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LINE continues to be the perfect app distributor, as its photo app hits 40M downloads

Rick Martin 2013.07.30

Line Corporation has announced today that that its photo decoration and effects app Line Camera has surpassed the 40 million downloads mark. That’s a pretty significant accomplishment, although one wonders how many of those 40 million have stuck with the app given the abundance of alternatives available in Line’s home market of Japan [1]. I was curious to look at the pace of Line Camera’s growth, given that I hadn’t checked in on the app in over a year (see chart below). After its initial launch in April of 2012, the app picked up 5 million downloads in its first month, and went on to snag 20 million just after New Years. With 40 million announced today, it’s likely that Line Camera’s growth will continue to be completely dependent on how fast the Line chat platform – which is how it is distributed – can grow. Still, there are lots of photo apps that didn’t have such an effective distribution platform as Line, most notably services like Papelook (said to have been downloaded by half of Japan’s young girls who own iPhones), or FX Camera, which had 25 million users as of this past March. For more information on the…

Line Corporation has announced today that that its photo decoration and effects app Line Camera has surpassed the 40 million downloads mark. That’s a pretty significant accomplishment, although one wonders how many of those 40 million have stuck with the app given the abundance of alternatives available in Line’s home market of Japan [1].

I was curious to look at the pace of Line Camera’s growth, given that I hadn’t checked in on the app in over a year (see chart below). After its initial launch in April of 2012, the app picked up 5 million downloads in its first month, and went on to snag 20 million just after New Years. With 40 million announced today, it’s likely that Line Camera’s growth will continue to be completely dependent on how fast the Line chat platform – which is how it is distributed – can grow.

Still, there are lots of photo apps that didn’t have such an effective distribution platform as Line, most notably services like Papelook (said to have been downloaded by half of Japan’s young girls who own iPhones), or FX Camera, which had 25 million users as of this past March.

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

I was one of the early downloaders, and I’m no longer using it. Although admittedly, it probably would have been weird for me to keep doing so. ↩

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Japanese homescreen decoration app CocoPPa looks for new markets through Opera Mobile Store

Junya Mori 2013.07.29

See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based United, the company behind smartphone homescreen decoration app CocoPPa, announced today that it has introduced its popular app on the Opera Mobile Store. That store reaches various mobile platforms including Android, BlackBerry, Java, Symbian, and Windows Mobile. In addition to Apple’s AppStore and Google Play, the company has also introduced the app on Amazon’s Android AppStore earlier this month. The Opera Mobile Store doesn’t aim to defeat conventional app stores, but rather create an alternative for users who may have different needs in terms of mobile accessibility or location. The store has more then 45 million monthly downloads from over than 30 million users in 200 countries, with an especially strong presence in India, Indonesia, Brazil, and Russia. CocoPPa launched on this app store to intensify its user acquisition in these countries in particular. For those who are not familiar with the app, our previous articles will show you how it works and why it’s currently trending. Or check out the video below for a quick overview.

See the original story in Japanese.

Tokyo-based United, the company behind smartphone homescreen decoration app CocoPPa, announced today that it has introduced its popular app on the Opera Mobile Store. That store reaches various mobile platforms including Android, BlackBerry, Java, Symbian, and Windows Mobile. In addition to Apple’s AppStore and Google Play, the company has also introduced the app on Amazon’s Android AppStore earlier this month.

The Opera Mobile Store doesn’t aim to defeat conventional app stores, but rather create an alternative for users who may have different needs in terms of mobile accessibility or location. The store has more then 45 million monthly downloads from over than 30 million users in 200 countries, with an especially strong presence in India, Indonesia, Brazil, and Russia.

CocoPPa launched on this app store to intensify its user acquisition in these countries in particular. For those who are not familiar with the app, our previous articles will show you how it works and why it’s currently trending. Or check out the video below for a quick overview.

