Before the top tens, here’s the top one mascot character:

Statistics

Most popular hashtags of the year

Rank	Tag	Meaning
1	#艦これ	kankore is the abbreviation for Kantai Collection, an amine series featuring (I believe) schoolgirls who dress up as battleships; probably some of the popularity comes off last year’s similarly-themed series on a girls’ school that races tanks.
2	#あまちゃん	“Ama-chan” is a popular live-action drama series.
3	#lovelive	Love Live, subtitled “School Idol Project”, appears to be another schoolgirl-themed anime.
4	#wbc	World Baseball Classic is baseball’s World Cup
5	#shingeki	Known in English as “Attack on Titan”, this is another anime, although this time with big swords.
6	#ff14	Final Fantasy 14, a computer game.
7	#tv_free	Another animation series, this time called just “Free”.
8	#railgun	“A Certain Magical Railgun” is yet another animation series, this time with scientific wizardry as the theme, it seems.
9	#vividred	“Vividred Operation” is, yes, yet another animation, and from a quick search it seems to fall well into appealing to the kiddie-fiddler demographic.
10	#c84	This appears to be an abbreviation for the 2013 Summer Comic Market, the 84th time it has been held.

Most often mentioned television dramas

Rank	Drama	Translation/transliteration
1	あまちゃん	Ama-chan
2	半沢直樹	Hanzawa Naoki
3	リーガルハイ	Legal High
4	家族ゲーム	Kazoku Game
5	ガリレオ	Galileo
6	ラスト・シンデレラ	Last Cinderella
7	八重の桜	Yae no Sakura
8	孤独のグルメ	Kodoku no Gurume
9	ごちそうさん	Gochisousan
10	夜行観覧車	Yakoukanransha

Most often mentioned sports

Rank	Sport
1	Baseball
2	Football (soccer)
3	Tennis
4	Horse racing
5	Olympics
6	Gymnastics
7	Golf
8	Marathon
9	Football World Cup
10	Sumo

Most often mentioned technology-related keywords

Rank	Keyword
1	LINE
2	Facebook
3	Google
4	Electronic books
5	Kindle
6	iPhone5
7	Apple
8	Xperia
9	PS4
10	Wii U

Most often mentioned yuru-character, mascot character

Rank	Character
1	Funassi
2	Sanomaru
3	Kumamon
4	Hachimaru
5	Barii-san
6	Shippei
7	Fukka-chan
8	Hikonyan
9	Chiiba-kun
10	Yanana

Demographics(?)

Between the 10th and 14th of June 2013 the investigation team visited the six busiest stations on the Tokyo Yamanote line, choosing two spots on each to test, during both the morning peak period of 7 am to 9 am, and evening peak of 5 pm to 7 pm. 100 connections were made from each collection point, for a total of 1,200 tests for each phone.

Specifically, the stations and locations were Shinjuku South and East entrances, Ikebukuro in front of South ticket wicket and Seibu East entrance, Shibuya in front of Tamagawa ticket wicket and Hikarie entrance, Tokyo Yaesu Central entrance and Marunouchi North entrance, Shinagawa Minato South entrance and Central ticket wicket, and Shinbashi Kasumori entrance and SL Plaza. For the tests, au and SoftBank iPhone 5s tested out Apple connections, and Android was represented by docomo’s Xperia Z, au’s HTC J butterfly, and SoftBank’s Aquos Phone Xx.

Instead of a graph, here’s Shinbashi’s SL Plaza:

SL is the abbreviation used in Japan for Steam Locomotive, as you might have guessed!

Research results

1. iPhone 5 packet congestion rates

Station	au iPhone 5 congestion rate	SoftBank iPhone 5 congestion rate
Shinjuku	40.0%	3.0%
Ikebukuro	9.5%	2.0%
Shibuya	3.0%	0.0%
Tokyo	5.0%	0.0%
Shinagawa	52.5%	9.0%
Shinbashi	12.5%	0.0%
Total	20.4%	2.3%

2. iPhone 5 page load time

Station	au iPhone 5 page load time	SoftBank iPhone 5 page load time
Shinjuku	18.11 seconds	5.50 seconds
Ikebukuro	8.24 seconds	4.84 seconds
Shibuya	6.46 seconds	3.74 seconds
Tokyo	7.49 seconds	4.15 seconds
Shinagawa	18.32 seconds	7.94 seconds
Shinbashi	9.64 seconds	3.28 seconds
Total	11.38 seconds	4.91 seconds

By time of day, au was about 50% slower in the evening, versus about 20% for SoftBank. By day of the week, Monday and Friday mornings were slower than the mid-week mornings for both carriers, and Friday evening was the slowest overall for au.

