It remains to be seen which city will be selected to host the 2016 Olympic Games. The Japanese Olympic Committee is so serious about its bid that it has enlisted the support of famous anime characters Astro Boy and Pikachu, who have been making appearances at events and fairs promoting the city’s bid.

The Japanese Olympic Committee is not unique in its use of cute characters to promote government sponsored activities, Tokyo’s Suginami Ward (home to the Suginami Animation Museum) has announced that its beloved, and citizen elected, mascot Namisuke, is taking a future forward step to become a deco-mail character, the cute animated figures that are fashionably added to mobile phone e-mails and can be downloaded through subscription-based services.

Editor’s Note: Below is a picture of Yuuchan, a character for the subway system of the city of Kobe in Western Japan. He’s just one of many characters that Kobe uses to reassure us that, yes, they’re hard at work creating new characters for us.

For the original post and the latest Japanese trends please visit the CScout Japan blog.

The Nike Zoom campaign, devised by media agency MindShare China, won Campaign of the Year recently at the Venice Festival of Media. Planned out of MindShare’s Shanghai office, the Zoom campaign ran in Shanghai, Beijing, and Guangzhou. Bluetooth technology was used in special “information shelters”, offering a chance to win a pair of Zoom’s by running between the shelter and the closest Nike shop.

Standard billboards with Nike ads were specially equipped in each city to emit a Bluetooth signal aimed at nearby mobile phones. When people approached the billboard, they received short-range signals on their activated mobiles to start a “virtual stopwatch.” Then they received a message to run to the nearest designated Nike store as fast as they could, where a second Bluetooth signal stopped the stopwatch and recorded their time. Every day, for the length of the promotion, the store gave away one different pair of running shoes for the fastest athlete.

For the original post and the latest Chinese trends please visit our CScout China blog.

Nissin, maker of the classic Cup Noodle instant ramen that has helped keep students in beer money for a few decades, has now begun a campaign to modernize in an ECO-friendly way. Gone are the old polystyrene cups, and in are the paper cups that have been dominating the low-calorie instant ramen market as of late.

Nissin has already been producing it’s Eco Cup refills for some time now, but this doesn’t seem to have caught on well with consumers who prefer a cup with their Cup Noodles.

For the original post and other Japanese trends please visit our CScout Japan blog.

Trend Description

As consumers learn that many of their activities have a carbon impact and ways in which they can reduce this, the awareness of additional impacts is increasing. The water footprint is the next frontier for the environmental consumer: learning that it takes 2500 gallons of water to produce one pound of beef, and that organic cotton may be better for the planet in some ways, but not necessarily in terms of water.

Cases

The Mindful Tap

Julia Treutiger’s ‘Mindful Tap’ provides a gentle visual reminder of the water it’s dispensing. When the segmented parts realign, the water flow is cut off.

Go Blue’s Water Calculator

Now we understand the need to ‘go green’, this Canadian organisation are pushing our thinking one step further by encouraging us to ‘Go Blue’. With the help of Zerofootprint, it’s developed the One Minute Water Calculator to help people gain a better understanding of their water use.

The ‘Luxury Redefined’ t-shirt

Designed to be the most sustainable t-shirt in the world at the time of its launch, Luxury Redefined’s high-end shirt is also intended to educate consumers about new environmental issues. The shirt is made from rain-fed organic Peruvian cotton, providing a superior alternative to irrigated organic cotton, which can use around 20,000 litres of groundwater per kilo of harvested fibre.

Trend Impact

Soon it will no longer be enough to be a low-carbon company: low-water will also be a requirement. However, this offers new ways to attract and profit from customers. Some groups are proposing that the water footprint of products should be included on labelling, and the market for water-saving products is growing. Companies can also impress customers and employees by refitting facilities with low-water toilets, or by referring to low-water innovations in their product stories.

Ouchi de Mugen PuchiPuchi Wii (Infinite Bubblewrap at Home Wii) is a game where you pop virtual bubblewrap onscreen with the Wiimote to the sound of music. While PuchiPuchi is supposed to relieve stress, the song on the game’s homepage may just counteract any benefits.

Not sure how we missed this one either, but here’s a demo movie from the Mugen Edamame (Endless Soybeans) we blogged about here.

Check out PuchiPuchi on Youtube

Now that we can puchi on the train, at home, with friends, and at the dinner table, will there be anything left to puchi when Bandai’s self-made trend runs its course?

I’m sure they’ll think of something.

For the original post and other Japanese trends please visit our CScout Japan blog.

Blogging in China is an increasingly popular pastime. According to the China Internet Network Information Center, as of November last year there were over 72 million China-based blogs and over 47 million Chinese blog writers (roughly one quarter of China’s total number of netizens). With ever greater numbers of Chinese youth heading online to get connected and have fun, many are turning to blogging as a way of sharing their feelings and opinions in a relatively anonymous fashion.

