goo Ranking recently looked at who is Japan’s favourite Ken. Unless you are some sort of expert on the Japanese entertainment scene, I’m sure most of these names will mean nothing to you, so feel free to look them up on Google. However, I cannot understand how they came to omit me from the rankings. I’m shocked and heartbroken!
I’ve never tried this before, so here’s a good excuse to include a YouTube video of my favourite Japanese Ken, the macho samurai warrior Matsuken Samba.
goo Ranking released the results of their latest ranking questionnaire, conducted over two days towards the end of August. An unspecified number of goo users replied to the question of what is your lasting impression of the Junichiro Koizumi premiership.
This departs from the usual fluff of these ranking surveys, but I cannot give any guarantee about how accurately the figures reflect true public opinion. As always, the score for each option is the percentage of the votes for the top answer. I’m impressed by Jun-chan’s Elvis impressions making ninth on the list, but disappointed that him dancing with his doppelganger Richard Gere didn’t get anywhere!
Additionally, I suspect that anything directly related to him backing Horiemon’s election campaigning was disallowed due to the ongoing court case. Read the rest of this entry »
As another part of their 91st Ranking Research, DIMSDRIVE Research looked at what people thought was the cause of their bad eyesight. We’ve seen previously how most Japanese wear glasses, so let’s have a look at why they do. No, that reason was not included in the answers! They interviewed 4,347 people (perhaps all thought their eyesight was bad) from their internet monitor group over a period of a week in the middle of August.
The main reason my eyes are wonky, I suspect, is as a child I spent a lot of time staring at the sun. Read the rest of this entry »
As part of DIMSDRIVE Research’s 91st Ranking Research, they published the result of a survey into which inventor to thank for the world today. They surveyed 6,008 people from their monitor pool over six days in mid-August. It might be interesting to cross-reference this post with a previous ranking survey on the top company founders or presidents. Read the rest of this entry »
Don’t ask me why Thane is so popular, and many of the other answers seem like people were just struggling to remember any gaijin’s name. Note that KONISHIKI, an ex-sumo champion, is actually a naturalised Japanese, I believe. Also note that for some reason they give the state that the USA people were born in, and “Los Angeles State” is an error in the published survey!
From that list, I think Panzetta Girolamo (a middle-aged Italian playboy sort of guy) is about the only person who might be interesting to go off on a trip with. Read the rest of this entry »
As part of DIMSDRIVE’s 89th Ranking Research they enquired into people’s views on women-only carriages in trains. They asked three questions to women and one to men.
Compared to other bad manners in and around trains, the women-only carriage regulations are surprisingly well-respected, at least on the lines I have frequented, with it being a relatively rare sight to see a man riding on them, even during the rush-hour peak, considering the number who ignore other regulations such as the no mobiles or no talking on the phone signs, or who smoke outside the designated areas.
Also please note that in Q1 the usage may seem to be low, but if one rides outside of peak rush hours, the trains tend to be not so overcrowded so the risk of getting groped is lower, so the figures here should not be taken simply at face value.
The headline may very well be true, but as part of DIMSDRIVE’s 90th Research Ranking survey, they asked people what they thought the best free things in life were.
I have to pretty much agree with the rankings below; the mottainai part of me wants to disagree with the supermarket carrier bag option, but they always get reused at home as rubbish bags.
One might think that libraries are rather low in the list for a country that seems to like reading so much; perhaps two reasons are that many people buy their paperbacks either new or used, and that libraries don’t tend to stock much manga!
I think the “free newspapers” and “coupon magazines” have a lot of overlap as many free newspapers have coupons as a major part, and the quality of the articles leave a lot to be desired, but there are some exceptions, of course. Not that I’m biased for them plugging me, oh no… Read the rest of this entry »
For lots, lots more Japanese text emoticons and facemarks, be sure to check out Evoticon.net!
In the middle of June, goo Ranking surveyed its readers by means of a public internet questionnaire on what emoticons, or smilies, they often used in mail from their personal computers. The following table presents the top thirty emoticons list. As usual for goo Ranking, number one slot gets ranked with 100 points, and all the rest with the proportion of votes relative to the top vote. More detailed demographics, etc, are not available.
Back in April, I translated another survey on the use of smilies, or emoticons, on Japanese mobile phones, that you may want to reference. Even though the people responding to this survey are (supposed to be!) adult, emoticons reveal a cute childish playfulness, I feel.
Please feel free to use these in your email or messenger applications to add some japanese emotions to your chat! Read the rest of this entry »
Having looked at healing sounds earlier this month, this time goo Ranking looked at what smells evoked images of summer. As usual with goo Rankings, we have absolutely no demographic information whatsoever, so take these numbers with the usual pinch of salt.
For me, if I were being cynical, I would say the smell of fetid sewers and rubbish bins are the most notable summer perfumes of Japan, but to be non-cynical it would be either the smoke of fireworks or newly-cut grass.
The scores are, as usual, 100 points for the top answer and all the others rated as a percentage of the top vote-getter. Read the rest of this entry »
DIMSDRIVE Research recently published the results of their 84th Rankings survey. This time one of the questions was on what mobile phone features are really not needed at all. They questioned 5,950 people from their monitor group at the end of June by means of a closed internet questionnaire.
With most newer phones being loaded with more and more features, with a corresponding increase in development costs (you’d scarcely believe me if I told you how much one of the recent DoCoMo 90x series cost in person-months!), this is perhaps a timely survey that may give the phone companies pause for thought.
Note that SMS features on the list – almost every phone has a far more advanced mail client, so the SMS is just there for legacy support. Another strange answer is the wireless LAN; as far as I am aware, it is not a feature that is widely available apart from one or two specialised SmartPhones. Perhaps people were just lumping BlueTooth and infra-red support together under this category?
This poll also raises more questions than it answers. Why is BlueTooth right up there? Does it indicate consumer ignorance of what it does? Why do more men want rid of games rather than music playback? Read the rest of this entry »
As part of DIMSDRIVE’s 89th Ranking Research they enquired into people’s views on 
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