Monday, November 13, 2006

Kodansha Bilingual Manga Updates


The Japanese publisher Kodansha offers a range of bilingual (Japanese and English) titles of famous Japanese manga and from time to time I have offered them on the manga page of my website, particularly "Ribbon no Kishi" and "Genji Monogatari"...

Ribbon no Kishi
I temporarily removed the manga series "Ribbon no Kishi" (or "Princess Knight" in English) from my site as it had disappeared from the shelves, but now I am pleased to be able to announce that Princess Knight is back and available once again at http://www.japanese-games-shop.com/manga.html!


Genji Monogatari

Kodansha used to publish a four-volume "Tale of Genji" manga series that made Murasaki Shikibu's famous Japanese classic accessible to English speaking readers. That series disappeared from suppliers' shelves recently. However, spurred on by a customer I went out and discovered that Kodansha reissued the manga in a new two-volume edition in July of this year and so I have just updated the manga page of my website to offer this new edition.

A Note on the Kodansha Bilingual Editions Offered on My Site
The Kodansha Bilingual series offered on my website are all purchased NEW. I do not keep a stock of these manga but order each one as orders come in.

This "special order service" requires a slightly higher "shipping and handling" price than for the other volumes on offer on my site, but if you compare it to what is on offer on the second-hand market on Amazon.com, for example, you will see that you are actually getting better value for money. For example, a second hand copy of Kodansha's Princess Knight is currently available for the "low price" of $51.92 plus postage!

Thursday, November 09, 2006

Japanese Mahjong Yakitori Tiles - New!! "Sweating Sparrow"


If you play the Japanese version of mahjong you may be accustomed to the familiar site of a tile with a picture of a skewered sparrow on it! It is a flat tile, similar in size to the Wind Marker and it sits to the right of each player until he has completed a hand. Any player who fails to complete a hand through the course of a game is said to be "Yakitori" - skewered and grilled sparrow!

I offer a couple of styles of Yakitori tile on the Japanese mahjong goods section of my site. Just recently I have been able to add a third design to my range of tiles. This one is a sweating sparrow. A set of four costs just $15 (plus S&H) and can be purchased via Paypal at Japanese-Games-Shop.com.