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Line Pokopang is another inexplicably popular puzzler

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Line Corporation’s chat platform continues to be an amazing distribution channel for its repertoire of games. The company’s hottest game these days is Line Pokopang, proving popular on both iOS and Android platforms where it is currently the top ranked free app in Japan. The title is a casual puzzle game, with a very light RPG aspect that challenges you (a cute pink bunny) to defeat enemy monster invaders. It’s a simple match-three game with a one-minute time limit (indicator is on the bottom) to defeat the baddies, with special blocks that you can explode to speed up the process. Initially released back on May 28th, Pokopang has been doing particularly well on the Android platform in Japan holding now lower than second position overall on Google Play store since June 15th, and ranking as one of the top grossing apps as well. For iOS, Pokopang has been a top ten mainstay since around mid-June, currently ranked as the top free app here in Japan. The game has been advertised on television over the past week or so, and certainly that has likely contributed to its recent popularity. But I confess, I’m still a little surprised that the game is…

Line Corporation’s chat platform continues to be an amazing distribution channel for its repertoire of games. The company’s hottest game these days is Line Pokopang, proving popular on both iOS and Android platforms where it is currently the top ranked free app in Japan.

The title is a casual puzzle game, with a very light RPG aspect that challenges you (a cute pink bunny) to defeat enemy monster invaders. It’s a simple match-three game with a one-minute time limit (indicator is on the bottom) to defeat the baddies, with special blocks that you can explode to speed up the process.

Initially released back on May 28th, Pokopang has been doing particularly well on the Android platform in Japan holding now lower than second position overall on Google Play store since June 15th, and ranking as one of the top grossing apps as well. For iOS, Pokopang has been a top ten mainstay since around mid-June, currently ranked as the top free app here in Japan.

The game has been advertised on television over the past week or so, and certainly that has likely contributed to its recent popularity. But I confess, I’m still a little surprised that the game is still doing as well as it is.

I’ve been playing the game a little bit, and while I’m not usually very interested in Line’s casual titles, this one is not so bad – but it most certainly will not be eating into any of my Puzzle & Dragons time. Pokopang is a little pushy in asking you to involve your friends on Line, and I expect that aspect has helped its popularity too.

It is pretty cute too, I suppose.

If you’d like a better idea of how Line Pokopang works, check out our demo video above. To try it for yourself, you can get it as a free download from the App Store or Google Play.

pokopang pokopang-3

Japan’s love of ‘Now’ on Twitter, and the app that ranks top trends

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Keyword Now is a very simple website that allows you to find the most talked-about topics in Japan. As Twitter became more popular, people started ending their tweets with the word ’Now’ as a way to express what they are currently up to. The site crawls the web every hour to find out what’s popular, and lets you see the trends by hour, day, or by week. By tapping on a particular topic, you can further search Wikipedia, Youtube, Twitter, or find images. You can also see a list of related news articles for a given topic, removing the hassle of searching and finding relavent news yourself. Keyword Now is interesting in that it reveals that people are still very much influenced by TV and old media. Many of the topics that appear in the app’s trending list comes from TV shows being broadcast. For example, this morning in Tokyo, there was a talk show called Sawako no Asa, or Sawako’s morning. The guest today was well-known violinist Taro Hakase, and his name appears in the top ten hourly rankings. This one-stop news app is very simple. It can be really handy as a way of keeping up to date…

KeywordNow

Keyword Now is a very simple website that allows you to find the most talked-about topics in Japan. As Twitter became more popular, people started ending their tweets with the word ’Now’ as a way to express what they are currently up to.

The site crawls the web every hour to find out what’s popular, and lets you see the trends by hour, day, or by week. By tapping on a particular topic, you can further search Wikipedia, Youtube, Twitter, or find images. You can also see a list of related news articles for a given topic, removing the hassle of searching and finding relavent news yourself.

KeywordNow-app

Keyword Now is interesting in that it reveals that people are still very much influenced by TV and old media. Many of the topics that appear in the app’s trending list comes from TV shows being broadcast. For example, this morning in Tokyo, there was a talk show called Sawako no Asa, or Sawako’s morning. The guest today was well-known violinist Taro Hakase, and his name appears in the top ten hourly rankings.

