Mao Asada won the 4 continental figure skating competition today.  Yesterday, she made some mistakes in the short program, so many worried about her success today.

I think it was a brave choice for her because the next event is the Olympic games. Many of the world level skaters did not join in this competition because of the condition control, but Mao Asada chose the way to keep skating.

If she could not win here, she would have to have more confusion in her mind.  Anyway she won and it’s a good way to the Olympic now.

Although many negative comments seemed to have written about her on the internet from Korea ( where this competition was held ), that often happens there, she was gentle enough to ignore them.

We hope she would keep her best condition till the end of Olympic in Vancouver.

Rakuten Ichiba (楽天市場）, or Internet Shopping Site, RAKUTEN will start EC business in China with BIDU.O (百度）.  This is a really big news for us Japanese.

Rakuten started it’s business on the internet only about 10 and something years ago. But it already became the Japan’s NO.1 internet shopping company, and it’s ranked within top 5 internet company in the world.

Rakuten seems to prepare about 50 million US dollars for this business investment.  When thinking of Chinese internet user numbers and it’s rising up market, this internet shopping site will absolutely succeed in the near future.

Rakuten is working between companies and indivisuals for shopping. In Japan this system has already become a stressless commercial custom among users. We don’t feel any risk when using the Rakuten Shopping.

If 2 way communication between China and Japan is realized, even small companies may be able to sell their products or services through Rakuten market from Japan to China.  Also the users will be able to get Chinese items right away through Rakuten.

If this could be possible, it means the 2 major market of the world, Japan and China, will start getting closer and someday it will become as one.  In the real economy, it may be difficult, but if internet market is unified, this could be a driving force for the new market reformation over Japan and China.

I don’t know this would be coming true. But it’s also true that internet business can go any direction without knowing it, or just by the power of market and users.

HIKARU UTADA is, probably, the Japanese top musician who can work not only in Japan but in the world.  She was born in the USA and her bilingual ability helps herself work in the world music market.

Also her parents are also singer and producer respectively, so her destiny to become a musician might have been decided when she was born already.

But one negative aspect she has may be her love career if we dare to find it.

She go married some years ago, but already divorced. And recently she was reported to have been steadying wth a new boy firiend ( an artist ), but again recently she said that the new love was already over again.

News says she is too busy going around the world and she has no time for love.

Namie Amuro has been a popular singer not only in Japan but in some Asian countries.  She was recently reported that Atsushi of a comedian group, LONDON BOOTS, is her new lover and they went to Sedona, Las Vegas and LA in the USA together for secret tours.

Namie Amuro is from Okinawa island of Japan, so she looks a little different from standard Japanese beautiful girls.  Okinawa is now on topic of American military base, but other than that topic, Okinawa is a really beautiful island.

Namie Amuro has been singing as a top singer in Japan for more than 10 years, and it’s an amazing career when thinking of other KOMURO families decadence in the music hit chart.  Namie Amuro would make some hit records by coorperation of Tetsuya Komuro’s composing songs. As known well, Komuro’s big time is totally over and all the Komuro’s songs went out of fashion.

But Namie Amuro kept the top singer status even after that.  It means she can get along without Komuro songs and she is talented enough to stand alone.

Namie Amuro’s new CD is on the top of the chart in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Japan.  Indeed she is a great singer now.

This is a little shocking news for me because I often visit this department store. SEIBU department store has a lot of branch stores in Japan, and Yurakucho store or the Ginza area store is one of the most sophisticated branch store of them all.

It’s located just near the Yurakucho station, and the building is a complex with some good cinema theaters.  This is a very famous place in Tokyo and also it’s loved by trendy girls of Tokyo too.

But today’s news says this Yurakucho branch store will have to close this year because of red running situation for a long time.

If this store ran in red for a long time, who could make a department store run in black in this serious economy situation ?

Anyway, it’s a little sad news for us users, and it would be very hard work even if a new store takes place of Seibu Department Store here.

I need to see how it would go from now.

I don’t know the present status of the Advertising company, Dentsu.  But it used to be ( or still is ) a world largest advertising company.  At least Dentsu is the largest AD company in Japan still with a big distance to the second company, Hakuhodo.