A new blog called Beijing Youth Voices (needs proxy server in China) is being maintained by 6 teenage Beijingers. For the next few months Iris, Siqi, Steven, Linda, E-mail(!), and Kelan will be posting bi-weekly blogs, giving readers a peek into their lives and life in China. The blog is a project between US NGO What Kids Can Do, Inc. and Adobe Youth Voices. As most Chinese blogs are obviously written in Chinese, this will be a great chance for non-Mandarin readers to hear about what life is like in this Olympic city from a Chinese viewpoint, and to learn more about the opinions, ideas, hopes, and dreams of some everyday Chinese youth.

For the original post and other Chinese trends please visit our CScout China blog.

The current mania for all things eco is producing a fair number of impressive innovations in addition to the expected gimmicks. An example of the former is “Eco Tokukun” from Kankyo Souken, a product to make your household fish grill more environmentally friendly.

These small stones, made from recycled paper sludge and silica, aluminum oxide, and calcium oxide and designed to lie in the bottom of the gas grill, promise to cut carbon emissions from the cooking process by 25%. They also increase thermal efficiency, cutting cooking time by 25% and thus your gas usage (and bill). Considering that the fish grill is a kitchen appliance common to pretty much all Japanese homes, and used on a regular basis, these are pretty significant numbers.

As if all that weren’t enough, Eco Tokukun (only ¥450 a pack) also absorbs the odor and juices from the cooking fish, which eliminates waste and the need for unpleasant cleaning, and can be used up to 30 times before needing replacement.

Meanwhile another eco-gadget, the Eco Watt (¥3,150), from Enegate, aims to educate people about their own energy consumption. While similarly named products have flitted in and out of the market for a few years now, the current eco boom has brought the Eco Watt back into the spotlight in a new sleek modern form.

Plug any of your household appliances into the Eco Watt, which then itself gets plugged into the wall outlet, and the digital screen displays the amount of electricity being used, the estimated cost of said electricity, the estimated amount of carbon emissions the power use is causing, and amount of time the power has been running.

For the original post and other Japanese trends please visit our CScout Japan blog.
To purchase the latest in cool Japanese gizmos and gadgetry please visit the CScout Japan Trend Shop.

In the wake of the Sony Rolly, the original iPod dock on wheels Miuro from ZMP has collaborated with Sega Toys to produce Music Robot ODO, a Miuro-like speaker robot that costs significantly less than the original but still bumps out the tunes.

Music Robot ODO doesn’t have the wireless LAN or camera features of the Miuro (among other missing features), but at a tenth of the Miuro’s over $1000 price it’s hard to complain. The LCD screen in the front changes the “emotion” of ODO as it dances along to the tempo of the music, and the remote control gives motion control as well so you can drive it into a loved one’s room while playing Never gonna give you up. It’s a rolling Rickroll for the masses!

Check out the demo video

via AFPBB News

For the original post and other Japanese trends please visit our CScout Japan blog.
For the latest in cool Japanese gizmos and gadgetry please visit the CScout Japan Trend Shop.

Cases:

Full Moon Sideboard
The Full Moon Sideboard is a limited edition piece with a neat trick and a green twist. If you turn the lights in the room down low, the photo-realistic image of the moon’s surface will appear and produce a soft glow. Designer Sotirios Papadopoulos used a special luminous and ecological paint called ELI (eco light inside) which he created especially for this project. Supposedly the gelcoat, which makes the image of the moon glow is derived from an ecological powder. The piece is not available to the public yet, but can be seen at the dEMOsign exhibition at the SOHO gallery in Milan from April 18th to April 22nd.

Sega: Homestar Planetarium
One of the biggest trends in Japan last year has been space. While it’s basically impossible to view the stars clearly in a big city like Tokyo, products like the Homestar Planetarium from Sega bring the nightly sky right into the living, even with the occasional shooting star blasting through. The Homestar Planetarium was such a big success that there is even a PSP software available now, which let useres zoom and navigate through the galaxy, including detailed information about constellations, planets, and the rest of the universe.

Trend Impact:
Beautiful design definitely can draw the awareness of the consumer towards more ecological products. First amazed by the sheer appearance of a light fixture or a piece of furniture, people will look closer and get interested in the idea of ecological design and the smart and energy saving usage of resources and power. People have to be aware of the beauty of their surroundings to be willing to take care of them.

Full Moon Sideboard

Sega: Homestar Pro

CScout Japan Managing Director Michael Keferl was a guest on CNN Today with Kristie Lu Stout and Andrew Stevens to talk about some food trends in Japan. The focus was on our recent posts about character lunch accessories, “udon” pudding, and a new “fresh tea” bottle innovation.

Of course, the character lunches and pudding are Japan-centric (and we don’t expect to see a wave of udon pudding shops opening up either), but the bottle from Aojiru Tea has great potential for many different kinds of beverages in and out of Japan. tO check out the video click here.

For the original post and more Japan-based trends please visit our CScout Japan blog.