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New Japanese collage app off to a hot start, passes 500K downloads in its first month

Yukari Mitsuhashi 2013.07.23

Back in June, yet another cute Japanese photo app, Cameran Collage, joined an already crowded market. And now it has just been announced that the app has reached 500,000 downloads not yet a month after its initial release. Cameran Collage is seeing users not only here in Japan, but from other Asian countries like Taiwan and Hong Kong. Nowadays collage-making is sort of a default feature in many photo apps, even on ‘purikura’ machines or physical photo booths. What differentiates Cameran Collage from other apps is that its decorative items are created in collaboration with popular fashion brands or magazines — its most recent collaboration is in partnership with Anteprima. The app also allows users to easily share photos on Line, Twitter, and Facebook. Even if you’ve never made a collage before, the app provides handy templates to make any collage look cute. The total number of decorative items exceeds 300, and there are over 44 fonts and 26 clipping patterns available too. This seems like an overwhelming number of items to choose from, but according to the app’s art director, Miki Kitazawa, there is no such thing as ‘too much’ when it comes to ways of making something more…

Back in June, yet another cute Japanese photo app, Cameran Collage, joined an already crowded market. And now it has just been announced that the app has reached 500,000 downloads not yet a month after its initial release. Cameran Collage is seeing users not only here in Japan, but from other Asian countries like Taiwan and Hong Kong.

Nowadays collage-making is sort of a default feature in many photo apps, even on ‘purikura’ machines or physical photo booths. What differentiates Cameran Collage from other apps is that its decorative items are created in collaboration with popular fashion brands or magazines — its most recent collaboration is in partnership with Anteprima. The app also allows users to easily share photos on Line, Twitter, and Facebook.

Even if you’ve never made a collage before, the app provides handy templates to make any collage look cute. The total number of decorative items exceeds 300, and there are over 44 fonts and 26 clipping patterns available too. This seems like an overwhelming number of items to choose from, but according to the app’s art director, Miki Kitazawa, there is no such thing as ‘too much’ when it comes to ways of making something more ‘kawaii’. She explains:

Girls use different apps for different purposes, adding filters with Instagram, clipping with Papelook, and using Decopic for stamps. For these girls, there is no such thing as too much effort in making something kawaii. Cameran Collage has every feature they need all in one app.

The process of ‘app stacking’ is a pretty common phenomenon for smartphone photographers, and applications like this Cameran Collage that put everything in one place will likely continue to be well received as long as they save users time and trouble.

The company behind this popular collage app is Media Technology Lab, an experimental laboratory operated under Recruit. Media Technology Lab has released a series of apps in the past, which you can check out over on its official website.

Cameran Collage is available for download on the app store, and an Android version is expected to be released soon. You can check out how the app works in the video below.

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Designing for Women: 10 of the Cutest Color Palettes from Japan

Rick Martin 2013.07.22

Over the past few months, we have written about what we see as a trend coming from Japanese mobile developers: The country is exceptionally good at creating cute web services and apps that appeal to women [1]. On a visual level, a lot of these cute Japanese services possess many of the same qualities. And when it comes to choosing color schemes, that means lots of pinks, pastels, and other soft tones. I thought it would be good to collect some color palettes from Japanese services that are popular with women. For designers out there who are creating web services or apps for ladies, especially ones in Japan, do take note of the choices here when deciding your own color schemes [2]. Here they are, in no particular order: 1. Fril ¶ Fril is a flea market app for female students in high school or college. It encourages users to sell their unwanted clothes online. It was created by Fablic Inc. More on Fril in our database. Color Sample Color Code #ff899a #ffd2d2 #fef6e4 #e9f7f5 #695d53 2. iQon ¶ iQon is an online fashion coordination service. It allows users to create their favorite looks using photos of accessories and dresses…

Over the past few months, we have written about what we see as a trend coming from Japanese mobile developers: The country is exceptionally good at creating cute web services and apps that appeal to women [1]. On a visual level, a lot of these cute Japanese services possess many of the same qualities. And when it comes to choosing color schemes, that means lots of pinks, pastels, and other soft tones.

I thought it would be good to collect some color palettes from Japanese services that are popular with women. For designers out there who are creating web services or apps for ladies, especially ones in Japan, do take note of the choices here when deciding your own color schemes [2].

Here they are, in no particular order:

1. Fril ¶

Fril is a flea market app for female students in high school or college. It encourages users to sell their unwanted clothes online. It was created by Fablic Inc.

Color Sample	Color Code
	#ff899a
	#ffd2d2
	#fef6e4
	#e9f7f5
	#695d53

2. iQon ¶

iQon is an online fashion coordination service. It allows users to create their favorite looks using photos of accessories and dresses available on the website.

