Japanese-Games-Shop.com
Japanese-Mahjong.net
Grasp-The-Nettle.com - Do you also want to make money online? Grasp the nettle in 2008!!
English-Renaissance.net - Essays on Shakespeare, Francis Bacon, Ben Jonson etc.
100-Word-Book-Reviews.com - Get the guts of a book in exactly 100 words.
Succeed-In-English.com - Study English with success! Study English & succeed!!

Introducing the "Take" Mahjong Set

The mahjong set I have been checking out this week was called to my attention by a player in Holland who wanted to know whether it was as good as it looked. I ordered a set from the supplier and put it through its paces...

Click the photo to enlarge

The "Take" (pronounced "TA-KEH" with the stress on the first syllable) mahjong is a mid-range set which is designed with ease of handling and smooth play in mind.

The Tiles

The tiles are noticably brighter than the standard "off white" colouring so the faces are clear and easy to read. The tiles are also a little bigger than the standard Japanese size, measuring 19mm x 29.5mm x 15mm.

Click the photo to enlarge
Mahjong manufacturers often design a slight convexity into the back of the tiles and add a "notch" in the sides to represent bamboo. The designers of the Take set have dropped these features in favour of a slightly flatter back which makes for more stable walls! The tiles are also slightly lighter than average.

Click the photo to enlarge

In the above photo you can see three tiles from three different Japanese mahjong sets. The one on the left is a standard Japanese mahjong tile, the middle one is from an exclusive set sold under the label of the Mahjong Museum in Chiba-ken. The tile on the right is from the "Take" set. As you will notice, it is slightly larger and brighter in finish than the other two.

The tiles are standing on a wall of "Take" tiles.

Click the photo to enlarge

The quality of the detailed paint work is also good - this is one of the most important considerations when I select mahjong sets for my site. I'm pleased to say that the paint work is good and accurate.

The tiles shown in the picture above are the Spring Season tile and the Red 5-Coin, which also has an "embedded jewel" replacing the middle coin.

Click the photo to enlarge

The "Take" tile is closest to the camera in the last picture.

Other Features of the Set

The set comes with plastic trays, seven dice of two different sizes, standard sized scoring sticks plus some extra counting chips, a wind marker PLUS a novelty "Black West Tile" keyring!!

The case is made of standard quality plastic, with poppers and a handle. On the back there is the logo of the set in yellow.

Order a Set

To order a "Take" mahjong set, click here. Delivery is by Express Mail Service, which includes tracking and insurance and, as a rule, gets the goods to your door within a week of the shipping date.

David Hurley
Japanese-Games-Shop.com

Happy 2008 From Japanese-Games-Shop.com!

noreply@blogger.com (David Hurley) — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 14:29:00 +0000

Happy New Year from Hiroshima, Japan and everybody at Japanese-Games-Shop.com!

By "everybody", I mean just "me" because Japanese-Games-Shop.com is a one-gaijin show!

...And the reason why I haven't posted on this blog or added anything new to the website for a while is because my nose was firmly attached to the grindstone in the run up to Christmas. As you can see in the photo below, the site has been getting a lot of traffic...!

Japanese-Games-Shop.com has been attracting a lot of traffic recently!

New Years Resolution: Add more stuff to Japanese-Games-Shop.com

Now that the New Year has arrived I have found some time to expand the range of products. This month I am concentrating on manga and have added three new lines already.

Crayon Shin Chan
I must admit that this is one of my all time favourite manga series. It was a huge hit in Japan in the 1990's - yeah, I was here then too, so I remember it well. I even bought a Shin-chan character bottle of bubble bath to take back to the U.K. as a memento, but my sojourn in Japan has outlasted both the bubble bath and the bottle...

Crayon Shin Chan is a nursery school kid who indulges in thoroughly "inappropriate" (ghastly word) speech and behaviour. The manga was originally aimed at the adult market, but once it was turned into a television cartoon is became immensely popular with kids too, doubtless because they take great delight in identifying with, and most likely copying, Shin-chan's impertinence and lack of decorum.

If you study written Japanese then this comic will be a stimulating and enjoyable challenge to your reading comprehension skills. The basic dialogue uses a lot of everyday language and common expressions, but there is also a lot of word-play as Shin-chan inadvertently - or deliberately - makes linguistic blunders that embarrass his parents or outrage whoever else happens to be in ear-shot of them... However, like many manga, the kanji characters are drawn with furigana syllables down the side to aid reading comprehension.

