There is something about Japanese advertising, at times, that just punches you in the face. I’m not talking about the often reported, funny, imperfect English sentences that make no sense but tag lines in either language that, without any irony, say outright: this product will make people like you.
Advertising companies, in the UK at least, couldn’t get away with these kind of statements (however much it might be what they’re really trying to say) but somehow no one seems to mind the blatant demands to be a better consumer.

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Its holiday season in Japan.

To mark the occasion a large section of the population takes one of the few opportunities in the Japanese calendar to take a guilt free break from work.

65.7% of Japanese were living in urban centres in 2005, (which, surprisingly, according to the UN Common Database, is less than the UK’s 88.9% and the US’s 80.8% or Australia’s disturbing 92.7%)

(By the way, finding myself extremely sidetracked by this awesome UN stats interpreter – Why does Zimbabwe have a greater percentage of women in “government” than Japan?!)

Anyway anyway, this urban population, even at 65.7% is still a whacking great 83.87 million people (which is more than the whole UK population..).

New Year is the traditional day to spend time with one’s family, and the distortion of geographic spread brought about by the dash to wealth in the country’s megapolises, -[ summarised in one succinct Japanese word Jyokyo 上京 which literally means rise to the capital, or proceed to the capital ]- means that the event is coupled with a mass exodus from the cities to peoples’ home towns. Continue Reading »