Nikkei reports [J] that Rakuten has decided to close its Zenryaku Profile, a social networking site having 6.4 million users and runs for about decade, even before the word “social networking service” established.

The site was originally run by other company, moved under Rakuten when it purchased a company who owned the service. Different from other Rakuten service which target adult consumers, Zenryaku Profile is a service mostly used by teenagers, to show who you are to their firstly-met friends. When you register, you will be asked about 60 questions to make your profile page, which was favored by non-net-savvy teenagers who did not like free text writings.

Nikkei wrote that the move was caused around Rakuten opposing DeNA’s pro-baseball team Yokohaba Bay Stars purchase deal on 12 owners meeting planned on December 1 (see my The Japan Times column today), as Rakuten objects DeNA as an inappropriate owner because it runs deai-kei(dating) and social game services. So Rakuten tries to clean itself up by shutting down its own social network service.

As we reported on the day before yesterday, Rakuten silently testing Rakuten Profile not for teenagers but for their shop-owners and customers.

Tags: Japan by Akky Akimoto
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Toshima-ku/Tokyo-based Japanese consumer goods brand Muji (Mujirushi Ryohin), who operates about 300 shops in over 20 countries around the world, starts a social game Muji Life on November 15 (release [J]).

You may join the game by either of three social networking services, Facebook, Twitter and Mixi.

You will create your shelf with your favorite Muji products and other items like book, CD, DVD, etc.

You may display your shelf to your friends, give and receive gifts.

At the Muji retail shops around the world, by its iPhone app, you can get special items, music and Muji coins, virtual currency you can use in the game.

On the launch, English and Japanese languages are support. Chinese is planned to be added.

Tags: Japan, Social game by Akky Akimoto
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Shunji Yamanaka, a well-known Japanese industrial designer and Keio University professor showed a photo of his developing artificial leg for women on his blog [J].

This is yet a mock and you can only stand up with the current one, but Yamanaka wrote that the model woman, an athlete who runs with a regular prosthetic leg, liked it and enjoyed hours photo-shoot.

He told that about 8,000 Japanese need prosthesis leg, but most of them are not using cosmetic prosthesis because even with the best one can be found that it is not the real one, and use a metal skeleton with cloths covering. His team is trying to approach in another way, the leg which is totally different from real legs, but still look beautiful. The white plastic attachment in rear does not have functional meaning, but make a silhouette look good when you wear pants.

It is a different approach from Japanese specialty of pursuing perfect human’s copy, represented by recently buzzed Japanese inventions by Hiroshi Ishiguro and Real-f (TechCrunch).

Tags: Japan by Akky Akimoto
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NAMCO BANDAI Games, Inc. [J] has announced that they will release “Kamen Rider Legend” (Masked Rider Legend), a social game for Mobage [J], from the end of November.

“Kamen Rider Legend” is a social game where users collect “Brave Jewels” containing the power of successive generations of masked riders and mysterious people, while gaining strength from missions and battles, and aim to be the strongest rider team.  “Brave Jewels” encompass everything from the first edition of Kamen Rider up to the most recent work “Kamen Rider Fourze,” and you can enjoy gathering the “Collection” of all types.  In addition to “Brave Jewels” and the appearance of special moves in battle, it also includes the special feature of actual photo images of all characters.

Currently registration is open at the Exclusive page. [J]
Kamen Rider Fourze transformation belt DX Fourze driver [J]

Translation authorized by VSMedia

Akky: Kamen Rider(Masked Rider) is a long-run series of hero drama in Japan. Some of you may guess how popular by knowing it is even more popular than the original series of Power Rangers.

Tags: News, Social game by Chiho Komoriya
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