世論 What Japan Thinks

I’m not sure if the phrasing in the story title is familiar to many, but in the UK where Harlequin novels are called Mills and Boon, the popular generic term for such style of romantic novels is the bodice-ripper. Anyway, that title serves to give away the results of a survey conducted by iBridge Research Plus and reported on by japan.internet.com into mobile phone novels.

Demographics

On the 2nd of March 2008 300 female members of the Research Plus monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 25.0% of the sample were in their twenties, 49.0% in their thirties, and 26.0% in their forties.

I’ve never read a mobile phone novel or even a novel on a mobile phone for that matter, although when I last translated a similar survey I mentioned that there are many readers for reading books on most types of mobiles, but like many other things I talk about I’ve never quite had time to try it out!

Research results

First of all, 24.3%, or 73 women, said they had read a novel on a mobile phone. This is up nine percentage points from a similar survey just six months ago by the same company. They were asked the following questions.

Q1: Which sites or services have you used to read mobile phone novels? (Sample size=73, multiple answer)

	Votes	Percentage
Mahou no iLand	38	52.1%
livedoor mobile	7	9.6%
Novel Bulletin Board	5	6.8%
Novel-Line	2	2.7%
Other	35	47.9%

Q2: What was your impression of the mobile phone novels you read? (Sample size=73)

All enjoyable	6.9%
Most enjoyable	52.1%
Most unenjoyable	24.7%
All unenjoyable	1.4%
Don’t remember	6.9%
Don’t know	8.2%

Q3: What genres of mobile phone novels have you read? (Sample size=73, multiple answer)

	Votes	Percentage
Romance	61	83.6%
Mystery	8	11.0%
Fantasy	8	11.0%
Comedy	7	9.6%
Drama	7	9.6%
Gay/lesbian	5	6.8%
Non-fiction	4	5.5%
Horror	3	4.1%
Other	1	4.1%