From kimono to keitai; research Japanese facts and figures through translated opinion polls and surveys.
This ranking survey from goo Ranking asked what is the most successful anime adaptations of Weekly Shonen Jump magazine’s manga. My anime series watching is very limited, but I recently got a free year of Amazon Prime, and it’s got Demon Slayer (Kimetsu no Yaiba if you prefer) included, so I’ll have to give it…
Particularly in the prewar era, Japan decided that Western sports should have native Japanese names, so this ranking survey from goo Ranking looks at Japanese names for sports that it would be impressive to know. Most of these names have faded into history with the usually English name imported into the language; about the only…
This short survey report from MMD Labo looked at the Spring 2021 mobile service provider situation. The full survey is much more detailed, so if you want a deep dive, please visit their site and purchase the full survey results. Note that ahamo is docomo’s cheap plan, povo au’s, and LINEMO SoftBank’s, each costing just…
“Greasy Spoon” is perhaps an exaggeration for some of these places listed in this goo Ranking survey into Japan’s tastiest set meal chain restaurants. The basic features of a set meal in Japan is usually one main meat dish like pork cutlet or boiled beef, with rice, miso soup and pickles, and maybe a small…
This ranking survey from goo Ranking looked at movies from the 1980s that people want to watch in the cinema again. I’m familiar with all the Hollywood movies listed here bar Big (I’ve only seen snippets), and about half of the Japanese ones. Top of the list, Back to the Future, interestingly had a now-cancelled…
This fun little ranking survey from goo Ranking asked Japanese to choose who they rated the most as Japanese living legends of rock. My top pick would be number 5 here, Southern All Stars, but there’s a good number of groups I’ve never heard of. One that caught my eye was Yabai T-shirts Yasan, in…
Whenever (if ever…) tourism opens back up again, one must-visit place for many foreigners is a conveyor-belt sushi restaurant, so this survey from goo Ranking into Japan’s most favourite conveyor-belt sushi chain may be useful for ideas of where to go. This video might also give you tips on how to behave whilst there: Note…
This survey from MMD Labo into mobile service provider usage shows three-quarters of Japanese using one of the three full-service, full-price carriers, but with all three launching new low-cost self-service plans, it will be interesting to see how these figures change. I’m a long-term Docomo/Android/Sharp Aquos user myself, and I am considering switching to Docomo’s…
This survey by goo Ranking into which Japanese prefectures Japanese wish they had been born and brought up in was conducted last year, but they only got round to publishing it a few days ago. Not surprisingly, Tokyo is the most popular, and I presume people were mostly voting for the main metropolitan area, not…
This survey from MMD Labo looked at online lessons. With the pandemic and people spending more time at home, it would have been interesting to see how many people had chosen to start lessons for these reasons, but the results of that question were not offered in this summary of the survey. I’ve not started…
Let’s find out with goo Ranking what Japan’s favourite crisps (or chips, if you are so inclined) are. Back in Scotland, it was Walker’s, and usually cheese flavour, but now in Japan it’s sour cream and onion, and Calbee is my favourite brand, although Koikeya’s Pride Potatoes are not bad too. Now there’s a thing…
Now here’s a topic with the ability to start fights, goo Ranking asking Japanese to choose the easiest to use stock console controller. I was never a console person; I once had a Sega something or other, but all I really remember of it was too many buttons. Ranking result Rank Console Votes 1 Super…
This is the first survey for a while from goo Ranking not featuring a long list of quite unknown to me celebrities, a look at which prefectures in Japan Japanese themselves might want to try living in. I’ve lived in a grand total of three (out of 47) prefectures, which I see all feature in…
Contactless payments, be they IC chip or barcode-based are perhaps becoming more popular due to COVID-19 making physical cash a potential transmission vector, so this survey from MMD Labo into smartphone QR Code-based payments may reveal some trends in Japan. I mostly use smartphone-based public transport IC chip-based payments, JR East’s (the major train operator…
This survey is ancient in terms of the progression of COVID-19, but there’s still interesting figures in this survey from @nifty conducted at the end of March into COVID-19. This survey was conducted before the Olympics were postponed and the state of emergency declared. So far I’d put myself in the not really worried category;…
goo Ranking posed an interesting question, asking its monitor group to select the characters that best represent Japan. The criteria for selection were not clearly stated, but the main aim seems to have been to find the character that is most popular with the average person on the street. From a foreign perspective, I’d have…
According to this survey from Katte2Q, there’s a lot of cheese fans in Japan, and a worryingly large number of fans of cheese-flavoured plastic. I remember the first time that I ate Japanese processed cheese squares; after grilling it was difficult to tell whether or not I had remembered to remove the wrapper… By the…
goo Ranking took a look at what dark secrets people couldn’t tell their lovers, presenting answers separately from both men and women. Note that both sexes answered for secrets of both sexes. Demographics goo Rankings asked iBRIDGE’s Research Plus to conduct this survey, where between the 29th of September and the 2nd of October 2015…
goo Ranking recently published a short ranking survey into what praise from men they are not happy to hear. Demographics goo Rankings asked iBRIDGE’s Research Plus to conduct this survey, where on the 13th of January 2015 500 members, all female, of their monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. No further demographics were given….
As an early New Year Resolution, I think it is time to get this blog back on the road, so here I go with a goo Ranking survey looking at what sounds women would not want to hear from guys they fancy. Demographics goo Rankings asked iBRIDGE’s Research Plus to conduct this survey, where on…
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