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Japanese Blogs supported by the locals
09/JAN/2010 on air

How can be a popular blogger in Japan? What kind of success story is expected when the blog gets popular in Japan?

It was her blog that made Rumi popular. She started her fashion blog 2 years ago where she shared how she coordinates high brands and fast fashion brands for the outfits she wears off duty. This attracted American girls and her blog records over 25,000 PV (page views) daily. The photographer is her boyfriend and the shooting spot is where they are dating.

So who is the mega hit blogger in Japan?
Idol’s blogs are popular, of course. Nozomi Tsuji a.k.a “Tsuji-chan“, Shoko Nakagawa a.k.a “Shokotan“, their blogs are the most popular because they have over 2,000,000 PV daily. Their fashion can even create the trends.

Yusuke Kamiji
Chinatsu Wakatsuki
Nozomi Sasaki is a very popular model today.

But it’s not only the celebs or people from show business that can become a mega hit blogger. There is a housewife blogger who blogs about day-to-day events that happen to her family. What’s fun about her blog is that she adds a little manga by herself. Her blog gets over 100,000 PV (page views) daily. A dentist is another popular blogger who blogs about private outfits after work and that has over 300,000 PV a day. A Gyaru blogger gets 550,000 PV per day.

Ameba blog is the most famous blogspot in Japan with its number of user exceeding 6750,000 people.
What is alpha blogger? In Japan it means influential blogger whose blog has over 1000 PV daily.

Kaatan’s manga blog was especially well-received by the housewives in Japan. She became so popular as to publish 2 books from her blog, and the sales of these books went over 20,000 copies. On top of that, she has become busy receiving job offers from Japanese makers that want to collaborate with her funny manga and columns. Kaatan used to work as a cabin attendant but her dream was to become an essayist. She made her dreams come true, thanks to her popular blog! Her husband looks also happy. Kaatan is a big fan of Arashi (the famous J-pop idol group). She uses up the money she earns for the concert tickets, CD, or goods.

Another alpha blogger called “Hyang” is a dentist. She has an experience of working as a dokumo before, her private fashion is supported by women in similar age group. An apparel maker approached her to establish a new room wear brand. Shinjuku Isetan department store right away had a section to deal with her brand. The shop assistant says, “The outfits that Hyang-san shares on her blog or that she wears at the exhibitions or shows are so popular that customers inquire about them before we have them available at our store. When they are available at our store, they are sold out very quickly!”

500 alpha bloggers were invited to the party. To have their products reviewed by these bloggers is a good way of advertising nowadays. Hello Kitty kamaboko (fish sausage) is promoted to Gyaru mama bloggers.
Scanpan was suffering from marketing in Japan. Their website didn’t attract many visitors. They gathered cooking bloggers at an event and let them cook with their pans. In 3 days their website recorded 4466 PV, thanks to the cooking bloggers blogging about the event. The reviews are not always good points of the products. Their honest opinions (such as the pans were heavy) are very important to the maker.

Yanana is a local character whose blog has 2000 PV daily. How can we become alpha blogger (over 1000 PV per day)? Yunkoro-san is a super Gyaru blogger. Her blog has 550,000 PV per day. She is the specialist of Morishame, which is to say, she is good at taking cute self pictures by cell phone. Her technique is even featured by egg, or the popular Gyaru fashion magazine. Taking a photo from front angle is not good, there is a way to make the face look smaller. Using a hand mirror to reflect light is also good because eyes look glittering.
Taking purikura allows you look great.
…sorry the video is cut off here by accident. (>_<)....

Kirin's opinion:
Let me first tell you Ameba blog is not the only blogspot in Japan, but it's popular because celebs like to use it.
Also, in Japan in our culture most of us don’t want to reveal real name or face on the blog or social networking sites. Thus it’s very natural in Japan that most of Japanese bloggers will use nickname (such as “Kaatan” or “Hyang”) instead of their real name. Actually this is why I use Kirin, which is a nickname and that’s part of me as a Japanese. hehe…:p But I like Kirin as a my pen name now. If I ever write a book or something, I still want to use Kirin instead of my real name.

It’s surprising to me that popular blogs in Japan can get such a large volume of traffic per day. It’s also nice to get job offers from blogging. Although my blog is not that popular, I am very happy to have received some job offers thru my blog. (It’s strange but I have no contacts from the Japanese at all! Even for advertising or anything! Every single offer is from non-Japanese corporation or individual. Is that because I don’t market it in Japanese blog ranking site? Somehow I don’t feel like doing that…)

***There are archives of episodes listed under the page titled “Tokyo Kawaii TV” that is just located under the title banner of this blog.
***If you want to know the music that was used in the episode, please refer to this page and help yourself to find it by selecting the date when the episode was on air in Japan.

