世論 What Japan Thinks

I’ve never eaten a convenience store bento (boxed lunch) as I am yet to see a vegetarian offering; the best I did when I was single was a Lawson’s tomato pasta, which was particularly disgusting. However, that doesn’t seem to bother many people in this survey from MyVoice into convenience store boxed lunches.

Demographics

Over the first five days of June 2009 15,023 members of the MyVoice internet community successfully completed a private online questionnaire. 54% of the sample were female, 2% in their teens, 14% in their twenties, 36% in their thirties, 30% in their forties, and 18% aged fifty or older.

The actual title of this survey, and coincidentally the name of a sadly deceased (the blog, not the blogger!) gaijin blogger’s blog, is the commonly used abbreviation, conbini bento.
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This recent survey from DIMSDRIVE Research into pets had interesting information regarding insurance, but sadly the number of pets per person were not reported, a figure that would have helped in understanding some of the numbers.

Demographics

Between the 11th and 26th of March 2009 10,501 members of the DIMSDRIVE monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The sample was 50:50 male and female (one more female than male, but she was lost in rounding), 1.1% were in their teens, 13.1% in their twenties, 33.8% in their thirties, 30.6% in their forties, 14.7% in their fifties, and 6.7% aged sixty or older. Additional demographic information included 51.4% lived in a house, 33.5% in a flat, 12.7% in an apartment, and 2.4% in other accommodation.

I really don’t like pet shops in Japan at all; the cages on display are far too small, and they take the animals away from their mothers too early – about six weeks is the standard figure, while they are still cute enough to sell. I remember last year seeing one male kitten that was so desparate for mother’s milk that it had taken to sucking his own nipple, pulling out a lot of his own hair and leaving a big ugly raw-red mark on his chest.
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Considering how wired the country is, with the lowest cost/performance ratio for consumers in the world, the lack of availability of public wifi always surprises me; this recent survey from goo Research and reported on by japan.internet.com into wireless LANs shows ignorance of their very existance is still quite high.

Demographics

Between the 17th and 21st of June 2009 1,079 members of the goo Research monitor panel completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.9% of the sample were male, 16.1% in their teens, 18.4% in their twenties, 21.4% in their thirties, 16.3% in their forties, 15.8% in their fifties, and 12.0% aged sixty or older.

In Q3 it’s perhaps surprising to my overseas readers that games machines were the most popular device other than laptops that were used to connect to wifi hotspots, but to residents here, especially anyone who has visited a Pokemon Centre (the third most popular tourist attraction in Japan!) and seen the numbers hanging out with their DSes. In addition, McDonalds have recently announced wifi hotspots in their restaurants for DS owners.
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The pink bunny is the mascot character of the not-very-sadly missed English school, Nova, which succumbed to market forces last year, although the name has been bought out and the rabbit has returned from the grave and been spotted in television advertisements. The survey presented here is from iShare, where they looked at bankruptcy.

Demographics

Between the 9th and 12th of June 2009 558 mobile phone-owning members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.9% of the sample were male, 38.4% in their twenties, 31.2% in their thirties, and 30.5% in their forties.

If I’ve made mistakes in identifying any of the companies in Q2, please send me corrections and I’ll update as required!

I don’t think any English-speaking foreigners in Japan could have been surprised at Nova’s demise, as it had been ailing for many a month and it was quite frankly a mercy killing when the rabbit finally shuffled off this mortal coil.
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