3. Android packet congestion rates

Station	docomo Xperia Z congestion rate	au HTC J congestion rate	SoftBank Aquos Phone Xx congestion rate
Shinjuku	4.0%	0.0%	0.0%
Ikebukuro	17.5%	0.0%	0.0%
Shibuya	2.0%	0.0%	0.0%
Tokyo	3.5%	0.0%	0.0%
Shinagawa	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
Shinbashi	2.5%	0.0%	0.0%
Total	4.9%	0.0%	0.0%

4. Android page load time

Station	docomo Xperia Z page load time	au HTC J page load time	SoftBank Aquos Phone Xx page load time
Shinjuku	6.27 seconds	2.47 seconds	3.30 seconds
Ikebukuro	8.96 seconds	3.16 seconds	5.12 seconds
Shibuya	4.78 seconds	2.76 seconds	3.76 seconds
Tokyo	8.06 seconds	2.98 seconds	3.46 seconds
Shinagawa	4.00 seconds	3.28 seconds	3.86 seconds
Shinbashi	5.08 seconds	3.24 seconds	4.19 seconds
Total	6.19 seconds	2.98 seconds	3.95 seconds

It was difficult to see any obvious trend by time of day or weekday here.

Demographics

Between the 8th and 12th of February 2013 21,789 internet users completed an internet-based questionnaire. For the final report, the data obtained from the survey was weighted according to Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications statistics on internet users in 2011.

Sadly, my employer does not make it into either of the lists…

Research results

Q1: Who is the maker of the smartphone you use the most? (Sample size=8,762)

	This survey	Previous survey (August 2012)
Apple	33%	32%
Sharp	17%	16%
Sony	11%	12%
Fujitsu	9%	8%
Samsung	8%	8%
NEC Casio	5%	6%
Other	17%	19%

Q2: Who is the maker of the tablet you use the most? (Sample size=2,457)

	This survey	Previous survey (August 2012)
Apple	57%	62%
Google	9%	–
Sony	5%	6%
Samsung	4%	7%
Fujitsu	4%	4%
Amazon	3%	–
Other	19%	21%

Statistics gathering methodology

Taking the 200 most popular Japanese web domains in November 2012 as a base, VRI used their own particular methodology to determine the percentage of visits that came from the F2 demographic between the 1st and 30th of Novermber 2012. It is not noted whether the counts included smartphones and mobile phones along with PCs.

Note that over all 200 domains, the F2 demographic made up 15.7% of all visitors.

In lieu of a picture, here’s an ad for Belle Maison:

Statistics results

Top 15 Japanese websites ordered by F2 visitor percentages

Rank	Site name	Description	F2 %age	Total visitors (’000s)
1	bellemaison.jp	Catalogue shopping	42.9%	2,890
2	bennesse.ne.jp	Child-care, learning, etc	34.2%	2,760
3	nissen.co.jp	Catalogue shopping	31.0%	2,470
4	cecile.co.jp	Catalogue shopping	31.0%	2,300
5	cookpad.com	Recipies	29.2%	5,960
6	aeon.co.jp	Supermarket chain	28.7%	2,240
7	uniqlo.com	Clothes	27.6%	3,080
8	7netshopping.jp	7/11 online shopping	25.7%	2,050
9	fujitv.co.jp	Television channel	24.7%	2,560
10	blogmura.com	Blogging site	24.5%	2,010
11	tabelog.com	Restaurant reviews	24.1%	7,010
12	hotpepper.jp	Free restaurant, etc coupon magazine	23.9%	4,160
13	rakuten.ne.jp	Online mall	23.5%	8,680
14	yaplog.jp	Blogging site	23.4%	3,150
15	rbbtoday.com	News magazine	23.2%	2,190

About 1.384 billion Tweets were generated in Japan in September 2012, and these formed the data from which the following top ten was generated. It is also noted that “typhoon” racked up 57.15 million tweets on its peak day, whereas the second-placed “iPhone 5″ managed just 6 million at its peak.

