More Japanese Chilling Out At Home

[Mulboyne]

Yomiuri: Vegging out at home new lifestyle trend
Even amid the current recession, some products are selling well, including game consoles, home electric cooking appliances and easy-to-use vegetable gardening kits--essential goods for people who enjoy staying at home rather than going out, and who are creating a new lifestyle in the process. Kenji Soma, 22, a senior at Hosei University, was watching a comedy video on a personal computer in his room in a student apartment complex in Sagamihara, Kanagawa Prefecture, recently, while operating a remote control device to play a soccer game on his TV. "There's a lot of things I want to do when I'm in my room, so I often do two things at once," Soma said. The student, who lives alone, said his dream is "to buy a projector and large screen to enjoy games and movies in my room." He said he felt happiest when watching DVDs and videos in his room and that he sometimes passed the time this way for more than 10 hours at a time. According to a Dentsu Inc. survey on lifestyle preferences, 40.8 percent of people across all generations said they preferred staying at home to going out...more...

[Mulboyne]

Continued

According to a Dentsu Inc. survey on lifestyle preferences, 40.8 percent of people across all generations said they preferred staying at home to going out. The figure was 7.6 percentage points higher than the previous survey eight years ago. The growth trend of those preferring home-based lifestyles is conspicuously higher among younger people. That view characterized 57.9 percent of teenagers, up 23.4 percentage points from the previous survey, and 49.3 percent of people in their 20s, an increase of 15.1 points. Tetsuaki Higashida, 24, of Dentsu Communication Institute Inc., said: "During a depressed economy, people are apt to stay at home to save money. Among younger generations, many people enjoy cartoons and games at home, and it's these people who're promoting the trend."

Although customers who patronize game arcades are on the decline, home game consoles are selling very well. Major game company Nintendo's Wii game consoles racked up 50 million in sales between their November 2006 release through March. At major consumer electronics makers, many of which reported losses in the business year ended in March, sales of home electric cooking appliances have been increasing. Sharp Corp.'s steam-oven range suddenly began selling well in September, with year-on-year monthly same period sales increasing by 10 to 20 percent since. The robust figures are due to its function that uses heated steam to reduce oil while it cooks foods. More than 50 percent of sales are of high-end models priced over 100,000 yen, according to the company. A Sharp official said: "Young couples are increasingly buying our expensive oven-ranges. I think people who prefer staying at home don't want to lower the quality of food prepared at home even though they avoid dining out."

According to major seed company Takii & Co., a growing number of young women are enjoying vegetable gardening at home. The company's vegetable gardening kits, enabling people to grow vegetables in a self-contained bag holding 25 liters of soil, began to sell well about three years ago. Sales of the kits are increasing by 10 percent annually. A company staff member said: "[The kits] can be placed even on a narrow apartment balcony. It costs 5,000 yen for three sets. I think people can enjoy leisurely growing vegetables for long periods at a low cost." A magazine targeting working young women began carrying a column with instructions on vegetable-growing beginning in its May issue. Trend watcher Miyako Kudo said: "The younger generation that grew up without experiencing the bubble economy has rational consumption patterns. I think it's natural that makers are developing products to suit younger people's spending habits." I am thinking of changing my lifestyle from merely idling away my holidays at home to growing vegetables on the balcony.