Color Sample	Color Code
	#fa3599
	#fff0f4
	#f4f4f4
	#fdfdfd
	#c2b8bb

3. Papelook ¶

Papelook is a mobile photo app that allows users to create their own collages. Users can easily cut out objects by tracing it with their finger, and then rearrange it with other snippets into elaborate photo collages.

Color Sample	Color Code
	#adde6b
	#ee99aa
	#f3ede8
	#49bbcc
	#d7ccb9

4. CocoPPa ¶

CocoPPa is a cute mobile app that lets you collaboratively create cute iPhone homescreens. It offers a platform where users around the world can share and collaborate on these kind of designs.

Color Sample	Color Code
	#642E16
	#FFA7BF
	#F6EBD9
	#C79968
	#FFE8EB

5. Snapeee ¶

Snapeee is a photo decorating and sharing app for iOS and Android. It allows users to alter and decorate their pictures using over 4000 decoration themes.

Color Sample	Color Code
	#aea08d
	#d2c4b0
	#9FE0E6
	#fdd1c9
	#d9d3c9

6. @Cosme ¶

@Cosme (pronounced ‘At Cosme’) is a cosmetics and beauty products internet portal, founded back in 1999. Users can check product reviews and rankings, ask questions about skincare and makeup, and even find out where products are available offline.

Color Sample	Color Code
	#068681
	#775555
	#e8e5e0
	#f9f7f1
	#e88d9c

7. Luna Luna ¶

Luna Luna is a tool that helps women be more aware of their menstrual cycles. By recording your menstrual period and body temperature, it predicts suitable timings for pregnancy, or help with contraconception. The service was originally provided on featured phones, but now there are dedicated applications.

Color Sample	Color Code
	#ffbecc
	#C4E0EE
	#fdf4f5
	#181F55
	#FFFAF6

7. Decopic ¶

Decopic is a photo application that allows users to decorate their photos with cute stamps, frames, and filters.

Color Sample	Color Code
	#723A0E
	#FAA69C
	#6B5954
	#EEF2F0
	#B29F6C

8. Nikkei Woman ¶

Nikkei Woman Online is the internet version of a Japanese lifestyle and entertainment magazine for women in their 20s and 30s.

Color Sample	Color Code
	#cd4a81
	#C97F89
	#A7A098
	#FBFBFB
	#CED7E8

9. Benesse Women’s Park ¶

Women’s Park is a review portal for mothers that launched back in 2000. The public company behind the site is Benesse, whose primary business is education.

Color Sample	Color Code
	#E85369
	#FF7B7B
	#FFFFE8
	#FFECEC
	#016DBF

10. Nailbook ¶

Nailbook is Japanese photo sharing service for nail art. User can save photos by pushing “Kawaii” button.

Color Sample	Color Code
	#F7342E
	#FFC4D0
	#FFD674
	#F7F7F7
	#FEE5EB

Big thanks to Yukari Mitsuhashi who has written about the vast majority of all these services almost single-handedly. ↩
Another big thanks to Ricky Elrod for his clever little Color Palette Generator Ruby script which I used as a starting point for creating the color palette tables above. ↩

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Downloaded by half of Japan’s iPhone girls, Papelook attracts more investment

Rick Martin 2013.07.10

Two Japanese mobile trends that we have been following closely over the past few months are high-quality Japanese photo apps, and the evolution of cute culture into an exportable mobile commodity. Popular made-in-Japan collage app Papelook lies at the intersection of these two trends, and that means it has lots of potential to grow, even beyond Japan’s borders. Today Digital Garage announced that it would be investing in Papelook, though the exact sum was not disclosed, the company will take 5% of the startup’s outstanding shares. The announcement also noted that Papelook has surpassed the 6 million downloads milestone (see chart below), boasting that among teenage girl iPhone users in Japan (specifically, those aged 10 to 20) it’s estimated that one in every two have downloaded Papelook. But the app has proven popular in overseas markets, currently ranking as a top 25 iOS photo app in South Korea, Indonesia, New Zealand, and Australia. On Android, It’s performing well in South Korea, Vietnam, and Taiwan. Papelook is an Open Network Lab startup, and our readers may recall that it took the top prize at the accelerator’s Demo Day back in May. The parent company of ONL is Digital Garage. For those…

Two Japanese mobile trends that we have been following closely over the past few months are high-quality Japanese photo apps, and the evolution of cute culture into an exportable mobile commodity. Popular made-in-Japan collage app Papelook lies at the intersection of these two trends, and that means it has lots of potential to grow, even beyond Japan’s borders.

