Political Scene

Since I changed the title of this blog, I like to make a brief review of the recent political scene in Japan.

All of the actions being taken recently by politicians are taken under the pressure of the coming August's election for the Upper House.

Last Summer, Democratic Party won the historical victory in the Lower House election, and the support ratio for new prime mister raised more than 80%. And Liberty and Decmoractic party lost its upper hand. The only way to revive themselves is to putting a new leader who could appeal to wide range of constituents all over the nations. Then Tanigaki became their leader because they could get strong supports from old tycoons of LDP.

A book "What if a girl sports manager of high school boy baseball team read a book of Management by Peter F Drucker" has been sold more than 350,000

This book's title is so long that it's usually called 'Moshi Dra". The book referred in its title is, of course, a management book written by Peter F Drucker, whose books are also very popular among the Japanese businessman. Probably, there is literally no one who never heard of the name of P.F. Drucker in Japan as long as he or she has an experience of professional work. As you know, P.F. Drucker emphasizes the importance of the employees and customers as opposed to the too-highly-well-paid top executives. Those ideas are really resonate with Japanese fundamental culture. So every books issued written by, and with the name of P.F. Druker on it well sold for long years. However, all those books are somewhat serious, so potential readers are limited.

Then came this book. This is a novel book, based on the idea of what if a high school girl, who determined to lead her high school's boy baseball team to win the national competition, then became a manager of the team, reads the book titled 'Management' written by P.F. Drucker. In this book, the girl tries to apply the insights she got from the book 'Management', to solve the problems.

One of the topics which gets many attentions is about the author. This authoer, Natsumi Iwasaki, is used to working as the co-director of AKB 48, which is now very popular professional dance and sing team composed of actual high school girls.

According to his accounts, he get this idea when he worked with those high school girls, who always compete each other very hard to win the star position in the team. He soon realized even in those severe competitions, they sometimes help each other with pure mind to be a truly one-team. That happened when one girl start outstsnding in the team, showing her talent to control other team members. She could draw out each team member's individual talents, and make it shine as one strong light ball as one team. It helped for the team to get astonishing success in the Show Biz.

This book is not a summary of the P.F. Druckers 'Management.' but will show some possible case studies when you try to apply some ideas you got from the 'Management', and be a good gateway that leads you to the referred authentic book of 'Management' by P. F. Drucker.

Ranking of the Most Trusted Brand Name

Recent couple of days, temperature goes up and down everyday, from feezing 3 to 5 degrees Celsius to 18 degrees Celsius. And last Friday evening, it snowed even in Tokyo area. It was not just we saw snow flakes comming down, but they accumulated over the loof top of building, vehicles, and sides of the road. According to the news show, it was some 48 years ago when we last had snow in Tokyo area this late April. This is so unusual, and since most of the dry-cleaning shop runs their Spring Campaign for winter clothes until two weeks ago, many people had brought their winter coats to dry cleaning shops. So, there were many people who only put on the scarf around the neck without overcoat on freezing days.


Nikkei BP consulting has just announced the result of the survey on the most trusted brand name in Japan. Here is the top 50 ranking of the top brand name trusted by consumers, and business people in Japan.

No.1 Uniqlo
No.2 Google
NO.3 Studio Ghibli
No.4 Sony
No.5 Panasonic
No.6 Nintendo DS
No.7 McDonald
No.8 Microsoft
No.8 Windows
No.10 Suntory
No.11 Nisshin Shokuhin
No.12 Rakuten
No.13 Disney
No.14 Nintendo
No.15 Coca-Cola
No.15 YouTube
No.17 Yahoo!
No.18 Tokyu Hands
No.19 Fuji Television
No.19 Wii (Game)
No.21 Kirin Beer
No.22 iPod
No.23 Daizo ($1 shop)
No.23 Mos Burgar
No.25 Q.P (Food)
No.26 Muji(Clothes)
No.27 Haagen-Dazs
No.28 Sharp
No.29 Seven-Eleven
No.30 CupNoodle
No.31 Calbee
No.31 Canon
No.31 Honda
No.31 Mister Donuts
No.35 Aquos
No.36 Toyota
No.36 Yamato Transport
No.38 Gyoza-no-Osho (means King of Dumpling)
No.39 SoftBank
No.40 Apple
No.40 Nike
No.42 Prius
No.43 Meiji Seika
No.44 Calpis (known as Calpiko overseas)
No.45 Amazon
No.45 Sogenpi-cha (brand name of tea)
No.47 Kentuckey Fried Chicken
No.48 KAO
No.49 Addidas
No.50 Asahi Beer
No.50 Ito-en
No.50 Nagatani en

The research was conducted during last September 2009.

