世論 What Japan Thinks

According to recent news, in 2006 Japanese movies took in more revenue at the box office than foreign films for the first time for 20 years, although it must be noted that the cinema-going frequency in Japan is still much lower than most of Western Europe and the USA. To understand more about Japanese habits, Yahoo! Japan Value Insight recently performed a survey on this topic of film consumption.

Demographics

Between the 10th and 24th of August 2007 Yahoo! Japan Value Insight published an open survey through the menuing system of NTT DoCoMo’s iMode mobile phone menuing system. 3,604 people self-selected themselves to take part in this survey; 57.9% were female, 5.6% in their teens, 30.3% in their twenties, 41.2% in their thirties, 19.3% in their forties, and 3.6% aged fifty or older.

The movie rankings in Q5 are rather interesting; I never understood why Japan loved Armageddon so much, both men and women, it seems. Men chose just one Japanese live-action movie in their top ten, whereas women chose three Ghibli animations, for instance.

One may also note that Q1 does not include downloading off the internet, either through legal or illegal channels.

Oh, and although Jack Sparrow defeated Hans and Harry in this poll, Japan Probe recently reported on him surrendering in the face of a bunch of cute kids.

Research results

Q1: How do you view movies? (Sample size=3,604, multiple answer)

	All	Male N=1,517	Female N=2,087
Rental DVD, video	57.6%	54.6%	59.8%
Ordinary cinema	55.5%	49.5%	59.9%
Terrestrial television	46.5%	45.8%	47.0%
Cinema complex	24.6%	26.1%	23.9%
Purchased DVD, video	23.5%	26.6%	21.3%
Pay television	11.5%	12.6%	10.6%
Don’t watch movies	1.2%	1.4%	1.1%

Unfortunately, the report did not describe what the difference between an ordinary cinema and a cinema complex was.

Q2: What genres of movies do you watch? (Sample size=3,561, movie watchers, multiple answer)

	All	Male N=1,496	Female N=2,065
Action	54.5%	68.4%	44.4%
Comedy	50.5%	44.0%	55.3%
Science fiction	42.9%	56.1%	33.3%
Japanese film	42.3%	39.9%	44.1%
Love story	41.1%	26.5%	51.8%
Animation	40.5%	37.8%	42.4%
Suspense, mystery	38.9%	35.3%	41.2%
Human drama	27.9%	23.9%	30.8%
Horror	20.4%	21.7%	19.5%
Other	1.7%	1.1%	2.0%

Q3: In the last year, how many times have you been to the cinema? (Sample size=3,561, movie watchers)

	All	Male N=1,496	Female N=2,065
Once or twice	25.2%	26.7%	24.2%
Three to five times	27.7%	25.6%	29.2%
Six to eight times	10.1%	9.2%	10.8%
Nine to eleven times	5.4%	4.1%	6.2%
Twelve to fifteen times	3.3%	3.7%	3.0%
Sixteen or more times	5.9%	5.7%	6.1%
Not been at all	22.4%	25.0%	20.6%

Q4: From where do you obtain cinema information? (Sample size=3,561, movie watchers, multiple answer)

	All	Male N=1,496	Female N=2,065
Television	78.9%	73.1%	83.1%
Magazines	49.3%	46.9%	51.1%
Mobile phone internet	34.9%	34.1%	35.4%
PC internet	27.3%	31.3%	24.4%
Word of mouth	26.5%	21.1%	30.3%
Newspapers	24.7%	26.1%	23.7%
Advertisements in stations, trains	11.2%	10.8%	11.5%
Radio	6.4%	8.4%	5.0%
Other	7.0%	6.1%	7.6%

Q5: What do you think is the best movie ever? (Sample size=3,604, free answer)

Rank	Male N=1,517	Votes	Female N=2,087	Votes
1	Star Wars	54	Pirates of the Carribean	101
2	Die Hard	43	Harry Potter	84
3	Harry Potter	37	My Neighbour Totoro	42
4	Armageddon	29	Armageddon	39
5	Titanic	26	Lord of the Rings	37
6	Pirates of the Carribean	25	Titanic	32
7	Shawshank Redemption	22	Leon	30
8	Rocky	21	Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind	24
9	Odoru Daisousasen (Bayside Shakedown)	20	Laputa, Castle in the Sky	24
10	Top Gun	20	Green Mile	24

Note that votes for individual movies in a given series have been gathered together.