Celebrities personalize your digital toys

It isn’t enough these days for your mobile phone or MP3 player to use the latest technology, they should also be designed by your favorite actor or pop singer. Or at least one of the ones who have signed on to design products marketed to the growing number of consumers who are looking to express their personality through their digital toys.

Sony has released an MP3 player in collaboration with J-Pop icons Puffy Amiyumi. Both of the two designs have a retro pop look that also happens to be very fashionable among teens and young women this season.

Softbank, Japan’s fastest growing mobile phone service provider, has announced that pop star Koda Kumi is the latest celebrity to lend her name and questionable design talent to a series of handsets as part of the Fan Fun series.

The bright pink phone comes in three designs “strawberry,” “cherry,” and “candy&pumps” and is obviously targeted at the lucrative cute-obsessed teen and tween market that make up Koda’s fan base. The celebrity-designer element extends to the menus, wallpaper, call and mail indicators, and phone pouch.

Other celebrity collaborations in the 29 design strong series include Bae Yong Joon, the Korean heartthrob popular with middle-aged women, and Riyoko Ikeda, creator of the popular 1970s manga series La Rose de Versailles featuring the cross-dressing heroine Lady Oscar. Both of these examples show that those consumer wishing to express their fandom are not limited to impressionable teens.

Not only do these designer phones allow a degree of personalization, they virtually ensure that customers will need to replace their handsets often.

After all, how much longer can it be cool to carry around the DJ Ozma phone?

Tags: celebrity, design, Mobile
Category: Fashion & Lifestyle Trends, Technology & Gadget Trends
Other categories: Marketing & Ad Trends, Press coverage

Gluttony noodle shop from competitive eater “The Giant” Shirota

For Japan’s top face-stuffer Nobuyuki “the Giant” Shirota, its not just about who can eat the most plates of curry, fried chicken, or natto rice, its also about sharing one’s love of gluttony with fans and followers. “The King of Gluttony” plans to open a limited time noodle shop in Osaka, Shirotaya, specializing in the competitive eater’s favorite udon noodles in a rich, salty-sweet meat broth.

The standard size bowl comes with 16 portions of noodles, costs 4,000 yen ($40) and if finished in under 30 minutes earns the eater a special present. The grand size, double the noodles and the price, is free if finished in under an hour. For the weak at stomach, partial portions will be available down to 1/16 the standard size, or just one serving of noodles, for 600 (about the price of a bowl of noodles at a typical shop).

Shirotaya is scheduled to open on April 25, at the start of Japan’s Golden Week holiday, and will run until August 31. Shirota himself will make an appearance in the restaurant on the 4th Saturday of every month.

This is not the first move to brand himself by Shirota, who has been flirting with retirement. He has in the past endorsed snack foods from FritoLay in their Food Battle Stadiums series, also featuring Tomoko Miyake.

Tags: celebrity, food
Category: Fashion & Lifestyle Trends
Other categories: Technology & Gadget Trends, Marketing & Ad Trends, Press coverage

Kitty Chan gets coquettish, courtesy of Aki Hoshino

Busty former swimsuit model turned TV personality Aki Hoshino, a well-known Hello Kitty devotee, has teamed up with Sanrio to produce this limited series of cheeky T-shirts that throw Kitty chan’s cat next door image into question.

If you’ve ever wondered what Kitty might look like if she got a little more playful, here you are. The first in the “Hoshino Akitty” line is available from this month for ¥5,800.

Subsequent additions, pictured below, will be available from May (left) and July (right).

With this new sexy-lite look, Kitty is looking a little bit more grown up to match her grown up fans. Does this mean that we can look forward to the chameleon-like cat eventually getting married and settling down to write children’s books?

Tags: celebrity, Fashion, Hello Kitty, television
Category: Fashion & Lifestyle Trends
Other categories: Technology & Gadget Trends, Marketing & Ad Trends, Press coverage

Nail art golf gloves for trendy gals

Young female golfers in Japan are fashionable. Need proof? Check out these new Fit 39 Nail series of golfing gloves from Mic Golf designed to allow the wearer to show off their artfully manicured nails.

Made of sweat-absorbing easy-fit stretch nylon and with a slip-resistant synthetic leather grip these gloves are as serious about the game as they are cute, just like golf superstars Ai Miyazato, Sakura Yokomine, and Momoko Ueda (pictured left to right).

These young ladies of golf, all barely 20 and already millionaires, have transformed the tired old game of their fathers into a trendy sport for girls. Decked out in cute and sporty get-ups courtesy of their sponsors (major international golf and sportswear companies), they have celebrity and fashion icon status, not to mention thousands of loyal fans.