***This post is written several years ago and the situation is not always the same now in Japan. ***

	It’s been over one year since Facebook was introduced to Japanese market. But it is apparent that Facebook is not popular at all in Japan, while it is very successful in most of other countries, including the U.S, not to speak of. Here’s Alexa ranking for Japanese top sites and Facebook is off top 20, and even 40 or 50. Why Facebook is not popular in Japan? There are several reasons to be considered. But as a Japanese, I know that how most Japanese people would feel or think about the service, so it’s pretty easy for me to find the answer. First off, there is alreay a social networking site named Mixi in Japan, which is a giant that has alreay occupied the market. (Gree is also popular among mobile phones.) It was a little too late that Facebook entered our market. Japanese people are those who like to do the same things as most of others do. We don’t want to stick out from the crowd. (I’m talking about the general nationality, not mine.) That means, when there are already so many people having accounts at Mixi, then those who don’t would choose to join it to become “majority”. Yes, this is the very word that illustrates our nationality but anyhow we like to belong to majority, rather than to try something new that no one has been doing. (In that way I know I am minority who chose to blog outside Japan in foreign language. )

But the real problem about Facebook to most of Japanese people is that we have to register with real name! (This is ironically quite opposite to the natural goodness about Facebook that is emphasized.) You may think, so what? What’s wrong with that? But here exists a big cultural difference and this is something particular among Japanese people. We would blog with nickname or pen name, and normally we would not reveal real name. We would hide faces even when we upload photos on blogs. We would not speak to Youtube, which is why most Youtube videos made by Japanese people have no sound. (I’m talking about individual and personal bloggers. Company bloggers are not that shy, of course they have to promote themselves!) These would sound ridiculous, but it’s so true that you’ll see what I mean if you browse blogs in Japanese, especially when photos are uploaded, the faces are hidden with star mark or something. This being the case, how come Japanese people would be willing to register Facebook with real name, real address and personal information? I doubt. I wouldn’t say this trend is applicable to everyone in Japan, but majority of Japanese people would be like as I mentioned above.

I was surprised at first when I jumped into blogsphere in English because of so much cultural difference! You use real name, your face is on the photo or on Youtube, you speak to mp3 or mp4 and so on… I follow as you do once as I’m here.

So I forget about Japanese way and I started to show myself on Youtube or in photos and share them here in this blog. But as for my nickname “Kirin” which I’ve been using from my previous blog, I am always wondering if I should change this to my real name. There are pros and cos. But I feel weird if I change it to my real name from now on.

Would it be OK going with Kirin?

But these days I receive emails from Facebook users to invite me to join it. Then I would be using my real name and I feel no coherence between this blog and Facebook.

It sounds really strange problem based on cultural difference. As I blog outside Japan, I didn’t have to stick to Japanese unspoken rules but I didn’t really know this difference until I started and read many other blogs by many other bloggers in the world.

What would you think I should do with this? This may give me another reason I don’t have an account at Facebook yet.

I’ve set up another blog in Japan last weekend. At a moment I run 4 blogs.

No.1- Japanese Cuisine Daily Recipes and Something Kawaii From Harajuku
(Free Blogger blog that I started Feb.2008 in English and I still keep it while I update a new post only once in a while.)

No.2- Tokyo Kawaii, etc.
(This blog that I work hardest, and love most! I pay for domain and hosting server, from which you’ll see how special this blog is to me.)

No.3- Pi-chan (my dog) blog
(Free FC2 blog that I run in Japan in Japanese.)

No.4- My daily stock exchange market trading blog
(Free Seesaa blog that I run in Japan in Japanese.)

*I no longer run other 3 blogs, because I decided to focus more on this blog, “Tokyo Kawaii, etc.”.

Wow! No wonder I’m busy! But I’m spending most of the time for Tokyo Kawaii, etc. (this blog). I know I should stick to 1 blog, meaning Tokyo Kawaii, etc. only, but the first blog is still good to be kept. The third dog blog is important in order to record how my dog spends her life with us. The fourth one also is important to record what I am learning and how I’m acting in my daily trading habits.

Some of the readers from my first blog (Japanese cuisine…) might be confused to hear that I’m trading at stock exchange market because I used to work as an importer, house renovation planner, and writer. But now I’m working from home. Online stock exchange market trader from home, writer and blogger. Why such a big career change? It’s a long story so let me avoid explaining that here. :p

Instead, today I’ll introduce blogspot in Japan, as some of you are already good at Japanese and may want to browse Japanese blogs to read or to write a blog in Japanese by yourselves.

Blogsphere in Japan is totally different from the U.S or most of English spoken countries. First of all, WordPress is minor, which I think is because there are many attractive free blogs available in Japan and how to manage dashboard or how to write a post is far easier and more convenient compared with WordPress or blogger.

This is a dashboard from Seesaa blog and I was surprised to find this difference. In English blogsphere, we basically add things we want. We may join Google Analytics to track stats, and paste the code or do something to activate it if we want it, for example. To the contrary, Seesaa had everything there including stats. (not from Google, but original one) We are then deleting things we don’t need. That’s it!

Japanese people are used to this style; say everything being given in a package, and so, customizing blogs with plugins by themselves like what we do with WordPress is not accepted.

Here are major Japanese free blogs for your reference.
-FC2 (Do you know FC2 ranks in No.2 in Alexa in Japan!?)
-Seesaa
-Ameba
-Livedoor
and there are actually hundreds of more but above 4 blogs are I guess most popular ones. There are many blogs that do not allow affiliate promotion. (Above 4 blogs are OK)

If you prefer Ezine, rather than blog, there is a free Ezine stand called “Magu Magu” and this is the most popular and the largest scale in Japan. Of course you can start yourself both blog and Ezine (in Japanese it’s called “melumaga” meaning mail magazine) for free, if you want to. But I know how hard it’d be to write constantly in foreign language, so you can at least browse Japanese blogs and Ezines of your interests just as you like to improve your Japanese with fun!