Ged Carroll

Category: japan |日本 | 일본

Yōkoso – welcome to the Japan category of this blog. This blog was inspired by my love of Japanese culture and their consumer trends. I was introduced to chambara films thanks to being a fan of Sergio Leone’s dollars trilogy. A Fistful of Dollars was heavily influenced by Akira Kurosawa’s Yojimbo.

Getting to watch Akira and Ghost In The Shell for the first time were seminal moments in my life. I was fortunate to have lived in Liverpool when the 051 was an arthouse cinema and later on going to the BFI in London on a regular basis.

Today this is where I share anything that relates to Japan, business issues, the Japanese people or culture. Often posts that appear in this category will appear in other categories as well. So if Lawson launched a new brand collaboration with Nissan to sell a special edition Nissan Skyline GT-R. And that I thought was particularly interesting or noteworthy, that might appear in branding as well as Japan.

There is a lot of Japan-related content here. Japanese culture was one of odd the original inspirations for this blog hence my reference to chambara films in the blog name.

I don’t tend to comment on local politics because I don’t understand it that well, but I am interested when it intersects with business. An example of this would be legal issues affecting the media sector for instance.

If there are any Japanese related subjects that you think would fit with this blog, feel free to let me know by leaving a comment in the ‘Get in touch’ section of this blog here.

  • Yohji Yamamoto & things from last week

    Yohji Yamamoto at the Oxford Union. Yohji Yamamoto provides design and fashion gold in his presentation to the Oxford Union. More related content here.

    Key outtakes from Yohji Yamamoto’s address

    Yohji Yamamoto’s favourite english language words : asymmetric, contradiction, opposite, corruption, immoral, absurdity, idiotic, ludicrous, resist, destroy, destruction, disobey, incomplete, enjoy, poignant, morphing & damage. All of which hint at a wabi sabi type sensibility, despite his well known use of structure and texture.

    Yamamoto focuses on the design through his use of black as a colour, which then forces him to be creative in terms of cut, layering and fabric choices.

    More awesome than your Apple Watch – This Casio G-Shock Watch Transforms into Optimus Prime – Technabob – ok this is very different to an Apple Watch, but I love the way G-Shock managed to do some creative design to make this happen

    To coincide with the publication of Miles Davis – Rubberbrand EP – Amerigo Gazaway has done a remix and a mix of Miles Davis back catalogue. The original Rubberband album was recorded in 1985 and was divisive for both Miles Davis fans and music critics when finally released in 2019. The EP is made up of remixes of the title track of the album.

    Davis had left long time label Columbia and moved to Warner Music. If you like Davis early work, then this is going to be different to what you would expect.

    Kemo the Blaxican – Something about love. Kemo was in the original line up of the Delinquent Habits. He has since gone out on his own and has since put out quality albums under his own name whilst touring with his old colleagues in the Delinquent Habits.

    A very complete archive of radio transmissions from the Apollo 11 mission: Apollo 11 : NASA : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

  • Japan as a power in aerospace + more

    Quietly, Japan as a power in aerospace industry | Ars Technica – really interesting analysis of Japan as a power aerospace sector. What people don’t realise is that Japan supplies key components to Boeing. It also has a set of indigenous plane designs to solve problems like being able to land on water or long range marine patrol. In addition, Japan as a power in aerospace also includes outer space; creating both rockets and payloads for the Japanese space agency

    ‘No Morals’: Advertisers React to Facebook Report – The New York Times – “Now we know Facebook will do whatever it takes to make money. They have absolutely no morals.”  Surprised that advertising execs are going hard on Facebook

    Asda beats Waitrose and Harrods in Which? mince pie taste test | Business | The Guardian – Having done a student job at Cereal Partners I realise how arbitrary taste tests can be. With many products, the same manufacturer might be making the same product for a number of different retailers, with only the boxes changing. It caused some amusement reading the taste test on cereal that was exactly the same, except for the box.

    However the most interesting part of the article was the sub headline: Supermarket tops consumer group’s chart but general standards drop due to rising cost of ingredients. More related content here.

    Inside the hype and reality of Alexa, Siri and the voice assistant ‘revolution’ – Recode – “Smart speaker listeners are much more passive,” she added. “People with voice interfaces tend to accept what’s given to them.”

    The seven deadly paradoxes of cryptocurrency | Bank Underground – great write-up that everyone should read

    A contest wants to build an environmentally friendly air conditioner — Quartz – people generally choose their air conditioners based on price, there is little innovation in the market for a more- efficient AC. There is a need to re-engineer the incentives as well as the technology

  • Luxxury I wanna be everything & other things

    Luxxury has released a new track I wanna be everything. Luxxury has the expansive feel of post-disco, pre-house uptempo dance music a la Shep Pettibone, the Latin Rascals and Arthur Baker. More related content here. Luxxury I wanna be everything is digital only.

