Latest News from DannyChoo.com

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Ikkitousen

Spotted the kit version of this Kurushima Kanu Uncho at a previous Wonfes and immediately fell in lurve with her. I tried not to fall too much in lurve with her because I cant make kits.
Luckily, the good folks at Kurushima decided to release a fully painted cold cast version of her. Even luckier, I was able to acquire one from beNippon ^^ This is the first cold cast figure in my collection - previous to owning her I had no idea what they were like. She came thoroughly packaged in polystyrene. Her fringe, right arm and swirling hair had to be assembled with some super glue but no biggie. Kanu's weapon of choice. Shes quite heavy and cold to the touch. Not too familiar with the processes involved but I hear that cold cast kits are made without heating up the liquid before its poured into the cast? Any experts here that can give us a lowdown on PVC, ABS, Resin and Cold Cast? Theres not much shadowing on her skin so if you want her curves to stand out then you are going to have to place spot lights near her. Its been raining in Tokyo for the past few days which is why today's figure shoot is indoors but would like to take some more pics of her when the sun is out. She comes with a what appears to be a heavy polished wooden base with a hole in it - her right foot has a metal peg in it which holds her in place. And to answer the question of why there are so many Kanu figures - I dont know the exact answer but after speaking to figure making comrades, it seems that its not only easy to get a license for the Ikkitousen girls, but also easy to get approval to make figures of them with their eyes hanging out all over the place ^^; A figure maker first has to get permission (license) to make a figure. The maker then makes the figure but then still has to get final permission before it goes into production.
This is the reason why you see "No Photos" or "監修中" [かんしゅうちゅう] next to figures at a show - it means that they are still in the process of getting final permission to put the figure into production. Some license holders will say "yeah sure" but some will say "change the color of the pantsu" or "make the skirt non-castoffable."
A perfect example is the Max Factory scale Haruhi Figure. The pantsu color was originally orange and notice how they ended up gluing the skirt down - even though they designed the figure to be castoffable. Now back to the Kurushima Kanu figure. If I had any complaints it would be that they made the pupils to prominent - you can see them a mile away through her torn sailor fuku! ^^; Not really a complaint but would have preferred a more moe expression. Her loose socks could be more loose though. Shes standing at the moment to the left of my Apple Cinema display with the light shining from below the glass table looking very smexy indeedee. One of my fave shots. Survival Japanese time.
"Kirei na oppai desu ne" [奇麗なおっぱいですね] = "What a nice pair of eyes you have."

You should use this the first time you meet a nice girlie. Survival Japanese time 2.
"Kirei na oshiri desu ne" [奇麗なお尻ですね] = "What a nice bottom you have."

You should use this the first time you meet a nice girlie or chappie. Survival Japanese time 3.
"Kaminoke kirei desu ne" [髪の毛ですね] = "What lovely hair you have."

You should use this the first time you meet a nice gorilla. "Ketsu" [ケツ] is another form of "bottom" but is a bit vulgar and should not be really used. "Shitapai" [したぱい] is the word for the bottom part of eyes ^^; Your kinda figure or showing too much for your liking? Which brings me to a question - do you hide any of your more sexy figures when your parents/friends are about? Do you find yourself replacing the skirt before folks walk in your room? MM grabs a bite to eat. Hmmmm.You can almost smell her fart. Ah, my mistake. Kanu does not fart. Kanu is 1/6 scale, 26cm tall and retails for 20,790 yen. Caption that photo. Which do you prefer - this Kurushima or Alter Kanu Uncho?
Thanks once again to beNippon - unfortunately this is sold out but beNippon have other Ikkitousen goodies.
By Danny Choo on 2008/08/26 13:33

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A Week in Tokyo 23

Particularly busy in Tokyo this week. Major milestone completions, Portal redesign launch and filming - an extremely fulfilling week. Next week will be filled with external meetings, Chara Hobby, server migrations to be followed the following week by more major TV network filming and if all goes well the launch of one of my clients English websites. Cant mention which news network carried out the filming but will announce once its on air - you will be able to see it online. Here you see us going through a box of puchi nendoroids. Out of all the media appearances I've made, this one is the biggest and pretty much covers the entire globe. They cover my work in Tokyo and film me working with one of my clients at their office which also gives them exposure too. The news feature wil also be the first news network to announce a certain thingy ^^; Very much looking forward to this one.

