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Website translation tool WorldJumper launches freemium version

Masaru Ikeda 2013.11.06

See the original post in Japanese. WorldJumper provides website translation services for affordable rates by making the most of a combination of machine translation, human translation, and a database of past translation results. Tokyo-based Yaraku, the startup behind the service, announced today it has launched a freemium version of the service that allows you to translate your website for free. With this new version, the company is encouraging more hotels or exporters to create websites in foreign languages (Japanese, English, Korean, and simplified and traditional Chinese). Our readers may recall the company raised about 110 million yen ($1.1 million) from several Japanese investors back in May. It also partnered with crowdsourced translation service Conyac back in September. Unlike conventional translation services, WorldJumper outsources orders to third-party agencies, but it also accumulates frequently-used translation requests and results in its database for future reference. In this way, it helps keep translation costs down while still improving quality over time. The freemium version does have some limitations however, such no customer support and ads inserted in the translated pages. If you want to polish the quality of the results, you can order a fully human translation for a fee. The company expects to…

See the original post in Japanese.

WorldJumper provides website translation services for affordable rates by making the most of a combination of machine translation, human translation, and a database of past translation results. Tokyo-based Yaraku, the startup behind the service, announced today it has launched a freemium version of the service that allows you to translate your website for free.

With this new version, the company is encouraging more hotels or exporters to create websites in foreign languages (Japanese, English, Korean, and simplified and traditional Chinese).

Our readers may recall the company raised about 110 million yen ($1.1 million) from several Japanese investors back in May. It also partnered with crowdsourced translation service Conyac back in September. Unlike conventional translation services, WorldJumper outsources orders to third-party agencies, but it also accumulates frequently-used translation requests and results in its database for future reference. In this way, it helps keep translation costs down while still improving quality over time.

The freemium version does have some limitations however, such no customer support and ads inserted in the translated pages. If you want to polish the quality of the results, you can order a fully human translation for a fee.

The company expects to see over 10,000 websites using the service by next April. We hope it can help many startups here in Japan reach out to global markets.

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How to turn your iPhone into a retro television on the cheap

Rick Martin 2013.11.05

One of my favorite things about Japan is the abundance of creative gadget and accessory makers here. Among the more interesting ones is Hashy Topin, and this year the company is selling a very cheap but intriguing way to make watching movies on your iPhone a little bit easier. Meet ‘Telephone Vision’, a fun screen magnification accessory that will give you a 1.8x view of your smartphone screen. The kit comes with a small stand for your phone, over which you can then place the cardboard television cover. This is designed to mimic a traditional television, with buttons and a mock speaker (holes!). But the transparent acrylic screen does make your picture bigger and easier to see, which is the main attraction here. Now of course, the majority of us would not seriously use such a novelty for repeated media viewing, but selling for just 650 yen (a little more than $6) this Telephone Vision kit makes for a really fun gift, especially for kids who might want their own TV in their room. To get a closer look at the Telephone Vision kit, check out the video below from YouTuber Ayako Sato (@ksorano), which demonstrates how it is put…

One of my favorite things about Japan is the abundance of creative gadget and accessory makers here. Among the more interesting ones is Hashy Topin, and this year the company is selling a very cheap but intriguing way to make watching movies on your iPhone a little bit easier.

Meet ‘Telephone Vision’, a fun screen magnification accessory that will give you a 1.8x view of your smartphone screen. The kit comes with a small stand for your phone, over which you can then place the cardboard television cover. This is designed to mimic a traditional television, with buttons and a mock speaker (holes!). But the transparent acrylic screen does make your picture bigger and easier to see, which is the main attraction here.

Now of course, the majority of us would not seriously use such a novelty for repeated media viewing, but selling for just 650 yen (a little more than $6) this Telephone Vision kit makes for a really fun gift, especially for kids who might want their own TV in their room.

To get a closer look at the Telephone Vision kit, check out the video below from YouTuber Ayako Sato (@ksorano), which demonstrates how it is put together.

Hashy Topin really likes to use iPhones to turn back the clock in this way. Back in 2010 they featured a dock/charger combo that let you convert you iPhone into a conventional telephone.