    A YouTube video on the history of Unix. Now before you roll your eyes and move on to another site. Think about the ubiquity of unix. Key parts of the internet run on Unix. It’s also the reason why URLs and email addresses aren’t case sensitive. Most telecoms equipment runs on Unix or an analogue of the operating system.  I am writing this on a Mac, the core of the operating system is based on BSD – a variant of Unix. If you’re using Windows 10; it owes a lot to VMS – an operating system developed as a Unix analogue in the early and mid 1970s by Digital Equipment Corporation.

    As for Linux; it was originally developed because Linus Torvalds didn’t realise he could download a free version of BSD…. Linux now powers Android smartphones, smart televisions and all of the internet of things stuff that poses a huge security risk in your home. In terms of a written thing; Unix must be right up there with the works of Shakespeare or JRR Tolkien in terms of its importance in the modern world.

    The presentation also puts a bit of personality into what could have been quite a dry subject.

    I found this on Core 77; Nestle posted some epic videos from its Japanese Kit Kat factory. I love the enthusiasm of the presenters in their workwear as they take you through the manufacturing line: K. Kohno and H. Matsumoto are stars. Japanese Kit Kat is not the same as the sad loser biscuits that you pick up in your weekly shop. Instead they are beautifully packaged and come in a constantly changing variety of flavours like cherry blossom or green matcha tea. The process itself is beautiful to watch. In particular look at the packaging automation.

    The New York Times made a lot of allegations about Facebook and its reaction to Russian election tampering. Scott Galloway was on had to do TV interviews that poured petrol on the fire.

    Great video on Johnny Cash’s live concert At Folsom Prison. It is up there with Live at San Quentin also by Johnny Cash.

  • Walter Cronkite & things from last week

    US newsreader Walter Cronkite narrates a 1967 programme on what the future held in the 21st century. The soothing voice of Walter Cronkite makes the future look less scary

    An Unknown Enemy is a Mexican series on Amazon Prime that follows the rise of Fernando Barrientos, Head of the National Security Directorate, Mexico’s Secret Police in the late 1960s

    Panasonic helps workers create their own head space with new crowdfunded device | The Japan Times – the design looks hokey, but it mirrors the transformation of offices with hot desking and always on headphone culture to try and provide distance. More design related content here.

    The People’s Republic of Desire documents China’s online streaming culture that has developed over the past few years. The film financed by the Ford Foundation provides an inside view of the direction interaction between personalities and their audience. Young girls become online personalities funded directly by besotted fans. More interaction happens online than in real life. Of course, all this happens under the ever-seeing eye of the Chinese government.

    https://youtu.be/auHtqCJV4Rw

    Super-excited by an album of Smith & Mighty’s unreleased back catalogue from 1988 – 1994 being released this week. It is available via digital channels, double vinyl album and on compact disc. While the tracks were unreleased, there is no filler tracks in the collection, the quality is all top notch. Here is a taster.

    Have a great weekend.

  • Eco vehicles + more things

    Korea to Fight Smog with Eco Vehicles – The Chosun Ilbo (English Edition) – interesting dual electric / hydrogen strategy in their eco vehicles. Hydrogen makes sense because of its compact nature as a form of energy, that helps with range anxiety and the amount of time taken to ‘fill up’. As a use case hydrogen makes more sense than modern electric batteries, the key challenge to overcome is the current price differential.

    Japanese Mobile Phone Users Distrustful of Profit-Hungry Operators | Nippon.com – a few interesting aspects of this research. Japanese aren’t as convinced about the utility of mobile services as one would have expected and smartphone mastery is really low

    Why are millennial-obsessed marketers ignoring women over 50 – when they spend the money? – Mumbrella Asia – gen X is a smaller demographic – so their ‘control of 95% of consumer spending decisions” power of spending might be counterintuitive, youth is aspirational – which is why old age is being redefined by boomers. There is also an argument that focusing on young people is focusing on consumer lifetime spend. The last reason is hard to gel with the overall short terms approach to marketing currently employed

    Coty partners with the Cybersmile Foundation to tackle cyberbullying with Rimmel | coty.com – interesting tension between Instagram culture setting the beauty bar and cyberbullying, so I guess this is why Rimmel stepped into the fray

    TIC Brings Affordable Cell Service to Indigenous Mexico | New York magazine – interesting read and reference data on the Mexican wireless market

    Palm Is Back With a Tiny Phone That’ll Keep You Off Your Phone | Makeuseof – not convinced its the right form factor or price point, but I think that it’s an interesting attempt at innovation in the smartphone sector. More innovation related content here

    Instagram’s next cash cow: instant Promote ads for Stories | TechCrunch – stories were a massive lift for Facebook, so its stories with everything

    BBC and Sky call for EU crackdown on Saudi pirate TV service | Business | The Guardian – this story gets stranger by the day. BeoutQ started off as a way to break Qatar’s pay TV business throughout the Gulf, but has morphed into something even more difficult for Saudi Arabia and western countries