Research results

Top ten Twitter keywords in the Japanese Twit-o-sphere for September 2012

Rank	Keyword	English	Date peaked	Explanation
1	台風	Typhoon	30th September	There was a big typhoon that day
2	iPhone 5	iPhone 5	13th September	The announcement date. There was a second peak on the 21st of September, the release date, but it only reached about two-thirds of the first peak
3	ミスト	Mr Donuts	26th September	The doughnut chain ran a half-price campaign that day, apparently
4	阿部	Abe	26th September	Shinzo Abe was elected president of the opposition Liberal Democratic Party, thanks in part to new medicine for ulcerative colitis.
5	警察	Police	26th September	I don’t know why the police might have trended that day
6	反日	Anti-Japan	18th September	The height of the anti-Japan rioting and looting in China
7	宿題	Homework	2nd September	I’m not sure why homework would have trended that day
8	マギ	Magi	30th September	The title of a new animation series that was about to start being broadcast
9	上戸彩	Aya Ueto	14th September	Another vapid celeb gets hitched in an ill-matched couple, this time to the 16 years older HIRO from EXILE
10	ギャバン	Gaban	23rd September	Apparently the name of an old favourite, Space Sheriff Gavan, who makes a guest appearance in Tokumei Sentai Go-Busters

Demographics

Between April and June of 2012 4,000 mobile phone or smartphone users aged 13 or above completed a survey, but information on how the sample was generated, more detailed demographics, etc was omitted. Furthermore, the data has been post-processed, I think, to reflect the overall demographics of Japan, so the numbers below can be treated as statistics rather than survey results.

Note that in Japan around 102,700,000 people aged 13 or above have mobile devices.

If we further note that 23.5% of the population own smartphones and Apple is 32.3% of that, in S1 that would put Apple at 7.6%, just behind Sony. Unfortunately, we cannot do a similar simple calculation to estimate Samsung’s market share in Japan.

Research results

S1: Mobile device share by manufacturer.

Sharp	22.6%
Panasonic	13.6%
Fujitsu	11.8%
NEC	8.9%
Sony	7.9%
Other	35.2%

S2: Smartphone operating system share.

Google Android	64.1%
Apple iOS	32.3%
Microsoft Windows Mobile	3.2%
Other	0.4%

The report named the top three brands in each of 22 categories of home appliance. I will try to find their data on audio-visual equipment, mobile phones, etc to report on later in the week.

Note that according to a survey last month, electrical superstores are probably the most popular place to shop for electrical items, not the internet as one might think.

Also note that most of the brands below are premium ones; Zojirushi are about middle of the road, and Tiger are cheap. Panasonic have the best showing, but they are usually close to the most expensive in each category.