Japan does fun novelty gifts like this incredibly well, and if you happen to pass through the country in your travels, do drop in on the nearest Tokyu Hands store for lots more disposable innovations like this one! [Via DG Freaks]

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Japan’s Meetrip acquired by social game developer Donuts, relocates to Bangkok

Masaru Ikeda 2013.11.05

Meetrip is a service that gives you a chance to discover authentic travel experiences arranged by locals in 14 cities across Asia. Tokyo-based Duckdive, the startup behind the service, announced today that it is to be acquired by Tokyo-based social gaming developer Donuts for a undisclosed sum. The latter previously acquired Social Lunch, a website that helps students find jobs. Coinciding with this announcement, the startup revealed that it will relocate its base from Tokyo to Bangkok, where the gaming company has a development center. The startup was launched back in June by Takashi Kiyama and his co-founder Nobuhiro Ariyasu, who recently sold private lesson portal Cyta.jp to Cookpad for over 1 billion yen. In this space, we’ve seen more than a few travel discovery sites from Japan, such as KitchHike, Voyagin, and Trippiece.

Meetrip is a service that gives you a chance to discover authentic travel experiences arranged by locals in 14 cities across Asia. Tokyo-based Duckdive, the startup behind the service, announced today that it is to be acquired by Tokyo-based social gaming developer Donuts for a undisclosed sum. The latter previously acquired Social Lunch, a website that helps students find jobs.

Coinciding with this announcement, the startup revealed that it will relocate its base from Tokyo to Bangkok, where the gaming company has a development center. The startup was launched back in June by Takashi Kiyama and his co-founder Nobuhiro Ariyasu, who recently sold private lesson portal Cyta.jp to Cookpad for over 1 billion yen.

In this space, we’ve seen more than a few travel discovery sites from Japan, such as KitchHike, Voyagin, and Trippiece.

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Another Finnish collaboration for Japan’s GungHo: Angry Birds coming to Puzzle & Dragons

Rick Martin 2013.11.05

And the collaborations keep on coming for Japanese hit game Puzzle & Dragons. Having already partnered successfully with Supercell on Clash of Clans, it has been announced that GungHo Online Entertainment will now work with the other Finnish mobile gaming giant Rovio, bringing Angry Birds characters into Puzzle & Dragons. The campaign will run from November 18 to December 1st. Blogger Chiyo Komoriya points out that Rovio still isn’t very popular here in Japan, largely due to competition from strong character brands like Line and Nameco. When we spoke with Rovio representatives here in Tokyo earlier in the year, they emphasized a slow-and-steady, long term strategy, with the goal of learning the market and partnering with local companies like Sanrio, the maker of Hello Kitty. So exactly how will Angry Birds look in P&D? Rovio has announced that they will be asking fans for their input on that point. They’re asking fans to graphically answer the question “What if the Angry Birds showed up in the world of Puzzle & Dragons?” Check out Rovio’s blog post for more details. The tie-up with Puzzle & Dragons will certainly help give their games some visibility in the short term here in Japan….

And the collaborations keep on coming for Japanese hit game Puzzle & Dragons. Having already partnered successfully with Supercell on Clash of Clans, it has been announced that GungHo Online Entertainment will now work with the other Finnish mobile gaming giant Rovio, bringing Angry Birds characters into Puzzle & Dragons. The campaign will run from November 18 to December 1st.

Blogger Chiyo Komoriya points out that Rovio still isn’t very popular here in Japan, largely due to competition from strong character brands like Line and Nameco. When we spoke with Rovio representatives here in Tokyo earlier in the year, they emphasized a slow-and-steady, long term strategy, with the goal of learning the market and partnering with local companies like Sanrio, the maker of Hello Kitty.

So exactly how will Angry Birds look in P&D? Rovio has announced that they will be asking fans for their input on that point. They’re asking fans to graphically answer the question “What if the Angry Birds showed up in the world of Puzzle & Dragons?” Check out Rovio’s blog post for more details.

The tie-up with Puzzle & Dragons will certainly help give their games some visibility in the short term here in Japan. Although in the long term, Rovio still has a tough challenge ahead.

Last week we told you about GungHo’s P&D collaboration with Warner Bros, bringing Batman characters into Puzzle & Dragons. There is still about a week to go in that event.

