Category: Japan

Finally, An Idolmaster Post!

June 4, 2025

About 20 years ago BandaiNamco released the first arcade game in the Idolmaster series. These games are about raising ‘idols’ (cute pop stars) and have become their own industry, with more than 20 games in this series alone. This is the latest one:

This was released about two months ago, and it has a strong presence in Japanese arcades right now. The place I took the above photo (Namco arcade in Nakano) had about ten machines. Here’s a closeup of the controls:

Six buttons, four sliders and three switches! The game has two modes: a rhythm game and an idol-producing game. It costs ¥200 a go, which is expensive, but from what I’ve seen in arcades the cabs seem popular.

I’ll add that this series is all but unknown outside of Japan, and I don’t believe any of the arcade installments have ever been translated into English. Perhaps this is due to the theme, or perhaps it’s because they use IC cards, which is a technology that American arcades (which have mostly devolved into ticket redemption rooms) never embraced.

This game looks extremely complex, and I haven’t yet played it. In addition to the price, the two game types and the intimidating controls it even has a card collection system! Instruction leaflets are available near the cabs in the arcade, and inside we can see there are 94 different cards available:

These are IC cards and you can see the scanner in the photo of the controls above. When scanned, the cards do things like change the idols outfits or their phrases when they perform. Note also that this game has some male idols too, so everyone can enjoy it 🙂

If you get a card you don’t need or already have, the arcades have these little boxes you can use for trade. The idea is put yours in and take one out that another player has left. It’s an honour system, which of course still works here. These sorts of trading boxes are common for all IC-card games, and arcades usually have a half-dozen or more.

As I said this series is a phenomenon, and in one of the arcades I visited yesterday I found a binder containing…

‘Producer cards’! These are faux business cards created by players. The cards contain social media contact info and which idols they usually use in the game. The idea is that you make these as if the idols are real and you’re their real-life producer. Then you exchange these with other players to build community. The binder was full of these – hundreds of them! – and it’s obvious the ‘Vol 1’ on the cover was not optimistic.

Recently KLS and I were talking about aspects of Japanese culture I’d be more into if we lived here, and arcade culture probably tops that list. I’d love to get ‘into’ one of these game series heavily – although probably not this one – to the extent I interacted with all this periphery in the arcades. A man can dream 🙂

Mousu Mousu

April 30, 2025

Mouse Computers is a Japanese company that makes high-spec computers for well-heeled customers. A bit like Apple for PCs. In 2017 they released this advert featuring members of the idol group Nogizaka46:

I only recently discovered this, and was immediately charmed. Not only are the girls very cute, but the song is catchy, the visuals striking and the premise absurd. It hardly matters that it’s got nothing to do with computers: it’s immediately catchy and instantly puts a smile on your face. This is an example of Japanese ‘kawaii pop’ at its finest.

The advert quickly went viral on the internet, and was far more successful than Mouse had expected. The group was riding high at the time and the ad featured some of their most popular members, so fans ate it up. Mouse capitalized on the popularity with a making-of video (which shows how much effort goes into getting the girls looking perfect):

They also produced a multi-part absurdist comedy series ‘Mouse Diner’ featuring the girls working at a cafe. This overflows with charm and made me laugh aloud many times:

A year later they followed it up with a new advert:

And they even made an animated version of the original advert and hired an Evangelion character designer to draw the girls! Alas this doesn’t seem to be on YouTube but here’s the key art:

Apparently the shops selling Mouse computers were inundated with requests for promotional material. Much of this is what you’d expect – mousepads and clear files – but I read there were also raffles for life sized standees and branded computers. You can find a lot of it for sale online these days at elevated prices:

Mouse Computers still exists, but I can’t find any mention of this campaign on their website. All the girls in the video have now left the band, and by now this ad has become just another piece of advertising history, albeit (apparently) a very successful one.