Today Digital Garage announced that it would be investing in Papelook, though the exact sum was not disclosed, the company will take 5% of the startup’s outstanding shares.

The announcement also noted that Papelook has surpassed the 6 million downloads milestone (see chart below), boasting that among teenage girl iPhone users in Japan (specifically, those aged 10 to 20) it’s estimated that one in every two have downloaded Papelook.

papelook-growth — Papelook’s journey to 6 million downloads

But the app has proven popular in overseas markets, currently ranking as a top 25 iOS photo app in South Korea, Indonesia, New Zealand, and Australia. On Android, It’s performing well in South Korea, Vietnam, and Taiwan.

Papelook is an Open Network Lab startup, and our readers may recall that it took the top prize at the accelerator’s Demo Day back in May. The parent company of ONL is Digital Garage.

For those not familiar with Papelook, check out our demo video below from a few months back.

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Puzzle & Dragons not cute enough for you? Try Emotipon

Rick Martin 2013.07.04

We previously wrote about Japanese startup Quan Inc., which in addition to producing its own Lounge chat app, has produced a cute sticker app for a major Thai telco. But yesterday the company kicked its ‘repertoire of cute’ up a notch by release a new mobile game called Emotipon. In short, the title is sort of like GungHo’s Puzzle & Dragons, only it’s far simpler, and far more cute. Like P&D this is an orb-matching game, but here you just need to trace out lines of matching orbs with your finger. It’s almost painfully easy. And by matching more orbs, you can launch a more powerful attack against your enemy. As you progress, you collect ‘helper’ characters that you can take into battle with you, each with special abilities that you can use (just like P&D). I expect Quan must be targeting younger kids with Emotipon, because I think few adults would choose something like this over P&D. But surprisingly it’s launching in English as well as Japanese, so there may be opportunity for it to pick up fans outside Japan, especially in markets around Asia where cute Japanese apps do best. If you’d like to check out Emotipon, you…

We previously wrote about Japanese startup Quan Inc., which in addition to producing its own Lounge chat app, has produced a cute sticker app for a major Thai telco.

But yesterday the company kicked its ‘repertoire of cute’ up a notch by release a new mobile game called Emotipon. In short, the title is sort of like GungHo’s Puzzle & Dragons, only it’s far simpler, and far more cute.

Like P&D this is an orb-matching game, but here you just need to trace out lines of matching orbs with your finger. It’s almost painfully easy. And by matching more orbs, you can launch a more powerful attack against your enemy. As you progress, you collect ‘helper’ characters that you can take into battle with you, each with special abilities that you can use (just like P&D).

I expect Quan must be targeting younger kids with Emotipon, because I think few adults would choose something like this over P&D. But surprisingly it’s launching in English as well as Japanese, so there may be opportunity for it to pick up fans outside Japan, especially in markets around Asia where cute Japanese apps do best.

If you’d like to check out Emotipon, you can get it for free over on the App Store (via Gamebiz)

This is part of our cute Japanese apps series (RSS), examining a trend of ‘kawaii’ success stories emerging from Japan’s mobile space.

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Hello Kitty for your Smartphone: 5 Cute Apps to Try

SCORE 3,009

Yukari Mitsuhashi 2013.06.24

Hello Kitty Run! Run! Run! Perhaps the most popular of Japan’s many cute characters is Hello Kitty from Sanrio. This tiny cat absolutely everywhere, even on our mobile phones. Over on App Annie, searching ‘Hello Kitty’ brings up an astonishing 328 results. Here are just five of the apps we think you should consider downloading first. 1. Hello Kitty Mail ¶ One of the reasons that so many Japanese girls hesitated to switch to smartphones from feature phones was that it would be more difficult to send texts with cute emojis. Girls all have their favorite emoticons, and switching means that they would have to abandon them. But this Hello Kitty Mail app lets users send emails with cute Hello Kitty emojis, as well as Little Twin Sisters and My Melody. Additional emoji can be purchased within the app. If you’d like to download it, you can get it over on the app store for 170 yen (about $1.99). 2. Hello Kitty World ¶ Japanese web portal company Nifty released its iOS app in cooperation with Sanrio Wave back in April of 2012. And within just a year, the app has expanded to over 52 countries, with more than one…

Hello Kitty Run! Run! Run!

