世論 What Japan Thinks

Recently, IT Media published a list from Yahoo! Japan of the top search keywords through Yahoo!’s search engine, grouped into various categories. Below are a few of the categories, where I presume the more adult search terms have been removed! First, the top overall keywords.

Rank	Last Year	Keyword
1	(1)	2 channel
2	(2)	Google
3	(4)	楽天 Rakuten
5	(7)	Amazon
6	(5)	JAL
7	(9)	ANA
8	(11)	MSN
9	(32)	livedoor
10	(8)	Hotmail
11	(14)	JR
12	(-)	mixi
…
16	(-)	Gundam
…
50	(-)	Tamagotchi

Games

Rank	Name
1	Gundam
2	Final Fantasy
3	遊戯王 YU-GI-OH!
4	Pocket Monsters
5	Dragonball
6	Tales Of…
7	職三國無双 Dynasty Warriors
8	Ragnarok Online
9	Dragon Quest
10	甲虫王者ムシキング Mushi King

Pearls of wisdom

Rank	Name
1	Auction
2	Pregnancy
3	Mail
4	Ainori
5	Picture
6	Marriage
7	Love
8	Insurance
9	Korea
10	Orthopedics

A rather weird bunch of keywords! I’m not really sure of the criterion for selection – perhaps this is what was left after they removed all product names and proper nouns? But how come Ainori is there too? Love is searched for less than marriage or pregnancy? But you can’t really find love on the internet, although by the same token you certainly can’t get pregnant on it either!

Product Search

Rank	Name
1	Tamagotchi
2	Digital Camera
3	Louis Vuitton
4	White band
5	Coach
6	Burberry
7	LCD Television
8	Gucci
9	Father’s Day
10	Nike