世論 What Japan Thinks

goo Research recently published the results of some research conducted in cooperation with Yomiuri Shimbun into fish and shellfish, conducted amongst their online monitor group between the 16th and 18th of the February.

Demographics

1,091 successfully completed the questionnaire. 50.3% were male, 21.8% in their twenties, 18.4% in their thirties, 21.6% in their forties, 17.5% in their fifties, and 20.6% aged sixty or older.

Note that in Q7 just 1% eat fish or shellfish less than once a month, which suggests that vegetarianism still has a long, long way to go in Japan! In addition, I wouldn’t be surprised if a significant part of that 1% included people who eat meat instead.

You may be interested in cross-referencing this with another recent survey on tuna habits and quota cut awareness.
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MyVoice published the results of a survey conducted over five days at the start of February into going to the movies.

Demographics

13,171 members of their monitor group successfully completed the survey; 54% were female, 2% in their teens, 20% in their twenties, 39% in their thirties, 26% in their forties, and 13% in their fifties.

Recently I’ve been to the cinema rather a lot; perhaps I’d be in the eleven to fifteen times? I think about twice a month sounds about right. As for the films I’d recommend, last weekend’s Perfume: The Story of a Murderer was a very enjoyable but rather dark murder-mystery; Pirates of the Carribean, if just for Johnny Depp’s frequent buggering (as it were); and Cars, because I love Pixar! I wanted to ask for my money back after The Da Vinci Code.
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Following a link I spotted entitled Nearly Half Believe “Expert” Health Advice Dispensed on Boob Tube on Rising Sun of Nihon, I tracked down the original survey on health information dispensed by television programs, conducted by the Institute of Future Technology in the middle of February. The only demographic information available is that 1,055 people completed a web-based survey.

This survey was conducted after the Aru Aru Daijiten natto scandal blew up, so that should be kept in mind when viewing the results.
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As a sort-of follow-up to yesterday’s survey on holidays involving overnight stays, this time we’ll look at a survey by infoPLANT into both overnight and day return trips. The fieldwork was carried out over a period of six days in the middle of January. Note that the full paid-for survey contains many more questions.

Demographics

1,500 members of the infoPLANT questionnaire panel responded to the survey. The sample was balanced 50:50 male and female in each age group, and exactly 20% in their twenties, thirties, forties, fifties and sixties or older.

I’m surprised (actually, I’m not surprised, really) by the top holiday information source being television travel programs. I remember back in the UK the travel programs would have the staff joining a standard tour, sometimes with family, often staying in middle-of-the-road hotels, and participating in the usual activities that the average holidaymaker might take part in, resulting in a review that I personally could trust; here in Japan the traveller gets the best room, professionaly lit to highlight everything, eat off the top of the menu with the chef or owner hovering over the table, and get the one-on-one guided tour of the sites, declaring everything to be absolutely wonderful, including, no doubt, the brown envelopes filled with unmarked bills from the featured businesses. I know of no travel shows that make any attempt to appear genuine.
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goo Research recently published the results of a survey they conducted into people’s plans for holidays this year. Over five days in the middle of January 1,082 people from their online monitor group successfully completed a private internet-based questionnaire.

Demographics

The sample was 49.9% male, with 21.0% in their twenties, 18.8% in their thirties, 21.5% in their forties, 17.6% in their fifties, and 21.1% aged sixty or older. It’s good to see a large sample of older people, as I suspect that retired people travel disproportionately often.

I’m off to Europe too this summer, but I’m not sure what will happen regarding the blog; perhaps I’ll just stick it on autopilot summarising or reposting last year’s news? I have zero intention of blogging from abroad, and I doubt if I’ll even bother reading my mail. For domestic travel, I’d love to know how many people plan spending a night in their home prefecture. Wifey and I spend a night a few times a year in Kobe and Osaka (at a proper hotel, not the by-the-hour type!) for no particular reason other than we get a good offer, with both cities within 40 minutes travel time from home. In fact, last month we stayed at Hotel Piena in Kobe on a full board including five course room service deal with quite amazingly good food, especially considering they whipped up some veggie dishes for me at very short notice. We had a small complaint about noise from upstairs, and the manager sent me a nice letter of apology and three 20% off discount tickets!
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Following on from the recent survey on what presents other than chocolates men plan to buy, this time goo Ranking looks at what sweet item the women would like for White Day. The situation for men buying these sweets is co-workers purchasing them in return for the giri, obligatory, chocolates they got from their female colleagues on Valentine’s Day. So, without any further ado, let’s look at the list.
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NEPROJAPAN recently published the results of a survey they conducted into how mobile phones have changed their lives. A similar survey was conducted last year. Respondents were solicited by means of an option through the menuing systems of the three main mobile phone service providers, namely DoCoMo’s iMode, SoftBank’s Yahoo! Keitai, and au’s EZweb over a two day period from the 8th to 9th of February.

Demographics

Of the 3,746 who successfully completed the survey, 56% were female, 3% in their teens, 36% in their twenties, 44% in their thirties, and 17% in their forties. Note that due to the self-selecting nature of the survey, heavy users of mobile phones will most likely be over-represented in the figures.

Recently, the one thing that I’ve started using much more, now that both my wife and I have a phone that supports it, is Deco-Mail, HTML mail for mobiles, which basically means lots and lots of animated GIFs in mail.
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Just in case you’re still wondering what to buy for White Day on the 14th of March this year, goo Rankings were good enough to publish a list of the top 20 things Japanese men want to give their women, excluding (or alongside) chocolates.

The fieldwork was conducted between the 18th and 20th of January this year. No further demographics are available. Note that this is what men want to buy, not necessarily what women want to receive!
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Following up on two days ago’s translated survey that showed surprisingly high penetration of Internet Explorer 7, japan.internet.com published the results of a survey conducted by JR Tokai Express Research into Windows Vista. The survey was conducted on the 28th of February, barely a month after Vista’s release in Japan, which seems not to have been much of a success. Note also the results of a previous survey conducted last year into interest in Microsoft Vista recorded one in five planning to upgrade.

Demographics

330 people from their monitor group employed in public or private enterprises replied to the private internet-based survey. 74.8% of the sample was male, 16.4% in their twenties, 43.9% in their thirties, 28.8% in their forties, 8.2% in their fifties, and 2.7% in their sixties.

I’m holding off from Vista for the moment myself; I don’t see any need to upgrade from XP, and indeed I also see many reasons not to upgrade, having used it for a time at work last Autumn when testing out the beta versions. Despite most people having Vista-ready notebook computers, I don’t know of anyone at our workplace who has tried upgrading their main PCs.
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Following Giganews picking up my emoticons translation, from the same article I learnt about a survey conducted by Nagase Beauty Care into the matter of working women and stress. The survey was conducted on the 16th and 17th of January by means of an internet-based questionnaire.

Demographics

500 women from all over the country working in public companies were interviewed, with 125 in their twenties, 125 in their thirties, 125 in their forties, and 125 in their fifties.

Not being a woman, I obviously cannot add my own opinions here!
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