Japanese social art networks (art interlude)

February 9th, 2011By Category: Arts & Entertainment

We have looked at the size of the social network market in Japan and also seen some of the success stories that it has produced – the president of Gree for example, is the country’s youngest billionaire. Earlier we also took a look at e-commerce in Japan and how that is being affected by social factors.

Trends in Japan has recently taken a look at another aspect of this market, social manga networks. These are sites much like Flickr or DevientArt in which users create their own work and showcase on the site amongst their peers.

There are two main sites that they cover, but the main one, Pixiv is by far the largest. Pixiv is a manga focused site that has so far attracted nearly 3 million amateur and professional artists to contribute. Users upload their manga work, others can then rate, comment, share and chat about it – making it a great place to get feedback and have discussions through art.

It is a mix which has spawned a number of successful collaborations. The site often prints art collections, calendars and books and has also been a great starting-off point for artists to find other work. Here is a little taster of what you can expect to find there:

Piapro

Another site that they look at is Piapro.  Live since 2007, Piapro is run by the same company that created Hatsune Miku, the blue-haired virtual pop singer that was originally created to help promote the Vocaloid synthesizing engine and has since gone onto become a real-life (holographic) idol in her own right. Accordingly, Piapro allows users to mix art and music together and to use upload’s by other users to create their own original works.

Some of the other specialist SNS sites in Japan:

Image note: All images are the property of their respected artists.

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GaijinPot

GaijinPot is an online community for foreigners living in Japan, providing information on everything you need to know about enjoying life here, from finding a job and accommodation to having fun.

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