That guliver like company, Dentsu, seems to buy an American internet advertising company called INNOVATION INTERACTIVE.

We don’t know the American company but we know Dentsu.  To be honest, Dentsu is really badly reputed company among average workers in Japan because Dentsu plays tricky works with shadow world often.  Dentsu controls the media with such a lot of money and influential power.  The control is not always for Japan, but often for the other purpose.

Also workers of Dentsu apparently are hated by many because their attitude to outside companies are terrible.  Members of Dentsu behave like the judge of the world.  But often they are just stupid, they can behave like that because Dentsu is the power of the Japanese media, and Dentsu members’ families are often Japanese elite. So the workers of Dentsu don’t know the standard judgement.

Also there are many bad rumors about Dentsu.   We often say ” there is no smoke where there is no fire”.  In that sense, Dentsu has so much smoke.

Some of my college friends joined Dentsu.  They were really nice, but they soon changed their attitude after becoming a member of Dentsu.

Vivian Hsu was a very popular girl from Taiwan 10 or more years ago. Actually recently we’ve not seen her since then, and some are expecting her to come back to Japan again.

Today, I saw her picture.  She became a little adult looking ( of course ) and she seems to be OK because her face looks happy.

The news says that she started her blog for Japanese fans, which is titled “Vivian Hsu’s Beautiful Day“. 

One of my friends was a huge fan of her and he said that Vivian made Japan and Taiwan much closer.

I also remember she was trying hard to be accepted in Japan.  Her attitude was really touching then.

Now she is grown and maybe she can again contribute Japan – Taiwan relationship. Her character makes us happy.

In Japan, TITANIC has long had a record of biggest theater sales among foreign movies.  Including domestic movies, the top3 biggest selling and highest grossing movies are all Hayao Miyazaki animation films, Spirited away, Howl’s Moving Castle, and Princess Mononoke.

But the foreign movie’s sales record seems to be replaced by AVATAR soon.

I’ve not seen Avatar yet, but all through the generations, this movies has a good reputation and they all are enjoying this movie.  As far as I know, this movie seems to be a war movie between galaxy, maybe just like star wars, it’s not like a real war because the 3D world and future story are unreal.

Ithink I need to check it when I have time.

MANABU OSHIO, a musician ( some may don’t call him musician but just TV character or something), was arrested because of use of prohibited drugs at an apartment with a girl, who died at the time. 

Many suspected that Manabu Oshio first used the drug and gave her the same drug, but Manabu Oshio denied and said that he was given the drug by the girl, who died in the same room with him.

She can’t testify as she’s dead and nobody knows the truth.

But Manabu Oshio seems to be prosecuted by the charge that he didn’t help her when she was about to die.  Actually Manabu Oshio went away from the apartment when she fainted and he just called his assistant to let him attend the room instead of himself.

Probably all the people think Manabu Oshio hides many facts behind the death of his partner.

As an addition, the partner was found dead in naked.

To be honest, we Japanese didn’t like Suzuki cars so much because Suzuki targetted only to small and cheap car market, so the design and quality were rather no good ( I would not say bad ) compared to some major makers’ cars like Toyota or Nissan.

But the history of Suzuki recently really changed. It’s because of SWIFT.

SUZUKI SWIFT is a really nice, beautiful and adorable car for girls and a little old people.  It’s design is cute and it’s comfortable to drive on.

When I was in New Zealand, the frequency I saw this car on the street was the biggest !  In addition, people liked to buy this car NEW, not by second hand stage.  New Zealand car market is occupied by used cars, so it’s really rare if people like to buy new cars. 

I talked with some car dealers in NZ, and they often said that Suzuki Swift is the most popular then ( or now ). They added Suzuki used to be the bottom line maker among Japanese car makers, but now it became one of the top popular cars.

Actually in Japan, Suzuki cars are sold well. 

Today’s news also reports that Suzuki and Volkswagen got allied and they became World NO.1 Car makers in production numbers.

We Japanese hesitated to say I like Suzuki cars 10 years go, but now we can say Suzuki is a good car company and we like it !