Perhaps the most popular of Japan’s many cute characters is Hello Kitty from Sanrio. This tiny cat absolutely everywhere, even on our mobile phones. Over on App Annie, searching ‘Hello Kitty’ brings up an astonishing 328 results. Here are just five of the apps we think you should consider downloading first.

1. Hello Kitty Mail ¶

One of the reasons that so many Japanese girls hesitated to switch to smartphones from feature phones was that it would be more difficult to send texts with cute emojis. Girls all have their favorite emoticons, and switching means that they would have to abandon them. But this Hello Kitty Mail app lets users send emails with cute Hello Kitty emojis, as well as Little Twin Sisters and My Melody. Additional emoji can be purchased within the app. If you’d like to download it, you can get it over on the app store for 170 yen (about $1.99).

2. Hello Kitty World ¶

Japanese web portal company Nifty released its iOS app in cooperation with Sanrio Wave back in April of 2012. And within just a year, the app has expanded to over 52 countries, with more than one million total downloads as of February 2013. With this app, users can create their own playland using different Sanrio characters. The social feature allows players to compete with each other through Twitter and Facebook too. The app has an English website which you can check out here.

3. Hello Kitty Run! Run! Run! ¶

Hello Kitty Run! Run! Run! is an app developed by the giant gaming company NamcoBandai, released back in May for both iOS and Android. In the game, an 8-bit Hello Kitty goes on adventures around the world turning herself into soldiers and witches. There are over 200 costumes for Hello Kitty to gear up in and over 50 stages to beat. The game is very simple and can be controlled by two buttons on the sides of the screen, making it suitable even for kids.

Check out Hello Kitty Run! Run! Run! in action below.

4. Hello Kitty Stamp Calendar ¶

This is a simple calendar app developed by Sanrio Wave featuring original Hello Kitty stamps. The app comes with an original Hello Kitty calendar theme that changes every week. By turning on the app once a day you can see Omikuji, a sort of a fortune-telling or horoscope. The calendar is good for three months, so in order to continue using the app it will be necessary to purchase an additional three months for 115 yen.

Hello Kitty Stamp Calendar is available on iOS for 350 yen (or $3.99).

5. Hello Kitty Face ¶

This one is for true Hello Kitty fans. ‘Hello Kitty Face’ is designed to work with a special iPhone case created by Gourmandise.

The outer case works as Hello Kitty’s body and the app displays her face on your mobile sceen. The iPhone case is available on Amazon Japan for 2,990 yen (or about $31) ¹.

To see the official Hello Kitty apps by Sanrio, you can check out Sanrio’s website.

On a related note, this may be the cutest Hello Kitty iPhone case ever.↩

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CyberAgent rolls out another cute mobile app, this time for baby photos

Rick Martin 2013.06.05

This is part of our cute Japanese apps series (RSS), examining a trend of ‘kawaii’ success stories emerging from Japan’s mobile space. We’ve looked at quite a few cute Japanese apps recently, but it’s hard to get any cuter than a deco-pic app for sharing pictures of babies. CyberAgent’s BabyDays app is exactly that, delivering a ‘kawaii’ overload in both presentation and content. Like most photo decoration apps these days, BabyDays comes with an assortment of frames, decorative texts and stickers. You can like pictures submitted by other users, voting them up if they are especially cute. This is a pretty smart feature, letting parents enjoy the feeling if having scores of people complement their baby all at once [1]. BabyDays also has heavy social integration, with Ameba authentication and the ability to share your pictures to Facebook, Twitter, and Mixi if you choose. You also have the option of viewing your photos in a calendar presentation as well. While the app has been around since late last year, it surged to become Japan’s top iOS photo app back on May 24th after a new version was released. Currently there is a promotion ongoing that gave the app a kick…

This is part of our cute Japanese apps series (RSS), examining a trend of ‘kawaii’ success stories emerging from Japan’s mobile space.

We’ve looked at quite a few cute Japanese apps recently, but it’s hard to get any cuter than a deco-pic app for sharing pictures of babies. CyberAgent’s BabyDays app is exactly that, delivering a ‘kawaii’ overload in both presentation and content.

