Trend Analysis

Japan is without a doubt the hottest consumer laboratory in the world for consumer connectivity. Looking at “mobile” subscribers, there are some 69...

It was back in 2006 that columnist, Maki Fukusawa, alerted us to the possibility that Japan’s fabled salarymen were mutating into something rather...

I’ve always chuckled at the way Japan seems to think it is the only place in the world that actually has “4 seasons,”...

Not dissimilar to the dramatic redrawing of retail distribution in the 90s, during which time we saw the advent of outlet malls and...

In a 1988 work entitled Postmodernism and Japan,[i] the authors make the interesting hypothesis that what is “postmodern” in the West has existed in Japan...

One of the hottest product categories this year is that of e-readers, including the explosion of resulting business in the form of the...

Several recently-reported successes from both U.S. and Japanese companies illustrate how rapidly Japanese consumers are adapting to the digital world.

The anniversary of my arrival in Japan 25 years ago approaches, auspiciously this year on June 25th, and I can’t help but reflect...

The arena is Tokyo, Japan, the style-savvy information capital of the world. In this media-driven society, the hot topic of the morning news...

After years of being billed as “the world’s 2nd largest economy,” it appears that 2010 may be the year in which Japan’s economy...

Walking up and down the streets of Shibuya on a Saturday afternoon, Yuuji Morimoto was surprised at what he saw. Things seemed quite...

Japan may be a long way from the 24-hour, drive-through pharmacies that one sees in the U.S., but a recent flurry of activity...