This one-stop news app is very simple. It can be really handy as a way of keeping up to date on the latest happenings, since the app covers anything from world news to politics to gossip – so you’ll have no shortage of material for chatting at the water cooler at work, for example. I can also imagine people using this app to find topics for the popular curation site Naver Matome .

Keyword Now is available on the web, as well as on iOS.

Japan’s Ninja Striker is a wonderfully retro 8bit game for iPhone

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Here’s a really fun mobile game for you to kick off your weekend with. Ninja Striker is a great little side-scroller, designed in the 8-bit style that children of the 80s will love. It has very much a Sonic or Mario Bros feeling, with coins to collect and oncoming monster baddies to slash up. But because it’s a mobile game, the controls have been simplified in a very clever way. All you need to do is point where you want your ninja to fly or strike, and he’ll do it. He’s pretty immune to gravity as well, capable of clinging to walls and ceilings too (sort of like Ninja Gaiden). Developed by Q-cumber Factory, Ninja Striker is usually priced at 85 yen (or a dollar), but it’s free right now for a limited time. I’ve been enjoying it a lot today, and I recommend you give it a try as a nice casual time killer with a dash of retro nostalgia. You can pick it up over on the App Store, or if you’d like a preview of the gameplay check out our video demo below.

ninja-striker

Here’s a really fun mobile game for you to kick off your weekend with. Ninja Striker is a great little side-scroller, designed in the 8-bit style that children of the 80s will love.

It has very much a Sonic or Mario Bros feeling, with coins to collect and oncoming monster baddies to slash up. But because it’s a mobile game, the controls have been simplified in a very clever way.

All you need to do is point where you want your ninja to fly or strike, and he’ll do it. He’s pretty immune to gravity as well, capable of clinging to walls and ceilings too (sort of like Ninja Gaiden).

Developed by Q-cumber Factory, Ninja Striker is usually priced at 85 yen (or a dollar), but it’s free right now for a limited time.

I’ve been enjoying it a lot today, and I recommend you give it a try as a nice casual time killer with a dash of retro nostalgia. You can pick it up over on the App Store, or if you’d like a preview of the gameplay check out our video demo below.

Medical Recipe: Japan’s mobile portal for special diet needs

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User-generated recipe portals like Cookpad are extremely popular in recent years. But for people with certain health problems or eating restrictions, such recipes may not be so usable. To help provide information to these people, Medical Recipe is a new kind of recipe portal that focuses on health treatment recipes. The target for this new (Japanese language) recipe site are people dealing with some affliction, looking to manage their health by making dietary adjustments. For example, there are recipes available for people fighting or recovering from stomach cancer, bowel cancer, or those going through radiation therapy or undergoing drug treatment. Medical Recipe provides the necessary diet menus for such patients, lending a helping hand to families of the patient. In addition to food recipes, there is other useful content about how to manage your diet, basic primers about different diseases, and even calorie charts for menus at restaurants. Your favorite recipes can be saved for later reference, and there is a social network feature too. Medical Recipe plans to expand its reach by adding recipes for adult disease such as high blood pressure, diabetes, and dyslipidemia. Considering that its users are likely to be of an older age, the portal…

Medeical-Recipe-top Medical-Recipe-recipes

User-generated recipe portals like Cookpad are extremely popular in recent years. But for people with certain health problems or eating restrictions, such recipes may not be so usable. To help provide information to these people, Medical Recipe is a new kind of recipe portal that focuses on health treatment recipes.

The target for this new (Japanese language) recipe site are people dealing with some affliction, looking to manage their health by making dietary adjustments. For example, there are recipes available for people fighting or recovering from stomach cancer, bowel cancer, or those going through radiation therapy or undergoing drug treatment. Medical Recipe provides the necessary diet menus for such patients, lending a helping hand to families of the patient.

In addition to food recipes, there is other useful content about how to manage your diet, basic primers about different diseases, and even calorie charts for menus at restaurants. Your favorite recipes can be saved for later reference, and there is a social network feature too. Medical Recipe plans to expand its reach by adding recipes for adult disease such as high blood pressure, diabetes, and dyslipidemia.

Considering that its users are likely to be of an older age, the portal can be viewed on both feature phones and smartphones for a monthly fee of 147 yen (or about $1.50).

