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Manga Camera adds chat feature, giving your conversations a comic flavor

Yukari Mitsuhashi 2013.05.11

Manga Camera is a popular camera app that cleverly turns your photos into manga style pictures. The app had an impressive 2 million downloads within a month of its release, and has so far nabbed 5.8 million downloads in total, with 4.5 star rating on the app store.

Manga Camera has just updated its app to add a chat feature. You can send friends message that consists of a photo and a dialogue in a fun manga style. Chatting back and forth with others in this way automatically creates a sort of live manga story. This ‘Manga Talk’ feature is currently available on iOS but will soon be released on Android as well.

The app even has a sort of artificial intelligence built into it. By sending messages to Manga Camera’s official account, the app interprets the content of the text and gives appropriate replies, again in a manga style. Another interesting – and perhaps very Japanese – feature is the ‘talking to yourself’ Bocchi function (bocchi means ‘alone’ in Japanese). The picture you create with this process can then be shared on Facebook or Twitter

For those of you unfamiliar with the basics of the popular photo app, the operaton is fairly simple. Users can select their preferred effects frame from over 32 choices. After you have chosen your frame, just take a photo or choose one from the photo gallery. The photo is instantly turned into a unique manga, and the quality is pretty impressive. The resulting photo can be saved to your camera roll or can be shared on Twitter and Facebook.

Manga Camera has recently been used by Coca-Cola Japan to promote their new flavored tea. The beverage giant has even provided special background frames for this new tea, encouraging people post their photos.

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Japanese startup 30min launches new service for finding bargain apartments

Masaru Ikeda 2013.05.11

See also the original story in Japanese. Japanese startup 30min (pronounced as ‘san zero minutes’) has introduced gourmet-focused information services including a new 30min mobile app and 30min ramen app. The startup was known for releasing these kind of apps previously in that space. However the market has been saturation with a wide variety of gourmet or restaurant related apps and services. This prompted the startup to consider a change to some other revenue model. Recently Japanese people enjoyed the Golden Week holiday, the longest annual holiday in Japan. But during that time 30min’s CTO Noriyuki Nonomura has been developing a new service to help people find bargain-priced second-hand apartments. It has now officially launched as a 30min service. Typically landlords or property investors can easily find relatively cheaper properties. But for average people, it can be really hard to do. This new bargain-priced apartment finder aggregates profiles from its partnering information providers, and shows you whether a listed property is a good or bad deal, comparing the average price in the area and the price per square meter. Factors like access to public transport and the age of the property are considered too. As for monetization, Nonomura explains that they…

See also the original story in Japanese.

Japanese startup 30min (pronounced as ‘san zero minutes’) has introduced gourmet-focused information services including a new 30min mobile app and 30min ramen app.

The startup was known for releasing these kind of apps previously in that space. However the market has been saturation with a wide variety of gourmet or restaurant related apps and services. This prompted the startup to consider a change to some other revenue model.

Recently Japanese people enjoyed the Golden Week holiday, the longest annual holiday in Japan. But during that time 30min’s CTO Noriyuki Nonomura has been developing a new service to help people find bargain-priced second-hand apartments. It has now officially launched as a 30min service.

Typically landlords or property investors can easily find relatively cheaper properties. But for average people, it can be really hard to do. This new bargain-priced apartment finder aggregates profiles from its partnering information providers, and shows you whether a listed property is a good or bad deal, comparing the average price in the area and the price per square meter. Factors like access to public transport and the age of the property are considered too.

As for monetization, Nonomura explains that they have partnered with Suumo, a property information service by Recruit. 30min will receive affiliate fees by driving user traffic to the property information site.

Many people feel Japan’s economic situation is improving, and this might positively affect the property market. But even for folks who don’t intend to purchase a property, the app gives you a great bird’s eye view of the market.

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Transformers Legends hits iOS, another mobile card battle game for Western markets [Video]

Rick Martin 2013.05.10

When Japan’s DeNA initially teamed up with Hasbro to bring the Transformers franchise to mobile games, I was pretty pleased. Like most kids of the 80s, I’m a big fan [1]. Transformers Legends has been out on Android for a while now, and the title was just released for iOS as well, so I’ve been testing it out over the past few days. The game comes from DeNA subsidiary ngmoco, but like most games from the card battle genre, Western audiences might need a little more hand holding than folks in Japan — especially casual mobile gamers. Thankfully, the folks over at Kotaku have published a brief guide on the basic principles of Legends, so I encourage you to check it out. As for me, I enjoyed the familiar characters, as well as the act of collecting and upgrading cards. Finding new cards using the ‘space bridge’ is sort of fun, as is enlisting the help of other gamers in your battles. Legends also features real-time events which last (from what I can tell) for several days, and if you do well during those events, you’ll be rewarded with a variety of items. Given that DeNA has already managed to…

When Japan’s DeNA initially teamed up with Hasbro to bring the Transformers franchise to mobile games, I was pretty pleased. Like most kids of the 80s, I’m a big fan [1]. Transformers Legends has been out on Android for a while now, and the title was just released for iOS as well, so I’ve been testing it out over the past few days.

