世論 What Japan Thinks

infoPLANT recently released the results of an opinion poll they conducted over three days at the start of September this year into the mobile music marketplace. This survey was conducted amongst members of their internet mointor group by means of a private internet-based questionnaire. The demographics targeted youth, with 1,000 people chosen to take part. They were split 500 male, 500 female. 250 of each sex were aged between 15 and 29, 250 between 30 and 39. 150 of each age group used only portable music players (not just digital players, but CD or MD, etc players too), 50 used only mobile phone music players, and 50 used both.

This is really a fascinating set of figures. Q1 indicating that people with both types of devices spend as much on pre-recorded media as the other two groups put together, and over double the combined totals on downloads.

Q2 shows the iPod’s image is unmatched in almost every respect, which puts a damper on people who talk about US companies being unable to compete against the local makers.

Q5 shows that in the digital audio world, unsurprisingly hard disk-based players are the most desired, but then devices with built-in memory are twice as popular as memory card-based devices! The reason for this is unclear, although I wonder if this is to do with people wanting iPod Shuffles and Nanos?
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infoPLANT recently looked at the purchase and consumption of canned and other prepared coffee – this excluded take away coffee, I believe. They gathered their self-selecting survey by means on a menu option through the DoCoMo iMode menuing system. Over a week at the start of October 6,480 successfully completed the survey, with 65.7% of the respondents being female.

News of a new, heavily promoted can brand entitled Deepresso is doing the rounds of the blogs right now, but I personally prefer a hot and steamy Sixty-Nine in the mornings to get me going.

A bit of coffee trivia – apparently “morning service”, a discounted breakfast most coffee shops do consisting of a hot drink, perhaps toast, boiled egg, three lettuce leaves or a hot dog, was initially introduced in the ’50s or ’60s by a restaurant in Namba, Osaka, where it consisted of a cup of coffee and two cigarettes. Nowadays, although they no longer offer the cancer sticks along with the drink, the fug in the average joint allows one to secondhandedly inhale.

Talking of cancer, if you’re a non-smoker, may I suggest that you avoid Roots brand coffee, as that is made by Japan Tobacco.
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infoPLANT recently released the results of an opinion poll they conducted into what correspondence courses people were currently taking. They used their usual method to gather respondents, namely a publicly available questionnaire through NTT DoCoMo’s iMode menuing system. Over a week at the end of September and the start of October 4,819 self-selecting people completed the survey successfully. 64.3% of the sample was female. Age breakdowns may be seen later.

For those wanting to better themselves in Japanese, applications for this year’s JLPT, Japanese Language Proficiency Test, have already closed, but there’s still time to apply for next February’s 漢字検定, kanji kentei, the thrice per year kanji level test, which is a fun and useful mode of study.
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infoPLANT recently published the results of an opinion poll they conducted into watching movies. Over a week at the start of September they published an open survey through the DoCoMo iMode menu system, where they gathered the views of 5,963 self-selected people, 65.5% female.

I manage to get to the cinema about once a month on average, although I’ve got about four or five coming up this month that wifey is dragging me to I’m all too happy to attend with wifey. Yesterday I went to see Lady in the Water, which would have been a good Twilight Zone episode, but as a movie…

In Japan, the average ticket price outside the rare multiplexes is ¥1,800 (cheaper for the last show), but at least popcorn and drinks are reasonably priced. However, if you go, always try to buy the advance tickets, usually ¥1,300, and they often come with a free present, which I must try to flog off on e-Bay one day. Anyone want to make me an offer for five World Trade Center candles complete with brass-effect plastic stand?

Since I’m mentioning cinema prices, the other two main ways to save money are to go on the first of the month when prices are just ¥1,000, but of course everything sells out quickly, or if you’re of the female persuasion, most cities have a ¥1,000 Ladies’ Day once a week. Movix Rokko tries to balance things out with a Men’s Day at the same price.
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infoPLANT recently published the results of a survey they conducted into the use of mobile phone web sites. As usual for infoPLANT, they gained their respondents by means of a self-selecting public questionnaire, available for a week at the end of August through DoCoMo’s iMode mobile phone menuing system. 4,472 people, 62.1% female, successfully completed the survey.

