Angry Birds found a license agent in Japan at last

Sony Creative Products, the subsidiary of Sony Music Entertainment and dealt with the license business of characters became the license agent of Angry Birds in Japan.

Unfortunately Angry Birds did not yet get popularity in Japan and did not have Japan's original license agent so far. When overseas companies conduct a business in Japan, the local partner is essential. In particular, in the character business and the game business, Japan has many rivals for them.

Sony Creative Products performs brand Building of Angry Birds such as marketing, promotion, the holding of events, the inflection of media, goods development and the sale from January, 2016. In addition, they show The Angry Birds Movie in Japan in the autumn of 2016. This is serious decision, too. In Japan, even the movies which made a hit abroad are not often shown. As for such the movies, only DVD is released quietly( and such the examples are called "DVD through" by Japanese movie fans). What does this mean? Sony Creative Products must raise recognition of Angry Birds in Japan by next autumn.

The remote controllers of many consumer electronics are already unnecessary

If you have this, you do not say "where is remote controller of TV?" anymore. The remote controllers of consumer electronics often obstacle in rooms.

This is a gadget allowing you to operate consumer electronics using infrared remote controllers with a smartphone. This memorizes infrared remote controllers' signals of consumer electronics of various brands and kinds, converts them into infrared rays from Wi-Fi and lets them link mobile application. Then users can operate consumer electronics such as TV, an audio system, and the air-conditioner with one smartphone. In addition, users can check on/off of the switches from a smartphone immediately because this has sensors sensing the temperature, the humidity and the illumination of the room. If there is even Wi-Fi, this supports most consumer electronics.

via http://www.ratocsystems.com/products/subpage/wfirex1.html

[Photo] Xmas Ver. of the goods shop of Japanese mobile game character Nameko

When I go to Tokyo, I go to the goods shop of Nameko, the Japanese mobile game character located in basement shopping mall of Tokyo Station. It passed from opening more than one year, but does not get tired here even if I visit it many times because displays are changed every month, and new products are added. It is Christmas not to mention this month.

These are released stuffed toys this month.

Shop staff are very good at drawing display cards.

The Christmas card of the original design is presented to fans who did shopping here.

Nameko is one of the successful examples with real goods not virtual goods in the Japanese mobile game industry. Five years pass from the release of apps soon, but the popularity of this does not yet decline.

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[Photo Report] Nameko shop preview in Basement of Tokyo Station

Name Kingdom - Free browser game that battle by the family names

Japan has about 300,000 kinds of family names, and this is the second place of the world(By the way, the first place is US and the third place is Finland). Therefore the big data inflection entertainment TV program "Data Navi" of Japanese public broadcasting NHK released the free funny browser game "Name Kingdom" using the big data of Japanese family names. You can play this by both of PC and smartphones.

This is casual game that players fight against enemy characters of each Japanese prefecture by power of own family name.

At first we input own family name. You can input an imaginary family name if you don't like inputting the real name. But it must be a kanji(漢字), and only kanji four characters can input.

Then, we choose own native prefecture. Each prefecture have characters associated with the area, but all of them are funny.

This game displays the number of the family names every each prefecture by ranking. In addition, the family names express regionality in Japan. For example, Okinawa(沖縄)'s general family name is rare in other prefectures, because originally Okinawa was an independent kingdom called Lewchew(Luchu or Loochoo: 琉球). The family names established for the kingdom era are used in current Okinawa. We can know the regionality of family names in this game. By the way, Akita that is my native prefecture was a place of banishment of nobles in the Heian era(平安時代), and escape of loser warriors in the Sengoku era(戦国時代). So there are many family names in conjunction with them. My ancestors were loser warrior, too, but the detailed data did not come out because unfortunately my family name "Komoriya(籠谷)" was too rare and was the minority.

In the battle, we put kanjis together, make family names and hit them on enemies. The majority family names of own prefecture   have strong power and can give enemies much damage. It is a key of the victory whether you choose what kind of kanjis before a time limit, and you make what kind of family names. We can see data of the family names that each other used for attacks during battles.

This is an interesting inflection example of big data. If you learn in Japanese, in particular kanjis, this is a pleasant casual game. You will come across many Japanese strange family names here.

Amazon.co.jp delivers Buddhist monks to families holds memorial services

Minrebi, Japan’s end-of-life startup, started service to dispatch a Buddhist monks to families who holds Buddhist memorial services. Its platform is Amazon.co.jp.

Funerals and memorial services have various complicated traditions. In former Japan, any families had a temple in the neighborhood, and were close to monks. Therefore they could ask them the tradition of funerals and memorial services lighthearted. However, after rapid economic growth, urbanization advances and nuclear families increase, the village communities declines, and the bond of families and temples was lost because of them.

Minrebi dispatches monks to families without the interchange with the temple in flat rate. If monk only recite a sutra in home, cemetery or ceremony hall, the rate is 35,000 yen(about $280) in any location in Japan.  Furthermore, rates are 45,000 - 65,000 yen by service contents of monk. Ex, monk recite sutras in plural places, and  grants a posthumous Buddhist name to the deceased. Buddhism has various denominations, but even if families are any denominations, they can invite monks corresponding to it.

It is still rare that a manpower dispatch service using Amazon is offered in Japan. This is very interesting service. Even if a bond of families and monks is cut off, the new Internet business can tie it again.