Comrades who are website owners will know that I try my best to channel traffic to their sites instead of attempting to keep everybody behind a silo - will continue to carry out my duty of sharing because sharing is good for everyone. And then we hit Shibuya for some filming of Japanese Girls ^^;

Need to find a way to easily update the media apperance list which keeps growing ^^;

• CNN (iPhone 3G Tokyo Launch)
• G4TV
• Lily Allen and Friends (UK BBC)
• Weekly Ascii (100 famous folks gadgets)
• Blog TV (Tokyo MX TV)
• News Zero (Nippon TV)
• Akiba Report part1 (Tokyo MX TV)
• Akiba Report part2 (Tokyo MX TV)
• Asamade Nama WonHobby (Good Smile Internet Broadcast)
• Nikkei Sangyo Newspaper (Talking about dannychoo.com and online monetization)
• Weekly Ascii (Japanese Internet publication)
• Windows 100% (Japanese computing publication)
• Monoqlo (I write for this magazine and feature myself ^^;)
• Yahoo Internet Guide (Japanese publication)
• Windows 100% May 2006 (Japanese publication)
• Metropolis (Magazine for gaijin folks in Japan)
• Weekly SPA Jan 15th 2008 (Japanese publication speaking on Second Life)
• Weekly SPA Aug 15th 2007 (Japanese publication speaking on dannychoo.com and online affiliating)
• Monoqlo 2 (Japanese publication)
• Giant Robot Magazine 51 (Asian culture publication)
• Asahi Newspaper (Japanese national newspaper)
• Yahoo.com top page (my Akiba dance trooper vid was featured)

And the conference so far are...

• Remix Tokyo (Tokyo) (Speaker at Remix 2006 for Microsoft on "Windows Live Gadgets")
• Imprint Culture Lab (Los Angeles) (Speaker at Imprint Culture Lab 2007 on "dannychoo.com & Blog Culture")
• Trend Day 2008 (Germany) (Speaker on Otaku culture, mirai.fm and dannychoo.com)

Name that JR station. Mc Dees are doing 100 yen for each of these deals. Anybody thought "Shanna" as soon as you saw this? The lovely Kaho on my to-meet list. The mascots for Sato Pharmaceutical. They can be seen outside pharmacies but don't usually wear T-shirts. Its the half boiled egg on Pizza time again. Fancy having your feet massaged for 35 mins at a laughable 4,200 yen? Or how about a shoulder massage - 10 mins for 1,050 yen. Kaisen Yakisoba - 1,050 yen. Mikuru and Nunchucks - priceless (because shes a SAF) ^^; Getting decent shoes in my size in Tokyo is a pain. I'm a UK size 10 and not many places do that size. I had to go all the way to Kichijoji where the head Nike store is just for these trainers. They were about 7,000 yen.
I would have thought that with the change in Japanese eating habits that the lads would have bigger feet by now. Anybody here have the same problem?

I usually get my shoes when I'm overseas. The last batch of shoes I got was from LA last year. The busy schedule causes me to eat at odd times now and then - fast food to the rescue. There is something about being in Mc Dees which creates an atmosphere that allows you to easily ponder stuff as you look out the window. I've spoken to many Japanese friends who feel the same too. Maybe Mc Dees are sticking something in the coke ^^; "It is an outlet for the personal computer. Please use it freely." Many folks in the media are writing that the iPhone boom is over now that everywhere seems to have them in stock and the monthly payment has dropped from 7,280 yen to 2,990 yen. Shopping for groceries. The colonel gets in the Matsuri mood. Shop selling second hand stuff which seems to be getting more n more popular. You is being having second hand stuff around the house? Half boiled egg on peas n bacon - about 200 yen. Meitaiko Spaghetti with seaweed - about 400 yen. Stuffed animals are not given any dignity over here. More half boiled egg shenanigans in a kaisendon set - 880 yen. Meeting up with some readers including Nekoguchi, Windbell and Adun. While I don't get to meet all readers who contact me due to the schedule, I do manage to get away once in a while. The manga version of Ronald. Sour Salmon with vegetables - 800 yen. Dusting and cleaning before the TV crew arrive ^^; Mos rice burger and chilli chicken. Clint Eastwood makes it to Pachinko. Mikuru Uncho joins me for lunch. That red shirt is designed for dogs... As you may have guessed by now, raw or half boiled eggs are part of the Japanese diet. Are you the type who only eats eggs well done? Have you tried raw egg while in Japan? Scrambled egg okonomi yaki. Some dessert after an afternoon of coding ^^; Getting the battery changed after 3 years. Cost about 12,000 yen for a new Eneos battery. If there is one thing I love about Japan its the roadworks. They always have little men waving their mini light sabers guiding pedestrians and traffic. You know exactly when the roadworks are going to finish. These guys are going to be finished on the same day at 6PM.

