Is it just me, or do Japanese websites seem much more spartan than their American, Korean, and Chinese counterparts? Just look at the Japanese Wikipedia, or compare Asahi Shimbun's website to the Chosun Ilbo's. And websites for anime for the most part are very minimalistic too. A few background pictures, a bit of static decoration, and that's it. Where are the obnoxious flash-games, the flashy advertisements, the animated buttons I've come to associate with commercial internet?
Is it because so many Japanese web-users browse on cell-phones? Or it just to save bandwidth out of an ethical philosophy of frugality?
Just seems a little weird to me that one of the leading nations on the internet has such plain websites.
Especially for Wikipedia, I mean an article on something as visual as the OS-tans, and they don't have a single picture. Not a single picture for the article on Azumanga Daioh, Haruhi, or Evangelion. I mean, these were big-hit animes, but not a single picture? I mean, the Hungarian, Thai, and Indonesian versions of the EVA page have more pictures than the country of origin!
My guess is:
>Japan has a 99% literacy rate.
ogm! that just cracked me up. poor USAers.
> Especially for Wikipedia, I mean an article on something as visual as the OS-tans, and they don't have a single picture.
I'd guess that Japan doesn't have a ''fair use'' law, so it's not possible to use non-free images in the articles. This is common for not-english versions of wikipedia.
Correct. I learned this the hard way on the Japanese Wiki.
Pretty sure there aren't people on the internet who can't read.
Wow, a country that actually respects intellectual property...
who would'a thunk?
I feel kinda guilty about all my pirated anime now.... :(
Lol I'm wapanese who goes to otaku web sights that only have stories and I don't see pictures.
FUCKER, JAPANESE INTERNET HAS MORE PICTURES THAN THE ENTIRE INTERNET
I don't mean to be a jerkass, but what's with the pictures of all of these amazing cute Henshin ladies?
>>8 The Japanese internet is bigger than the US internet, just because you only see like, 1 japanese link in google doesn't mean that it is the only one there is.
>Yeah, he is right.
SILENCE GREEN TEXT. GET A JOB.
>cries
Japanese websites don't need pictures because kanji are pictorial so when Japanese people read, the kanji present images and conjure up memories.
of course, that's not true, I just wanted to act like a bullshit-spewing sociologist
>bullshit-spewing sociologist
oh I found a great phrase to describe the user base here.
>>6
Blind people have to rely on text-to-speech programs, illiterates could do the same thing.
You forgot to mention the fact that most Japanese websites only use generic HTML, and avoid goodies like CSS.
I was really just thinking about some of their newspapers and popular sites like 2ch which are really plain usually. And then sites marketing things too, usually those are really flashy.
I find it rather strange that most Japanese web sites look like something right out of the American internet of 2001.
No CSS, no XHTML, drab designs, etc.
They also have a fondness for proprietary file formats, especially MS stuff.
They don't seem interested in adopting a lot of Western technologies, like BitTorrent, and more advanced/efficient software and file formats.
I think the Japanese internet developed between 1995 and 2000, and hasn't budged since. I don't think they want to change.