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6 questions entrepreneurs should prepare for before first-time media interviews

Junya Mori 2013.11.05

See the original article in Japanese When I interview entrepreneurs, it’s not uncommon to hear people say: “This is my first media interview. I don’t know what to say." I think some might feel a little better by preparing for an interview beforehand. So with that in mind, here is a list of the questions that I usually ask entrepreneurs. What made you start your business? What is your product? How does your product different from others? How did you come up with this idea? How do you think your product can change the world? What is your short-term goal? These are the minimum questions I ask entrepreneurs who have just started a business. Let me explain why: What made you start your business? What I’d like to know here is the personality of the entrepreneur. Sometimes I can hear some stories of how they started their business, or they might tell anecdotes about how they came up with the idea. Those stories can help me better understanding the person. This is one of the most important questions. What is your product? In some cases, the product comes first when it comes to telling a company’s story. Perhaps they founded…

Some rights reserved by smiling_da_vinci

See the original article in Japanese

When I interview entrepreneurs, it’s not uncommon to hear people say: “This is my first media interview. I don’t know what to say." I think some might feel a little better by preparing for an interview beforehand. So with that in mind, here is a list of the questions that I usually ask entrepreneurs.

What made you start your business?
What is your product?
How does your product different from others?
How did you come up with this idea?
How do you think your product can change the world?
What is your short-term goal?

These are the minimum questions I ask entrepreneurs who have just started a business. Let me explain why:

What made you start your business?

What I’d like to know here is the personality of the entrepreneur. Sometimes I can hear some stories of how they started their business, or they might tell anecdotes about how they came up with the idea. Those stories can help me better understanding the person. This is one of the most important questions.

What is your product?

In some cases, the product comes first when it comes to telling a company’s story. Perhaps they founded the company to market the product, and that product is heavily intertwined with the business.
I make sure to collect some information about the product before an interview, and I try to elicit more stories from the entrepreneur. This is so I can understand the personality of the entrepreneur by seeing how passionately the person speaks.

As one of our writers mentioned in a past article, sometimes the personality of an entrepreneur has a big influence on the product.

How is your product different from others?

Based on my experiences interviewing entrepreneurs, there are rarely “brand new” products. When I hear about a product from an entrepreneur, a similar product comes to my mind in most cases.

I have to identify the originality of the product somehow, and that’s what I’m trying to figure out with this question. The answer will help me understand how well the entrepreneur knows the strengths and the originality of the product and how much he/she has researched the competition. And of course, I can understand the product better by asking this question.

How do you think your product will change the world?

This question is a minor question, one that not all reporters will ask. I ask it sometimes. Some entrepreneurs might give you an answer similar to why they started the business. But some go further, explaining what kind of impact on the world and the society their business can have. You can elicit more ambitious thoughts by asking this question.
I get excited when I hear big ambition from entrepreneurs, like Hironao Kunimitsu, the cofounder of Gumi. Entrepreneurs who have big goals and vision and are always attractive to me.

What is your short-term goal?

This is a more detailed question. I ask about a short-term goal they have set and what detailed action they plan is in place to help achieve it. By asking about both long-term and short-term goals, I can see the road map they have in mind.

They cannot disclose everything open to public. But understanding short-term goals and action plans will help me understand how much growth I can expect.

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Made-in-Japan cycling/running app challenges Nike+, Runkeeper

Takeshi Hirano 2013.11.04

See the original story in Japanese. According to the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, there are about 3 million fitness enthusiasts in Japan, accounting for 2% of the entire population. But at the same time, most of us (unfortunately) do not like exercise so much. Personal trainer apps like Nike+, Runkeeper, Road Bike all do various things to help you keep motivated. And yesterday a new Japan-made app, Lemonade, joined their ranks, launching at a cycling competition event in Japan’s Tohoku region. Tokyo-based Lemonade Lab introduced a beta version of its running and cycling app for both iOS and Android platforms. It lets users track cycling routes, log records, share them with friends, and keep fitness resolutions. The Lemonade app was unveiled at Tour de Tohoku, an event hosted by Yahoo Japan and other companies. The event is intended to support the area’s restoration, having been hit hardest by the earthquake back in March of 2011. To learn about how the app will work, I visited Ishinomaki City, where the start and end point of the competition was located. For participating cyclists, the event gives you a great view of local nature along the 160km course, and it…

See the original story in Japanese.

According to the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, there are about 3 million fitness enthusiasts in Japan, accounting for 2% of the entire population. But at the same time, most of us (unfortunately) do not like exercise so much.

Personal trainer apps like Nike+, Runkeeper, Road Bike all do various things to help you keep motivated. And yesterday a new Japan-made app, Lemonade, joined their ranks, launching at a cycling competition event in Japan’s Tohoku region.

