Top 5 Coolest Japanese Products 2006

Nikkei Trendy's December issue includes its annual countdown of products that made it big in Japan. The editors of this comprehensive tech/trend-tracking magazine made their picks from various genres of consumer products--electronics, books, food, Web sites, McDonalds seasonal menu items--that went on sale between October 2005 and September 2006. Here are the Top 5: 1. Nintendo DS Lite and Brain Games Brain Age and other "brain training games" opened up the world of handheld game consoles to a whole new demographic--old people trying to prevent the early onset of boke, or the slowing of cerebral functions. 2. Minicars, like the Honda Zest With new parking rules and the ever-increasing number of new car buyers, the compact, lightweight, inexpensive minicars are dominating the auto market in Japan. This year, 1 in 3 new cars purchases were minicars. 3. Shiseido's Tsubaki hair care series A massive 50-billion yen ad campaign featuring 12 super-hot Japanese celebrities took Shiseido's new shampoo and conditioner to unprecedented heights. With the tag line "Japanese women are beautiful," Tsubaki quickly brought Shiseido to the #1 spot on the shampoo market after 2 years of not being able to top fourth. 4. Social networking sites, like Mixi It was a big year for social networking sites in Japan. Mixi reached close to 6 million users, and international favorites like MySpace and Cyworld also launched their Japan sites. For more on my take on the SNS trend, read <this. 5. Sharp's W-Zero3 This slider-type PDA's has a touchscreen LCD and runs Windows Mobile, and it has continued to capture the hearts of many Japanese businessmen since its release in December 2005.