The Tatami Galaxy

This is "Yahoo’s Year In Review 2010 Of Top Searches: My, How Much You’ve Grown." It's for Yahoo US, not Yahoo Japan.

Top Overall Searches On Yahoo! in 2010:
1. BP Oil Spill
2. World Cup
3. Miley Cyrus
4. Kim Kardashian
5. Lady Gaga
6. iPhone
7. Megan Fox
8. Justin Bieber
9. American Idol
10. Britney Spears

I don't know #3 and #4, my impression is that American music entertainment is getting worse. But Japan's is maybe worse than the US's. Right now, Japan's top idol group is AKB48, a group of amateur girls who perform in their Akihabara studio. I'm not familiar with them at all, but I know that their calendar sold well on Yahoo's shopping and auction sites. Anyways, at Yahoo! Japan, we call Yahoo US "Yahoo Inc." We are a related company, but Yahoo! Japan's parent company is the Japanese cell phone carrier "SOFTBANK." SOFTBANK is the official dealer of the Apple iPad and iPhone and Yahoo! Japan's search engine is provided by Google. It's complicated here. :-)

I laughed when I found out that Yojohan Shinwa Taike's english name is "The Tatami Galaxy." It was originally a novel by Tomihiko Morimi that was made into a TV animation this year. The story follows a third year college student and other people in Kyoto. Here is a video.

Today, this animation won an award at the Japan Media Arts Festival. By the way, "Yojohan" means a four and a half tatami-size room, which is very small, so it's synonymous with being poor.

Comments

[Account Deleted]

hmmm i dunno. i think i'm a lot more willing to endure AKB48 over kim kardashian. haha!