Research statistics

Item	First	%age	Second	%age	Third	%age
Refrigerator	Panasonic	19.3%	Sharp	16.5%	Hitachi	14.8%
Microwave oven	Sharp	29.6%	Panasonic	24.5%	Hitachi	24.3%
Rice cooker	Zojirushi	22.1%	Tiger	16.9%	Panasonic	15.4%
Electric kettle	Tefal	46.7%	Tiger	14.5%	Zojirushi	10.3%
Coffee marker	Zojirushi	28.2%	Nestle	18.3%	Tiger	14.3%
Electric hotplate	Zojirushi	27.3%	Yamazen	23.0%	Tiger	17.9%
Juicer	Tescom	35.5%	Panasonic	20.6%	Zojirushi	18.1%
Water purifier	Toray	32.6%	Mitsubishi Rayon	27.7%	Panasonic	24.4%
Food mixer	Tescom	39.3%	Zojirushi	9.5%	Panasonic	9.2%
IH (induction) hob	Panasonic	40.2%	Mitsubishi Electric	26.8%	Toshiba	23.9%
Dishwasher	Panasonic	71.5%	Toshiba	20.6%	Zojirushi	7.9%
Washing machine	Hitachi	23.7%	Toshiba	23.3%	Panasonic	18.9%
Vacuum cleaner	Panasonic	18.9%	Hitachi	16.6%	Toshiba	14.7%
Iron	Toshiba	32.4%	Panasonic	32.3%	Sanyo	13.0%
Men’s electric shaver	Panasonic	42.0%	Gillette, Braun	24.1%	Hitachi	9.9%
Scales	Tanita	38.7%	Omron	32.3%	Panasonic	14.5%
Electric toothbrush	Panasonic	57.8%	Gillette, Braun	9.4%	Phillips	8.4%
Hair drier	Panasonic	39.0%	Tescom	24.9%	Koizumi	19.6%
Air purifier	Sharp	46.8%	Panasonic	23.5%	Daikin	16.1%
Heated toilet seat	Panasonic	47.9%	Toto	27.0%	Toshiba	14.6%
Ceiling light (including LED)	Panasonic	33.0%	NEC	27.0%	Toshiba	14.6%
Air conditioner	Panasonic	24.0%	Fujitsu General	15.2%	Daikin	14.0%

Demographics

In 2011 2,000 people over the age of 15 were randomly selected from resident registers to take part in the survey. At the end of May all bar those from two sampling points in Tohoku that were affected by the earthquake were interviewed face-to-face, and the remaining people were interviewed at the end of July. In total 1,251 responded to the questionnaire, with 50.5% of the sample female and 49.5% male. The age breakdown was not given.

These are really very surprising figures for me! I didn’t expect Japan to be so low on police legitimacy, for one thing. Recently there has been a spate of reports of police uselessness when responding to crimes, miscarriages of justice, etc which would have influenced public distrust of the overall criminal justice system, but questions on direct interactions with the system would suggest that even the average bobby on the beat is a bit bent.

Note that the European data was taken from European Social Survey, 2009, “Trust in Justice: European Social Survey”.

Research results

Q1: Which of the following crimes have you been a victim of within the past five years? (Sample size=1,251 in 2011, multiple answer)

	2006	2011
Theft of car	1.4%	0.7%
Theft from car	6.5%	3.2%
Damage to car	18.9%	9.4%
Theft of motorcycle, scooter, etc	11.3%	4.1%
Theft of bicycle	25.9%	19.0%
Tresspassing, illegal entry	5.5%	3.2%
Burglary	3.5%	3.1%
Theft from person (pickpocket, etc)	3.6%	5.0%

Note that vehicular theft is from family-use vehicles, not company cars, etc. For bicycle and motorbike theft, they are based on the percentage of households owning such vehicles. That implies car crime is weighted by ownership too, but no such statement is made.

Next was a table describing the results of the question “The last time you were stopped by police, how dissatisfied or satisfied were you with the interaction?”, comparing Japan with various European countries. The data did not have exact numbers, so I will have to estimate the figures. The countries were ordered by those with the highest number of “Totally satisfied” responses to the question. Note that there were five available ratings, “Totally dissatisfied”, “Dissatisfied”, “Cannot say either way”, Satisfied, and “Totally satisfied”.

First was Denmark, with just over 20% dissatisfied to some extent, almost 35% satisfied, and just under 40% totally satisfied. Sweden came next, with 80% with some degree of satisfaction, then Finland with very similar numbers. UK and Norway both had about 35% totally satisfied and just over 30% satisfied. Germany had 40% satisfied and just over 20% totally satisfied, France had 40% satisfied then just under 20% totally satisfied, and Russia had about 35% dissatisfied to some extent versus just under 40% satisfied to some extend.

However, dead last was Japan. 20% were totally dissatisfied (the highest percentage), another 25% dissatisfied (again the largest figure), only 10% were satisfied, and 5% or less totally satisfied, the lowest figures for all the countries surveyed.