Nobunaga

This is a very different calibre of manga... Nobunaga is one of the greatest Samurai generals of Japanese history. The manga series is a dramatic retelling of his life and struggles.

The illustrator, Ryouichi Ikegami, deserves to be better known in the West. In 2001, he won the Shogakukan Manga Award for general manga as the artist of another manga series called "Heat", which I will shortly be adding to my manga listings...

The language level of this series is quite demanding, partly because of the historical material it deals with and partly because of the lack of supporting furigana. This is a manga series for big boys and girls!

Howl's Moving Castle

This is the comic version of the 2004 animated film, "Hauru No Ugoki-Shiro", directed by possibly the greatest animation artist of this generation, Hayao Miyazaki.

The Japanese animation film is an adaptation of a young adult fantasy novel by British author Diana Wynne Jones. It broke box office records in Japan, and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.

The film-comic series faithfully reproduces the animation in full-colour. If you are not familiar with the film, check here for a synopsis and some nice stills.

The Japanese dialogue in the film-comic is relatively straightforward and every kanji character is supported by furigana.

The nice thing about these comics is that they are Printed in full colour on good quality paper.

David Hurley
Japanese-Games-Shop.com

New Combinations At Nice Prices, Just In Time For Christmas!

noreply@blogger.com (David Hurley) — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 12:39:00 +0000

The Christmas decorations have been in evidence here in Japan since HALLOWEEN (and the first Halloween decorations made their appearance sometime in September). Some private houses already have Christmas decorations up - it's CRAZY, and what's DOUBLY CRAZY is that this isn't even a Christian nation!!

As far as I'm concerned, we're not even in Advent yet.

There are still four more weeks before the little Christmas tree that I put in a pot and set outside our house last January will be brought back in again - the amazing thing is that it has SURVIVED. It will have earned itself the right to a bigger pot on 5th January 2008 - assuming it survives the shock of being brought back indoors for the Christmas season (which begins on 24th December, NOT 24th October or November).

So, it is not Christmas yet, and this is NOT a Christmas blog in any shape or form whatsoever...

New Shogi Combination Set At A Nice Price

A few months ago I introduced some cloth shogi "boards" to my website. They are hardwearing, convenient to carry around and cheap - oh, and very easy to ship around the world too.

Hardwearing, highly portable and cheap!

They have proved very popular and so today I combined the shogi cloth with a set of shogi pieces to make a new basic set for a reduced price of just $12.50 (down from $14.75), plus shipping and handling.

The set now heads my shogi and is the all new "Shogi Set 1". See Japanese-Games-Shop.com for details.

The other good news about the new combination set is that it is much easier to post than the previous "Shogi Set 1", which was a folding board that required protective wrapping and a larger envelope and was shipped by air freight (8-28 days delivery). Because the new set is lighter the shipping method has been upgraded to "small packet airmail" which usually takes between 5-10 days to get from Japan to Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand.

In other words, there is still time to take advantage of the nice price in time for... er, CHRISTMAS!

Express Mail Shipping From Japan For Premium Items

Talking about shipping times, the premium shogi koma sets, mahjong sets, and the new lighter and smarter mahjong "JUNK" mat are all shipped by Express Mail Service, which almost always gets parcels from the Japanese Post Office to your door within a week of shipping.

This sleek Black Mahjong Set and Junk Mat combination could be yours... in good time for Christmas too! Supplies are VERY limited, however, so CLICK HERE NOW to secure your set.

It may not be Christmas yet, but when it comes to ordering stuff from the other side of the globe it is worth remembering the wise words of Solomon to avoid disappointment on 25th December:

"The soul of the sluggard desires and has nothing." (Prov: 28.26)

Have a pleasant Advent, one and all - neither too antlike, nor too sluggardly!

David Hurley
Japanese-Games-Shop.com

Stylish New MJ Mat, Plus Black MJ Tiles Special Deal!

noreply@blogger.com (David Hurley) — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 12:17:00 +0000

ITEM ONE - NEW STYLE MJ MAT

Earlier TODAY I added a new stylish mahjong mat to the listings
on my other site,

http://japanese-mahjong.com/mjgoods.html

The mat is lighter than the long serving and robust standard
model, and it has some excellent extra features such as built
in trays for your score sticks. This is the mat I use in my
home games. I have wanted to add it to my site for a long time
but only recently have i been able to find a good source offering
the mats at a feasible price.