Tokyo-based Lemonade Lab introduced a beta version of its running and cycling app for both iOS and Android platforms. It lets users track cycling routes, log records, share them with friends, and keep fitness resolutions.

The Lemonade app was unveiled at Tour de Tohoku, an event hosted by Yahoo Japan and other companies. The event is intended to support the area’s restoration, having been hit hardest by the earthquake back in March of 2011.

To learn about how the app will work, I visited Ishinomaki City, where the start and end point of the competition was located. For participating cyclists, the event gives you a great view of local nature along the 160km course, and it also lets you learn about what’s happening in the area.

The Lemonade team started its race at 8am, and I checked the app to see their progress. Typical apps of this kind are focused on logging features, with record sharing features provided supplementary. But that’s not the case with Lemonade. Its main screen is a timeline, which shows you what you friends are doing and where they are now.

The entrepreneurs behind the app

The Lemonade team at Tour de Tohoku 2013

The development of the Lemonade app was conducted by two high-profile entrepreneurs: Taizo Son and Kunihiko Kaji. They decided to develop this app since cycling was a common hobby for them both. They explain:

Conventional logging apps are well done, but they’re lacking something. You won’t have fun competing with a stranger using the app. Sports can be fun if you share your experience with someone. That’s why we decided to develop an app helping people run together.

If you share your training results or check out where your friends are running using the app, it helps you make more friends through competitions. The team told me that they want users to enjoy their experience more before, during, and after events.

At major sport opportunities like the Tokyo Marathon, spectators along the course can also post photos using the app, giving them another way to enjoy the experience.

The app is still in beta with some wrinkles to iron out yet. But I really enjoyed watching how my friends were progressing along the road.

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Japanese collage app lets users mail New Year’s greeting cards

Yukari Mitsuhashi 2013.11.04

Back in September we wrote about Decopic’s impressive milestone of 30 million downloads. Community Factory, the maker of the photo sharing app, has lots of other great apps, including Decopic’s sister app Petapic. Petapic was launched back in December of 2012 and has been downloaded over six million times to date. Users of the app can create cute collages with their own photos, and can draw on photos or decorate them with over 90 stamps. The app provides more than 80 different templates for collages, so its easy for first-time users to make a good one. Starting in November, Petapic added a new feature where users can make their collage into a ‘Nengajo’ or Japanese New Year’s greeting cards. The nengajo postcards can then be mailed out for 128 yen (a little over a dollar). Although nengajo are traditionally postcards sent to homes, digital natives are more accustomed to simply sending text messages to friends. So this gesture will likely be seen as a thoughtful surprise. The new feature is available on Android for now, but an update will bring the feature to iOS sometime in mid-November. Community Factory launched yet another ‘kawaii’ app called CunPic on October 24th [1]….

Back in September we wrote about Decopic’s impressive milestone of 30 million downloads. Community Factory, the maker of the photo sharing app, has lots of other great apps, including Decopic’s sister app Petapic.

Petapic was launched back in December of 2012 and has been downloaded over six million times to date. Users of the app can create cute collages with their own photos, and can draw on photos or decorate them with over 90 stamps. The app provides more than 80 different templates for collages, so its easy for first-time users to make a good one.

Starting in November, Petapic added a new feature where users can make their collage into a ‘Nengajo’ or Japanese New Year’s greeting cards. The nengajo postcards can then be mailed out for 128 yen (a little over a dollar). Although nengajo are traditionally postcards sent to homes, digital natives are more accustomed to simply sending text messages to friends. So this gesture will likely be seen as a thoughtful surprise. The new feature is available on Android for now, but an update will bring the feature to iOS sometime in mid-November.

Community Factory launched yet another ‘kawaii’ app called CunPic on October 24th [1]. Within three days of its release, the app ranked second on App Store among all free camera apps. CunPic differentiates itself from other cute apps with its skin-smoothening and whitening features, common to most purikura photo booths. It’s available on iOS for now, but expect an Android version soon.

If you’re in the market for a cute reminder app, Community Factory also makes Petatto Memo, which we featured back in October.

