世論 What Japan Thinks

Here’s a bit of a short survey that has rather interesting results; iShare looked at the end of the year Jumbo Lottery.

Demographics

Between the 21st and 25th of November 2008 430 members of the CLUB BBQ free online email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.5% of the sample were male, 13.3% in their twenties, 54.4% in their thirties, 23.5% in their forties, and 8.8% in their teens or fifty or older.

First a lottery tip: if you can spare 300 yen, buy just one ticket. This measurably changes your odds from absolutely zero to infinitesimal. Buying a second leaves your odds still infinitesimal, so don’t bother.

Next, the lottery does seem to have a lot of misconceptions surrounding it, mainly focussing on the drawing method and the relatively small first prize, leading many to think that it’s even more of a tax on the innumerate than the average one. However, the term “lottery” is misleading, as most people imagine the pick six from fifty-type schemes that are prevelant in the west, whereas Japan’s is more like a raffle – all the sold tickets go into a hat and winners are drawn from there, so if it is a sell-out all the prizes (in theory) will be claimed.

This year there are 70 first prizes of 200 million yen (roughly 2 million US dollars), 140 almost-first prizes of 50 million yen, 6,930 almost-almost first prizes of 100,000 yen, 140 second prizes of 100 million yen, 700 at 5 million yen, and so on, assuming they sell all 70 blocks of tickets. In total, there are 700 million tickets for sale (about 6 per man, woman and child) for a total value of 210 billion yen. I make that just over 99 billion yen in prize money, or 47.3% of the sales, leaving just under 111 billion yen in the pot. Once television and print advertising, sales overhead, amakudari-inflated old-boy director salaries, and everything else are paid for, that leaves a little bit left over (can anyone point me to figures for administration costs on the lottery?) for good causes, but I have little idea what they fund.

Oh, there’s a headline figure of 300 million yen advertised as the top prize, but I’m not really sure how one ticket can get the extra 100 million.

So, back to the survey.
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This recent survey from iShare looked at cinemas, touching on where I went for my first date with my wife, the cinema, which is actually a really poor place to choose, but that’s another matter altogether!

Demographics

Between the 12th and 14th of November 2008 just 404 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 54.7% of the sample were male, 13.6% in their twenties, 47.8% in their thirties, 27.7% in their forties, and 10.9% in their teens or aged fifty or older.

Note that for Q1 there are two reasons why women go to the movies more; first there are more women with the free time to go, and second most cinemas have a “Ladies’ Day” once per week where they charge 1,000 yen per ticket for the ladies. Us men only have the first of the month to get our cheap tickets, although I have seen one cinema, Movix Rokko, that also has a Men’s Day.

Two days I also signed up for a Toho Cinema Mastercard that promises to give one free movie for every six, including movies watched using advance discount tickets.
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I haven’t looked at Social Networking Services (SNS) for a while, so I was pleased to find this one to report, published on japan.internet.com and conducted by another newcomer to me, Point On Research, on mobile SNS.

Demographics

On the 16th of November 2008 exactly 1,000 mobile phone users completed a survey. It does not say whether or not the survey was conducted via mobile phone or computer-based internet, as a mobile phone base would imply a higher percentage of people on all-you-can-eat data plans, so these sort of people tend to be more active online. The sample was exactly 50:50 male and female, and 20:20:20:20:20 of people in their teens, twenties, thirties, forties, and fifties.

Note that although most people use a cut-down browser on their mobile phones, all the major PC-sites have tailored their interfaces to fit these restrictions. Having said that, most of the top sites in Q1 are mobile-only free game-centred SNSes.
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Even on my quite old analogue tube television, digital looks very, very nice, and this is the main reason for nine in ten being completely satisfied with terrestrial digital television broadcasting in Japan, according to this survey on the topic, goo Research’s third regular look at digital TV, and reported on by japan.internet.com.

Demographics

Between the 31st of October and the 4th of November 2008 1,044 members of the goo Research online monitor group successfully completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.9% of the sample were male, 16.5% in their teens, 18.1% in their twenties, 21.6% in their thirties, 16.1% in their forties, and 27.7% aged fifty or older.

I remember when I bought my television they were showing full digital-ready televisions alongside (with a decent markup at that time) at Yodobashi Camera and the picture quality between the two was incomparable. However, I noticed that the sample DVD they were playing on the set we eventually bought was a DVD encoded at a quite low bit rate, and I wouldn’t have put it past them to have been deliberately tampering with the signal to add a little noise.