See http://japanese-mahjong.com/mjgoods.html.

ITEM TWO - A NEW MJ SET AND MJ MAT COMBINATION

Also, I am pleased to announce a really good combination deal:

The dead cool Japanese Black Tile MJ Set is now on offer in a
combined package with the new Stylish MJ Mat!

The Black Tile MJ = $85

The Stylish MJ Mat = $47.50

TOTAL = $132.50

BUT right now you can get them together on my site for JUST $99 in total (plus shipping and handling). CLICK HERE.

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Foiled By Foil... A Trip to Nagasaki... Japanese Study Dictionaries & a 3 + 1 Free Autumn Offer!

noreply@blogger.com (David Hurley) — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 16:04:00 +0000

Foiled By a Sudden Lack of Foil

It never ceases to amaze me how many spanners get thrown into the works of a one-man-show such as Japanese-Games-Shop.com!

Sudden shortages of what are usually plentifully available products is just one headache.

Fitting visits to my key supplier into a busy weekly schedule is another - and then arriving to find the lights on, the premises apparently open for business, but the door locked and the gaffer gone AWOL without even leaving a "back in ten minutes" note on the door!

Last month I was foiled by a completely unlooked for double-whammy...

I had the morning schedule sorted: Drop the daughter off at her nursery school and head back home via our local hardware mega-store (a chain that used to glory in the name of "DIK" - pronounced "dick" - but recently sought to, er, "raise its profile" by switching to DAIKI - pronounced "dykie", which flopped, but stuck).

Anyway, my beautifully uncomplicated and seemingly foil-proof plan was to buy a new supply of brown foil - i.e. bog-standard wrapping paper - then whip back home, pack and ship a small backlog of orders in the couple of hours I had free, and "Bob would be your uncle"... Or so I thought, until I came up against a notice and the entrance to Daiki that utterly foiled my plans:

"Stock renewal - shut for 3 days."

Three days later I went back to Daiki to find the layout of the shop completely altered. Several circuits later I felt I was getting warmer when I found the bubble wrap... Brown foil is ALWAYS next to the bubble wrap... But the shelf was empty! I turned to a shop assistant, who disappeared for ten minutes. When she came back it was to tell me:

"There is no excuse for it, but we don't stock brown foil anymore. I'm terribly sorry."

Foiled again!

Brown foil is not used so widely for packaging in Japan as it is in the UK. Suddenly, I began to doubt that I would ever be able to find any foil ever again... Two more days went by before I was able to track down a supply - a wonderful source of TWO different strengths of brown foil!

I now have a plentiful supply of the stuff and offer my apologies to those customers who were kept waiting by such an absurd turn of events!

Late Summer in Nagasaki Prefecture

Here's a photo I took from the balcony of the former Mitsubishi second dock house in Glover Garden, Nagasaki. Thomas Blake Glover (1838-1911) was a British trader who contributed to the modernization of Japanese shipbuilding, coal mining and other fields, including the establishment of the Kirin Beer company. He actively encouraged the forces opposed to the Tokugawa Shogunate and his house, still preserved in Glover Garden today, was the venue of various secret meetings supportive of the forces that eventually brought about the Meiji Restoration, which catapulted Japan into the modern world.

Nagasaki is TOTALLY different from Hiroshima.

OK, not "totally" - they are both port-cities in Japan that were a-bombed at the end of WWII, but that is where the similarity ends...

Check out my other weblog for my Nagasaki blogs and photos. The reports cover our time in Nagasaki city, Huis Ten Bosch (a theme park recreation of a Dutch township - a sort of Dutch "utopia"), and our trip to one of the Goto Islands (where many "hidden Christian" communities practised their faith - or a garbled version of it - for three centuries when Christianity was officially outlawed in Japan).

Japanese Study Dictionaries

Learning to read Japanese is a complex procedure to say the least. Because of the complexities of the language, standard dictionaries and textbooks often fail to cover all the bases even for native Japanese students of the language, let alone for foreign students...

