Over the last decade or so, Japanese culture (by which I mean crudely-animated teenage girls without shirts) has gained a huge following in the U.S. From Mega 'roids to Super Happy Tentacle Yum-Yum, anime fever has arrived and is not going away, no matter how badly I want it to.
Still, anime isn't all that bad. Some of its byproducts are quite pleasurable. Take my friend Evil Jim, for example. No, Evil Jim isn't a side-effect of spy cartoons about robots in panties, but he does like spy cartoons about robots in panties, and like so many people with a taste for spy cartoons about robots in panties, Evil Jim has developed a penchant for Japanese arts, customs and products.
We're going to skip the arts and customs things because, well, there's a million websites devoted specifically to what to expect when you go to Japan. Instead, I'm going to talk about Asian—specifically Japanese—products, mostly purchased during trips with Evil Jim to Mitsuwa Marketplace, a Japanese mini-mall in Arlington Heights, Illinois. Generally the things I'll be talking about here are food products because I already have enough random plastic crap and I don't need any more of it. Come to think of it, I'm sure there are even more websites with this premise than the other one, but I can offer a uniquely boorish, American viewpoint, seeing how my world is confusing enough without having to understand the cultural significance of the snack foods I buy.
Besides, this is my site, and I get to do what I want here. That's why you see so many italics.
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Probably a character from Super Happy Tentacle Yum-Yum. |
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