On a related note, Sapporo Beer (which we mentioned in a recent post) is working to release the world’s first online community for people suffering from gout. In Japan, about 16 million people suffer from high uric acid in the blood, and of those about one million are gout patients. Although the community is built as a promotion for its zero-purine beer, with an aging population, we can expect to see more initiatives like these in the coming future.

Japanese nail art enters another dimension thanks to 3D printing

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Japan has an abundance of fun 3D printing projects, such as Fotofig which we featured just recently. And while many such projects are a little off the wall, here’s one that’s more unusual than most. Maayu Co. Ltd. offers a pretty incredible 3D nail printing service, allowing nail art fans to take their finger flair to the next level. This moko art (moko meaning ‘bump’) service became available on August 12th, and users can order nails by simply submitting a photo of a family member, a significant other, or even a pet. The process uses a soft resin which and takes cues from the shading on the photo to determine the texture and printed contours. This is an interesting concept, because it’s essentially extrapolating a third dimension from a 2D photo. After that, the face/image is printed on, and some final stage finishing is done by hand. As you might expect the process isn’t a cheap one, with a price tag of 7800 yen (or about $80) for a single nail. The nails are sent to you by mail, at which point you can sharpen or file them to your liking [1]. To find out more about the process, check…

nail-art-3d

Japan has an abundance of fun 3D printing projects, such as Fotofig which we featured just recently. And while many such projects are a little off the wall, here’s one that’s more unusual than most. Maayu Co. Ltd. offers a pretty incredible 3D nail printing service, allowing nail art fans to take their finger flair to the next level.

This moko art (moko meaning ‘bump’) service became available on August 12th, and users can order nails by simply submitting a photo of a family member, a significant other, or even a pet. The process uses a soft resin which and takes cues from the shading on the photo to determine the texture and printed contours.

This is an interesting concept, because it’s essentially extrapolating a third dimension from a 2D photo. After that, the face/image is printed on, and some final stage finishing is done by hand.

As you might expect the process isn’t a cheap one, with a price tag of 7800 yen (or about $80) for a single nail. The nails are sent to you by mail, at which point you can sharpen or file them to your liking [1]. To find out more about the process, check out the company’s website (Japanese only).

If you’d like to explore more nail art from Japan, you might check out local startup MiCHI, a company that provides an ecommerce service specializing in nail art. They ship overseas as well, so if you live outside Japan it’s no problem to order.


  1. My nail terminology is lacking here, please forgive me in advance. I don’t use this stuff myself!  ↩

Bicycle safety made pretty: LED guide lights keep cars at bay

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Japanese gadget vendor Thanko has a really fun bicycle tail light up for sale right now. The device users five LED lights to project a pair of guidelines behind you to keep tailgating cars at bay. There’s also a fun bicycle image projected too, just in case drivers aren’t clear that these strange lights are coming from a bicycle. The light system is powered by two AAA batteries, and can be used for up to 30 hours, which should be plenty of time for most cyclists. The lights power off on their own as well when the bike has been stopped for more then 5 minutes. If you’re in Japan, you can pick one up over on Thanko’s website for 1980 yen, or a very affordable $20. For those outside Japan, you can order via Thanko’s newly launched Raremono shop, although you’ll have to wait a little while as it’s currently out of stock. There have been other systems similar to this one, including this one from Korea, so it’s not an entirely unique idea. But it’s a really interesting solution that encourages bicycle safety in a fun way, so I thought I’d share it. Have a look at their…

laser-bike-taillight

Japanese gadget vendor Thanko has a really fun bicycle tail light up for sale right now. The device users five LED lights to project a pair of guidelines behind you to keep tailgating cars at bay. There’s also a fun bicycle image projected too, just in case drivers aren’t clear that these strange lights are coming from a bicycle.

The light system is powered by two AAA batteries, and can be used for up to 30 hours, which should be plenty of time for most cyclists. The lights power off on their own as well when the bike has been stopped for more then 5 minutes.

If you’re in Japan, you can pick one up over on Thanko’s website for 1980 yen, or a very affordable $20. For those outside Japan, you can order via Thanko’s newly launched Raremono shop, although you’ll have to wait a little while as it’s currently out of stock.

