Never surfed Japan before? Here's some tips on how to find goodies.
Step 1: Translate the webpage.
Japanese is not an easy language to read even if you speak it. There are two syllabaries of charaters, and several thousand more Chinese characters for most nouns, verbs, and adjectives. Furthermore, most words are combinations of two or more kanji, so even knowing the root words isn't always enough. This is the problem facing native speakers. For foreigners, written Japanese is abstract art.
The top of our links page gives the two best translators. Use them. They save you much of the trouble (but not all) of guessing what the contents of Japanese websites are. Amikai is the best; it has a broader lexicon and shows the original and the color-coded translation text side by side. This last also makes finding text-based links to secret pages easier, as they'll turn up in translation along with everything else. Babelfish has a more limited lexicon but works well. Keep in mind translators occasionally fail. Large pages can choke them, as can complicated Javascripts. Babelfish is more prone to these errors than Amikai. Even JPGs can confuse Babelfish at times.
Step 2: Look for buzzwords.
Translators are good for text, but anything in buttons or pictures will not be translated. Then you have to study the contents to see what's inside. Luckily, many Japanese websites tend to use English for page addresses, so hover over the links and check page titles. Once you know what the title is, you can figure put what the contents are. This is not always easy. Here's what's common:
TOP is the top page, as are INDEX or MAIN. The misspelling MEIN also crops up occasionally.
PRO and PURO are short for PROFILE, where you can learn the webmasters age and blood type, if you care about that sort of thing.
CYAT and KYAT are chatrooms. You're not interested in them anymore than in BBS, the bulletin board.
NOVEL is fiction of some sort. The translators are good, but generally good enough to make these understandable. Once in a while you can find illustrated novels, so you might want to look.
CG is short for computer graphics and is probably the most common title for picture pages. Also look for ILLUS or any variation on GALLERY, like GYARARY. The letter E is the Japanese word for pictures, so that's used too. ITADAKI just means black-and-white pictures.
KIRIBAN are prize drawings given by webmasters for hitting special numbers on the counter, like 888.
MANGA and DOUJIN are comics. You can't read them, but look at the pictures.
GAMES are always interesting. Explicit tile puzzles and Kisekae paper dolls are out there, as are things like strip rock-paper-scissors, strip Concentration, and strip Breakout.
OEKAKI is a two-edged sword. This is a bulletin board for pictures, usually of poor quality, but I have seen it used for simple pictures. Worth considering.
GIFT could be kiribans, but there's a good chance it's gift novels instead. Investigate.
JUNK can be anything, so take a look.
LINK or RINKU can net you directions to more sites, of course.
Secret sites, usually titled URA, UNDERGROUND, or just SECRET, are a Japanese specialty. Our top page is organized like one, and you'll notice "Mr. Ohta" has the name we haven't used elsewhere. This is because not everyone SHares Our TAste. Japan is more open, but webmasters there are careful too. Explicit material will typically be layered behind age verifications, secret links, and passwords. Age verifications tell you not to continue if you're not 15, 18, or 21, and often have the entrance marked. Secret links work like the main page, a small link buried against a like-colored background, or else a small icon or particular part of a picture. Our link pages point out the ones we are aware of. Passwords must be requested from the webmaster. Some are automated: translate the application form (you may have to use the text translator instead of the webpage translator), then open the site without the translator, fill in the blanks, and send it in. Others you have to write for, which brings us to....
Step 3: Be polite.
Virtually every site you go to will say JAPANESE ONLY HERE in huge letters. They mean it. Some webmasters are bigoted against gaijin, and will make that crystal clear. The rest are shy of their English skills, which are almost always poor. Either way, we can work to fix this. Consider sending a brief, translated note congratulating them on thanking them for the website.
Try not to link to anything other than the site's top page. Some webmasters are sniffy and want you to ask permission before linking. This is not standard practice anywhere that I know of.
Step 4: Have fun.
Remember, you're not just finding wank material, you're learning about another culture. This is your opportunity to explore, from your desk, a society where people can express their sensuality with a freedom you and I don't have. Enjoy yourself.