Top thirty Japanese emoticons
In the middle of June, goo Ranking surveyed its readers by means of a public internet questionnaire on what emoticons, or smilies, they often used in mail from their personal computers. The following table presents the top thirty results. As usual for goo Ranking, number one slot gets ranked with 100 points, and all the rest with the proportion of votes relative to the top vote. More detailed demographics, etc, are not available.
Back in April, I translated another survey on the use of smilies, or emoticons, on Japanese mobile phones, that you may want to reference. Even though the people responding to this survey are (supposed to be!) adult, emoticons reveal a childish playfulness, I feel.
Please feel free to use these in your email or messenger applications to liven up your chat a little!
Oh, and if you like the emoticon in the corner, it can be yours for just a few dollars from Strapya, that fine supplier of keitai straps. 
Ranking results
Q: What 顔文字, kaomoji, emoticons do you often use in mail sent from your personal computer?
Rank Emoticon Score Emotion 1 (^_^) or (^_^)v, etc 100 Laughing 2 (>_<)> 66.4 Troubled 3 (^_^;) 54.4 Troubled 4 (ToT) 53.3 Crying 5 m(_ _)m 52.9 Apologising 6 (^^ゞ or (^^;) 38.3 Shy 7 ( ̄ー ̄) 20.6 Grinning 8 (≧∇≦)/ 18.9 Joyful 9 ( ̄□ ̄;) 18.9 Surprised 10 (#^.^#) 18.8 Shy 11 (*´▽`*) 16.1 Infatuation 12 (ーー;) 15.4 Worried 13 (*^▽^*) 15.0 Joyful 14 _| ̄|○, orz, OTL, etc 13.7 Depressed 15 (^▽^) 11.1 Laughing 16 キタ━━━(゜∀゜)━━━!!!!!, (゜∀゜), etc 11.1 I think it is “I’m here!!!”, but I just don’t really know! 17 (´・ω・`) 10.3 Snubbed 18 ( ゚ Д゚) 8.8 Shocked 19 (・∀・) 7.7 Laughing 20 (T▽T) 7.1 Crying 21 (* ̄m ̄) 6.8 Dissatisfied 22 ( ´∀`) 6.0 Laughing 23 (⌒▽⌒) 5.3 Laughing 24 (^v^) 4.9 Laughing 25 ヽ(´ー`)┌ 4.7 Mellow 26 (’-’*) 4.1 Laughing 27 (’A`) 3.8 Snubbed 28 (゜◇゜) 2.1 Surprised 29 (*°∀°)=3 2.1 Infatuation 30 ∩( ・ω・)∩, ( ・ω・), etc 1.3 Joyful
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Bamboo Forest said,
May 13, 2008 @ 14:28
I love emoticons!!! *_*
Sms chat » Blog Archive » Liven Up Electronic Communications With Japanese Emoticons said,
May 14, 2008 @ 03:09
[…] writing standard computer email, Japanese emoticons get used and abused. A survey on the top thirty Japanese emoticons showed that the top five were, in reverse order, as follows: At number 5, m(_ _), an apologising […]