I never saw this kind of Japanese font. All Chinese letter has stroke number by side, so if you set the font on your browser and OS, you may always check the right stroke order.

The sample text means “Chinese letter’s stroke order”

The font is avaiable here.

via Modern Syntax Blog

Tags: Japan by Akky Akimoto
2 Comments »

Japanese discipline was showed after the Eastern Japan Disaster 3/11 last year. And it is not only at earthquake.

The video by a Nico Nico Douga user munyaka is a time-lapse animation on the third day morning of the massive self-publishers’ comic conference Comic Market 81(Comike81), December 31, 2011.

The video started around 00:50, there were already some people lining up. Small red lights moving around are by Comike staff.

Around 5:30 a.m. (00:01:10 in the video), when the first trains were arriving (there are no owl trains in Japan), more and more people came and then Sun shine show up the whole battalion of people who aimed at purchasing popular comics as many as possible.

About 9:30 a.m. (00:02:05), the first group of the long line began to be guided by staff, to move into the convention centre. The more and more arriving people comes from upper-left of the frame.

The one re-uploaded on YouTube may be easier to watch as it does not have overlay Japanese comments (You may turn off the overlay comment by the right-bottom button on Nico Nico Douga embedded player). But this one does not clock, too.

via Hatena Bookmark

Tags: Japan, Joke by Akky Akimoto
No Comments »

Girl’s Kaomoji Jiten 5000 (Facial-expression Words Dictionary 5000) by Pedigree(Android)/ADandD(iOS) is a free smartphone application from which you can copy over 5,000 Japanese-style text drawings Kaomoji to decorate your message.

Those 5,000 facial expressions are categorized into 10;

• Greetings
• Happiness
• Sadness
• Action
• Talk
• Anger/Argument
• Love/Friendship
• Life
• Special occasion/Weather
• Animals/Characters

Each category has many sub-categories. Here is the greetings sub-categories which have “Good morning”, “Hello”, “Good evening”, etc.

Hitting one will show you several different expressions. Here are “Sadness”-”Weeping” ones,

You may copy and paste it, or on Android call it from Japanese(or other) Input Method.

Android version is downloaded over 500,000 times, and the average of over 1,500 application reviews is pretty high, 4.4.

There are iPhone version and Android version. There are also localized versions for Chinese, Korean and English. Some variants are not free.

Tags: Cellular Phone, Japan by Akky Akimoto
No Comments »

If Kyary Pamyu Pamyu’s Ponponpon got 7 million views on YouTube worldwide, this new “Papepipu♪ Papipepu♪ Papepipupo♪” by Nozomi Sasaki may be welcomed by Japanese weird-music fans.

Nozomi Sasaki is one of the most popular “gravure idols” recently. (Google Image Search)

See Also:

The cute ‘n’ kooky world of Kyary Pamyu Pamyu, Japan’s newest pop idol | The Japan Times Online

Tags: Japan, Joke by Akky Akimoto
No Comments »

LinkedIn has released Japanese language support as its 10th language on October 18, 2011. Here is the top page for visitors when you set Japanese as your prior language.

LinkedIn Japanese localization plan was announced in September 2007 at first by its local partner Digital Garage. In this May, Digital Garage announced again the Japanese localization project, and this time the thing is getting done.

Probably learning by Twitter and Facebook having Japanese-only guide sites, LinkedIn Japan also launched “LinkedIn Katsuyouhou Manyuaru”(Effective Guide For LinkedIn), which has many pages with step-by-step usage manual on different features on the LinkedIn. It also starts an official Twitter account @linkedinjapan. Yes, it is must for Japan.

The localized page looks like this,

Most of menu items are translated in natural Japanese. When there are two ways of describing the original English menu text, it seems many texts are chosen with Katakana words, which show the original English in Japanese close pronunciations (e.g. akutibiti=activity, kyaria-samarii=carrier-summary), instead of Japanese counterparts(e.g. 行動=koudou=activity, 職歴=carrier-summary). With my internationalization expert background, I would say that their localization is done rather lightly. And if that was done intentionally (to make gap smaller against English menu), they might expect more Japanese people networks with English speakers after they get used to LinkedIn itself with Japanese menu.

Tags: Japan, News by Akky Akimoto
No Comments »