Matsu-ya. Their aggresive Price war seems to succeed

I have to coming out. Yes, I am a looser, or liar.
Despite of my previous recoomendation to go to Yoshino-ya, today, I stopped by Matsuya and tried their Gyudon (Beef Ball.)

I couldn't keep away from their lucrative offerings that Gyudon only costs only 250 Yen!! Even it comes with combo,that is with miso soup, egg, and small vegetables only costs 380 Yen.

This is unbelievably cheap,given that one Big Mac costs 360yen, and if you add drink and potatoes, it will cost 650yen now. So, this Gyudon combo only costs half of Big Mac combo. (Most importantly, Gyudon combo comes with salada bowl. you need to be health conscious these days.)

Sure enough, the restaurant was very crowded with salarymen, young men and even young women.

Taste was good. The taste of beef is not so good. (sorry for Aussie beef lovers.) But Matsuya proud of its juicy source that does not use any artificial food preservatives and other food additives. And it was really, really good.

But among the others, it was very awesome when you have a nice decent dinner with just 380 yen.

This campaign will end by April 23.

Price of Beef Ball goes down to 270Yen ; Yoshinoya Spring Campaign means the competition of U.S beef and Aussie Beef

Obviously, Japanese salaryman loves to eat Gyu-don (beef ball). You know salaryman, who wears black suite and tie, it's still a soldiar uniform of Japanese business man?

And Japanese salaryman loves to eat Gyu-don, because it's 'Fast', 'Yammy', and 'Cheap'.

Yoshino-ya is one of the biggest and oldest Gyu-don chain restaurants. It is 111 years since it started. They once dominated the market. But recently, they are almost loosing its position. Their monthly revenue went down by 20% from previous year. That's because of severe competition with Matsu-ya, and Suki-ya, same gyu-don chain restaurant whose revenue continuosly go up.

Then, Yoshino-ya started run spring campaing to cut down the price of rice ball by JPY 270 , aiming at the recovery of the market share. Yoshino-ya's beef ball usually costs JPY 380, while Matsu-ya's beef ball costs 320 Yen and Sukiya's cost 280.Yen, although they counter offered the pcampaign by marking down its by 250 Yen.

Where does this price gap comes from? Yes, Yoshino-ya only use U.S. Beef to maitain its quality of taste, texture of the beef. According to Yoshino-ya, they once tried to use Aussie beef especially in a period of mad cow epidemic, but couldn't keep its quality.

While Matsu-ya and Suki-ya use Aussie beef because they weigh the cost.

From my view, I usually recommend Matsu-ya most, and secondary Suki-ya. But at Suki-ya, you better not to oder ordinal beef ball, but make sure to add some toppings, because texture of beef of them is not good. But they provide various menus for toppings.

However, with this mark down, I really recommend you to try Yoshino-ya and try taste U.S beef and taste of 111 year traditions.

Electric Vehicle start blooming. Nissan and Mitsubishi

Spring of 2010 has just arrived, and cherry blossom is blooming over this weekend.

And it seems that Electric Vehicle seems start blooming in Japan.

Nissan has announced that their 100% Electric Vehicle "Leaf" has just started accepting pre-order from this April 1st, with the price of less than $30 thousand, after allowing for the subsidiary from the Government. It will run 160km per full charge. Yes, it is still more expensive than traditional gas vehicles. But Nissan is expecting that the cost of EV for 6 years would be same as the one of cars, given the cost of gas fuels. Its sales target of 2010 is aiming to sell 6 thousand in Japan.

Then, Mitsubishi is forced to discount its brand new EV "i-MiEV" by less than $25 thousand, aiming at 9 thousand vehicles in Japan within this fiscal year.
(Sorry to say, but I didn't realize that Mitsubishi could afford to spend such R&D cost, since we don't see much Mitsubishi vehicles in town nowadays.)

Similar to the other countries, EV is considered as strategic industry for future. And "Eco" is truly a buzz word to sell things in Japan, largely thanks to the subsidiaries from Government not only for the cars but also various type of products, such as home appliances, PCs etc.

Thus, it is very interesting to keep watching how much EVs are to be sold despite of current weak economic situation.

Nissan Leaf Mitsubishi i-MiEV

1,250 New grads has joined Toyota

April 1 is the fist day of the fiscal year of 2010. And it is also the first day for most new grads from schools join their companies and start getting earnings by themselves.

Toyota has just welcomed 1,250 new employees, who have just graduated from schools last March. The number of the new employment went haf from the last year due to its bad financial results for two years and current recall problems.

But those severe employment situations are not only for Toyota but many of the companies in Japan are suffering from their financial reuslts, so it was a very severe employment situations for the new grads this year. The total number of the new grads who have joined the company from this April 1st reached to 760,000. It is reported that only 85% of new grads could find their jobs from this April 1st.

I wish those freshmen have a good start for their lives.

Photo shows one of a scene of ceremony of Toyota