世論 What Japan Thinks

Today, 3rd November, is Culture Day in Japan, so I present some modern otaku culture for your enjoyment. This is a survey from iShare on the awareness of Hatsune Miku. If you are not aware who she is, keep reading, or search for her on the internet, or just visit this fan site.

Demographics

Over the 6th and 7th of October 2008 540 members of the free email forwarding service CLUB BBQ completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 55.2% of the sample were male, and 19.8% in their twenties, and 80.2% in their thirties. Why there was such a narrow age band, I don’t know.

Hatsune Miku picture grabbed from Mika-tan’s blog via Danny Choo.

Research results

Q1: Do you use Nico-Nico Douga (Japan’s YouTube)? (Sample size=540)

	All	Twenties N=107	Thirties N=433
Frequently	12.4%	27.1%	8.8%
Sometimes	23.7%	24.3%	23.6%
Not much	7.8%	11.2%	6.9%
Almost never	14.3%	7.5%	15.9%
Never	41.9%	29.9%	44.8%

There was very little variation in usage between males and females, however.

Q2: Do you know Hatsune Miku? (Sample size=540)

	All	Twenties N=107	Thirties N=433
Yes (to SQs)	60.6%	73.8%	57.3%
No	39.4%	26.2%	42.7%

Men were more than 10 percentage points more aware of her.

Q2SQ1: Where did you first hear about Hatsune Miku? (Sample size=327)

	All	Male N=196	Female N=131	Twenties N=79	Thirties N=248
News site	32.7%	35.2%	29.0%	26.6%	34.7%
Movie sharing site	32.4%	29.1%	37.4%	40.5%	29.8%
Magazine	8.9%	10.2%	6.9%	5.1%	10.1%
Friends	8.9%	7.7%	10.7%	12.7%	7.7%
2channel BBS	7.3%	8.2%	6.1%	6.3%	7.7%
Blog	6.1%	5.6%	6.9%	3.8%	6.9%
Other	3.7%	4.1%	3.1%	5.1%	3.2%

Q2SQ2: Have you heard any of Hatsune Miku’s songs? (Sample size=327)

	All	Twenties N=79	Thirties N=248
Yes (to SQ3)	64.5%	79.7%	59.7%
No	35.5%	20.3%	40.3%

Q2SQ3: Where have you heard any of Hatsune Miku’s songs? (Sample size=211, multiple answer)

	All	Twenties N=63	Thirties N=148
Nico-Nico Douga	76.8%	87.3%	72.3%
YouTube	46.4%	41.3%	48.6%
Blog	11.8%	14.3%	10.8%
Web Page	7.6%	12.7%	5.4%
CD	3.8%	6.3%	2.7%
Other	7.6%	6.3%	8.1%

Q2SQ4: Which of the following Hatsune Miku’s songs have you heard? (Sample size=211, multiple answer)

Song	Video	Percentage
Miku-Miku Ni Shite Ageru		69.2%
Meruto		32.2%
Koi Suru VOC@LOID		28.9%
Hajimete no Oto		20.9%
Packaged		12.3%
Taimu Rimitto		10.0%
Anata no Uta-Hime		9.5%
Erekutorikku Enjeu		9.5%
celluloid		8.5%
Oshiete!! Mahou no Lyric		6.2%
Kono Omoi Tsutaetakute		6.2%
Momiji		4.3%
Mugen No Hoshi-Zora	Watch on Nico-Nico Douga here. Requires account.	3.8%
Other title		15.2%
Don’t know the song titles		37.9%

Cross-referencing by Nico-Nico Douga usage, almost all frequent users knew her, dropping to a third of those who had never used the video sharing site. Similarly, two-thirds of the frequent Nico-Nico Douga users first learnt about her there, whereas just 4.5% who almost never used it learnt about her there.