For a long time Japanese-Games-Shop.com has carried a range of convenient and economical all-Japanese language dictionaries that cover various areas of the language, such as Kanji reading, Katakana (see pic, right), Proverbs, 4-kanji words, daily usage and so on.

These dictionaries are perfectly accessible to the serious student of Japanese. Indeed, making the effort to study Japanese IN Japanese and only referring to standard dual language dictionaries when necessary is an excellent study strategy.

The key information in the dictionaries comes with "furigana" to assist comprehension. (It is assumed that the reader has already mastered the hiragana syllabary.) The explanations are short and clear and make for excellent reading practice in themselves.

New Editions, Expanded Range

The Japanese Study page had become one of the more neglected pages on Japanese-Games-Shop.com - YES, Nihongo Benkyo IS a game!

I finally got around to updating the page earlier this week. There is a whole new range of dictionaries, many of them very recent editions (June 2007 in some cases).

Every dictionary is priced at just $3.50, plus $4.75 Shipping and Handling for 1 item, and a lower rate when you order more copies).

Japanese Homophone Dictionary

One new title is the Japanese Homophone Dictionary (see photo, above right, for a detail of a page of the dictionary).

The Japanese language is stuffed to the gills with confusing homophones. You know, two or three words that sound exactly the same but that are all written with different kanji characters. Even the Japanese get confused by homophones, especially nowadays when kanji WRITING skill is declining due to the prevalence of word-processing over writing by hand.

Using homophones as a study aid to acquiring Japanese vocabulary faster than usual is an excellent strategy. As you can see from the page detail, the homophone word is given in red hiragana, and the two or three examples are given in their respective kanji readings, with explanations of meaning, usage and examples provided beneath. The explanations are short and clear and as such they offer Japanese language students excellent reading practice.

Study Tip

It is by reading small chunks of "real Japanese" (i.e. Japanese texts written for Japanese readers) such as the definitions in these dictionaries that one gets a feeling for natural Japanese UNMEDIATED by English or the native language of the student. It is an excellent thing to work on your ability to read Japanese unaided - as much as possible - by mother-tongue explanations.

Practise reading Japanese text out loud, and practise transcribing it; read it out loud as you write it. Record yourself reading it, and play the recording back - get several different compartments of your brain working at the same time.

An Obstacle to Fluency

Incidentally, one reason why the Japanese may have so many problems attaining fluency in English is that they like to stuff their English study books with JAPANESE explanations that go into long, tedious, minute detail about EVERYTHING. It sometimes seems to me that the Japanese will do anything to study English except actually to use it!

Gross generalization.

Apologies to all you Japanese "Eikaiwa" (English conversation) students who are gung-ho about speaking English! That's the way to be - gung-ho about communicating and don't worry about making mistakes - every mistake, if noted and corrected, becomes a step on the ladder to fluency...

Autumn 3 + 1 FREE Offer

Just to make the economical pricing of the dictionaries even sweeter, I will send you a FREE dictionary of your choice, for no extra shipping or handling etc, every time you order any THREE dictionaries, hiragana card decks, or vocabulary cards from my Japanese Language Study Resources page, provided you order via Paypal.

The offer gets even better if you are on my mailing list - but to find out about that you need to fill in the "Don't Miss A Thing" form on my site, or, if you are already on my mailing list, check your inbox for an even better FREE offer.

Enjoy your in-season "matsutake" mushrooms, folks!

David Hurley
Japanese-Games-Shop.com
Japanese-Mahjong.com
Grasp-the-Nettle.com
100-Word-Book-Reviews.com

Two New Items Uploaded to Japanese Games Shop

noreply@blogger.com (David Hurley) — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 03:32:00 +0000

A couple of new items have been added to the listings this week.

Economy Shogi Board

Firstly there is an economy non-folding shogi board to announce.

It is made of plywood reinforced along its edges so it is light but reasonably robust.

It sits nice and flat and provides a smooth playing surface that looks similar to the surface of solid wooden boards.

The best news is that the all-in cost of the board plus shipping and handling is just $10.

Check it out here.

Hiragana Playing Cards

I have just uploaded details of a novelty item for Japanese language learners who want some help in mastering the phonetic Hiragana script: Hiragana Playing Cards!

The cards can be used as regular playing cards or used to study the Hiragana.