Conversely, I’ve noticed on large-screen full digital LCDs and plasmas any flaws in the source material are crystal clear and… I feel I sound like an old fogey declaring that vinyl beats CD!

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I was prompted to translate this survey by Mari’s recent mention of such cars. Ita-sha, literally painful cars (to look at, or from the point of view of the car?), painted up with anime characters of the so-called moe kind, which usually means infeasibly large-breasted schoolgirls. This recent survey published by iShare on the topic of car customisation found almost one in three willing, to use the vernacular, to rice up their cars.

Demographics

Between the 25th and 27th of October 2008 424 members of the free email forwarding service CLUB BBQ completed a private online questionnaire. 53.8% of the sample were male, 15.3% in their twenties, 49.3% in their thirties, 26.7% in their forties, and 8.7% in their teens or fifty or older. The sample is a bit small to draw conclusions from, but the topic is quite fun so it would be a shame not to translate this one.

I’ve never seen a manga-adorned car myself, although there is no shortage of be-spoilered and be-skirted mini-vans farting around town with their after-market exhausts which certainly qualify as ita-sha in terms of my own eyes and ears.
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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.
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With everyone spending so long in trains every day, and there being only so much email you can write, mobile phone applets are an alternative diversion that almost all Japanese phones support. This recent survey from goo Research and reported on by japan.internet.com looked at this topic of mobile phone applets.

Demographics

Between the 16th and 20th of October 2008 1,076 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.9% of the sample were male, 15.9% in their teens, 18.0% in their twenties, 21.6% in their thirties, 16.8% in their forties, 15.7% in their fifties, and 12.0% aged sixty or older.

When I get a new phone I tend to play the built-in applets to death, then get bored and give up, so I haven’t actually used any for over a year. Every time I see the ads I quite fancy signing up for Pakurosu, but since it is 315 yen per month, I always resist the temptation!
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With the Olympics over for another four years and the South Africa World Cup still two years away, this is a good time to take a look with MyVoice at sports, their third look at the subject. Incidentally, if you want to find out more about sports in Japan, be sure to check out this month’s Japan Blog Matsuri on sport in Japan!

Demographics

Over the first five days of October 2008 14,560 members of the MyVoice internet community completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 54% of the sample were female, 1% in their teens, 15% in their twenties, 37% in their thirties, 30% in their forties, and 17% aged fifty or older.

I don’t have time to watch sport on the television, especially with wall-to-wall baseball, in which I have zero interest, and even if I had the time, the wife owns the remote control…

I used to be a big Formula 1 fan, having attended Suzuka thrice, but even though last month I came across the start of the Japan Grand Prix live on television, both Hamilton and Coulthard piled up on the first lap and the Fuji circuit was totally unfamiliar to me, so I gave up and did the hoovering instead.
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With One Seg terrestrial digital television now having crossed the 50% threshold in mobile phones (according to another survey; this one just doesn’t quite make it), with most One Seg mobile having recording facilities, and with many of the new hard disk video recorders having options to save contents to memory cards for replay on mobile phones, this recent survey from Marsh Inc and reported on by japan.internet.com into video on mobile phones looked at how these features are being used.

Demographics

Over the 2nd and 3rd of October 2008 300 mobile phone-owning members of the Marsh monitor group answered a private internet-based questionnaire. The sample was evenly split 50:50 male and female, and 20:20:20:20:20 between those in their twenties, thirties, forties, fifties, and sixty or over.

Yesterday evening I) watched One Seg for the first time, but even on a slow local train, my wife’s external aerial-free phone kept breaking up so the best we could manage was the subtitles! That probably goes some way to explaining why the numbers watching on the move are relatively low.
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Perhaps it’s partially because the rules on advertising beer in the UK and the US, etc are very strict about not promoting enjoying beer, but humour is often key theme in their advertisements. Without such shackles in Japan, television spots for beer focus on noisy gulping down of said alcoholic beverages. This subject, beer and advertisements, was the topic for a recent survey from MyVoice.

Demographics

Over the first five days of September 2008 15,367 members of the MyVoice internet community successfully completed a private online questionnaire. 54% of the sample were female, 15% in their twenties, 37% in their thirties, 29% in their forties, and 19% in their fifties.

Just to give you an idea on how these beers get advertised, in Q2 I’ve embedded YouTube videos for each of the brands. Yes, that’s a very young Helena Bonham-Carter selling Suntory Malts! As a bonus, here’s an extra advert that I can’t embed…
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