Considering that highly decorated nails are de rigueur for fashionable gals, we anticipate that these gloves will be a hit on the greens come golf season.

¥1,995 from Mic Golf

Tags: celebrity, Fashion, golf
Category: Fashion & Lifestyle Trends
Other categories: Technology & Gadget Trends, Marketing & Ad Trends, Press coverage

Kitty Chan next new look, Tomy Car goes traveling

The tireless designers at Sanrio never seem to run out of new looks for the venerable Kitty Chan. In addition to the popular series of location specific Hello Kitties—see Roppongi Kitty sporting knee-high black boots—her latest incarnations include homages to TV personalities Ikko, of last year’s popular catchphrase, “Dondake?!” (“WTF?!”) fame, and cross-dressing school girl Sakurazuka Yakkun.

Meanwhile Akiba Kitty is hawking her own line of can ramen at ¥10,080 for a 24 pack.

In other location specific toy news, capsule toy maker Yujin is teaming up with Tomy Toys’ to make a line of souvenir key chains, in the guise of the classic Tomy Car, for particular tourist destinations throughout Japan.

The limited number key chains (complete with license plates that matches the location) are available from vending machines—in plastic capsules of course—for ¥200. Chalk this up as another one for the nostalgia trend.

Tags: celebrity, Hello Kitty, Localization, Takara Tomy
Category: Fashion & Lifestyle Trends, Marketing & Ad Trends
Other categories: Technology & Gadget Trends, Press coverage

Mobile phone voice recognition gets famous

You may not have the perfect doe eyes of Ayumi Hamasaki, but you might sound like her. Advanced Media Inc.’s new application, “Koe Chieki” (“Voice Check”) for Docomo mobile phones uses voice recognition software to tell users which famous person, out of 500 (including actors, pop idols, and anime characters), that their voice most resembles.

And as if that weren’t cool enough, there’s also “Mimic Check” that can rate your ability to mimic said celebrities (definitely worth giving a go before busting out your latest impersonation at your next goukan) and “Joke Check” to tell you what kind of jokes your voice is best suited for telling.

There’s still more: “Love Check” uses voices to measure the compatibility between two people, either that potential love interest that you just finished talking to or your latest celebrity crush.

Thank you Advanced Media for reminding us that a mobile phone can mean so much more than just talk! I am so thinking of switching to Docomo.

Tags: celebrity, Digital Lifestyle, Mobile phones, Voice Recognition
Category: Technology & Gadget Trends
Other categories: Marketing & Ad Trends, Fashion & Lifestyle Trends, Press coverage

American-style celebrity tabloid Gossips hits Japan

When I saw this advertisement on the subway the other day, I couldn’t believe my luck. Could it be true that US Weekly style Hollywood gossip is finally available in Japan?

I immediately went to the convenience store to pick up a copy. Though the new magazine had pretty good display position, only the headline “Gossips Press” was visible, explaining why I had previously overlooked it. (It should also be noted that the woman in line in front of me was buying a copy of office lady glossy 25 ans, a half-liter bottle of umeshu, and a mixed bean salad that couldn’t have contained more than three spoonfuls. Yikes!)

While pictures of Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan are regular fixtures in many domestic magazines, they usually show the stars looking polished and sufficiently enviable, happily shopping or playing in their native land or on visits to Shibuya.

The new Gossips Press, however, actually shows all the diet before and after, stars caught with no make-up or bad outfit type photos in the style US Weekly et al—the first magazine of this kind in Japan. In fact, the format and the photos seem to be lifted entirely from those American predecessors and contains absolutely no coverage of Japanese celebs. Trashy tabloids do exist in Japan (like Friday, Asahi Geinou, and Josei Seven) and are quite popular. They are usually printed on newsprint and sold weekly at high profile locations like train platform kiosks where they are typically bought and read by commuting salarymen.

I wonder, however, if after the novelty wears off, there will be an actual market for a monthly Hollywood celeb-driven gossip glossy? After a survey of some blogs that mention the magazine, it seems that those who manage sites devoted to the worship of ikemen (hot guys, like Johnny Depp) are definitely interested, while those with a passing interest in fashion and pop culture are keen to flip through it but not necessarily buy it.

Gossips Press is from TransMedia, the same publishing house that offers the domestic versions of Nylon and Dazed and Confused. They seem to be expanding on their to this date successful formula of introducing successful overseas magazines into Japan, although it could be said that this latest one is in a somewhat different vein.

Tags: celebrity, Publishing
Category: Fashion & Lifestyle Trends
Other categories: Technology & Gadget Trends, Marketing & Ad Trends, Press coverage