Around us, there are many convenience stores.  Among them, Seven-Eleven is the most popular and probably it has biggest number of outlets in Japan.

Seven Eleven used to be American company, but now it is owned by a Japanese company. Seven Eleven has been a very successful stores in Japan with enough annual profit.  However, recent downturn of the economy influenced this highly assessed company in Japan.  Seven Eleven seems to report the annual deficit, which is probably the first time for Seven Eleven in the history that they can’t report profit.

Seven Eleven is one of the measure by which Japan’s economic condition.  As it’s reported bad this time, it absolutely means Japanese people don’t consume. Or should we say, the Japanese have no more money to spend on.

Seven Eleven sells many convenient items from magazines to drinks. But people can do without Seven Eleven if they can buy what they need at super markets, where sell most of necessary products by lower cost than Seven Eleven does.

Maybe people don’t spend money at Seven Eleven now. But it also means they don’t have surplus money to spend because Seven Eleven’s items are really interesting and they enrich the life of people.

People don’t need more fun, they need to save money without goint to the funland, Seven Eleven.

 Do you know a Japanese fashion brand called UNIQLO ? Maybe not.

But this is the most popular Japanese casual wear brand. The secret for the popularity is amazingly low price and incredibly high quality. Yes, the cost performance is the best.

If you visit big cities like Tokyo or Osaka in Japan, you will see a lot of UNIQLO stores there. Recently the UNIQLO stores are in the train stations and airports ! 

Japan is in serious economic situation, but this apparel brand keeps running at the top speed and no other competitors  can catch up.

UNIQLO says they will open 100 stores newly in China in one year.　More surprisingly, they opened stores in NY, London, and recently in Paris too. At the Paris shop, it’s said that people needed to wait 2 hours for fitting trial ! because of the crowd.

Generations ago, nobody imagined that Japanese apparel company would start selling Japanese brand.  Japan somehow learned how to produce cars, electric things, and some more after the war.  But in fashion business, how could we imagine the success of a Japanese brand ? Impossible. Western apparel business is of course imported style for us, Japanese.  We didn’t think Westerners liked any of  Japanese  clothes. If we sell Kimono, the Japanese traditional clothes, it would be still reasonable trial. But who would buy T shirts or Jeans of Japanese design ?

But time passed us by.  World changed.  Actually we didn’t think Japanese animation would be popular in the world. But it is now.

We don’t know how the other nations think about Japanese culture or fashion.  It’s not yet famous compared to European fashion or American fashion, but something seems to be changing. 

It’s interesting and exciting.

 Tuna is often cooked for Sushi. The history of Tuna Fishing in Japanese Sushi culture is long. So the Japanese could not l;ive without Tuna.

Years ago, Sushi was a strange food in the world because  of the raw food cooking style.  They didn’t like it.

But now Sushi is one of the most popular foods in the world maybe because of the healthy concept. 

We, Japanese, simply love Sushi because it tastes good.  But for the new Sushi lovers, the first motive for Sushi trial may be the idea of health. Indeed Sushi doesn’t use oil and rice and vinegar seem to be healthy. Many of the new Sushi eaters become real Sushi lovers after some trials because they find the truly good taste. 

Now the Sushi shops or Sushi restaurants are many in the world.  But there is one problem for human. Tuna seems to be running short if we consume it at today’s speed.  As Sushi lovers know, Tuna is the most important stuff for Sushi or Sashimi making. We can’t imagine Sushi without Tuna.

In recent years, in Japan, Tuna farming has been tried to face the problem of the shortage of the Tuna. And it’s becoming successful.  Tuna’s life is not known yet, so the way of raising Tuna is still in the process of trial. Some say that it would take more years until the Tuna farming business is completed. However, some farming started and running on business. 

Actually we seem to eat farmed Tuna at some Sushi restaurants in Japan.  They scarcely notice the difference between  natural Tuna and farmed tuna when eating.  It’s even said that farmed Tuna taste better than natural ones because farmed Tuna has fat with enough food.  The Japanese Sushi lovers loves fat part of tuna rather than red part of it.  Fat part tuna tastes really rich in the mouth.

In this way, farming is really expected. If this could be completed, all the Sushi lovers in the world don’t have to think negative about the future of Sushi when they enjoy Sushi.