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San Diego importer brings bizarre Japanese products to U.S.

By David Moye

July 31, 2006

San Diego--There are lots of Asiaphiles in San Diego but no one has really put their yen where their mouth is like Peter Payne.

Screenshot, JList.com

He’s a former San Diego resident who now lives in Isesaki, Japan, where he runs J-List.com, a website that allows Americans to buy bizarre Japanese products that are otherwise hard to find here, such as plum-flavored seaweed or a videogame where the object is to convince three married women to leave their husbands. Payne is based in Japan but his U.S. offices are in San Diego and that’s where he prints up some of the company’s most successful products, including the T-shirt that reads “Looking for a Japanese girlfriend” in Japanese writing.

He started the business to export Japanese pop music but soon discovered U.S. consumers were even more interested in adult-themed comic books and strange products such as "minty eyedrops" or chewing gum that doubles as a toothbrush.

Japanese porn is a big seller but the product that gets the biggest rise out of Americans is "Black Caffeine Gum," which is popular with computer programmers working long hours.

Other products may rub Americans the wrong way, such as the comic books featuring hermaphrodites and a game show where females play a variation of bingo revolving around oral sex.

Sure, it's bizarre but Payne says it's important not to judge Japan—or any country—based on its consumer goods. As he puts it, "One of my friends learned English watching soap operas so her view of America was very twisted."

Here is what Payne had to say about his company during a brief interview.

So you were originally based in San Diego but you’re not anymore?

Payne: Actually, we were always in two different sections. We’re a company based in Japan and we have our San Diego office where we print our Japanese T-shirts like ``I’m looking for a Japanese girlfriend’’ and we ship all the videogames that we sell.

A lot of the stuff you sell is like those weird milk-flavored candies. Stuff if you go to Japan you end up liking? Do you have to go to Japan to develop a taste for it?

Payne: Our goal is to bring America and Japan closer together through pop culture and the weirder something is, the more fun it is. Like the nacho flavored Pretz or the black caffeine gum – that’s really popular.

Do you ever bring anything from here over there.

Payne: Not really. It’s kind of our policy to find things in Japan and bring it to America because that’s just sort of what we do. Japanese consumers are really fickle and if you brought something over, how would you know that’s what they would buy? It’s really tricky. I’ve got a lot of respect for Japanese culture and I think if it’s really cool, like a cool character, it will sell over here.

Are there Americanphiles over there just like there are Asiaphiles over here?

Payne: Oh yeah. The guy that works for me. He’s a huge Beatles fan and they don’t bother separating America from Britain. It’s all one culture. He would always be surprised when I’d hear a song and say, `Oh, is this the Monkees?’ and he’d be like, `No, it’s the Beatles. How can you not know the Beatles?’ You know, `Because you’re American, you have to know this song.’ Growing up, I was actually listening to Seiko Matsuda, a pop idol from the ‘80s because it was more interesting to me.

For more information on Payne’s company, check out jlist.com

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