The next table looked at the legitimacy of the criminal justice system, asking “Even if you don’t understand the reason or agree with the reason, what degree of obligation do you have to follow what the police say?” The answer was a score between 0 (no obligation) and 10 (have an obligation), and the ranking order was roughly the same as for the previous question. Denmark scored 7.98 points, followed by the other Scandanavian countries. Japan came last again, with an average of just 3.64 point on the legitimacy scale, nearly one whole point behind Russia.

Next was cooperation with the justice system, asking “To what extent would you actively cooperate with detecting a particular criminal?” Four answers were possible, “Definitely not cooperate”, “Would prefer not to cooperate”, “Would want to cooperate”, and “Would actively cooperate”. Ordered by active cooperation, Germans were first with 70% actively cooperating and another 25% or more cooperating to some extent. France and Norway had just under 60% of active cooperation, followed closely by Denmark, the UK. and Sweden. Finland had about 50% of active cooperation, then Japan with just 30% actively cooperating and 60% passively cooperating. This time Russia came last, with just under 30% actively and 45% passively cooperating.

The last international comparision looked at compliance with the law. Here the question was “In the last five years, when making an insurance claim, how many times have you fiddled the figures or otherwise lied?” Everyone was more honest than I expected, and this time Japan came tops, with 99% never having lied on their insurance forms. In the UK over 98.5% had not, Norway, Sweeded and Finland were around 98%, then France, Germant, Denmark and finally Russia, with just under 96% never having filed a false claim in the last five years. No country reported more than 1% having made multiple false claims.

Demographics

Over the 25th and 26th of November 2011 1,074 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 57.4% of the sample were female, 11.6% in their teens, 14.7% in their twenties, 26.9% in their thirties, 25.0% in their forties, 11.1% in their fifties, and 10.7% aged sixty or older. Note that the score in the results refers to the relative number of votes for each option, not a percentage of the total sample.

Here’s some new adults with a random dude:

And here’s a local mayor trying to get hip with the kids:

For my part, I felt I became an adult when I moved out of university dorms and started flat sharing, which incidentally was just round about my 20th birthday. Note that this doesn’t feature in the list below – for some reason flat-sharing is not popular at all in Japan.

Ranking result

Q: When did you feel you had truly reached adulthood? (Sample size=1,074)

Rank		Score
1	When I started to receive a salary	100
2	When I understood what I had to thank my parents for	90.2
3	When I had a child	78.6
4	When I got married	77.0
5	When I started living on my own	32.8
6	When I got a post with responsibilities at work	30.9
7	When I started to show consideration to people	29.5
8	When I started an insurance policy	24.9
9	When I started to check how the economy was doing	23.0
10	When I bought a house	19.8
11	When I got interested in politics	16.3
12	When I started giving New Year gifts to nephews, nieces	13.6
13	When I started saving regularly	12.7
14	When I started skipping on sleep to pursue my desires	11.7
15=	When I switched to a sensible car	6.5
15=	When I threw away a collection I’d spent a long time building up	6.5

First, the article listed historical prices for cinema tickets, calling it cartel pricing. However, there was no adjustment for inflation, but I found a site with historical CPI data, so I’ll use January 2011 as a base.

I think that table is saying that the correction to 1,500 yen makes prices cheaper than what they were in 1970. If the price remains at 1,800 yen, the 1970 price adjusted for inflation is 576 yen, which means that current prices are within 4% of what they were in 1970 allowing for CPI; this actually destroys the author’s argument about how prices have risen drastically since 1970. However, let’s move onto the other points.

Currently, although 1,800 yen is the standard price, one day a week is Ladies’ Day, where women get in for 1,000 yen. Furthermore, over 60s get in for the same discounted price, but Toho Cinemas are talking about getting rid of Ladies’ Day and limiting the OAP discount to the over 65s. The reason for this is that at the moment over 60% of tickets sold are at 1,000 yen, just one-tenth are at the full price, and another tenth at 1,500 yen, so if this goes through it will mean eight times as many people paying more than paying less!

The final statistic provided is that in 2004 the average ticket price was around 1,200 yen, but by last year it had dropped to under 1,100 yen, according to unnamed sources in the cinema business. Although there seems to be a bit of a slippery-slope argument here, it is iinteresting food for thought!