Yukari Mitsuhashi
Some of our readers may remember our April Fool’s Day post on crazy apps from Japan. Since then I’ve come across another series of interesting apps which in many cases leverage Facebook and peoples’ relationships on the social network. Behind them all is a single company called Eureka. And here are the apps that they’ve come up with, in no particular order.
1. Group Date Forecast¶
In Japan people don’t often go on blind dates, but instead they opt for group dates called ‘Go-kon’. There’s a person in charge of the girls side and and one for the boys side, and they are the ones responsible for bringing the hottest friends to group date. Group Date Forecast is an app that tells you who you should bring among all your Facebook friends, creating the ultimate go-kon team.
2. Facebook Invoice Checker ¶
‘Facebook Ryokin Checker’ can roughly translates as ‘Facebook Invoice Checker’. The app calculates how much your usage fee would amount to if Facebook were a paid service. Japanese people tend to be a little more willing to pay for web and mobile services, so this idea really makes you appreciate a free service like Facebook. My invoice was 112,900 yen!
3. What if I was the Heroine? ¶
This app creates a correlation diagram for an imaginary TV drama that casts you as the hero or heroine. Based on your interactions with friends on Facebook, it creates this fun diagram. In the three weeks after its release, the app was liked by 140,000 users, creating attractive illustrated diagrams with funny and catchy titles to boot.
4. What is your May Blues? ¶
Titled ‘What is your May Blues?’, this app diagnoses what sickness you might have in the month of May. Why May? Well, ‘May Blues’ is a term commonly used by Japanese people, and it refers to the lack of motivation or passion that people often feel in May. April marks a new year at school or work, and after a busy first month, people sort of burn out. This app helps you deal with the affliction with a positive attitude.
5. Excuse for tardiness ¶
Excuse for tardiness is a Facebook app that gives you good excuses for being late for work or other important occasions. The app gives you three questions to answer, like ‘do you watch the late night comedy shows?’ or ‘how many alarm clocks do you have in your room?’ Upon answering these questions, it tells you which excuse you should use — but it is presented in manga form! The app was developed for a female skin care company Dr. Ci:Labo, so the excuses tend to be a little on the cute side. When I tried it, I got “Because the cat I saw on the way to work was soooo cute”.
6. Facebook Omikuji ¶
‘Omikuji’ is a paper fortune that you get at the beginning of the New Year at shrines in Japan. The app is no longer is service since it was provided only at the beginning of the year, but it’s a pretty interesting idea all the same. Although ‘Hatsumode’ (or the first shrine visit of the year) is a common ritual for many Japanese people, some might not be able to make it. For these people, the Omikuji app lets them to do so online. The app racked up over 250,000 Facebook likes within ten days after its release.
7. Choose Friends with Flawless Skin ¶
To help launch a new makeup powder from Clinique, Eureka developed an app called ‘Chose a friend with flawless skin’. The app works very simply. It asks you to choose five of your friends who you think have amazing skin. This made for great viral content because no one is unhappy to hear compliments about their complexion. The app has been since taken down from Facebook too, since it was for a time-specific campaign.
8. Honest Valentine Forecast ¶
‘Honest Valentine Forecast’ analyzes your friendships on Facebook, and creates a map of how this year’s Valentine’s Day will turn out. In Japan, typical Valentine’s gifts have always been chocolates, and in Japan, girls give it to boys instead of the other way around. Since there’s a culture of even giving Valentine’s chocolates to co-workers at the office (a gesture called ‘giri-choko’, where ‘giri’ means ‘a sense of duty’). Honest Valentine Forecast predicts who your secret crush is, and who you should give some chocolate to.
9. Todofuken Love Map¶
‘Todofuken’ means ‘prefecture’ in Japanese, and this Todofuken Love Map alllows users to ask questions about love that they would hesitate to ask openly. Questions such as ‘what is your breast size?’ or ‘do you have lucky underwear?’. Interestingly, the user generated results of the questionaire are shown on a map. This app is mobile only, and is the only one on our list not integrated with Facebook.
10. How many would confess love to you?¶
This app hypothesizes a world that consists of only 100 men, and shows how many of these men will profess their love to you (referred to as ‘‘Kokuhaku’’ in Japanese) — possibly taking inspiration from the famous book If the World were a Village.
For many of these apps, the company will require you to you like their page first before you try them out. This is not a tactic I’m particulary fond of, but the ideas are sort of fun and they’re sure to bring you and your friends some laughs.
Rick Martin
Takeshi Hirano