Each card has one of the letters of the Hiragana syllabary on it and a picture of something that begins with that letter. The name of the thing is also given so you can study individual letters and also practise reading and learning whole words.

You can also combine regular cards and Hiragana study by playing a popular memory game called Shinkeisuijaku in Japanese (i.e. Pelmanism, or "pairs" in English) and enjoy a double memory-training bonus of playing to win the matching game and increased familiarity with the Hiragana syllabary!

Check out the card decks here.

David Hurley
Japanese-Games-Shop.com
Japanese-Mahjong.com
Grasp-the-Nettle.com
100-Word-Book-Reviews.com

Claim your FREE Hanafuda Style Playing Card Deck

noreply@blogger.com (David Hurley) — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 13:49:00 +0000

To celebrate the recent launch of Japanese-Games-Shop.com I am giving away a free pack of Japanese Hanafuda Style Playing Cards any time a reader of this blog does ANY ONE of these things:

1. Purchase a product at Japanese-Games-Shop.com.

or

2. Purchase an instantly downloadable audio book for your Ipod, MP3 player, or to burn to CD here.

3. Sign up FREE to the SFI affiliates program here.
Since 1985, SFI has helped tens of thousands of men and women worldwide build successful
home businesses. SFI can help you, too. Your enrollment now includes over $400 in FREE bonuses.

or

4. Sign up for a 14 day trial of the Success University program here.
(This will cost only $2 and the fee will be donated to Feed The Children.)
Success University enables you to profit from the rapidly growing personal development industry with the most powerful learn and earn referral program ever released!

After you have done any ONE of those three things just drop me a line here at hirohurl@gmail.com letting me know what action you took and request a "Free Hanafuda style playing card deck".

That's it!

I will send you a complimentary Hanafuda-style playing card deck straight from Sunny Hiroshima!

Have a good summer.

David Hurley
Japanese-Games-Shop.com
Japanese-Mahjong.com
Grasp-the-Nettle.com
100-Word-Book-Reviews.com

Mahjong Sets: The Ugly, the Good & the Beautiful.

noreply@blogger.com (David Hurley) — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 16:32:00 +0000

Regular visitors to the "mahjong shop" section of my website will be aware that I offer a range of eleven Japanese mahjong sets, from a standard set all the way up to an exclusive set complete with hand-made bamboo backs.

I have now upgraded the most basic set that I offer while keeping the price below $50. The standard set is now called the Japanese "Sango" Mahjong Set. It is housed in a smart "snap shut" case that is better finished than the case the previous "Standard MJ" set was housed in. The tiles are made to Japanese specifications and are "High Grade Mahjong Tiles".

You can get a close look at the Winds, Dragons, Seasons and Red Fives to check out the quality of the finish over at my Japanese Mahjong Goods site.

Every mahjong set I offer on my site has been made to Japanese specifications. Japanese specs cover size and also quality of production, including the quality of the plastic and paint that are used to produce the tiles.

The quality of the plastic that the tiles are made of is an important point to bear in mind when choosing a mahjong set. Cheap and nasty sets have a really noxious plastic odour to them. None of the sets I offer on my site are made of that ghastly cheap (almost certainly imported from you-know-where) plastic.

However, the other week I accidentally bought one such set. It has been filling my storage space with its noxious fumes. The only benefit I can put it to before throwing it away is to photograph the tiles so you can compare a cheap and nasty set to the sets I offer on my site.

Here goes!

Here are the cheap and nasty Winds, Dragons, Seasons and Red Fives. You will notice the poor finish, ill defined characters, and rather nasty plastic sheen.

Just imagine the whiffy pong of cheap plastic to complete the picture!

It gets worse when you check out the Bamboo and the Coin suits... That ghastly brute of a peacock looks more like a turkey!

The Coins are very blotchy - the nasty glossy paint has been carelessly applied so it runs over and obliterates the sketchy patterning.

The paint looks as if it is about to peel. I hate to think how much lead is in it...

Now, compare the Winds and Dragons of the most economical set that I offer, the "Sango" set that I discussed at the beginning of this article. The difference in quality is immense.

Straightaway the cleaner finish of the tiles is apparent. The paint has been carefully applied and the engraving is more detailed.