The game comes from DeNA subsidiary ngmoco, but like most games from the card battle genre, Western audiences might need a little more hand holding than folks in Japan — especially casual mobile gamers. Thankfully, the folks over at Kotaku have published a brief guide on the basic principles of Legends, so I encourage you to check it out.

As for me, I enjoyed the familiar characters, as well as the act of collecting and upgrading cards. Finding new cards using the ‘space bridge’ is sort of fun, as is enlisting the help of other gamers in your battles. Legends also features real-time events which last (from what I can tell) for several days, and if you do well during those events, you’ll be rewarded with a variety of items.

Given that DeNA has already managed to pull off a card battle hit in the US market with Rage of Bahamut (we previously talked with them and developer Cygames about it here), ostensibly they know what it takes for Legends to become a hit as well.

But unlike Bahamut, there’s not a referral code system for Legends, so I’m quite not sure how the game will be promoted. The Transformers brand is certainly strong and should attract a number of fans like me. And so far it seems to be performing respectably on the app charts in English-speaking markets like the US, Canada, the UK, Australia, and Singapore.

I have a short demo video of the game above if you’d like to learn more. Again, as with many card battle games, it may take a little bit of time to grow on you. But I’m looking forward to playing some more, and digging a little deeper.

If DeNA wants a big marketing push for Legends, the company certainly has the cash to do so. It was just announced that the company’s revenue for the fiscal year 2012 amounted to over $2 billion, with $775 million in operating profit.

In fact, I still closely follow the careers of my favorite Transformers to see where they are today. ↩

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JapanTourist.jp partners with AllAbout.co.jp for multilingual travel content

Masaru Ikeda 2013.05.10

Japan Partnership, the company behind the user-generated content site JapanTourist.jp, and Japanese online resource site AllAbout.co.jp have announced they’ve agreed to jointly operate the JapanTourist site. As we have mentioned previously, JapanTourist.jp was launched last year by Tokyo-based Australian entrepreneurs Neil Butler and Terrie Lloyd, with aspirations to establish a useful information resource for foreign residents and travelers. They have about 1,000 article writers and 33 editors across the nation, most of whom are native English speakers. AllAbout.co.jp was originally launched in 2011 as a joint venture of US-based About.com and Japanese information service company Recruit. Subsequently the company was fully acquired by Yahoo Japan in 2004. It has previously partnered with Chinese travel portal sites such as Abang.com or Ctrip.com, encouraging Chinese travelers to visit Japanese travel destinations. With this partnership, JapanTourist.jp has started publishing articles in Chinese (both simplified and traditional) in addition to its regular English articles. It will add a Korean version this coming June, with more versions coming later for readers from Thailand, some Islamic countries, as well as South East Asian regions.

As we have mentioned previously, JapanTourist.jp was launched last year by Tokyo-based Australian entrepreneurs Neil Butler and Terrie Lloyd, with aspirations to establish a useful information resource for foreign residents and travelers. They have about 1,000 article writers and 33 editors across the nation, most of whom are native English speakers.

AllAbout.co.jp was originally launched in 2011 as a joint venture of US-based About.com and Japanese information service company Recruit. Subsequently the company was fully acquired by Yahoo Japan in 2004. It has previously partnered with Chinese travel portal sites such as Abang.com or Ctrip.com, encouraging Chinese travelers to visit Japanese travel destinations.

With this partnership, JapanTourist.jp has started publishing articles in Chinese (both simplified and traditional) in addition to its regular English articles. It will add a Korean version this coming June, with more versions coming later for readers from Thailand, some Islamic countries, as well as South East Asian regions.

