OUR STORY:
Way back in 2001, Yumi & Clay Boutwell had just finished their first book, Hiragana, the Basics of Japanese, and wondered how to sell it. Their popular and free Japanese learning site, www.TheJapanesePage.com, was a logical choice.
That worked fine for a while, but as they added more books and Japanese related materials to the catalog, it was soon evident they needed a dedicated store site.
Sometime, in early 2002, www.TheJapanShop.com was born. (Clay wasn't very creative with naming schemes: TheJapanesePage.com and TheJapanShop.com...)
Today, we produce a monthly digital magazine called Makoto featuring all the Fun Japanese Not Found in Textbooks. You can find all the back issues here or join our Makoto+ membership club to get the latest issue delivered fresh to your email each month as well as other goodies such as exclusive coupons, freebies, and web-based versions of our material.
THE TEAM:
Clay & Yumi -- Owners, authors, editors, graphic designers, audio producers--well, you get the idea...
Hiroko-san -- Japanese editor-in-chief
Neddy -- Translator + Makoto e-zine editor
Pam -- Shipper
Benjie -- Webmaster + Everything else -- basically, Benjie is the guy who swoops down from a tall building and saves the day when the websites have trouble.