Like most photo decoration apps these days, BabyDays comes with an assortment of frames, decorative texts and stickers. You can like pictures submitted by other users, voting them up if they are especially cute. This is a pretty smart feature, letting parents enjoy the feeling if having scores of people complement their baby all at once [1]. BabyDays also has heavy social integration, with Ameba authentication and the ability to share your pictures to Facebook, Twitter, and Mixi if you choose. You also have the option of viewing your photos in a calendar presentation as well.

While the app has been around since late last year, it surged to become Japan’s top iOS photo app back on May 24th after a new version was released. Currently there is a promotion ongoing that gave the app a kick start too, whereby if users decorate their baby pics with special Miki House frames, the have a chance to have their baby become a model for the famous baby brand. This promotion extends to the BabyDays Facebook page, where one baby’s picture will be featured each day.

In addition to CyberAgent’s popular Ameba Pigg virtual world, the company has produced a number of very ‘cute’ apps in the past, including its Decolink chat app, and just recently Girls Pic Plus. We think this is a pretty smart space to be in these days, and they should probably consider offering BabyDays in traditional Chinese for Greater China, and then maybe in English too.

If you’d like to try the app out for yourself, you can pick it up over on the App Store or on Google Play. Or if you’re in the market for other fun baby apps, check out another Japan-made product, Kiddy, or my own personal favorite, Notabli.

babydays — BabyDays progress, on App Annie

As a new father, I confess I take a lot of pleasure in this part. ↩

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5 cute Japanese apps that let you customize your mobile’s homescreen

SCORE 12,579

Yukari Mitsuhashi 2013.05.31

This is part of our cute Japanese apps series (RSS), examining a trend of ‘kawaii’ success stories emerging from Japan’s mobile space. If look at many of the popular mobile services used by Japanese girls, there is often some sort of customization feature. On the popular girls mobile blogging platform Decolog, which has a whopping 6.5 billion monthly page views, lets users customize their blogs using original photos or illustrations. This very flexible customization feature is one of the reasons for the service’s big success. Of course, these days the mobile homescreen is another area where girls want customization. Here is a list of five apps from Japan that allow users to do this in a very cute way. CocoPPa ¶ CocoPPa is a collaborative mobile customization platform that lets users all over the world create and collaborate on app icons and wallpapers, with many of its existing designs falling into the cute category. CocoPPa was released last July and since then it has been downloaded over 7.5 million times about half of that coming from the US. Readers may recall that the startup gave a pitch at the recent Infinity Ventures Summit in Sapporo. CocoPPa is availabe on iOS…

This is part of our cute Japanese apps series (RSS), examining a trend of ‘kawaii’ success stories emerging from Japan’s mobile space.

If look at many of the popular mobile services used by Japanese girls, there is often some sort of customization feature. On the popular girls mobile blogging platform Decolog, which has a whopping 6.5 billion monthly page views, lets users customize their blogs using original photos or illustrations. This very flexible customization feature is one of the reasons for the service’s big success. Of course, these days the mobile homescreen is another area where girls want customization. Here is a list of five apps from Japan that allow users to do this in a very cute way.

CocoPPa ¶

CocoPPa is a collaborative mobile customization platform that lets users all over the world create and collaborate on app icons and wallpapers, with many of its existing designs falling into the cute category. CocoPPa was released last July and since then it has been downloaded over 7.5 million times about half of that coming from the US. Readers may recall that the startup gave a pitch at the recent Infinity Ventures Summit in Sapporo.

CocoPPa is availabe on iOS and Andoird, and on the web.

Touch Icon Creator ¶

Touch Icon Creator is a very simple app that allows users to create original app icons using pictures in their photo library. So for example, you can create app icons with a photo of friends or family. I can also imagine this being useful for people who read celebrity blogs on the major blogging platform Ameblo. Mainstream users may not read online news media very often, but I think many read blogs by friends and celebrities. Users can create shortcuts on their homescreen and set customized photos that appropriately match the blog.

The app is available on iOS for 85 yen.

Icon Whip ¶

Icon Whip provides over 30 varieties of cute, original icons such as Hello Kitty or cookie shaped icons. The icons all have a sort of hand-drawn style, and that makes your homescreen look very unique. Some icons can be unlocked by sharing them Twitter or Facebook, and over on the Deco Market, there are premium icons that can be bought.

Icon Whip is available for Android.

