Safety check apps for families at the disaster

Earthquake, typhoon, flood and the volcanic eruption... the whereabouts of the family is one of the most important information at the time of the natural disaster. However, mobile communications may be regulated under such situation. Emergency application Cocodayo helps users by GPS.

The structure of this application is very simple. At first, users register the people who want to confirm safety at the time of the disaster such as a family or important friend with agreements. Then the application links emergency disaster report and informs current location information of registered people on user's mobile. Users can register to up to four people. It is available as the security measures that are easy at normal times if you have children. The downloading is free(iOS/Android), but unfortunately this is released only in Japan at present.

Line for coloring of Yo-Kai Watch moves by apps

My mum bought materials of retort minced chicken bowl(そぼろ丼) which cooperated with Level-5's popular game/anime Yo-Kai Watch.

Such line for coloring of Jibanyan(ジバニャン) for children is placed in its box. However, this is also AR content.

At first we paint these in colors.

Next, we access the campaign site and download AR application. Unfortunately, the texts of a site and apps are written only in Japanese, but apps are downloadable from countries except Japan.

Scene of the Japanese festival appears when we start apps.

 When we tap scene of the Japanese festival, it changes to the image recognition screen with the camera. Let a camera recognize line for coloring of Jibanyan.

Then Jibanyan is cut out of a box and begins to move!

And he gets into scene of the Japanese festival. You can move him by tapping him and take screenshot by tapping a camera icon.

The scenes that we can use when we play this a lot increase. This is the Japanese beach.

Let's try blue Jibanyan, too.

It's confectionery company Glico to provide this(They sell also retort foods and the drinks). They performed similar AR promotion with popular anime/manga Doraemon last year.

See Also:

Best AR promotion ever! 3D Doraemon appears from a drawing for coloring

Line for coloring of Yo-Kai Watch is simpler than Doraemon of the last year, but children will be pleased. Worry is useless even if you do not live in Japan, you can download PDF of line for coloring in a campaign site like apps.

By the way, of course I ate minced chicken bowl properly.

mixi, Disney and NHN PlayArt make Marvel Heroes "TSUM TSUM", the cute mobile puzzle game

I introduced cute mobile puzzle game Yo-Kai Watch Puni Puni a few days ago. It is the mobile game that combined LINE: Disney TSUM TSUM which NHN PlayArt developed with Level-5's popular game/anime Yo-Kai Watch.

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Level-5 and NHN PlayArt released a mobile game of Yo-Kai Watch

mixi also join TSUM TSUM. They announced that they released Marvel TSUM TSUM in the spring of 2016. This is mobile puzzle game of the joint development of mixi, Walt Disney Japan and NHN PlayArt.

In the first place, TSUM TSUM is such a stuffed toy. Originally this was sold only in Disney stores in Japan, but it7s sold abroad now. LINE: Disney TSUM TSUM was the game that served as the advertising of this stuffed toy. They produced synergy, and both of a game and stuffed toy made a hit.



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Collaboration of Disney and LINE GAME is a great success

NHN PlayArt applies this to Marvel Heroes, and mixi adds know-how of co-play and battle which they acquired by experience by their popular mobile game Monster Strike. They have not yet shown the details of the game, but it is sure that it is cute.

GREE entered the VR business and established GREE VR Studio

Now, Japanese mobile game companies pay attention to VR. Main mobile game company GREE is no exception.

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Mobile game company Colopl established the subsidiary which produce VR panorama video

They established new studio GREE VR Studio which developed VR contents and released their first VR game for smartphones to play using simple VR goggles such as Google Cardboard(iOS/Android :Now only in Japan).

This is not the first time that they challenge VR game. They exhibited demo of the social VR game in Tokyo Game Show 2015, and ironically, it was the most popular in GREE booth.

VR game released this time is a single play, but is a very cool adventure game. Players can explore in remains of Egypt,  fight against enemies, and solve the mystery of remains. They develop various VR contents including movies and experience-based contents as well as games after this.

LINE escalated e-comics business in Taiwan

LINE released e-comics service for mobile LINE Manga in Taiwan. This is the first overseas development of their e-comics service.

LINE Manga is the e-comics service released in April, 2013 that can read various comics and novels with smartphones and tablets. LINE cooperates with more than 100 publishing companies and contributes more than 100,000 books. The application passes 11 million downloading and grows up to the hugest e-book service in Japan.

Japanese contents are very popular in Asia, but yet a lot of bad bootleg circulate because the overseas advance of Japanese companies is poor. LINE performed a capital tie-up with Japanese main publication companies Kodansya(講談社), Shogakukan(小学館), and Media-Do(メディアドゥ) in October 2014, and established joint venture LINE Book Distribution to improve such situation. In the beginning, yhey release Taiwanese version of 1200 e-mangas. Some popular mangas become free every day in rotation. Furthermore, they present special LINE stickers of mangas to users who downloaded that mangas.

Ingress set 281 bookstores as portals

Niantic cooperated with Japanese printing company Dai Nippon Printing(大日本印刷) in geolocation mobile game Ingress and registered Maruzen, Junkudo and Bunkyodo which are group bookstore of them as portal. They have 281 branches in Japan, and all of them become the portal of Ingress.

