Japan Marketing News

Japanese films defy the odds and take two Academy Awards

Breaking news:  it appears that for the first time a Japanese film has won the Academy Award for the Best Foreign Film*. Okuribito（おくりびと), whose English title is Departures, won out over better-known and more heavily favorited productions like The Class, and Waltz with Bashir. The movie, written by Kundo Koyama and directed by Yojiro Taketa (滝田洋二郎), tells the story of a former professional cellist who returns to his hometown to look for a job and discovers he has a special gift for undertaking.

In the animated short film category, Japan took away a second statuette for La Maison en Petits Cubes (つみきのいえ), a 12-minute tale of an elderly man who, while reminiscing about days gone by, adds blocks to his house to keep out rising floodwaters. The film was written and directed by Kunio Kato (加藤久仁生). It was the first time Japan won an Oscar for this category, as well.

* This is the first time a Japanese film has earned an Academy "Award of Merit" for this category. Previous Japanese productions have won "special" or "honorary" awards. Ref

Cell phone commerce growing rapidly in Japan

Figures from a recent Japanese government survey show that commerce conducted through mobile phones in Japan is expanding at a very healthy pace. According to the report, sales of goods and services were up 27%, while total revenues, which include both sales accrued from goods and services and fee-based content, expanded by 23%.

Apple iPhone coming to Japan on July 11

Interested in the iPhone in Japan?

From an Apple press release that went out yesterday:

Softbank (SBM) and Apple® today announced that the highly anticipated iPhone™ 3G will be available in Japan on July 11. iPhone 3G combines all the revolutionary features of iPhone with 3G networking that is twice as fast* as the first generation iPhone, built-in GPS for expanded location based mobile services, and iPhone 2.0 software which includes support for Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync and runs the hundreds of third party applications already built with the recently released iPhone SDK.

Read the press release in its entirety here.

Previous Japan Marketing News post on the iPhone in Japan here.

Shochiku takes the Next step in movie promotion

It's not at all unusual for movie studios to build buzz for forthcoming films by holding movie screenings. What is unusual—but may in the future become commonplace—is to conduct some of those screenings virtually.

One company that's already dabbling in this area is Japan's Shochiku Studio. Wanting to generate excitement for the Hollywood action thriller Next (starring Nicholas Cage) which it is distributing, Shochiku has announced that it will premiere the film to a select audience to be chosen by lottery—and that the film will be shown to them by transmission to their cell phones!

It turns out that the gimmick serves a couple of purposes. First, the studio hopes that the cutting-edge promotion will generate plenty of anticipatory chat on social networking sites and blogs, and second, that it will draw attention to additional cell phone video content that's available through Dogado, a Shochiku subsidiary that specializes in producing full-length, made-for-cellphone movies and other content (ex. see Clearness).

Given the recent proliferation of 1-seg equipped cell phones with high resolution displays, and the introduction of fixed price, unlimited bandwidth usage packages by cell carriers, a number of companies have been working on new video-for-cell phone offerings. We're only going to see more experimentation of this type going forward, and it's fine by me since I'm about to pick up one of the latest portable handsets myself.

By the way, the keitai premiere of Next will be held on April 21. The movie opens in Japanese theaters at the end of the month.

Disney to enter Japan's cell phone market

On November 12, Disney Japan and Softbank announced that they will be partnering on a new venture to introduce Disney branded cell phone service, handsets, and content into the Japanese market in spring 2008.

This is an interesting development inasmuch as Disney has stated it plans to discontinue its cell phone operations in the US by the end of this year. It's also a landmark in the way the business will be operated in Japan. Rather than set up its own infrastructure, Disney will be leasing a portion of the Softbank network. Apparently, this is the first time anybody has organized a cell phone service in Japan based on a MVNO reseller model. The companies will jointly develop content and handsets and the business will be operated under the name "Disney Mobile."

Given the ever-present popularity of things cute in Japan, and the broad appreciation for all things Disney, the idea of Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck phones and services is certainly feasible, perhaps more so than in any other country. After all, it is not at all unusual to see Japanese adults carrying Disney-branded bank cards or office supplies, and many Japanese are already using Disney phone straps and downloading Disney mobile content to their existing DoCoMo and au phones.

Internet becomes 2nd most important channel for DVDs in Japan

According to an article in Monday's edition of 日本流通新聞, the latest report released by the Japan Video Software Association shows that the Internet has surpassed home electronics stores as the second most important distribution route for DVDs in Japan. Record stores remained the most important channel with 52.3% of distribution share, though this was down from 54.6% a year ago.

JVA figures for the first six months of 2006 and 2007 respectively show the following breakdown of shipments by category:

Although Internet DVD distribution in Japan totaled just 12.3% of the total in the first half of this year, this is almost twice the proportion the channel represented for the same period in 2006, indicating that consumers are quickly shifting away from brick and mortar purchases and toward the web.

The heroine wears Prada

Three years ago the animated Japanese adventure film Appleseed was released to wide acclaim both in Japan and 30 overseas markets. In October, the second installment of the Appleseed saga, Ex Machina, is scheduled to open on the big screen here in Japan. Many of the key figures involved in the production held a press conference last week, just down the street from my office—at of all places—the Tokyo Prada flagship store.

Was this merely an attempt to add some panache to your typical run-of-the-mill movie press conference?

Not on your life.

It turns out that the ferocious-yet-feminine cartoon heroine of this John Woo-produced spectacle will be sporting a very special wardrobe designed by Miuccia Prada herself (graphic at right composed of original images here and here). Apparently, the queen of streetwise luxury was impressed by the stunning 3-D graphics of the original film and leapt at the offer to work on this "cool, innovative and edgy" sequel.

But Prada and John Woo aren't the only big names enthused about Ex Machina. A number of talented musicians are also involved, including Academy-award winning artist Ryuichi Sakamoto, plus Towa Tei and Cornelius.

Ex Machina is based on the manga of the same name written by celebrated creator Shiro Masamune (Ghost in the Machine). The movie is directed by Shinji Aramaki and co-produced by Terrance Chang (Face Off). Warner Brothers has picked up international theatrical and video distribution rights and is expected to release the film outside Japan sometime next year.

View trailers for Appleseed and Ex Machina here and here.