Editor’s note: Cunpic is such an unfortunate name… ↩

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Tokyo Office Tour: Nightley brings behavioral consumer data to geo-analytics

Masaru Ikeda 2013.11.03

Tokyo-based Nightley develops location-based analytics technologies. The startup was launched back in 2011 by CEO Yutaka Ishikawa who previously worked with Japanese web service company NetAge [1]. Nightley recently developed social media analytics engine Trexa, and started providing social media analytics to GIS service providers as part of their service Nightley GIS Mesh Data. I recently visited the company’s office near Shibuya to hear more from Ishikawa about this initiative. As some of our readers may know, several Japanese system integration companies have partnered with Twitter as a data reseller, obtaining rights to collect data using the Twitter API. Similarly Japanese big data solution provider Hottolink also partnered with US company Gnip back in October to distributing Gnip’s analytics data in Japan [2]. NTT Docomo also recently started selling mobile spatial statistics based on the usage of its mobile subscribers. I asked Ishikawa how his company differentiate from these big players. He explained: Conventional players typically give you an accumulation of longitude and latitude values with tweets or posts. These values tell you where users are or were, but they don’t give you insights about which floor or what store in a shopping mall they are in, or what they…

Tokyo-based Nightley develops location-based analytics technologies. The startup was launched back in 2011 by CEO Yutaka Ishikawa who previously worked with Japanese web service company NetAge ^[1].

Nightley recently developed social media analytics engine Trexa, and started providing social media analytics to GIS service providers as part of their service Nightley GIS Mesh Data. I recently visited the company’s office near Shibuya to hear more from Ishikawa about this initiative.

As some of our readers may know, several Japanese system integration companies have partnered with Twitter as a data reseller, obtaining rights to collect data using the Twitter API. Similarly Japanese big data solution provider Hottolink also partnered with US company Gnip back in October to distributing Gnip’s analytics data in Japan ^[2]. NTT Docomo also recently started selling mobile spatial statistics based on the usage of its mobile subscribers.

nightley-gis-mesh-data — Nightley GIS Mesh Data (visualized sample)

I asked Ishikawa how his company differentiate from these big players. He explained:

Conventional players typically give you an accumulation of longitude and latitude values with tweets or posts. These values tell you where users are or were, but they don’t give you insights about which floor or what store in a shopping mall they are in, or what they are doing.

Our solution gives you more visibility around such attributes of users, and I believe this is our advantage, helpful in creating more efficient marketing efforts or planning store roll-outs.

When Ishikawa launched the company a few years ago, he was selling location analytics data a direct sales basis. But he subsequently learned there are business opportunities only among a very niche segment of marketing people in Japan. So he changed their sales strategy to intensify partnering efforts with big GIS players or enterprise system integrators ^[3].

They already have clients in need of geographical data plentiful with various organic attributes. I thought partnering with them would be much easier. They also have geographical analytics solutions, but it’s not very organic. I realized the complementary potential of working with GIS companies.

He expects the solution to be used not only for O2O solutions but also by people and companies working on more accurate area targeting.

The company is looking for funding opportunities and more engineers to help develop further growth. If you are interested in being a part of the team, don’t hesitate to contact them via this page.

NetAge was originally launched back in 1999 by Japanese serial entrepreneur Kiyoshi Nishikawa. The company was subsequently rebranded to ngi group, and became United which is well-known for mobile app CocoPPa. Apart from the company, Nishikawa launched a new incubation company called NetAge again a couple of years ago.↩
Hottolink is a subsidiary of Internet marketing agency Opt (TSE:2389). The former recently unveiled it was approved to be listed on the TSE Mothers market, a stock market for emerging companies. The IPO is scheduled to take place on December 9th.↩
Nightley recently partnered with Japanese system integration company Fujitsu for co-developing the lattter’s location data cloud service Spatiowl, and area marketing solution provider Giken Shoji International.↩

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Now with over 1M downloads, Japanese news app Gunosy launches ad network

gunosy

Takeshi Hirano 2013.11.01

See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based Gunosy, the startup behind the news curation app of the same name, announced today it will launch a performance-based ad service next week, which it will call Gunosy Ads. The new service allows advertisers to distribute ads to clusters of users according to their interests. The company has also just revealed that their app surpassed 1 million downloads last month. The Gunosy Ads service started distributing ads on a test basis last month, and the diagrams below were measured in the period. The CTR (click through rate) and CVR (conversion rate) figures are surprisingly high. CVR is mostly just above 10% on average, and you typically won’t see such a high number on other ad networks. By going ahead with the launch, it shows that Gunosy sees potential in this new advertising stream. In addition, Shinji Kimura, a pioneer in the Japanese ad-tech sector, has joined their team. He founded ad-tech startup Adlantis back in 2007, subsequently selling it off to Gree for 1.6 billion yen (approximately $16 million) back in 2011. We had a chance to hear more from Kimura about the company’s future strategy, and we hope to share that very…

See the original story in Japanese.