The tiles shown here are basic tiles made to Japanese standards. They are the most economical tiles that I offer on my site, yet they are far superior in quality on every count: quality of plastic, quality of paint, quality of engraving, quality of finish.

And now, just to complete the comparison, let's bring in my favourite Japanese mahjong set, the exclusive Nintendo "New Ivory" set for inspection:

The tiles have an ivory-style "grain" running through them and the engraving seems to shimmer above the surface.

So, you can see that when it comes to choosing a Japanese mahjong set, there is a huge difference between the ugly, the good and the beautiful!

DH
Japanese-Mahjong.com
Japanese-Games-Shop.com

Hirohurl is Dead! Long Live Japanese-Games-Shop!

noreply@blogger.com (David Hurley) — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 10:36:00 +0000

A couple of weeks ago hirohurl.net went dead! The domain name was supposed to renew automatically, but it didn't. By the time I was able to do anything about it the name had been snapped up by a shark who I presume was hoping that I'd buy it back from him at an inflated price.

I didn't, and if you head over there you will find a link farm.

Mindful that "Crisis = Opportunity" I decided to break up the site into its constituent parts, each with its own domain name, and today the Japanese Shop has been relaunched at:-

http://japanese-games-shop.com

Regular visitors will recognize the familiar format - somewhat tweaked and improved upon, I hope - and offering the same range of games and goods as before...

So, we are back in business. Today, even before the launch, Japanese-Games-Shop.com made its first sale - the search engine spiders must have been over the site already!

As well as http://japanese-games-shop.com, three other sites are up and running in various states of development. They are:-

http://japanese-mahjong.com

http://100-word-book-reviews.com

http://business-success-online.com

I am hoping to launch two more sites over the course of the long and humid Japanese summer!

Best wishes,

David Hurley
http://japanese-games-shop.com

Rokudenashi Blues and Ginga Densetsu Weed

noreply@blogger.com (David Hurley) — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 13:42:00 +0000

Rokudenashi Blues - Summer Time Offer!

I just posted a special limited manga offer on http://japanese-games-shop.com/manga.html.

Rokudenashi Blues is a popular manga series by Morita Masanori it focuses on a delinquent Japanese high school student called Taison Maeda who is into boxing, street fights and motorbikes. His name is a combination of wrestler Akira Maeda and former world heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson.

The manga originally ran in Japan's Shonen Jump comic, a weekly comic that has run many of Japan's most famous comic stories.

The story is very popular in Japan but it has not been serialized in English so it is quite difficult to get hold of outside of Japan.

I have been meaning to add this series to my manga listings at $3.50 a pop. For the time being, however, I'm running a summer time THREE FOR FIVE DOLLARS offer.

As manga go, this series is relatively easy for the Japanese language student to read. The Japanese is not so difficult, and all the Kanji in the speech bubbles come with furigana to assist reading. The stories are fast paced and easy to follow. The series makes for excellent Japanese reading practice and are enjoyable to read in themselves - much better than "Nihon No Kiso" and other classroom textbooks!!

If you'd like to take advantage of the offer head over to http://www.japanese-games-shop.com/manga.html

Ginga Densetsu Weed - More Volumes Now Available

Until today fans of the canine animation series Ginga Densetsu Weed were only able to buy volumes 1-10 directly from my manga site.

The good news is that I have finally got around to making the first forty volumes directly available from my site.

The forty-fifth volume has just been published, so as you can see, I am trying to keep as up to date as possible with this popular series.

Now You Can Shop For Japanese Manga and Books On Amazon.co.jp

For Ginga Densetsu Weed fans who want to get the very latest GDW volumes, or any other Japanese manga or book for that matter, I am in the process of launching an "Amazon.co.jp buying service" so you will be able to buy new stuff direct from Japan.

Head over to http://japanese-games-shop.com/manga.html and run a search on one of the Amazon.co.jp portals. When you find what you want, send me the link and I will purchase it for you and ship it to you.

If you can't use Japanese script let me know what it is you are looking for and I will search for it for you.

I will shortly be adding all the details of this new service to the manga site. In the meantime, if you'd like to know more about what is on offer and the fees involved, drop me a line and I will send you full details.

In the meantime, best wishes from hot and humid rainy-season Japan!

