Hasta La Gadget!

If you’re an anime fan or moe-loving otaku then this should certainly cheer you up.

The iPhone app Rodoku Shojo (Story Time Girl), which features a female anime character called Shiori Otoha reading out classic literature, is now providing earthquake messages of support, written especially for the app by a range of contemporary authors and manga artists. The hope is that these messages motivate people and help inject some positive energy into a damaged Japan.

The Roduku Shojo app is voiced by Nozomi Sasaki and has been downloaded 500 thousand times since its July 2010 release. The app itself is free but adding books for Shiori to read to you costs between 115 and 450 JPY (US$1.40-5.50), depending on the length of the tale. Somehow I doubt the typical Japanese otaku reads much Akutagawa or Kenji Miyazawa (some of the writers on offer), so this is certainly one way to improve the population’s literacy levels.

Rodoku Shojo even made the retroactive switch from digital to analog recently, with a manga comic book of Shiori’s adventures being published in December. These kinds of subculture characters are very flexible and their designers can get a lot of mileage from them, expanding into other media and industries once they have built up a loyal consumer base of the female protagonist’s fans. However, likely nothing beats the charm of having a petite lady reading you a bedtime story from inside your phone.

[Via J-Cast]

Following on the heels of the Ustream studio opened up last year, the mega popular Japanese video sharing site NicoNico Douga have just opened their own studio building headquarters in the heart of Harajuku. The building houses a first floor studio, a second floor cafe also with a live studio area and a third floor original goods shop.

The ground floor, closed off to the public, will be the main broadcasting location for the web channel, but the second floor 2525 cafe (2 and 5 being “ni” and “go” in Japanese) will also host regular events broadcasting directly from a small booth within the room for the public to watch.

Bound to be an attractive spot with the manga and anime crowds, the menu plays on some of the more popular regular programs on their channel. One of the more bizarre concoctions being the “Forest Fairy”, named after a character in the popular “Big Brother” series, made from a protein powder and banana mix. The staff are also dressed in a similar anime style although not quite as over the top as a traditional akihabara maid cafe for example.

There are also plenty of the stuffed mascot “Terebi Chan” lying around on the sofas to cuddle up to and some One Piece “gachapon” dispensers containing a variety of original items. The third floor shop also has a huge array of original goods ranging from Niconico fermented natto beans to Niconico umbrellas. The very cheery staff didn’t seem to mind the constant theme tune being played over and over in the shop either! The walls host some of the more famous anime designers signatures and there are a few special items on display that inspired various anime episodes.

The trend for online digital brands to open up physical third spaces is beginning to gain traction in Japan now. The spaces successfully act as a venue for fans to be drawn together and be drawn into the brand on an extra level. The cafe is located in Harakjuku and open from 11am-8pm.

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We loved this short message at CScout Japan and couldn’t have put it any better or simpler ourselves, “Come to Japan”. Great sentiments from legendary clothes designer (and lover of Tokyo) Sir Paul Smith and the British Ambassador, Japan is open for business!

Read a great article about Back to Business also here on the UKTI blog.

Picture courtesy of http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/

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The novel ways to help save energy in post disaster Japan seem to be never ending. After introducing you to #denkigame we have now come across Dwango’s latest creation with the uber popular “bijin-tokei” (beautiful girls) app, the bijin-denki girl add on!

We’re no stranger to the “pretty girls telling us information” concept and it doesn’t stray from the tried and tested formula. Along with the weather, users now get to choose real time data from TEPCO, the besieged power company behind the Fukushima power plant. On screen, users are displayed the capacity the grid is currently running at via a pretty girl holding a chalkboard. If we approach 90% or over it is time to start thinking about turning appliances off to cut back to avoid blackouts, or so the attractive girls tell you. You can then choose to tweet the information straight from the app including the name and age of the cute, but informative, girl.

After exploring the app a little more we found that the concept has actually been extended to a whole host of different updates. You can now have girls giving you information on the cherry blossoms and how many days until in full bloom. One we particularly like, was the pollen levels for hay-fever sufferers, if you are going to be sneezing and itching your eyes all day at least you can find out from an attractive source now.

Those who know how humid and disgustingly sweaty Japan can get in the height of summer won’t be looking forward to the possibility of no air conditioning as the looming threat of blackouts extends into the season of three shirts a day. Various power saving efforts are being introduced and around town you can see convenience stores doing their bit with only half the store lights on, and even the iconic Shibuya TV screens were turned off until recently. Tapping into this, a university professor Inoue Akihito the author of Japanese blog Critique of Games has come up with a power saving game that is catching on on twitter called #Denkimeter”.

The basic rules are simple and involve the player locating and checking the reading on their electric meter at home or in the office. You can take a photo of the meter and the player must tweet the reading along with the time and date using the hashtag #Denkimeter. Players then update the reading periodically throughout the day and determine how much power they have used based on the change in reading from the previous tweet. Each person is encouraged to update after events such as preparing dinner or doing the laundry to get an idea of how we can cut down on our electricity usage. Your final reading on how much energy is saved is given as your “戦闘力” or “combat power”.

When players enter their power savings into the Denkimeter site they receive a motivational or amusing derogatory comment back based on how well or poor they are doing. Displayed publicly on twitter also, there is added incentive for players to up their “combat power” by dropping their electricity usage and gain social kudos while at it.

The popularity of the game has also spawned an iPhone app that allows players to enter the wattage and tweet directly from the app which calculates energy difference since your last entry.

Alternative ways that Japan could save a ton of energy however would also be to just close all the pachinko parlors, now there is an idea.