Hasta La Gadget!

Recently we were checking out some places for a client around town and we finally had a chance to go into the new Francfranc store in Aoyama.

It’s…impressive. From the wooden facade to the chandelier-like lighting fixtures inside. The giant cuddly animals (yes, really) and the laid-back eateries out in front. There’s a lot to take in!

It’s also interesting how — despite constructing a whole new building — Francfranc resisted the temptation to build up and up. Instead they opted for an exterior radically different from the rest of the area, and to be lower than most of their neighbors.

The off-shot of this is that the store really stands out compared to the other shops and buildings on the street, and totally catches the eye as you walk past (even if you don’t see the polar beer in the window!).

With all the hype surrounding the Sky Tree there is plenty of interest at the moment in the old shitamachi area in general, which includes Akihabara, Asakusa and the north east of Tokyo.

Earlier this year, the 3331 Arts Chiyoda community center was re-born out of a disused school and nearby Bakurocho has been an up-and-coming art district for a couple of years now. It will also be interesting to see what might happen to Ryogoku, not least its status as Tokyo’s sumo town given the current scandals gripping the sport…

[Photo via Makikyu’s blog.]

Part of this whole rejuvenation program is the “tokyo shitamachi bus” (東京→夢の下町). The vehicles run between plush Marunouchi (Tokyo station area) and into the rustic heart of old Edo. Designed by Tetsuo Fukuda, the buses look to our eyes like funky submarines for fun tourists!

There are even some cute blog parts so you can feel like you’re taking a ride into shitamachi all the time.

Continuing the trend for making difficult books more accessible (see Drucker in a high school girl baseball team context!), the last few months have seen renewed interest in author Osamu Dazai’s work.

Dazai wrote several rather dour novels, the kind of things that literature fans (such as me!) really enjoy but are unlikely to be read by most younger consumers. An alcoholic himself, Dazai chronicled self-destruction and decline, most famously with the disappearing Japanese aristocracy, and eventually he did the customarily Japanese writer thing (a la Kawabata, Mishima and Akutagawa) and killed himself in 1948.

So far a touch esoteric. However, make a movie with a good-looking actor in the lead, stick his picture on the cover and you get renewed popularity. No Longer Human (人間失格, Ningen shikkaku) got exactly this treatment this year, plus a manga version in 2009. The film starred Johnny’s pin-up Toma Ikuta and only just finished its run in Tokyo cinemas after a whooping sixteen weeks on release. Last year also saw an award-winning film adaptation of another of his novels, Villon’s Wife, starring Takako Matsu.

[Shochu pic via Mutusinpou.co.jp]

Getting in on the act is DAZAI, a new limited edition shochu made by a local tourism retailer in the author’s home province of Aomori. Well, what better way to celebrate a man who liked a drink (or a few) — and we already know from samurai like Ryoma how successful this kind of merchandising can be.

In the same way, a Marxist book like Kani Kosen (The Crab Factory Ship) by Takiji Kobayashi was updated as manga, became a film last year, and even the original itself (despite being written in a very difficult vernacular) began selling well. Not simply a publishing fad, this trend is based on a genuine need for this kind of content. But where has it all come from? No doubt the uncertainty about the economy — not helped by an extremely clamorous and scaremongering media — has contributed to make consumers seek out darker material.

J-Cast news is making the provocative claim that SMAP’s era might be finished.

Popular Johnny’s pop band SMAP is comprised of five men whose faces any resident or visitor to Japan will immediately recognize. At least one of them features on billboards seemingly wherever you turn!

J-Cast points to current media musings on the lower viewing figures and dwindling box office for the performers’ recent TV series and films indicate a drop in their star pulling power. Of course, for years fans and commentators have speculated on whether the band will split, especially given all their lucrative careers as individuals. Could they now just simply lack the shine they used to have?

[Pic via Taboo no chou.]

We’ve written before on the issues surrounding Japanese advertising and its lazy, near-obsessive use of celebrities to provide a face for any new product or campaign. Has the SMAP members’ very ubiquity eventually canceled out their own popularity? Japanese bloggers are thinking the almost unthinkable — that even Takuya Kimura cannot muster a veritable hit anymore…

The Nikkei Marketing Journal had a feature recently on the bestselling products for the first half of 2010. Let’s take a look at just a few…

The continued popularity of nineteenth century reforming samurai Ryoma Sakamoto — in particular, galvanized by the current NHK taiga drama about his life — has manifested itself as a bundle of tie-in products. We reported on the Sakamoto-themed golf clubs (and others) a few weeks ago but the NMJ reports that Ryoma fever has led specifically to an estimated economic boost of 400 billion yen (c.$4.4 billion) in the warrior’s home province of Kochi, Shikoku.

The publishing trend for re-working theoretical books into easy-to-understand bestsellers has turned Drucker and Nietzsche into commuter must-reads. Moshi dora, ostensibly applying Drucker’s ideas of management to a high school baseball team, has sold more than half a million copies.

Deflation was also a hot topic earlier this year, gaining quite a bit of coverage in foreign press too. This led to the 250 yen ($2.75) gyudon beef rice bowl (boosting custom at Sukiya and Matsuya et al by 10% in a month) and a price war between convenience stores over roll cakes. Apparently one in three people in Japan has now enjoyed one of the competing 150 yen ($1.65) cakes!

Fashion trends also went through some rural hoops. The Yama Sukaato (山スカート, Mountain Skirt) has led to the birth of a new subculture, the “stylish outdoor girl” (おしゃれなアウトドア派女性), and more hikers in their twenties and thirties. For the men, elegant Kamakura Shirt (Maker’s Shirt Kamakura) items only go for a modest 5,000 yen (c.$55) on average and have been a word-of-mouth hit, with sales for the last three months being 50% more than the same period last year.

[Yama Skirt girls pic via Elle]

Lastly, we shouldn’t underestimate the power of otaku consumers and the things they like! Akihabara faves AKB48 have seen scarily fanatical crowds at their meet-and-greet sessions, and their CDs and photo books are selling by the hundreds of thousands.