+Icon ¶

+Icon is for those who really wants to unleash their creativity. The app offers things like frames and symbols so that you can create your own icon very easily. There are also designs provided in collaboration with popular apparel brands like X-girl and Milkfed.

The app is available on iOS.

Nuko Shortcut icon ¶

This one is for all the cat lovers out there. Nuko Shortcut Icon allows you to change your homescreen icons to Japanese-style cats illustrations. Nuko apparently means ‘cats’ (Neco in Japanese) in the internet world, although I had to look this up.

The app is available on Android with both free and paid versions. There are over 41 icons provided in the paid version.

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Top 5: Japan’s cutest Kaomoji apps

SCORE 14,506

Yukari Mitsuhashi 2013.05.29

This is part of our cute Japanese apps series (RSS), examining a trend of ‘kawaii’ success stories emerging from Japan’s mobile space. Emoji or emoticons are a big part of Japan’s kawaii culture. People of all ages in Japan express their feelings using emoji, especially on mobile. So it’s no surprise that there are plenty of apps dedicated to ‘Kaomoji’, or facial expressions conveyed through symbols. Here is a list of the best known Kaomoji apps! Emocolo ¶ Emocolo lets users share the latest kaomoji, ranging from simple kaomoji like good morning, thank you, or just a sad face. Users can find the type of kaomoji that they’re looking for, and can customize them freely. Emocolo is available for Android if you’d like to give it a try. This app has also partnered with what the developer says is the biggest kaomoji portal, Kamoji Cafe. Minna no Kaomoji jiten ¶ This app’s name can be translated as Everyone’s Kaomoji dictionary. Tapping on your choice of kaomoji copies it, and you can then paste it to text message, Twitter, or Line. Minna no kaomoji jiten is available for both iOS and on Android. So far it has a 4.5 rating on…

This is part of our cute Japanese apps series (RSS), examining a trend of ‘kawaii’ success stories emerging from Japan’s mobile space.

Emoji or emoticons are a big part of Japan’s kawaii culture. People of all ages in Japan express their feelings using emoji, especially on mobile. So it’s no surprise that there are plenty of apps dedicated to ‘Kaomoji’, or facial expressions conveyed through symbols. Here is a list of the best known Kaomoji apps!

Emocolo ¶

Emocolo lets users share the latest kaomoji, ranging from simple kaomoji like good morning, thank you, or just a sad face. Users can find the type of kaomoji that they’re looking for, and can customize them freely. Emocolo is available for Android if you’d like to give it a try. This app has also partnered with what the developer says is the biggest kaomoji portal, Kamoji Cafe.

Minna no Kaomoji jiten ¶

This app’s name can be translated as Everyone’s Kaomoji dictionary. Tapping on your choice of kaomoji copies it, and you can then paste it to text message, Twitter, or Line. Minna no kaomoji jiten is available for both iOS and on Android. So far it has a 4.5 rating on Google Play (over 9,700 reviews) and 4.0 rating on the App Store.

Girl’s Kaomoji Book ¶

This app claims to be the first app solely dedicated to kaomoji. One of the largest iPhone and iPad app portal sites, meet-i, chose this app as the number one lifestyle app back in 2011. It integrates with both Twitter and mail, allowing users to post from within the app. Girl’s Kaomoji Book is available for both iOS and Android.

Girl’s Kaomoji Jiten 5000 ¶

This kaomoji app has over 20,000 kaomoji, a pretty large repertoire to say the least! It takes a log of kaomoji used in the past as well as the most recently used kaomoji. At one point it held the number one free app ranking for iOS and ranked second in the same category on Google Play. Girl’s Kaomoji Jiten 5000 can be downloaded for both iOS and Android.

Kao Mojimoji ¶

This Android app contains over 16,000 kaomoji and has a ranking feature, introducing most recent popular kaomoji everyday. The app keeps up to 300 records of past kaomoji usage, and just for fun it also counts how many times you have used a particular kaomoji. This latter function gives users a good reflection of what how they have been feeling based on just kaomoji usage.

On the iPhone and iPad portal mentioned above, there are over 50 apps listed when you search for kaomoji. So this list is just scratching the surface, and we encourage you to explore further. If you have a favorite kaomoji app, do let us know in the comments!

Simple text messages somehow lack the personal touch that so many Japanese people consider important. Kaomoji are an effective way to add a little personality! (˘︶˘).。.:*♡

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