世論 What Japan Thinks

Before I start, let me say that all astrology is bunk. However, it is in Japan, like everywhere else, big business with frauds highly-talented (at extracting money from gullible individuals) people like Guinness Book of Records best-selling author in her category, the awful Kazuko Hosoki, or the Feng Shui (pronounced to rhyme with “load of old hooie”) “Dr” Copa who will sell you cheap plastic yellow tat guaranteed to increase his your wealth. Oooh, and don’t get me started on blood types!

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There, I feel better now. infoPLANT recently had an open survey available for one week through an iMode menu on the topic of fortunes. As with all the other infoPLANT surveys, the self-selecting nature of it will bias the sample towards heavy iMode users. Over one week in the middle of March, 6,031 people, 32.9% male, completed the mobile web-based questionnaire. I will use the term “horoscope” in this translation to cover all the various types of fortune-telling that the Japanese word 占い, uranai, covers.

Q1: About how often do you usually look at your horoscope? (Sample size=6,031)

	All	Male N=1,983	Female N=4,048
Almost every day	42.1%	32.9%	46.5%
Three to five times a week	17.8%	16.5%	18.4%
Once or twice a week	17.9%	19.6%	17.0%
Two or three times a month	9.4%	9.6%	9.2%
Once a month	5.0%	5.6%	4.7%
Less than that	4.5%	8.2%	2.7%
Never look at it	3.4%	7.4%	1.4%

Those over forty of both sexes were slightly more likely to view their fortunes.

Q2: Where do you usually view your horoscope? (Sample size=5,828, multiple answer)

	All	Male N=1,836	Female N=3,992
Television	76.2%	71.9%	78.1%
Magazine or book	55.0%	38.6%	62.5%
Mobile phone general site	28.9%	26.9%	29.8%
Mobile phone fortune-telling site	23.0%	11.2%	28.4%
Newspaper	22.9%	25.3%	21.8%
Mobile phone email	13.2%	9.5%	14.9%
PC fortune-telling site	8.2%	6.7%	8.9%
PC email	1.5%	2.0%	1.3%
Other	3.0%	3.5%	2.8%

The age and sex breakdowns do not reveal any significant trends except that older people prefered newspapers.

Q3: Which parts of your horoscope are you interested in? (Sample size=5,828, multiple answer)

	All	Male N=1,836	Female N=3,992
Overall fortune	80.6%	75.9%	82.7%
Money	74.8%	73.0%	75.6%
Love	50.5%	40.4%	55.1%
Work or school issues	44.1%	41.9%	45.2%
Health	40.1%	33.5%	43.1%
Human relations	31.8%	21.3%	36.7%
Future	29.7%	21.2%	33.6%
Marriage	20.1%	12.6%	23.5%
Other	5.0%	5.7%	4.7%

As one might expect, the younger people were more interested in love and marriage; in fact, they were more interested in nearly every aspect except health and the overall fortune.