I even saw a pack of five promotional postcards featuring the girls in their mouse outfits! I’ll never find it, but you can bet I’ll be keeping my eyes peeled for that every time I’m in Japan 🙂

Postcards From Japan

February 23, 2025

All told I sent us 36 postcards from Japan, and the reason I’ve waited on this post is that six of them have yet to arrive. I haven’t given up hope since after my last trip a handful of cards took three months to find their way here but I don’t want to wait that long so let’s review a selection of the ones that have arrived today.

Fuji postcards are very common, and it’s extremely likely I’ve sent you one or more over the years. The image of the Shinkansen speeding in front of Fuji is iconic, and I’ve bought and sent many cards depicting this over the years. The bottom left card is one of several 1950s-era Japanese postcards I obtained at a postcard show last summer, and you’ll see several more of them in this post.

Geisha are iconically Japanese, but aren’t exactly common. And yet they still print postcards of them, which I usually buy since they’re colourful and pretty! We saw a geisha in the wild many years ago in Kyoto. She boarded a bus in full makeup and dress, and it was obvious she was a curio even for the locals. The leftmost card shows a ropeway in Hokkaido, and I should have saved it for a future trip…

The graphic Nagoya postcards were found at a post office, which was a relief since I’d had difficulty finding other postcards in that city. The one on the bottom right came from the zoo we visited, and the bottom left one was found packed with a VHS tape in my attic during a recent cleanout. It’s over 30 years old, very flimsy, and I’m surprised it survived the mail 🙂

Every day I sent us two cards, and as usual the messages were usually a general description of what we did that day on one, and some specific incident or event on the second (like what we ate or bought). This may seem mundane, but after doing this for almost two decades it’s fun going back and reading these tiny diaries.

The bottom left one came from the Alice in Wonderland shop in Nagoya with the tiny door we had to squat down to enter. It’s a lovely card and I should have bought more of their unique designs. Postcards are still very popular in Japan and it’s not hard to find good ones, which is why I was puzzled at the apparent lack in Nagoya.

These were purchased from a tiny store in Asakusa that sold mostly photos of celebrities from decades ago. This is a weird type of Japanese shop that doesn’t have a real western equivalent (maybe I’ll blog about one some time) but I was happy and surprised to see they had a small but incredible variety of (dated) pop culture cards as well!

I sent us two lenticular cards, and the Christmas one in the middle is one of them. Sent on Christmas Day, this described the fun we had shopping the otaku shopping district (Osu) in Nagoya. On the right is our new years card. I sent 14 new years cards on January 1, in four designs. Most depicted cute snakes, but as you can see ours didn’t 🙂

As I understand, you’re not technically allowed to mail shaped postcards in Japan. And yet they print them, and I’ve sent many over the years and they all arrive. Gotochi cards (special souvenir postcards sold at post offices) are shaped as well, and I’ve now sent myself two over the years and neither have arrived. I wonder what’s special about gotochi cards that prevent them from being mailed internationally? (The above card isn’t a gotochi, but was purchased from a popup shop showcasing work by the artist.)

Here’s the other lenticular I sent us. It’s massive: easily one of it not the largest card I’ve ever mailed. It’s more than twice as large as a normal postcard, and I put a bunch of extra postage on it just in case. I was very surprised it arrived, and it’s given me the idea of mailing an even bigger – as big as an A4 page! – Japanese lenticular card that I bought years ago.

As for the six that haven’t arrived, I don’t remember what they depicted or what I wrote on them. I number my cards so I can extrapolate when and where I sent them (Nagoya and Tokyo) but can’t speculate why they never arrived when others mailed the same day in the same mailbox did.

And as for the stamps, here are all the unique ones on the cards I mailed us:

Some good stamps here, but I discovered something interesting at the very tail end of the trip so I think the stamps I send from Japan next time will be a lot more interesting…

All these cards are now put into the big binder titled ‘Japan’, which is so full I think I need to start another. And if you’re wondering, yes I left space for the missing six 🙂

Robot Claw