The roadworks back in the UK were terrible. They went on forever and if you peeked in the holes left in the road you would see traffic cones and always newspaper.

The roadworks in Seattle were pretty bad too which also went on forever. Roadworks go on forever in your region or come and go swiftly? A new Kanu figure - review soon. New figures arrive every week and seem to be spending more time dusting and figuring out what stays or what goes ^^;
On average, how often do you get a new figure?
By Danny Choo on 2008/08/24 14:29

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Japanese Girls

Was out n about in Shibuya yesterday with a TV crew filming stuff which I will announce in a few weeks time - this is going to be incredibly big for dannychoo.com and all featured feed partners - if you have not joined the band wagon then do so now!

And there just happened to be a ton of nice girlies out n about too starting off with these three. The girl in white shirt was incredibly sweet. Before I forget, these photos are taken by my wife, Hector, Nekoguchi and Windbell. How often is it that you get gorgeous girls cuddling up to you and wanting to shake your hand - just seconds after meeting them? ^^; This was the sweetest girl of the bunch who danced with me a little bit. One does not typically put their arms around a girl when having a photo taken with them in Japan - so up until yesterday I didn't - I did for the blokes though. I decided that I would treat the boys and girls the same and cuddled up to the girls too ^^; Having a 2 min break at Hachiko. This one in the wallpaper pool. It can be difficult filming/moving around as many folks want photos - and I don't want to refuse anybody. If I plan to film for an hour, we usually need an extra hour for photos. While out n about filming stuff with the TV network, we decided to do some dancing at the same time - the track was Kung Fu Fighting where I dance a bit and recreate moves from some games. Here is Ryu's Hadou Ken. Way of the drunken fist. Trooper phone home. For some reason Shibuya was very very crowded yesterday. Maybe it was because they were expecting to see a monkey on the loose. You never know until you try. I live by this motto. Just a small example here. Managed to attach the Rolly to the amour and planned to use it as the music source. Up until now it was only I who could hear the music though the iPod making it difficult for folks to join in. What ended up happening is that when I started to dance, the Rolly would stop or switch to shuffle mode - the Rolly is partially controlled by the way you shake it ^^;

So its back to the drawing board. Member Nanu directed me to an Optimus Prime voice changer helmet. Am thinking of getting it and taking out the voice unit which I would attach to speakers. I would also have an iPod attached to the speakers too and place them under the chest plate. Love the guy taking a photo in the back with his mouth wiiide open ^^; The folks were fascinated by the Rolly. Sony didn't really promote it. The only real promotion it got was by Mac users - ironic because the Rolly only comes with Windows software. Caption that photo. Swamped by girls! Sweet girl behind trying to peek into me helmet ^^; Dont hug girls who carry donuts. Many many fellow gaijin out n about. Nekoguchi and Windbell.

Many folk ask me why I do this. I don't get paid to dance in the rain or walk around in a mobile sauna - but I love it.
Its because I have a load of fun while doing it and meet lovely people at the same time. Its great being able to just go out, have fun and make friends with folks around the city. Who said that folks in Tokyo are snobbish?