Tokyo-based Gunosy, the startup behind the news curation app of the same name, announced today it will launch a performance-based ad service next week, which it will call Gunosy Ads. The new service allows advertisers to distribute ads to clusters of users according to their interests.

The company has also just revealed that their app surpassed 1 million downloads last month.

The Gunosy Ads service started distributing ads on a test basis last month, and the diagrams below were measured in the period. The CTR (click through rate) and CVR (conversion rate) figures are surprisingly high. CVR is mostly just above 10% on average, and you typically won’t see such a high number on other ad networks. By going ahead with the launch, it shows that Gunosy sees potential in this new advertising stream.

In addition, Shinji Kimura, a pioneer in the Japanese ad-tech sector, has joined their team. He founded ad-tech startup Adlantis back in 2007, subsequently selling it off to Gree for 1.6 billion yen (approximately $16 million) back in 2011.

We had a chance to hear more from Kimura about the company’s future strategy, and we hope to share that very soon. So stay tuned!

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Punishment Punch Girl: Japan’s latest ‘weird’ game is surprisingly good

Punishment Punch Girl

SCORE 1,490

Rick Martin 2013.10.31

One of Japan’s hottest new mobile games over the past couple of weeks has been Punishment Punch Girl, a (strange) new fighter game from e-Dragon Power and Craft & Meister. I understand that well-known game designer Noritaka Funamizu (C&M), of Street Fighter II and Monster Hunter fame, worked on this title. The premise of the game, as noted already by a few Western publications, is an unusual one. The hero is a high school girl who is tasked with beating up perverts (often very strangely dressed ones) who lurk on the train. Looking beyond the unusual concept, Punch Girl is a really fun game. I’ve been playing it over the past few days, but I confess, it’s not something I really want to play when anyone is looking! In addition to the overall style of Punch Girl, the fun part of the gameplay is mastering the technique of, well, kicking ass. You have to keep your enemy airborne long enough to inflict the required amount of hits, and to do that you’ll need variety of directional attacks. Building a repertoire of attacks (they can be added in exchange for your collected experience points) really hooks you into the game. You…

One of Japan’s hottest new mobile games over the past couple of weeks has been Punishment Punch Girl, a (strange) new fighter game from e-Dragon Power and Craft & Meister. I understand that well-known game designer Noritaka Funamizu (C&M), of Street Fighter II and Monster Hunter fame, worked on this title.

The premise of the game, as noted already by a few Western publications, is an unusual one. The hero is a high school girl who is tasked with beating up perverts (often very strangely dressed ones) who lurk on the train. Looking beyond the unusual concept, Punch Girl is a really fun game. I’ve been playing it over the past few days, but I confess, it’s not something I really want to play when anyone is looking!

In addition to the overall style of Punch Girl, the fun part of the gameplay is mastering the technique of, well, kicking ass. You have to keep your enemy airborne long enough to inflict the required amount of hits, and to do that you’ll need variety of directional attacks. Building a repertoire of attacks (they can be added in exchange for your collected experience points) really hooks you into the game. You can check out our video demo above to see how this works.

Putting cute girl characters in the role of a fighter always seems to prove popular in various media (see Lollipop Chainsaw, Machine Girl [1]), not surprisingly among male audiences. So far it is doing pretty good here in Japan, becoming the second ranked iOS app overall back on October 29, having initially launched back on October 16. Currently it is ranked 22nd overall, although it was still in the top ten just earlier today.

On one hand, I hope the game gets published in English as well because I think it could really do well with Western audiences. But at the same time, I think the sense of humor behind the game might just be passed off as Japan being weird, rather than Japan being creative and funny.

Overall I think it is a pretty interesting game. It’s very enjoyable, and hard to put down once you get going. If you’d like to give it a try, you can get it as a free download over on the Japanese App Store.

Or maybe it’s just chainsaws? What if Evil Dead 2 was remade with a school girl? Hmmm… ↩

News

Website translation tool WorldJumper launches freemium version

How to turn your iPhone into a retro television on the cheap

Japan’s Meetrip acquired by social game developer Donuts, relocates to Bangkok

Another Finnish collaboration for Japan’s GungHo: Angry Birds coming to Puzzle & Dragons