Japanese old man draws a splendid picture by Excel

Are these pixel art? No. These are "Excel" art.

Mr.Tatsuo Horiuchi, 73-year-old living in Gunma, Japan draws a picture by Excel from 2000.

"I did not use Excel by work, but I watched that other people drew a graph neatly and thought that I could draw pictures by Excel". And he purchased a PC just before retirement at the age limit and challenged Excel art. Then, 10 years later, he became a painter as he participated in art exhibitions.

He is studded with auto-shapes in a worksheet innumerably and gives coloring. It is incredibly delicate that it was described in Excel.

Why will he draw a picture by Excel? He said, "Graphics software were expensive, but Excel was preinstalled in a PC. And it is higher-performance than paint and is easy to use it". He makes friends with oil painters and Japanese painters, and exchanges information now. Furthermore, he runs a Website and shows a method to describe Excel art. Unfortunately it supports only Japanese. However, we can watch his works here.

Source:
http://pc.nikkeibp.co.jp/article/interview/20130319/1083744/

LINE became No.1 in free apps ranking of Chinese App Store

According to China Daily, Japanese messaging apps LINE became No.1 in free apps ranking of Chinese App Store.

LINE started Chinese support from December 12, 2012 and they cooperated with QIHU360. They entered the Chinese market and got No.1 in 4 months.

Of course China has WeChat. They have users more than 200 million and probably are the world's largest messaging apps. It is very important to LINE that they beat them. By the way, LINE has about 130 million users now.

Big news! LINE launched e-book business

Today, LINE started e-book service LINE Manga suddenly. But it is only Japanese support at present.

LINE Manga is e-book apps for smartphones that market place, viewer and bookshelf were combined. About 30,000 popular Manga such as "Uchu Kyodai(宇宙兄弟;Space Brothers)" ,"ONE PIECE", "Shingeki no kyojin(進撃の巨人;Attack on Titan" and "Kaiji(カイジ)" have been already sold here. Furthermore, they are going to add Manga more than 1,000 every month.

The biggest characteristic of LINE Manga is to offer a limited stamp(sticker) to users who purchased Manga. They apply the tie-up technique with companies, brands, artists and game apps to LINE Manga.

Users can share favorite Manga sold in LINE Manga in a timeline of LINE.

Because there is a trial reading function in LINE Manga, users can confirm contents before purchasing them.

This is a big menace for other Japanese e-book services. About 30,000 sale numbers are the hugest in e-book services of Japan. In addition, the publishing companies join in LINE Manga are more than 50. Furthermore, LINE has already had users more than 45 million in Japan. It is huge in all.

By the way, I think that LINE starts the social music service someday. e-book and the music are already virtual goods like a stamp(sticker). It is natural for LINE to treat all of them. Possibly the trial of the other day may be its sign. In Japan, LINE is already contents platform as well as messaging apps.

Manga of Nameko makes Japanese literature pleasant

I bought Manga "Nameko; complete series of literaturec".

The goods of the popular smartphone game apps Nameko Saibai Kit series overflow now in Japan. However, not only its goods but also Manga is published serially in Manga magazine for women Comic Spica. These Manga books are released to 2 volumes with the thing which settled it now.

The stories are not original. They arranged Japanese various famous novels by Nameko. Osamu Dazai's "The Setting Sun""Run, Melos!", Ryūnosuke Akutagawa's "The Spider's Thread", Sōseki Natsume's "Botchan", Ichiyō Higuchi's “Child’s Play”, Kenji Miyazawa's "The Restaurant of Many Orders""Gauche the Cellist", Atsushi Nakajima's "The Moon Above the Mountains", Takiji Kobayashi's "The Crab Cannery Ship", Kyūsaku Yumeno's "Girls' Hell"...etc... All of characters of masterpieces of various Japanese literature is replaced with Nameko!

It's humorous, funnily and very cute! and it has an effect to give friendly feeling to difficult novels. Furthermore, it derives readers to novels of the source.

1 Manga book is 650 yen(about 6.5USD). They already sold more than 250,000 books, and the release of Vol. 3 has been already decided, too.

Commemorative AR of Doraemon

Doraemon is Japanese popular Manga/Anime, and Movie of Doraemon is shown every year in Japan in March. The total audience mobilization number of them broke through 100 million people this year. This is a record more than the Godzilla series.

Therefore the commemorative AR contents of the Doraemon movie are shown now. AR apps for smartphones "mue Alive!" is necessary for watch this. Japan's Knowledge Works provides mue Alive! and is developed based on Aurasma.

At first, read Logo with a camera. Official Logo is here.

The first loading time is slightly long. We may wait for 1~2min.

Doraemon has begun to move!

And an commemorative video of Doraemon movie is played. *The sound is played, too.

Unfortunately only Japanese is supported, but it is very cute!