When you came to Japan, did you find the local folks to be kind, horrible or neither? What are folks like in general in your region?
I found people in London to be miserable and folk in the US (Seattle, LA) to be kind and open. Got to use my Korean for a change. Joining the bouncers at a club. The couple closest to me said "YouTube miteimasu. Odotte!" [YouTube見ています。踊って！] meaning "(we) watch (you) on YouTube. Dance for us!" Hmmm nice GF. More Japanese girlies. Waiting to cross hachiko... ...But get stopped by another girlie. "Kakkoii yo!" [かっこいいよ!] says the man meaning "(you) look cool!"
You should use this term when you see something that visually looks cool whether its the appearance of something or an action - listen out for it when you watch anime. More (younger) girlies. Looking at these photos is an interesting experience for me because the world I see through the helmet is all green. Want to find a way to have glowing neon lights shimmering though the gaps in the armor. Huuge crowed as soon as I reach Shibuya station. Luckily there was no law enforcement throughout the night ^^;
By Danny Choo on 2008/08/22 22:08

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Japanese Women

The full title of this article should be "Violence against Women in Japan" but we all know long titles are bad for SEO ^^; I've seen many more "stop violence against women" posters here but only had the camera on these two occasions.
These posters suddenly started to appear at the end of last year - never noticed any before that. I'm guessing that some sort of decision was made to highlight what could be a problem in Japanese society.

Not an knowledgeable on the subject at all but tried to look up more info and came across a survey concerning the prevention of violence against women.

There are interesting findings in particular answers to "what would you do if you discovered somebody being violently treated by their husband?" The results are as follows. Those who answered "Do nothing" where asked why and answered as follows.
When I saw number 4 above I thought "whaaaat?!"

What would you do (or have done in the past) when you find out that a woman is being violently treated?
When I first visited Japan as a student, I saw some bloke pushing around a woman in the street and swearing at her. She didn't react and just let him continue. Being a young visitor in a foreign land at the time, I didn't have the pair of round steel objects to intervene.

When I was a wee lad back in the UK, I saw posters and TV commercials raising the awareness of violence against women. Whats it like in your region?
By Danny Choo on 2008/08/21 15:50

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Portal Design

Folks who read the RSS feed instead may want to pop over to have a look at the new Gateway redesign.

Thank you to all members who provided input for the new design exactly one month ago today.

There are many reasons for a redesign and I will go through some of them. The first reason is that attempting to design a top page to convert new visitors and also cater for current readers at the same time is not possible. The place ends up being a mess for both new visitors and current readers.

I've seen your feedback in the Puchi Blurbs - some of you love it, hate it and some of you even think its more messy than before! Well at least its not messy for the first time visitor too ^^;

Its difficult to please all and I will fail miserably if I set out to do so (Bill Cosby).

I spend much time working with other site owners to drive traffic to this site but if the first run experience sucks then conversion is going to be low. My task is to convert new visitors into regular users buy cutting out as much irrelevant information as possible. For example, I want new visitors to note the quality of the articles - figure releases before they are announced, Japanese office tours, life in Japan etc. But New visitors don't necessarily need to know about the member articles or puchi blurbs as soon as they arrive - they can get to that later if they decide to stay on.

On the other hand, I need to make sure that regular visitors don't see the marketing blurbs or elements that clutter up the experience even more. Many blogs in particular are stuffed with so much stuff in the side columns that users get desensitized to those areas and completely ignore them.

This is the first iteration of the design and I will be making changes based on user behavior. I want to make the Gateway for regular users more configurable.

Another site where you will see constant changes to the layout based on user behavior is iknow.co.jp - keep your eye on it if you are into the usability thing too. Below is what you will see the first time you arrive. Its basically whats known in the web industry as a Landing Page. Here I have only 3-7 seconds to convince the user to explore more.
With help from your definition of DC Com, The catch phrase I use sums up what the site is about - "Your portal to Japan."

The slides show strong articles from the Japan and Figure categories.
Below the top band are figure articles on the left and Japan articles in the center. The bottom of the center column is blurb to let folks know what this site about and who runs it.