In commemoration of this, Niantic showed original back story about these portals. It is shown in free(but unfortunately it is written only in Japanese).

Furthermore, these bookstores present a bookmark of Ingress to customers as campaign.
In addition, the Japanese version of the official novel of Ingress "The Niantic Project: Ingress" was released on October 27. Japanese fans of Ingress seem to increase more from now on.

Anime of the popular mobile game Monster Strike passed 5M view in 15days

mixi started the broadcast of the short anime series of their popular mobile game Monster Strike in Youtube from October 1, and it succeeds now.

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Anime of the popular mobile game Monster Strike is broadcasted in Youtube from October 10

They announced that the world total view number of the anime series of Monster Strike passed 5 million on October 25. Furthermore, fans of the YouTube channel passed 100,000, too. Of course these continue increasing now. They support 11 languages(Japanese, English, Chinese, Korean, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese) in this, and this is rare in Japanese web anime. Interestingly, even fans of the countries where Monster Strike of mobile game ver. is not released watch this. This may be effective as marketing.

Mobile game company Colopl established the subsidiary which produce VR panorama video

Colopl is one of the Japanese main mobile game companies, but has made efforts in VR. They have already released two VR games.

See Also:
Japanese mobile game company Colopl developed a game for Oculus Rift
Japanese mobile game company Colopl released the 2nd VR game "Shironeko VR Project"

And they established subsidiary "360Channel" in charge of the business of the 360-degree VR panorama video at last. This is the first time that Colopl launches the business except the game. Naruatsu Baba, the founder and the CEO of Colopl takes office as CEO of this. The company profiles are these.

Company name: 360Channel
Address: 4-20-3, Ebisu, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo, Japan
Establishment date: November 2, 2015
Capital: 700million yen
CEO: Naruatsu Baba
Business: 360-degree VR panorama video

Level-5 and NHN PlayArt released a mobile game of Yo-Kai Watch

Level-5 released their popular game/anime Yo-Kai Watch in North America from October. They will carry out various campaigns of this for a holiday season.

See Also:
Level-5 and Dentsu establish a joint company and sell Yo-Kai Watch in a global market

Of course they do not forget a Japanese market. They released Yo-Kai Watch's first mobile game "Yo-Kai Watch Puni Puni(妖怪ウォッチぷにぷに)" with NHN PlayArt in the end of October.

Yo-Kai Watch Puni Puni is a joint development mobile game of Level 5 and NHN PlayArt. The beginning, players make friends with Yo-Kai butler Whisper, and battle against Yo-Kais who are in the downtown with puzzle according to his guide. When players win to Yo-Kais, they can make friends with them.

To be frank, Yo-Kai Watch Puni Puni is resemble LINE:Disney TSUM TSUM. Sure thing. These developers are the same:) Mobile game "LINE: Disney TSUM TSUM" which NHN PlayArt developed makes a hit all over the world as well as Japan. It passed 45 million downloading, and the number of the goods sale passed 10 million.

In Yo-Kai Watch Puni Puni, NHN PlayArt added the element of the RPG to a casual puzzle like Disney TSUM TSUM. Furthermore, graphic is 3DCG like the Yo-Kai Watsh series for Nintendo 3DS and rhese are very cute! Now, unfortunately we can play this only in Japan, but it may be released global if Yo-Kai Watch makes a hit abroad.

Virtual touch pad like robot head

You may remember a famous robot anime to watch this. However, this is not a toy. This is virtual touch pad "Projection Mouse".

When users put this on the desk and project virtual touch pad with the projector which it had built-in on the desk, they can operate the pointer of the PC by finger gesture. The operation method is about the same with normal touch pad, scroll is up and down with two fingers, zooming in and out is pinch in / pinch out, the size of the touch pad is 80mm*80mm. Body size is 43mm *52mm, weight is about 40g, and it is smaller than a mouse. The price is 9,999 yen(including tax).

You can enjoy Crane Game in your room

Crane Game is featured one of the Japanese game arcades. If you are crazy about it, you may like this toy.

Consumer electronics company E-Balance released the crane game Waku Waku New Crane Game for the home. The target age is 6 years old or more, and the price is 10,800 yen(including tax). The size is 255mm *195mm *347mm and small size, but of course the arm works properly. Users can operate an arm with 1 coin for 60 seconds, and BGM is reproduced during operation. The arm works in before and behind / right and left / up and down. In addition, users must prepare prizes in oneself. Cheap candy, cakes and snacks will be good.

GungHo and Taiwan's Gamania establish a joint venture

Japan's GungHo and Taiwan's Gamania establish a joint venture dealing with mobile game publication in November. The tentative name of the company name is "GungHo Gamania", and the ratio of shareholding is Gamania - 49.0% and GungHo - 51.0%.

Their purpose is development of GungHo's mobile games in Asia. They release mobile games of GungHo which has already got popularity in Japan in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao. GungHo has already released their representative popular mobile game "Puzzle & Dragons" and "Kerihime Sweets" in Taiwan. They have only Japanese support, but increase fans steadily in Taiwan. Based on this, GungHo Gamania makes efforts in Taiwanese support and localization.