世論 What Japan Thinks

One of Japan’s most recognisable horror icons is Sadako, a long black-haired (covering her face, usually) woman in a white dress that climbs out of your television to deliver a curse. With a new film coming out soon, goo Ranking decided to ask what other kinds of Sadako they would hate to meet.

Demographics

Between the 7th and 9th of July 2013 1,096 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.5% of the sample were female, 24.4% in their teens, 25.2% in their twenties, 24.8% in their thirties, and 25.6% in their forties; there was no-one older than 49 in this sample. Note that the score in the results refers to the relative number of votes for each option, not a percentage of the total sample.

I found Baseball Sadako pretty disturbing:

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The time for watching horror movies in Japan is not Halloween, but mid-summer, for the cooling effect of chills down one’s spine. However, this survey from goo Ranking looked at which foreign horror films people found traumatic.

Demographics

Between the 7th and 9th of July 2013 1,096 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.5% of the sample were female, 24.4% in their teens, 25.2% in their twenties, 24.8% in their thirties, and 25.6% in their forties; there was no-one older than 49 in this sample. Note that the score in the results refers to the relative number of votes for each option, not a percentage of the total sample.

Note that the definition of “horror” is a bit loose – I wouldn’t class Psycho and Alien, for instance, as horror, and Sixth Sense was just awful.

Have any of my readers found Japanese horror movies traumatic? I’ve never actually watched any myself, but as for Western movies, Carrie was a bit traumatic for me.

Here is a picture of Japan’s most famous horror character, Sadako:

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japan.internet.com reported on a recent survey by goo Research looking at electronic text-based communication, the second time such a survey has been performed; the first survey was also presented on this blog in May.

Demographics

Between the 5th and 9th of August 2013 exactly 1,000 mobile phone- (including smartphone-) using members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private mobile phone internet-based questionnaire. 56.8% of the sample were female, 1.4% in their teens, 20.4% in their twenties, 36.5% in their thirties, 26.5% in their forties, and 15.2% aged fifty or older.

I did say in the last report that I found the SMS figure hard to believe, but other people argued that it was realistic, although I can’t say I was terribly convinced.

Note that the implication of this survey is for private messaging, not public postings to SNS or comment threads.
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Ginza HS Clinic recently released a bit of curious survey that tried to establish a link between going bald and SNS. Some of you might remember a similarly dodgy survey from them (and headline from me!) from a couple of months back.

Demographics

During the month of April 2013 400 male members of the Rakutan Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The sample consisted of 200 men who self-identified as going bald and 200 who had a full head of hair. Furthermore, 20.0% of each group were in their twenties, 20.0% in their thirties, 20.0% in their forties, 20.0% in their fifties, and 20.0% in their sixties.

Talking of slapheads, not surprisingly there is a Facebook group for photos of hot bald men. There is also this bald women group too; Google tells me the Arabic means “Shaved head women Salaat”. Coincidentally, the Japanese word “Salatto” means “sleek, smooth”, just like after a shaved head…
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Today is the last day of my summer holidays, and although I didn’t go to the beach – indeed, I’ve never been to the beach in Japan – this survey from goo Ranking into slightly painful to behold women’s actions or behaviours one sees at the beach will perhaps be the last mention of summer on this blog for this year.

Demographics

Between the 7th and 9th of July 2013 1,096 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.5% of the sample were female, 24.4% in their teens, 25.2% in their twenties, 24.8% in their thirties, and 25.6% in their forties; there was no-one older than 49 in this sample. Note that the score in the results refers to the relative number of votes for each option, not a percentage of the total sample.

This rather painfully sad to behold scene came up when I did a Flickr search;

I did think of posting real women, but I’m uncomfortable with the privacy aspect and also with using cheesecake as a hit-gathering technique.
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Cross Marketing recently conducted a survey into iPhone5 satisfaction levels, and interestingly choosing to contrast satisfaction levels between users of the two carriers who offer the phone, au and SoftBank.

Demographics

Between the 19th and 21st of July 2013 1,000 iPhone5-owning members of the Cross Marketing monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 500 of the users had au by KDDI as their carrier, and 500 had SoftBank. The ages of the sample ranged from 18 to 59 years old, but no further demographic information was provided.

SoftBank have been putting a lot of effort into stressing how their network has improved – indeed, I have previously presented statistics showing how good they are – and the message seems to be getting through with satisfaction ratings being higher in almost every category as seen below.

Here SoftBank explain the concept of “Connecting”, assisted by Shinji Kagawa of Manchester United and Bob Sapp, an ex-American Football player:

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There’s been a lot of surveys over the past few years about single Japanese and their widespread disinterest in matters of love, so as another datapoint I present this survey from the Nikkei newspaper (Japan’s Financial Times) into single working women’s real love situation.

Demographics

During the month of June 430 single female readers of the Nikkei newspaper aged in their twenties or thirties completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The average age was 32.9 years old, the average salary was 3,077,000 yen, and the average number of people they had had a relationship with was 3.6.

A colleague at work would fall into the sample demographic above (perhaps she even did answer it!) and the impression I get from what she talks about and her Facebook posts is that she’s far too into girls’ nights out to be bothered with all this love nonsense. On the other hand, Japanese seem to keep their relationships secret, so I can’t say I know what is really going on!
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Following on from Disneyland, another big summer event is attending a festival. This ranking survey from goo Ranking looked at what sorts of things tend to happen at music festivals.

Demographics

Between the 7th and 9th of July 2013 1,096 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.5% of the sample were female, 24.4% in their teens, 25.2% in their twenties, 24.8% in their thirties, and 25.6% in their forties; there was no-one older than 49 in this sample. 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 a bunch of Santa Clauses playing with balls from about the only Japan music festival I can name, Summersonic:

I’ve never been to a music festival either in Japan or elsewhere, so I cannot comment much; all I know is that Glastonbury usually ends up as a mud bath.
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It’s now the holiday week in Japan, and that means that Disneyland and Disney Sea will no doubt be packed to the gunwales with tourists. (That reminds me, I must find some statistics on the most popular tourist attractions in Japan!) So, this survey from goo Ranking looks at what people who go to Disneyland tend to end up doing.

Demographics

Between the 31st of May and 3rd of June 2013 1,069 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.1% of the sample were female, 24.8% in their teens, 24.9% in their twenties, 25.0% in their thirties, and 25.4% in their forties; there was no-one older than 49 in this sample. 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 someone doing a number 6, I suspect.

Note that buying souvenirs (and other general Disney tat) features very heavily. Despite living 500 kilometers away from The Magic Kindgom, it seems, for instance, that almost every teenage schoolgirl I see has a Duffy bear doll hanging off their schoolbags.

And before you ask, no, I don’t know the difference between number 2 and number 7!
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japan.internet.com recently reported on a survey conducted by goo Research into weather forecasts, and in their report they focused on smartphone weather-related apps.

Demographics

Between the 26th and 30th of July 2013 1,066 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 54.5% of the sample were male, 14.0% in their teens, 15.3% in their twenties, 21.4% in their thirties, 16.9% in their forties, 15.0% in their fifties, and 17.4% aged sixty or older.

I don’t have any weather apps on my smartphone – they are a waste of packets, and furthermore my wife sends me a photo of the weather forecast on the television at lunch time and early evening. However, I’ve recently got a company phone, and the Google Now local weather forecast is useful, but I suspect once the novelty factor wears off I’ll stop using it.
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