If you’ve got a heap of New Year postcards, don’t throw them away – there’s not just the lottery with the results due to be announced on the 24th of January, but if you go to a nearby Toho Cinema with a New Year postcard with the last digit of the six-digit number in the bottom-right corner equal to either “1″ or “4″, you can see almost any movie for 1,000 yen, but there is an extra 300 yen surcharge for 3D. The campaign starts on Saturday the 9th of January and ends on the 28th of February. They’ll stamp your postcard then return it to you to prevent you using it twice.
A recent survey from iShare into going to the cinema by oneself is a bit difficult for me to interpret, especially as I feel there should have been a question on why people go to the cinema by themselves rather than with others.
Demographics
Between the 5th and 10th of November 2009 531 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 59.3% of the sample were male, 34.7% in their twenties, 30.9% in their thirties, and 34.5% in their forties.
Rather appropriately, I’m translating this survey as I’m riding on a train to meet my wife who went to see two movies alone today. Although a lot of foreigners complain about the cinema being 1,800 yen a ticket, if you’re regularly paying that much you’re doing it wrong! Today, for instance, is the first of the month, so all tickets are 1,000 yen each, plus by using the ticket stub in a restaurant in the shopping mall complex we can get a free cake each, plus we have cinema mileage cards so we get both bonus points that can be exchanged for popcorn and finally a see-six-get-one-free system.
Between the 5th and 10th of November 2009 531 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 59.3% of the sample were male, 34.7% in their twenties, 30.9% in their thirties, and 34.5% in their forties.
Not being a manga fan myself, I’m not really aware of any such activities, and even when it comes to Hollywood movies converting DC and Marvel characters to movies, I’m not familiar enough with the cartoon version to have any preconceptions shattered. Read the rest of this entry »
One of the top two complaints I hear from other foreigners in Japan is the rather high 1,800 yen (US$19 or UK¤12 or so) per seat, but this survey from RealWorld RealResearch and reported on by japan.internet.com into movies found few taking advantage of discounts.
Demographics
Over the 25th and 26th of June 2009 1,017 members of the RealWorld RealResearch (I never tire of typing the company’s name!) monitor group completed a private online questionnaire. 57.9% of the sample were male, 11.5% in their teens, 12.9% in their twenties, 26.5% in their thirties, 15.9% in their forties, 12.3% in their fifties, and 20.8% aged sixty or above.
When I say most people pay full price, the full price is not necessarily 1,800 yen. The first of the month is usually 1,000 yen, one day a week is Ladies’ Day with 1,000 yen for females, and late shows (from 9 pm usually) are often discounted by 300 or 500 yen. However, I usually buy advance tickets; these are normally 1,300 yen, and if you buy from the cinema or convenience stores they often come with a free gift. The third party ticket shops mentioned below usually stock unsold advance tickets or cheap daytime passes, but I find them not worth the bother.
If you go to Toho group cinemas frequently, I also strongly recommend the Toho Cine Mileage card; their credit card version is free, and for every six movies you see you get one free! Read the rest of this entry »
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. Read the rest of this entry »
Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea was the sweetest film I’ve seen since My Neighbour Totoro, and over 8 million Japanese seem to agree with that sentiment. The official Ponyo site itself has racked up just under a million visitors, 995,000 to be precise, (low in my view) from home computers in July, the highest ever figures for the film maker Ghibli’s properties, with the main ages of the visitors being 34% in their thirties and 29% in their forties. By sex, 57% were female. Previous records were 701,000 in November of 2004 for Howl’s Moving Castle, and 444,000 in July of 2006 for Tales of Earthsea.
For all of the Ghibili sites visitors jumped from 114,000 in June to 1,123,000 in July.
For box office sales, number one for the first half of the year was 相棒, aibou, with 311,000 predominantly male viewers in May alone, with over half of the total being over forty years old. In July, the top movie was Hana Yori Dango (Boys before Flowers) with 576,000 ticket sales, 85% of them to females, and 38% of the viewers 19 years old or younger.
Between the 10th and 24th of August 2007 Yahoo! Japan Value Insight published an open survey through the menuing system of NTT DoCoMo’s iMode mobile phone menuing system. 3,604 people self-selected themselves to take part in this survey; 57.9% were female, 5.6% in their teens, 30.3% in their twenties, 41.2% in their thirties, 19.3% in their forties, and 3.6% aged fifty or older.
The movie rankings in Q5 are rather interesting; I never understood why Japan loved Armageddon so much, both men and women, it seems. Men chose just one Japanese live-action movie in their top ten, whereas women chose three Ghibli animations, for instance.
One may also note that Q1 does not include downloading off the internet, either through legal or illegal channels.
By Ken Y-N (
March 14, 2007 at 23:00)
· Filed under Polls
Continuing on the movie theme, last week japan.internet.com published the results of research conducted by goo Research into cinema ticket buying habits. I would love to find a web site that allows you to buy tickets at a discount, but such a site doesn’t seem to exist. Does anyone know of a good one?
Demographics
1,064 members of goo Research’s online monitor group successfully completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.1% of the sample was male, 23.3% in their twenties, 22.3% in their thirties, 22.5% in their forties, 21.3% in their fifties, and 10.6% in their sixties.
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. Read the rest of this entry »
In another silly wee goo Ranking report, people chose their most entertaining Christmas-themed movie. As always, the ranking is the relative votes for each movie, and no demographic information is available. The survey was conducted towards the end of November.
For most Americans, as I understand it, Miracle on 34th Street is the Christmas movie, although I cannot say I know it at all. For me, I cannot honestly recall any particular Xmas-themed movie – a film version of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol (Scrooge below) is about the only thing that comes to mind, but even then, I can only really remember the Blackadder version. In the UK, the tradition is more Wizard of Oz in the morning, and a Bond movie after the Xmas pud and the Queen.
A recent survey from iShare into 
With one live-action version of a manga comic in cinemas right now (
One of the top two complaints I hear from other foreigners in Japan is the rather high 1,800 yen (US$19 or UK¤12 or so) per seat, but this survey from RealWorld RealResearch and reported on by japan.internet.com into 
This recent survey from iShare looked at 
According to recent news, in 2006 
Continuing on the 
MyVoice published the results of a survey conducted over five days at the start of February into 
Subscribe to feed