There have been other systems similar to this one, including this one from Korea, so it’s not an entirely unique idea. But it’s a really interesting solution that encourages bicycle safety in a fun way, so I thought I’d share it. Have a look at their demo of how it works in the video below.

It’s still not as cool as a fun animated wheel LED system that I saw here in Japan a few years back. I’m glad to see that project is still going, and you can check it out over on Anipov.jp.

Battle Cats invade Yahoo Japan in fun game promo collaboration

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Kyoto-based game developer Ponos recently unveiled version 2.0 of its successful tower defense game Battle Cats, which has over 6.5 million downloads to date. The updated version includes a new chapter that you can play as well as a few additional character upgrades. But perhaps even more interesting than the upgrade is how the company is going about promoting the game recently. In order to give Battle Cats a boost in its home market (where it is known as Nyanko Taisen), Ponus recently announced that its has partnered with none other than the nation’s largest web portal Yahoo Japan in an effort to promote the title better among mobile users. Now when anyone searches for the term Nyanko on the mobile version of Yahoo Japan, cute Battle Cats will invade your search results screen, presenting you with a fun Nyanko theme (see below), and occasional cat food offers (the currency in the game). Given the popularity of Yahoo Japan as a web destination, this should certainly help give the game a much needed boost, since its downloads appear to have plateaued. And now the bad news. If you’re a fan of Battle Cats who does not live in Japan, don’t…

nyanco-yahoo

Kyoto-based game developer Ponos recently unveiled version 2.0 of its successful tower defense game Battle Cats, which has over 6.5 million downloads to date. The updated version includes a new chapter that you can play as well as a few additional character upgrades.

But perhaps even more interesting than the upgrade is how the company is going about promoting the game recently. In order to give Battle Cats a boost in its home market (where it is known as Nyanko Taisen), Ponus recently announced that its has partnered with none other than the nation’s largest web portal Yahoo Japan in an effort to promote the title better among mobile users.

Now when anyone searches for the term Nyanko on the mobile version of Yahoo Japan, cute Battle Cats will invade your search results screen, presenting you with a fun Nyanko theme (see below), and occasional cat food offers (the currency in the game). Given the popularity of Yahoo Japan as a web destination, this should certainly help give the game a much needed boost, since its downloads appear to have plateaued.

And now the bad news.

If you’re a fan of Battle Cats who does not live in Japan, don’t delete or try to upgrade your app. It looks as though Ponos has stopped providing the previously available English version of the game after the 2.0 upgrade. I’ve reached out to the company to find out more, and I’ll let you know if they provide any rationale for this, or if a re-release is upcoming.

If you have yet to try Battle Cats, you can pick it up over on the App Store or on Google Play – although its just in Japanese for the time being.

nyanco

Rakuten Marketing picks up Seattle-based affiliate aggregator PopShops

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This week Rakuten Marketing, a New York-headquartered arm of Japanese e-commerce giant Rakuten, acquired PopShops, an affiliate product feed aggregator founded back in 2006. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. PopShops serves up-to-date information on retail products from affiliate programs like Commission Junction, Avant Link, eBay, and Amazon. And Rakuten Marketing noted in its announcement that such feeds are “a fundamental part of e-commerce.” Rakuten Marketing already had a relationship with Seattle-based PopShops via Rakuten LinkShare, as the technology was already integrated into the latter’s affiliate marketing network. With this acquisition, clients can still opt for another feed technology if they choose. Now known as ‘Rakuten PopShops’ (logo below), the acquired service will now be housed under the Rakuten Markering umbrella, right along side Rakuten LinkShare and Rakuten Mediaforge. PopShop employees will remain in the company’s Seattle headquarters.

popshops

This week Rakuten Marketing, a New York-headquartered arm of Japanese e-commerce giant Rakuten, acquired PopShops, an affiliate product feed aggregator founded back in 2006. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

PopShops serves up-to-date information on retail products from affiliate programs like Commission Junction, Avant Link, eBay, and Amazon. And Rakuten Marketing noted in its announcement that such feeds are “a fundamental part of e-commerce.”

