Cute Japanese Halloween vs. scary American Halloween
NTV’s “Zoom In” morning show highlights some of the differences between Halloween in Japan and Halloween in the United States:
Some of the information mentioned include…
- Packages of Halloween candy sold in the state are huge (this is at least partly because people need to buy a lot of candy to give out to trick or treaters, a fact that the report doesn’t adequately explain).
- American Halloween candy is often shaped like gross and scary things like skulls and severed hands. Japanese Halloween candy is mostly cute-looking.
- The biggest Halloween events in Japan are costume parades. They visit the Omotesando Halloween Pumpkin parade for a look at some of the costumes. Such events were originally started for foreign children, but now most participants are Japanese.
- We are shown 4 women in Kanagawa prefecture who build an eco-themed costume for a costume contest. It seems that most Japanese people prefer cute costumes.
- Viewers are told that scary costumes are popular in the United States. Their America correspondent puts on some make-up and participates in a Zombie Crawl. Onlookers, including small children, are amused by the zombie costumes.
- To highlight the scaryness of American Halloween, we are given a look at the #1 haunted house in the States: Eastern State Penitentiary’s Terror Behind the Walls.
- The last part is about a Halloween camp for Japanese kids. Families participate in a variety of Halloween-related activities, none of them particularly horrifying or scary.
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Categories: General Japan
New gadgets for Autumn 2009
“Mezamashi TV” shows off some stylish new gadgets for this fall:
- The new Sony Vaio X-series of notebook computers, which are really thin
- A small humidifier shaped like a tree – good for Japan’s dry winters. The remote control is leaf-shaped.
- A desk lamp that can be used to recharge USB gadgets
- A cute new memory card reader from Elecom
- Elecom headphones shaped like plastic building blocks
- Transforming Transformer USB memory sticks
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- dannychoo.com – Your portal to Japan (Subscribe)
Categories: Technology
Jonte’s Tokyo Night Cruising
I’m not sure what the heck this is, but it was featured on the front page of YouTube Japan:
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Categories: Odd / Strange
Halloween events around Tokyo – 2009
Several readers have sent in e-mails requesting information about Halloween events taking place around Tokyo this weekend. Here are a few links:
One of the biggest events tomorrow ill be the Kawasaki Halloween Parade:
This is the most amazing Halloween parade in Japan!!!
The powerful monster parade about 3,000 people dancing along with can be seen only in the Kawasaki city. Don’t miss it !!
【VENUE】
The eastern area of JR Kawasaski station
※This parade will be held if it’s a light rain.
【TIME】
14：30～16：00
※reception for the parade and award participants ：10:30～12:30
Check this site for more details.
Over at Let’s Enjoy Tokyo, there is a Japanese language list of events. CNN Go’s Tokyo section also has links to Halloween parties at a couple of Tokyo’s clubs.
JapanZine has a list that includes parties in other areas of Japan.
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Categories: General Japan
Halloween & the Japanese economy
The Japan Times reports that Halloween is growing in popularity among Japanese, with businesses seeing increasing sales of Halloween-related products:
“When the economy slumps, people stay home and celebrate anniversaries for their families. Halloween is about kids and parents spending money on them,” Kase said. “And after all, candy and costumes are cheap. Halloween is a reasonable indulgence.”
Spokeswoman Mayumi Funaki of online mall Rakuten Inc. said sales of Halloween goods jumped 45 percent this year thanks to brisk interest in costumes for women and kids.
Discount chain Don Quijote Co. saw its sales of Halloween-related goods rise 20 percent this year, spokeswoman Aya Suzuki said. She also cited increased demand for costumes.
Daiso Sangyo, which runs ¥100 shops, began Halloween campaigns three years ago and the popularity of goods such as witch’s hats, presents bags and stickers has been growing ever since, spokeswoman Hiroko Kusaka said.
Morinaga & Co., a major confectionary maker, is selling 11 Halloween-related products, up from nine last year, and sales have increased 20 percent from a year ago, spokeswoman Kaori Nakamura said.
Here’s a FTV news report about new snack products and the Halloween events at Tokyo Disney:
This is the first year that Tokyo Disney Sea has held special events marking Halloween. At both Tokyo Disney Sea and Disneyland, Halloween festivities will be continuing until November 3rd. If you approach Halloween uniform-wearing staff members and give a “trick or treat” greeting, you’ll receive some free candy.
During the snack portion of the news report, it is mentioned that more companies are now releasing special Halloween products. Sometimes it only involves changing the outside packaging of products, a move that apparently boosts sales.
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- dannychoo.com – Your portal to Japan (Subscribe)
Categories: General Japan
Kindle in Japan: Now with unicode support!
It’s reading week in Japan! Here’s a few updates about e-book reading:
Don’t expect any e-books from Kodansha – Mainichi has an article up about the Kindle‘s introduction to Japan. Whoever wrote the article made the mistake of stating that there is a “catalog of 1,500 titles available for purchase and download” for the device, when the actual figure is close to 290,000 titles.
The article mentions one big Japanese publishing company that is not rushing to embrace digital books:
In addition, the Kindle’s Japanese-language book download service is still also under review. Whether publishers will provide books, comics and other content for the new device is going to be a crucial sticking point in its success — however, many, including Kodansha, are choosing to wait and see.
Unicode fonts for the new Kindle –
Big screen DSi: the next popular e-book reader? – There is some speculation that the new Nintento DSi could be used for e-book reading.
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Categories: Books, Technology