In Japan, New Year's Eve and the New Year holidays are the biggest events of the year, and it is similar in virtual worlds.
CygerAgent's virtual world "Ameba Pigg [J]" sold a lot of virtual goods on the end of the year and the beginning of the year.

The Japanese eat "Toshikoshi-soba" on New Year's Eve (soba are thin Japanese noodles made from buckwheat).

CyberAgent sold 150,000 virtual goods of this Toshikoshi-soba in Ameba Pigg. However, this doesn't translate to profit for CyberAgent because these goods were paid for with free virtual currency.

On the other hand, the profit they received from Fukubukoro sales this year is awesome!

Fukubukuro are surprise bags sold by department stores and other places in Japan (the bags are sealed, and buyers don't know what they will get). Sold at a steep discount, Japanese people love purchasing Fukubukoro on New Year.

CygerAgent started offering 2,011 limited edition virtual Fukubukuro in Ameba Pigg on New Year, filled with items for femal avatars only. However, all virtual Fukubukuro were sold out in a few hours on January 1.

The company charged 2,011 yen for each Fukubukoro, meaning it made:

2,011×2,011=4,044,121 yen (about 48,000 USD)

It looks like the profit you get from virtual Fukubukoro can be compared with real Fukubukuro.

In addition, 18 kinds of Oshogatsu (Japanese New Year)-themed virtual goods were very popular, too.

These Oshogatsu virtual goods were sold about 480,000 times between December 31, 2010 and January 3, 2011.
The most popular item of them was "Kadomatsu".

"Kadomatsu" is a traditional Japanese decoration used during the New Year. It's made from bamboo, pine, straw and plum (Japanese people used to decorate every house's entrance with a Kadomatsu).

Each virtual Kadomatsu was priced at 200 yen, and CyberAgent sold about 16,000 of them!

200×16,000=3,200,000 yen (about 38,000 USD)

These Oshogatsu items are becoming outdated in the real world. However, they are still popular in the virtual world.

According to CyberAgent, about 2.4M users logged in to Ameba Pigg between December 31 and January 3. This number is almost equal to "Hatsumode", the first Shinto shrine visit of the New Year in the real world.

Ameba Pigg has more than 5 million users currently, 65% of whom are women.

Tags: Japan by Chiho Komoriya
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Bijin Tokei, a company known for having developed a hot girl clock gadget, has recently developed the weather girl iPhone app called Bijin Tenki[J] in partnership with mobile app provider Dwango.

On the app, cute girls (no idea on how many girls are involved) will keep you updated with weather forecast for the next seven days, for your current location by utilizing the iPhone's GPS function or pre-configured settings on the app.    You can check the profile of anyone you are interested in, such as name, date of birth and blood type.   You are also allowed to tweet a link to a weather girl you like.

Noteworthily, it has some patterns of error images in which the girls show us messages, which will be appeared on screen when a technical fault occurs.

See Also:

• Bijin Tokei: Japanese company offers Hot-girl-clock gadget
• Bijin-Tokei Gots Inevitable Follower – Adult Version
• Bijo Linux – Photo Site Where Girls Are Displaying Linux Commands
• Mi-in sigye: Korean company offers Korean Hot-girl clock gadget similar with Bijin-tokei
• Bijin Kabuka: Girls Presenting Quotes Make You Hot Even When Markets Are Cold

Tags: Company, Japan, New Service by Masaru IKEDA
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Tokyo-based mobile social gaming juggernaut GREE (22 million users, US$3 billion market cap) seems to intensify its international efforts. As announced by CEO Yoshikazu Tanaka back in June last year, big G has recently opened an office in the US after having made an investment in Singapore-based mobile social network mig33.

But Tanaka also said his company will hire additional staff to drive internationalization, and that's what it is trying to do right now: last week, GREE set up a special job section on their official website. And by the looks of it, they are looking for quite a lot of internationally minded people, as the list includes engineers, smartphone developers, HR managers, PR people, designers, and many more.

Following a tweet by Tanaka (who intends "to build a global company from scratch"), GREE added open positions in business development in Europe, Asia Pacific, China, and other regions today.

The company says that it expects all applicants to have good English skills and that commanding other languages, especially Chinese and European languages, is a plus. According to the website, future employees must be willing to go on overseas business trips and to work in local subsidiaries outside Japan if needed.

What's interesting is that the whole site for international jobs is in Japanese - there is no single piece of information on job opportunities at GREE available in English.

Tags: Japan, News by Serkan Toto
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Japan weekend box office ranking for January 15th-16th weekend has just been released by Kogyo Tsushinsha [J].

The first weekend of "The Social Network" appeared on 321 theaters both in subtitle and dubbed versions all through the nation on January 15, 2011.

1. "Boku to Tsuma no 1778 no Monogatari" [J] ("1778 Stories of My wife and me") A Japanese human drama. (1st week)

The film is based on the true story of science fiction writer Taku Mayumura whose wife died of colon cancer in 2002. After a doctor told him laughter can help the immune system, Mayumura began writing one story of at least 3 pages every day for his cancer-stricken wife. Although the initial prognosis was that she would only survive one year, she went on to live 5 good years with the help of the 1,778 total stories written by her husband for her over that time.

by Nippon Cinema

2. "So-shiaru Nettowa-ku" ("The Social Network") (1st week)

In U.S., the movie topped box office on the first weekend with US$23 million sales in October 2010.

3. "Aibou The Movie II" [J] is the sequel of a popular detective drama TV series, the No.1 of the former week. "Aibou" means "buddy" in Japanese. (4th week)

4. "Unstoppable" (2nd week)

5. "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1" (9th week)
6. "Space Battleship Yamato" [J] (7th week)
7. "Inazuma Eleven The Movie" [J] (4th week)
8. "Tron Legacy" (5th week)
9. "Kamen Rider x Kamen Rider OOO & W feat. Skull Movie Wars CORE" [J] (5th week)
10. "Shrek Forever" (5th week)

Also on another ranking by Toho Cinemas, "The Social Network" is ranked at the second position after "Boku to Tsuma no 1778 no Monogatari".

Buzzed in cities and on the web

During the weekend, the movie name "So-shiaru Nettowa-ku" appeared a lot on Japanese Twitter stream by people who watched it. Many blog reports were also written. Most of them are positive.

Big theaters in central Tokyo provided a good number of screens for the movie, and they were mostly full.

If the excitements are handed from those tech-savvies to regular Japanese, from urban to countryside, it still has a chance to be a long-run in Japan.

The movie winning four awards on Golden Globes on Sunday also helps to get attention from Japanese movie fans.

See Also:

"The Social Network" Japanese official site [J]

Tags: Japan, Trend by Akky Akimoto
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A half month after the 'osechi'(traditional Japanese New Year food) trouble, Groupon founder and CEO Andrew Mason appeared on video on the Groupon Japan official blog to offer his apologies to Japanese Groupon users.

"We learn from this mistake, and don't repeat the same mistake twice."

I think most Japanese customers will be satisfied with this, and perhaps even like Groupon more than before the incident. Mason's apology is similar to the apologies given by Japanese executives from time to time in the past, though Mr. Mason didn't do a deep bow. Isn't this style a bit strange for an American company?

(proofread by Adam Walls)

[Update: follow-up articles]

Asiajin » Groupon Slows Down After New Year Osechi Incident In Japan

Asiajin » Groupon Japan’s Osechigate Still Smoldering

Tags: Japan by Akky Akimoto
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