世論 What Japan Thinks

A little bit of politics for you today, as iShare decided to look at awareness of the American presidential election, in particular its effect on Japan.

Demographics

Over the 5th and 6th of November 2008 501 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.9% of the sample were male, 12.6% in their twenties, 48.3% in their thirties, 28.5% in their forties, and 10.6% in their teens or fifty or older. The sample seems to be drawn from a more technology-aware crowd than the average internet user, thus the geeks in the headline.

Just in case you are wondering who (or what) the Nocchi in the headline is, he is Nozomu Sato, a Japanese comedian who looks like Mr Obama, and in fact met him for a brief instant. I predict great things for Nocchi, as if I’ve learnt one thing about the entertainment industry in Japan, one sure way to get ahead is to be a one-trick pony, then milk it for all you’re worth!
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With Japanese mobile cameras capable of scanning QR codes and doing OCR of text, and with television and print advertisements frequently featuring search keywords, and even RFID-enabled advertising terminals, it’s a refreshing change to see the pictured decidedly low-tech advertisement.

The katakana script text reads “Daburyu Daburyu Daburyu Dotto Obamasen Dotto Comu”, or in plain English www.obamasen.com, an advertisement for the Obama railway line running alongside the Japan Sea on the northern shores of Hyogo prefecture, not some cryptic message of support for Sen. Obama, the US presidential candidate!