Internet In and Out of Japan

1. Internet In and Out of Japan Lauren Kocher, Charlotte Soesanto, Miho Goto

2. 1. US 197.8 (18.3%) 2. China 119 (11.1%) 3. Japan 86.3 (8.0%) 4. India 50.6 (4.7%) 5. Germany 46.3 (4.3%) 6. UK 35.8 (3.3%) 7. South Korea 33.9 (3.1%) 8. Italy 28.8 (2.7%) 9. France 28.8 (2.7%) 10. Brazil 25.9 (2.4%) 11. Russia 23.7 (2.2%) 12. Canada 21.9 (2.0%) 13. Indonesia 18.0 (1.7%) 14. Spain 15.8 (1.5%) 15. Taiwan 9.5 (1.43%) Source: eMarketer, April 12, 2006 Top 15 Countries -Internet users for 2005, in millions and percent of total users.

3. PC and Cell Phone Per 100 Inhabitants in Japan Unmediating Community, Akiyoshi 2004

4. Mobile Phone and Internet Use in Different Groups of Countries Beyond Mobile, Lindgren, Jedbratt, & Svenson, 2002

5. Internet on Keitai Denwa(Cell Phone) • Keitai Culture • So many Japanese use high tech cell phones with internet capabilities • Books • GPS navigation • TV and Radio • Crime Prevention Buzzer • Pedometer • Alarm Clock • Suica - train tickets • Osaifu Keitai - cell phone wallet • Cmode -Vending machines • RPGs such as Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest

6. Web-enabled Mobile Phone Per 100 Inhabitants (2003) 1. Japan 34.08 2. Iceland 14.28 3. Finland 14.07 4. Austria 13.43 5. Luxembourg 13.34 ... 25. South Korea 9.26 30. USA 2.33 Mito Akiyoshi called Unmediating Community: The Non-Diffusion of the Internet in Japan, 1985-2002

7. Abundance of imode Keitai In 2003: 75.5 Million Cell phones in Japan Out of those phones, 62.5 milllion had imode - internet capabilities That’s 82.6% of keitai in Japan had internet!

8. Why Internet on Keitai? • Talking on the cell phone in public places is found as rude in Japan. • Phone minutes are very expensive, texts and emails are inexpensive • Therefore Texting and Emailing became very popular in Japan.

9. ギャル文字Gyaru-Moji • Due to privacy issues, young women started using a special code for messaging on their keitai. • They use a language similar to l33t. They use various symbols, numbers, kanji characters to imitate the actual letters.

10. Activism Via Internet • Masu Komi vs. Mini Komi • Mini Komi is ideal for specialized political groups, especially feminist groups have been known to use these channels of communication, outside the mainstream communications industry. • These groups in the past had passed out handwritten newsletters in hopes of getting their word out. • Thanks to the internet, they can reach out to whomever they want whenever they want in great ease. • Online Petitions- very easy to get signatures using internet

11. Internet/manga cafes • Places to use internet • Cubical with PC, pay per hour • Read manga • Sleep/shower • Eat & drink

12. In a single month the number of videos on the site grew 20% to 6.1 million • YouTube has some 45 terabytes of videos • Video views reached 1.73 billion • 70% of YouTube's registered users are American, roughly 50% are under 20 http://www.micropersuasion.com/2006/08/youtube_by_the_.html

13. Internet Vehicles for Japanese Pop Culture • YouTube • Pop culture Blogs • J-list, and other English language Japanese product sites.

14. 2 Channel • Started in 1999 by Hiroyuki Nishimura • Annonymous Forum for all interests • 2.5 million posts a day • http://www.micropersuasion.com/2006/08/youtube_by_the_.html

15. Statistics 1,059 people from their monitor group. 51.9% were male, 26.9% in their twenties, 25.1% in their thirties, 24.6% in their forties, and 23.4% in their fifties.

16. Anonymity and Community • Lack of physical information allows people to befriend others easily based only on interest • A “careful construction of anonymity” • Lacking social position etc. • However, once known…. • also facilitates “Matsuri” behavior • Nori’s hatemail/2chan targetting • Corporations forced to apologize for being rude to someone who needed help with VCR

17. Japanese Pornography on the Internet “Hentai”

18. Google searching (in English) “hentai” gives 32,400,000 results, including a Romanian fan site • The first English language site from the search receives 300 million visits per day • Why “hentai”? (relates to other readings on “why manga?”) • Historical? Shunga prints? (direct connection: Hokusai print.) • Escaping censorship? • “Hentai” is English

19. Scholarship on Hentai From “Way Better Than Real: Manga Sex to Tentacle Hentai” by Joel Powell Dahlquist and Lee Garth Vigilant ambivalence among dedicated fans and scholars of Japan in how to address flooding of American pop culture with Japanese materials “ambiguously gendered characters” as “disturbing” the cognitive jump necessary for a translation of corporeal experience to representation in hentai Genshiken - Madarame Moral evaluation of “hard-core” Contrast with ladies’ comics article Hentai as “postmodern pornography” in its ambiguity Net.seXXX: Readings on Sex, Pornography, and the Internet. Waskul, D. Dennis, ed. New York, Peter Lang Publishing, 2004.

20. “Hentai” as Japan How many Americans know about “panty-vending machines” or “tentacle porn!”? How many Americans (especially non-Asian-Americans) know Japan once colonized Korea and Taiwan? Things like hentai are found only through a medium like the internet. my opinion: The new Japanese Version is someone who lectures on “panty-vending machines”

21. That’s all! Do you have any Questions for us?