Hulu Japan lowered its subscription fee from monthly 1,480 yen (US$18.3) to 980 yen (US$12.1) .

2 weeks ago, Hulu Japan succeeded to receive contents first from major national broadcast network’s key station, TV Tokyo, though the network is the weakest one among 5 private networks. At the launch, it was essentially an online video service targeting US drama fans.

Hulu began its Japanese version last September. Hulu Japan only offers paid program, there are no free service with ads like as in its original US service.

Hulu Japan’s current number of paid subscribers is not disclosed. US Hulu-plus(paid program) reached 1.5 million in January, but that number was already achieved by Nico Nico Douga (1.5 million, 525 yen, not only drama contents but have YouTube/Ustream-like features) and BeeTV (2.05 million [J], 315 yen, only on cellphone) in Japan. Hulu Japan’s initial 1,480 yen was too high as a challenger, I think.

Hulu Japan also announces to plan Wii support, which already began in US, in 2012.

via Famitsu

Tags: Japan, News by Akky Akimoto
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Hulu Japan, actvila, and other existing video content providers are getting competition soon: a total of seven Japanese companies are currently preparing a video-on-demand service for connected TVs that’s scheduled to launch on April 2 this year.

Dubbed “Motto TV” [JP, PDF], the service is backed by:

• advertising agency Dentsu
• Nippon Television Network
• TV Asahi
• Tokyo Broadcasting System Television
• TV Tokyo
• Fuji Television Network
• NHK

What’s especially interesting here is that not only five commercial TV networks are taking part, but also NHK, Japan’s national public broadcasting organization.

NHK alone is ready to contribute a total of about 4,000 shows to the 10,500 programs Motto TV will start off with. Users will need to own compatible TV sets that are expected to go on sale from April.

Motto TV programs can be selected via the remote control, for example anime shows, TV series, or comedy programs. Fees vary, depending on the program itself and the station that’s broadcasting it.

Users can browse through the content by selecting different genres, entering key words, or accessing rankings from the menu.

Tags: Japan, New Service, News by Serkan Toto
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Nikkei Entertainment, an entertainment magazine under Nikkei newspaper made an interesting chart [J] around all 35 series of popular Super-Sentai-series, also known as Power Rangers oversea, has been made for 36 years since 1975, shows which series had what colors of heroes.

According to the article, colors and characters are closely related with Japanese people’s impressions on each colors, like red-helmet one tends to play a leader role with lively energetic character.

The first Power Rangers exported matches 1992′s Jyu-Ranger.

Tags: Japan by Akky Akimoto
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Mantan-web reported [J] that the dramatized version of popular social game Kaitou Royal, on Japan’s large social game network Mobage by DeNA, got 4.2% audience rate in Kanto-area (greater Tokyo and around) by Video Research’s research at its first week episode.

4.2% at 0:20 after the midnight is not so bad. It is about 1.6 million people according to the rate-and-population chart on Video Research site [J].

Tags: Japan, Social game by Akky Akimoto
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TeleBing, named after television and Bing, Microsoft’s search engine, is an iOS application for Japanese TV watchers to show TV program schedules. Microsoft Japan released it “to promote Bing brand.”

The program guide works with Twitter and Facebook. From program detail page, you may share your comments to Twitter and/or Facebook.

Japanese TV programs data is costly so that there are not many web service APIs for it. For people who enjoy both the internet and TV screen the same time, who are said to be increasing, TV program guide is one of important features for major portals and search engines.

via Impress Watch [J]

Tags: Japan, New Service by Akky Akimoto
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