Even MORE websites on Japan! (UPDATED)

This week's prescription for the blog is either websites focusing on national politics in Tokyo, or the national economy of Japan. I have chosen to talk about the national economy of Japan, which I have already done before actually; if anyone actually is reading this blog out there, (besides the people administrating this class) they would know that I have already done quite a bit on Japan already. Fortunately, although I had to search around a little bit more for the websites this week, I found a couple other websites with some goods on the Japanese economy that I have not done before. This week we have The Daily Yomiuri Online and a website called Economy Watch. First off, it is important to note that Economy Watch is not a news website per se. While it does have some news articles thrown in here and there on the homepage, it doesn't address Japan specifically; in fact, the website states on the front page that it is centered on the Indian economy, and is a "user-friendly site [that] offers a wide range of information regarding the current world economy and India's performance in the era of Market Friendliness." Since this week's topic does not specifically ask for news websites, this is a good time to examine such a site. True to its creed, the entire right hand side of the front page is devoted almost entirely to Indian economic concerns, such as India's budget, India and the global economy, India's external sector, jobs in India, etc. The site's layout and style appear good to me, with a burnt-orange, light brown, and white background scheme that just seems appealing to me...I don't really know why. Furthermore, the site is very orderly, with no elements overpowering or under-powering any part of the site. Something that I particularly like about the site is that it gives detailed contact information, such as an address and phone numbers at the bottom of the site's home page.



Since this is a blog about the Japanese economy, what I'm most concerned with is the site's world economy section, which houses an information section that is totally devoted to information about Japan's economy. At the top of the economy info page (as with all the other pages devoted to different countries), readers can get information on economic indicators, the structure of the economy, export and import news, insurance news, mortgage news, and finally stock information. The economic indicators section, for example, explains that Japan is ranked 9th in the world in terms of population, 65% of the people live in urban areas, and that the adult literacy rate is 99%. The structure of the economy section explains that Japan’s economy since the 1960s and today accounts for just over 20% of current-price GDP, that Japan is the world’s largest maker of machine tools, and that Japan is one of the world’s most important iron and steel makers. While Economy Watch is great for factual information such as this, the arrangement of some of the elements of the site are done quite poorly. The export and import section features informative graphs on exports and imports and the balance of payment, but they are far too small to be much effective and can’t be enlarged on the site itself. The advertisements on the page are right in the middle of the textual material; in fact, most of the Japanese economy section has the first line of text cut off by a large advertisement box, with the rest of the text continuing after the advertisement. Sometimes this happens twice in one section, with more text separated by advertisements. To the right of each section there is also a bar of advertisements. To top it all off, clicking the different sections of the Japanese economy information page presents the reader with a pop-up ad. While most of the advertisements do not stray too far away from the subject of the economy, with most of them regarding insurance, it is still too much advertising for most readers to take.

The Economy Watch logo

The Daily Yomiuri Online is your more typical news website, with stories, editorials, columns, and the like. Its front page features everything anyone would want from a news website, similar to the ones that have been reviewed before, such as individual sections for national news, sports, business, world news, and features. The main page of the website features a graph for the weather in some of Japan’s biggest cities, and the site has multiple up to date stories with links. However, for a proper English news website on Japan, especially one that is an online version of a print newspaper, the site appears a bit too bland.

The business section of the website features a good amount of articles, about twenty on the main page, and every one of them is dated. However, nothing is really stylized well, with every article being bulleted with a generic diamond shaped icon and a plain font for the text. The background for the entire website is plain white with very few differences, save for a little bit of green and blue. While the business section has its own section for information on stocks and the current exchange rate with some fairly well done graphs for displaying information, but that is the extent of the visual presentation.

Keeping in tune with the site’s low-key appearance, the site features almost no advertising, with only a few advertisements for the Yomiuri Daily itself, hotels, and communications companies.

As far as the actual news stories go, they’re a bit of a mixed bag. All of them use the “one-line-at-a-time” system that makes reading them a bit tedious, but the stories are all satisfactory as far as grammar and spelling are concerned. Some stories are from outside sources, such as the Yomiuri Shimbun, with no writer identified. Others are written by Daily Yomiuri staff writers. One particular story that I found interesting was written by Daily Yomiuri staff writer Yosuke Sakurai, and it explains that Fujio Mitarai, chairman of the Japan Business Federation, said on Monday that an increase of the consumption tax rate from the current 5 percent to 7 percent by 2011 and to 10 percent by 2015 was inevitable to help reduce massive outstanding public debt. The story is very informative on the matter, with many direct quotes from Mitarai himself on the issue. The articles unfortunately lack trademarks.


Economy Watch is a very informative website, very much unlike the websites that I have reviewed before. While it does an admirable job of informing readers with hard facts on the Japanese economy (and other world economies) the amount of advertising on its pages is far too much. With this issue being addressed, I can see Economy Watch being a extremely useful site for people wanting to know about the Japanese economy. I would rate Economy Watch a six and a half out of ten.

The drab appearance of the Yomiuri Daily is a bit disappointing, it does make up with what is most important: well-written news. The Yomiuri Daily could improve itself by making it a bit more visually appealing and professional-looking. The Yomiuri Daily gets a rating of eight out of ten.