This is a similar approach to what first time users see at Flickr. The first time user will see a photo with a simple blurb. Users who are logged in see something completely different - items which they care about. First time visitors click on the "New Visitor?" button and arrive in the welcome page where I give them the nitty gritty about the site. People who have already clicked through to this page show some interest and will invest more time to read but I still need to keep the blurb short.

From here, users jump into the Figure or Japan portal or dive straight in to see what regular users see by setting their Gateway to show content for regular users. Below is the regular user Gateway. The only main difference is the header bit. The loading time for the previous thumbnailed header is now used more efficiently for my news items instead. They are updated more frequently than Articles so I thought it would make more sense to stick them at the top.

Member news has been extended to 6 items. I'm quietly pleased with the images for articles. The original designs had a black band with transparency at the top and bottom for the text - quite common on many web2.0 designs these days. The black band looked quite bad and tried out a gradient instead - really liked the look of it ^^;

For those who are into CSS, just make two PNG gradients and span the background across two divs - one at the top and one at the bottom of another div which holds the image. If you want this to work in ie6, you will need to use something like jQuery ifixpng. After launching the portals and studying user behavior, I realized that portals are not really used by regular readers. Most regular readers want to catch most of the content which is why they hit the top Gateway instead.

Thus I have made the portals into Landing Page type designs - still needs improving though.

The top band shows the most popular articles and gives the new user a taster of the goodies inside. This is the Figure Portal The Japan portal is the same - popular articles at the top and arranged in a way to convince new visitors to stay on. And this is the Japanese Gateway for the first time user.
There is still much work to do around the site and will be migrating to the new design step by step starting with my profile page, detail pages for articles and News Items and then onto pagination pages and gallery slides etc.

Items on my immediate to-do list are add more images of Haruka and Mirai to the header rotation pool and display categories for News Items.

Adsense users will know that Google dropped the referral program. As a result, I got mail from them asking me to end the Google DC Rewards - this is another reason for the redesign as I needed to remove a bunch of code. The DCReward feed should be replaced with the standard feed that you have registered on your site. I still want you to make money and will be announcing another way for you to easily do so soon. All items that were available in the previous header menu are available in the new orange band. The Secret Menu contains a way for you to reset your browser cookies so that you can see what I am up to in terms of trying to convert new users.

The Secret Menu also contains a new section called Nekkid 2D girls for the 2D girl fan (aren't we all?) From now on I will put all items in Your Menu. If you are not logged in then you wont see this. A form is now above the Puchi Blurbs and includes a counter. Any URL you enter is enabled with snapshots too. let us know what you are looking at, any interesting discoveries etc. The next step is to integrate into twitter too. And just to recap from the history of dannychoo.com article where you will see more - this is what the website looked like back in the year 2000.

Changes for the better are good. Its like introducing a new work flow into your life - can be difficult to get accustomed to at first but will be beneficial in the long run - until its time for other changes for the better. And thus the cycle continues. Embracing change is good - its the only way forward. This is what dannychoo.com looked like in 2002.
Through each design iteration, I've always been analyzing user behavior so that I can add/remove/change what was necessary to improve the user experience. At Amazon, we had internal tools that enabled us to set up intricate tests to see what users clicked on etc. Now Google offers Google Web Optimizer. Its a new tool that enables you to try out different designs of your website. Google will show different layouts to different visitors of the same page. Google will also handle the sessions involved. The tool will generate a report to show you which design was the most effective in converting your users. The video below explains more about Web Optimizer. The hexagonal theme continues with this orange look n feel in 2006.

I will be using Google Web Optimizer to test out different messages/graphics/layout on the first time user Gateway and use those results to increase conversion of first time visitors. And this is what the site looked like just over a year ago. Time certainly flies.

Ah, nearly forgot to mention that some layout and navigational features have been left out of IE6 and IE7 - Both browsers contain too many CSS bugs. Firefox and Safari work well but iPod Touch/iPhone look a bit odd.

Folks who have wide screens will enjoy both of Haruka-chans twin tails ^^;

Let me know if you have any issues viewing the site and state your browser and OS type.

And thanks to all members who have been helping me fix bugs in the Puchi Blurbs ^^
By Danny Choo on 2008/08/20 16:00

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