DH
japanese-games-shop.com
3rd July 2007

Japanese Anime Card Decks

noreply@blogger.com (David Hurley) — Sun, 10 Jun 2007 14:29:00 +0000

Two Japanese t.v. cartoons that have recently gained nationwide popularity and are all the rage with kids but also appeal to adult viewers are Lilly Franky's "Oden-kun" and Tetsuo Yasumi's Zenmai Zamurai.

Nowadays you can find a lot of spin-off goods based on those animations in the shops. As I number myself among the fans of these two whacky anime, I have been meaning to introduce them to visitors of hirohurl.net and today I finally got around to it! I have added a page to my site offering playing card decks featuring characters from Oden-kun and Zenmai Zamurai. They will make the perfect present for game-playing afficionados of Japanese popular culture!

So what are the two cartoons all about?

Oden-Kun

Oden-kun is set in a world that exists at the bottom of a Japanese stew pot, a place where the stewed eggs, potatoes, sausages, rolled cabbage, fish-paste tubes, and other weird and wonderful Japanese culinary concoctions go about their daily lifes until a large pair of chopsticks rends the soupy firmament and plucks one of them up and onto a customer's plate in the human world of the Oden stall.

However, once consumed by a ravenous customer, the plucky little oden characters go on to fight the various diseases and disorders they encounter inside the humans...

And as soon as the Oden stall owner gets around to preparing some replacement items, and popping them into the stew pot, the characters miraculously reappear back in the village at the bottom of the stew pot.

Zemai Zamurai - The Clockwork Samurai

In his early days Zenmai Zamurai was a warrior thief and to atone for his sins he has been sent to the future world of "Karakuri Oedo" - a kind of "greater Edo" - by Daifuku no Kami, the God of Good Fortune.

To keep tabs on the little samurai Daifuku no Kami took the precaution of sticking a clockwork key in Zenmai Zamurai's head to keep track of his good deeds. Zenmai means "clockwork" in Japanese.

Zenmai Zamurai carries a sword with four dango stuck on it. When he draws his sword and strikes at his enemies they swallow the dango and are turned into happy goody-goodies.

Oden-kun and Zenmai Zamurai Cartoon Character Playing Card Decks

Get yourself a piece of the latest Japanese animation craze! Two crazy, colourful playing card decks featuring Oden-kun and Zenmai Zamurai are now available at:

http://japanese-games-shop.com/japanese-animation-decks.html.

Luxury "Ran" Mahjong Set with Bamboo Backs.

noreply@blogger.com (David Hurley) — Fri, 08 Jun 2007 04:50:00 +0000

The "Ran" mahjong set that is - or rather was - available on my mahjong site at http://www.japanese-mahjong.com/mjgoods.html has gone out of production.

Apparently, the artisan who produces those sets is retiring.

However, the company that employed him is seeking someone to replace him and to produce a different version of the set, with hand-made bamboo backs complete with the traditional dove-tail joint that fixes the bamboo to the back of the tile.

Unfortunately, these sets are very few and far between and I am not sure that they will be able to find anybody with the skills needed to make the tiles.

Just before the artisan retired he made a few of the new style sets. I was able to obtain a very small number of them. Right now I have only one left!

I have no idea whether or not it is the last one that will be produced and I keep badgering my supplier to see if he can ferret out any more sets that may have been squirreled away somewhere, but so far without any luck.

The set also features a strikingly unusual calligraphic style most evident in the design of the Wind and Dragon tiles, as you can see in the photograph.

So, if you would like to own a hand-finished bamboo-backed Japanese mahjong set of unusual design, drop me a line at hirohurl@hotmail.com and I will send you more details, if it is still available, that is!

HerbaGreen Teas Now Available at Japanese-Games-Shop.com!

noreply@blogger.com (David Hurley) — Fri, 25 May 2007 07:27:00 +0000

In April 2007 Japanese-Games-Shop.com affiliated with SFI marketing group and has recently added their range of HerbaGreen Teas to Japanese-Games-Shop.com.

Naturally sweetened with lo han fruit extract--which promotes fat burning and soothes the digestion process - HerbaGreen Teas also contain lotus leaf (rich in isoflavones), kudzu (for promoting circulation), and 100mg of polyphenols, equivalent to at least 15 cups of the strongest brewed green tea.

PLUS - HerbaGreen Teas contain NO calories or caffeine.

Each bottle equals 60 servings.