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Driven by games and stamps, Line Corporation’s reports 1Q revenue of over $57M

Yukari Mitsuhashi 2013.05.10

Japan’s Line Corporation (whose chat app recently hit the 150 million users milestone) disclosed its latest sales figures yesterday, showing first-quarter revenue of 5.8 billion yen (or over $57 million). That’s up 92% compared to the same quarter in the previous year. Line’s sales consists of games, stamps, official accounts, and sponsored stamps. Games amount for about half of its sales, while its stamps business accounts for about 30%. The mobile chat app is now a sort of a global phenomenon, having expanded to places like Thailand, Taiwan, Spain, and Indonesia. But it’s interesting to see that the majority of its sales, about 80%, come from its home market in Japan. Micro-payments for digital contents are not new to Japanese people, going back even to the days of feature phones. We have always paid for music, ringtones, e-books, games, and dedicated carrier-dependent servies such as i-mode. Whether we’re using a feature phone or a smartphone, small and frequent purchases tend to hit your wallet hard. On a related note, there is great article over on Pando Daily from Tom Limongello titled The Japanese Art of Monetization where he explains that Japan’s mobile space has always been monetized. It’s very much…

Line’s sales consists of games, stamps, official accounts, and sponsored stamps. Games amount for about half of its sales, while its stamps business accounts for about 30%. The mobile chat app is now a sort of a global phenomenon, having expanded to places like Thailand, Taiwan, Spain, and Indonesia. But it’s interesting to see that the majority of its sales, about 80%, come from its home market in Japan.

Micro-payments for digital contents are not new to Japanese people, going back even to the days of feature phones. We have always paid for music, ringtones, e-books, games, and dedicated carrier-dependent servies such as i-mode. Whether we’re using a feature phone or a smartphone, small and frequent purchases tend to hit your wallet hard.

On a related note, there is great article over on Pando Daily from Tom Limongello titled The Japanese Art of Monetization where he explains that Japan’s mobile space has always been monetized. It’s very much worth a read if you have a moment to spare.

Line Camera, one of Line’s 24 apps, is also doing very well, having accumulated 30 million downloads worldwide as of the end of April. The popular photo app launched its own stamp shop on April 2nd, helping reach the top of sales charts in Google Play’s photo category in 45 countries. On the iOS app store, it managed to grab the top spot in the photo category in 12 different countries.

For more information on the growth of Line, please check out our interactive Line Timeline which chronicles its growth from its launch back in 2011 up until the present day.

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Tokyo Otaku Mode and MTV81.com to partner on Japan entertainment news syndication

Rick Martin 2013.05.09

Japanese startup Tokyo Otaku Mode and MTV81.com (a MTV Japan website serving international audiences) have today announced a joint syndication deal which will see both parties publishing the other’s content. Tokyo Otaku Mode, who we have written about frequently on this site, is a distributor of content relating to Japanese subculture, including anime, manga, and even cosplay. But given that there is significant overlap in this Japanese otaku culture and Japan’s more broad entertainment culture, this partnership appears to be a very natural fit. With new music and entertainment content coming from MTV81, Otaku Mode now has richer offerings for its wide audience. As we’ve mentioned before, the startup has a massive following on Facebook with more than 11 million fans, so it’s certainly easy to see why such a syndication deal would be attractive for a relatively young publisher like MTV81. On the other side of the deal, MTV81 will publish “selected feeds” from Tokyo Otaku Mode’s news site relating to otaku entertainment news. Earlier in the year when we spoke to Tokyo Otaku Mode, they mentioned that a big challenge for the company would be trying to monetize its huge audience in some way. To that end, the…

Tokyo Otaku Mode, who we have written about frequently on this site, is a distributor of content relating to Japanese subculture, including anime, manga, and even cosplay. But given that there is significant overlap in this Japanese otaku culture and Japan’s more broad entertainment culture, this partnership appears to be a very natural fit.

With new music and entertainment content coming from MTV81, Otaku Mode now has richer offerings for its wide audience. As we’ve mentioned before, the startup has a massive following on Facebook with more than 11 million fans, so it’s certainly easy to see why such a syndication deal would be attractive for a relatively young publisher like MTV81.

On the other side of the deal, MTV81 will publish “selected feeds” from Tokyo Otaku Mode’s news site relating to otaku entertainment news.

Earlier in the year when we spoke to Tokyo Otaku Mode, they mentioned that a big challenge for the company would be trying to monetize its huge audience in some way. To that end, the company is experimenting with e-commerce over on otakumode.com/shop. We still don’t have any details on how that’s going or when it might officially launch, as things are still in the pretty early stages.

Tokyo Otaku Mode is one of the rare Japanese startups that adopted an ambitious global vision from the outset, so we certainly hope to see them do well!

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