Akihiro
Nakahara

Japanese Influences

I have seen the influence of Japanese manufacturer on Canadian people. So, I would like to inform you of Japanese maker's penetration into Vancouver. The Japanese manufacturers in Canada may be categorized into two groups such as hardware and software.

Hardware is classified into four kinds which are car, electronic equipment, sports good and cameras. Four-wheel cars and bike are classed under cars. Electronic equipment divided into two types ; general devices and input/output equipment. Sports good consists of tools and others. While, software is formed by two classifications: games and animation. Home use and use at public space are the categories of game use. Japanese animation can be used in two places: home and at theater.

Japanese makers which produce car with four wheels are, as you know well, Toyota, Honda, Nissan, Mazda, Suzuki, Subaru, Mitsubishi, Isuzu and Hino. Makers of two-wheel, bike are Honda, Suzuki, Yamaha, Kawasaki and Rikuo.

Companies of electronic devices and equipment are Sony, Panasonic, Toshiba, Hitachi, NEC, Sharp, Sanyo, JVC, Mitsubishi, Oki, Pioneer, Kenwood, Aiwa, Akai, Sansui and Funai.

Production companies of computer input & output devices are Canon, Epson, Seiko, Citizen, Brother and Mitsubishi.

Tool makers in sports category are Mizuno, Bridgestone, Yonex, Daiwa, Maruman and Honma.

Sports wear, shoes and so on are produced by Mizuno, Bridgestone, Yonex, Daiwa, Puma, Maruman and Honma.

Makers of camera are Nikon, Canon, Minolta, Olympus, Fujica, Konica and Yashica.

Film makers are Fuji and Konica.

Under the software category, game production companies for use of home are Sony, Nintendo and Sega, which also make hardware such as Playstation, Gameboy and Dreamcast.

For public spaces as arcade, market mall, game center and the likes, Sega, Namco, Konami, Capcon and Square are developing.

Concerning Japanese animation, Pokemon and Dragon ball are watched on TV and VCR at home.

At theater, films produced by Studio Gibli and Toei are popular. This fact took me rather by surprise. Because I have never known that a wider variety of Japanese products by these makers are spread into Vancouver.

The companies I described above are those that I became aware for about 7 months stay here. But I am not sure whether or not more Japanese manufacturers enter into Canadian market.

I freely think that this shows very good relationship between Canada and Japan, particularly in manufacturing industries. As I presently heard, on the other hand, UBC and SFU are making special researches in partnership with private companies on such as mobile agent, temper proof software, CG authoring tools and etc. And it is reported that there are many joint ventures of software development with excellent, unique, new technologies in Canada.

Now in Japan, there are many small companies which are doing venture business, approximately four million companies with less four persons as results of depression, restructuring and downsizing.

In view of these facts, we should more actively work together to actualize newly exploited software as good relationship between Canadian manufacturers and Japanese manufacturers.

Finally, there is nothing that ensures small company's growth better than something new, creative, and truly innovative. Let's now work together to challenge it. --Thank you.

December 1999