Choose from among Original flavor, Heavenly Honey Lemon, or Mandarin Mango Swirl. Then, simply add a dropper full to hot, warm, or cold water and stir for a naturally delicious, wonderfully healthy drink!

BENEFITS OF GREEN TEA POLYPHENOLS:
* Maintains healthy cells, cell growth and development.
* Supports a healthy cardiovascular system.
* Promotes healthy weight control by blocking carbohydrate absorption.
* Fights damaging free-radicals, which attack healthy cells and promote aging.
* Supports the immune system.
* Helps the body maintain its toxin-free condition.
* Promotes healthy blood sugar balance.
* Supports dental and optimal gum health.

CONCENTRATED HERBAGREEN TEA VS. "TEA BAGS"

Scientific documentation has shown that the majority of the therapeutic benefits of green tea are due to the polyphenols. Steeping a tea bag in hot water is a very inefficient means of extracting these polyphenols. HerbaGreen Tea contains concentrated extracts, with over 90% polyphenols. One serving provides 115 mg of plyphenols, the equivalent of more than 15 cups of brewed "tea bag" green tea.

Furthermore, a lot of green tea from tea bags contains caffeine, which many people want to avoid. HerbaGreen Tea has only caffeine-free green tea extracts. You get ALL the benefits of green tea polyphenols with HerbaGreen Tea!

Finally, each small bottle of HerbaGreen Tea is a much more convenient source of healthful antioxidants for a busy lifestyle. Just add a single dropper into your water bottle and enjoy while working out, walking, or on the go... or add some tea into your water while dining out.

Shipping Costs of Pilot Pens Fixed $5! - No Matter How Many You Buy!!

noreply@blogger.com (David Hurley) — Wed, 02 May 2007 14:55:00 +0000

Yes folks, its true!

I've been meaning to do it...

I've been promising myself to do it...

I've never quite got around to doing it...

Well, I had some free time today and you know what? -

I FINALLY BLOOMING WELL DID IT!!

From May 2007 you can buy as many pens as you like and just pay $5 shipping and handling! Buy one Pilot pen, or one hundred, and you'll pay the same fixed $5 for ALL shipping and handling, Paypal and packaging, sweat-of-the-brow and shoeleather charges!

Oh, and I also fixed the "turning Japanese" Paypal order form phenomenon - or at least it looks good from where I'm sitting here in Hiroshima right bang smack in the middle of Golden Week.

Thanks to J. J. from San Francisco for the feedback that finally spurred me into action. Free pens will be winging their way to you with your next order!

Happy Golden Week!

DH

Japanese-Games-Shop.com News

Yamato The White Fighter by Takahashi Yoshihiro Now Available!

New Japanese Study Dictionary Added To Listings!

Spring Pruning and Planting!

How to Read a Mahjong Tile Before it is Your Turn to Take it From the Wall!

**NEW** Japanese Gift Certificates!

Japanese Card Game: Iroha Karuta

"Pellucid & Energetic" Shogi Pieces Delicately Hand Carved On Japanese Boxwood

Introducing the "Take" Mahjong Set

Introducing the "Take" Mahjong Set

The Tiles

Other Features of the Set

Order a Set

Happy 2008 From Japanese-Games-Shop.com!

New Years Resolution: Add more stuff to Japanese-Games-Shop.com

New Combinations At Nice Prices, Just In Time For Christmas!

New Shogi Combination Set At A Nice Price

Express Mail Shipping From Japan For Premium Items

Stylish New MJ Mat, Plus Black MJ Tiles Special Deal!

Foiled By Foil... A Trip to Nagasaki... Japanese Study Dictionaries & a 3 + 1 Free Autumn Offer!

Two New Items Uploaded to Japanese Games Shop

Claim your FREE Hanafuda Style Playing Card Deck

Mahjong Sets: The Ugly, the Good & the Beautiful.

Hirohurl is Dead! Long Live Japanese-Games-Shop!

Rokudenashi Blues and Ginga Densetsu Weed

Japanese Anime Card Decks

Luxury "Ran" Mahjong Set with Bamboo Backs.

HerbaGreen Teas Now Available at Japanese-Games-Shop.com!

Shipping Costs of Pilot Pens Fixed $5! - No Matter How Many You Buy!!

NEW Japanese Gift Certificates!