Whenever I publish a translation of infoPLANT’s surveys I always add a disclaimer about the self-selecting nature of the survey. However, this survey gives a good picture of the habits of heavy iMode users, as I believe most of the infoPLANT respondents are, so this can be a good reference when trying to understand the other polls they have conducted.

Also, when I saw the results of the poll, I couldn’t resist the temptation to run the story with such a title!
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infoPLANT recently published a survey into dog food. Using their usual method of a public self-selecting survey from within the iMode menuing system, 5,278 people successfully completed the survey during one week at the beginning of August. The sample size was 65.9% female. This time, the self-selecting nature of the survey is not too much of a problem, as I doubt if there is much correlation between having a dog and having a mobile phone.

Please excuse the sensationalist but accurate story title; I’ve found recently that it’s the silly stuff that attracts the punters, and some serious but important surveys have had very little traffic. In fact, there’s a new premium dog food on the market that advertises itself as being not just edible, but in fact tasty for humans too! The company even has the British Royal Family’s seal of approval, but I can’t quite imagine the Queen sitting down with the corgis and tucking in together, somehow. Prince Charles, though, now that’s a different matter.
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infoPLANT recently performed a survey by their usual means of a self-selecting public poll available through the iMode menus regarding eating out. 5,926 people successfully completed the questionnaire between June 6th and 13th of this year, of which 67.2% were female.

I’ve previously translated a more detailed poll on eating out habits, but this one contains perhaps a few new revelations that weren’t apparent from the earlier survey. For me, I feel anything over 2,000 yen is a bit dear, and 2,500 yen is definitely pushing the boat out, although it must be noted that we don’t drink alcohol and usually only have just the one soft drink each, often free or discounted within the course menu we usually choose.

I often use discount coupons from free papers like Hot Pepper, but I didn’t realise that they were so favoured by women. It’s also interesting to note that although men eat out much more frequently than women, most of the restaurants I go to the ratio is more like 80% or more female. An interesting future survey may be on the type of restaurant people frequent; men appear to me to spend their time in pubs or the Japanese equivalent of a Greasy Spoon.

Since word of mouth is the top way of finding where to eat, why doesn’t someone start an English-language Japan restaurant Web two point naught CGM AJAX thingamajig?
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In a survey performed over a week at the end of May, infoPLANT looked at how the Japanese brush their teeth. They used their usual method, a self-selecting questionnaire presented through the DoCoMo iMode menu system. They got 6,585 valid responses to the survey, with 67.0% of the sample female.

The state of Japanese teeth are one of common stereotypes one hears of, and a topic that I have featured before, in a translation of a survey on this topic last year by MyVoice.

I’m surprised that about three in ten brush soon after getting up, when after breakfast would be better, I believe; and less women brush before going to bed rather than after breakfast, although perhaps if those brushing at bath time, which is traditionally just before bed time, is added in, we would see the last thing at night figure would be higher.
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infoPLANT recently released the results of a survey they conducted into game machines. They conducted their research by means of a public questionnaire available through the iMode menu system for a week at the end of April. 5,924 people completed the survey, with 62.5% female.

Note the figures suggesting that the Nintendo DS is significantly more popular with the older generation. Surely this must be related to the current boom in brain training in Japan, in particular the massively popular series for the DS, a set of titles I dearly want to buy, along with the DS itself (and also a kanji dictionary), if I ever manage to earn any money from this blog!
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In a survey performed by infoPLANT on games machine ownership (warning: Japanese PDF), and translated in detail here, the most stunning result of the questionnaire is that the sales of the Nintendo DS seems to be driven by the older generation, as can be seen from the chart on the right.

The most likely explanation for this trend, I believe, is the brain training boom in Japan, in particular the Brain Age game and other similar titles that promise to ward off senility and keep one’s mind active, even though the celebrity advertising it on the television is merely a pretty young thing.

On a slight side note, my voice was one of the voices used to tune the recognition engine for British English for the European launch of the Brain Age titles.