Rakuten Marketing already had a relationship with Seattle-based PopShops via Rakuten LinkShare, as the technology was already integrated into the latter’s affiliate marketing network. With this acquisition, clients can still opt for another feed technology if they choose.

Now known as ‘Rakuten PopShops’ (logo below), the acquired service will now be housed under the Rakuten Markering umbrella, right along side Rakuten LinkShare and Rakuten Mediaforge. PopShop employees will remain in the company’s Seattle headquarters.

rakuten-popshops

Japanese news curation startup raises $4.2 million

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See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based Gocro, the startup behind news curation app SmartNews, announced today it has raised 420 million yen (approximately $4.2 million) from Globis Capital Partners. Smartnews is a mobile app that curates trending news stories based on Twitter data, analyzed with its own original technology. To date the startup has partnered with 43 news services and 25 companies for content syndication, and is exploring more partnerships in many business sectors. With this funding, the company plans to hire engineers and data scientists, and will increase its headcount from six to 40 over the next year. In this news app space here in Japan, we’ve seen more than a few competitors including Vingow and Gunosy. It is an interesting sector to watch, especially now that Line has thrown its hat in the ring as well with its own news app.

SmartNewsSee the original story in Japanese.

Tokyo-based Gocro, the startup behind news curation app SmartNews, announced today it has raised 420 million yen (approximately $4.2 million) from Globis Capital Partners.

Smartnews is a mobile app that curates trending news stories based on Twitter data, analyzed with its own original technology. To date the startup has partnered with 43 news services and 25 companies for content syndication, and is exploring more partnerships in many business sectors.

With this funding, the company plans to hire engineers and data scientists, and will increase its headcount from six to 40 over the next year.

In this news app space here in Japan, we’ve seen more than a few competitors including Vingow and Gunosy. It is an interesting sector to watch, especially now that Line has thrown its hat in the ring as well with its own news app.

Now with 21M users in Japan, Facebook looks poised for a serious push

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Thanks to Serkan Toto for pointing out some updated user numbers for Facebook in Japan. He cites the company’s managing director in Japan, Atsushi Iwashita, who disclosed to The Nikkei that the social network has 21 million monthly active users in Japan. That’s up from 19 million back in February. Serkan relays lots of other juicy stats (check them out here), but perhaps the most interesting tidbit was that Facebook plans to double its sales force in the country over the next year, and start TV advertising in the country. In Japan, TV advertising often proves as a key catalyst for social services (see Line) and games (see Puzzle and Dragons). If it does the same for Facebook then this could means a huge boost for Zuckerberg’s network. We have seen lots of interesting social media campaigns in Japan leveraging Facebook recently, and that’s only going to continue. In terms of Facebook’s own ad business, COO Sheryl Sandberg pointed out recently that companies here are really starting to come on board: I was actually in Japan and Korea, meeting with advertisers just a few weeks ago, and we are seeing companies that really weren’t doing much with us a year…

nikkei-trendy-facebook-japan
Photo: Nikkei Trendy

Thanks to Serkan Toto for pointing out some updated user numbers for Facebook in Japan. He cites the company’s managing director in Japan, Atsushi Iwashita, who disclosed to The Nikkei that the social network has 21 million monthly active users in Japan. That’s up from 19 million back in February.

Serkan relays lots of other juicy stats (check them out here), but perhaps the most interesting tidbit was that Facebook plans to double its sales force in the country over the next year, and start TV advertising in the country.

In Japan, TV advertising often proves as a key catalyst for social services (see Line) and games (see Puzzle and Dragons). If it does the same for Facebook then this could means a huge boost for Zuckerberg’s network.

We have seen lots of interesting social media campaigns in Japan leveraging Facebook recently, and that’s only going to continue. In terms of Facebook’s own ad business, COO Sheryl Sandberg pointed out recently that companies here are really starting to come on board:

I was actually in Japan and Korea, meeting with advertisers just a few weeks ago, and we are seeing companies that really weren’t doing much with us a year ago increasingly adopt us as part of a core part of their spend. So I remain very optimistic about our growth across Asia and the rest of the world.

Another Facebook exec Brad Smallwood, the company’s head of measurement and insight, will be speaking at AdTech Tokyo 2013 next month as well, recently announced as a keynote speaker. So if you’re in town at the time, be sure to check it out.