Thursday, December 07, 2017

Winners of the Yahoo! Japan Search Awards 2017

Yahoo! Japan Search Awards is an annual event which lists the people and things that experienced a surge in online searches via Yahoo! Japan as compared to the previous year. This is a barometer of the amount of attention which the person or thing has enjoyed in the past year. The measurement period is from 1 January to 1 November of the current year.

As the list of winners is very long, I will only feature the winners in the person and culture categories which are more related to J-ent in general:



Grand Award: Buruzon Chiemi

Actor: Takahashi Issei

Actress: Yoshioka Riho

Idol: Keyakizaka46 (also won the same category in 2016)

Comedian: Buruzon Chiemi

Model: Izumi Rika

Musician: Amuro Namie

Voice Actor: Suwabe Junichi

Writer: Kazuo Ishiguro

Special Category: Fujii Souta (shogi player) & Nagano Mei (actress)

Anime: Kemono Friends

Movie: Beauty & The Beast

Game: Dragon Quest XI

Novel: Otto no chinpo ga hairanai

Drama: Code Blue Season 3

Popular Phrase: Sontaku

Source: Yahoo! Japan

5 comments:

junny said...

I was all "Yay Takahashi Issei! Yay Kazuo Ishiguro!" until I got to Code Blue season 3 and was like, wtf.

Sigh.

Anonymous said...

Uhhh whats wrong with Code Blue Season 3 winning an award for receiving a surge in online searching? It came back after 7 years, is the only drama about flight doctors, has a big cast which results more talk, and even announced a movie next year. Seems understandable to me.

Chiaki said...

Nothing against Code Blue though but I would have thought that "Quartet" would have won the drama category for the overwhelming response it enjoyed online during its run despite its lacklustre ratings. Even Eita tweeted after each week's broadcast to say how much he enjoyed it and wanted to be invited as a guest to appear in the drama. Comparatively, Code Blue didn't seem to get such fervent support online.

Then again, I guess the platform or portal which the Internet users rely on to search for stuff matters. The winner list could have been very different if Google Japan was the one giving out the awards so I guess Code Blue probably was "searched for" so much by Yahoo Japan users that it won the title.

Yuri Sakura said...

I just remembered about my comment here and I'm surprised to see such a reply.

I didn't follow Quartet so I cannot say much, but how does ONE actor (Eita) tweeting about Quartet makes it deserve the no. 1 spot for "SEARCH RANKINGS?" It might be an indication the drama is good quality by a respectable actor, but that doesn't equate to "QUANTITY" which is what this award is calculating - the AMOUNT of ATTENTION online.

And Code Blue has earned all that attention, BOTH positive and negative, which is why it became the most searched. This award doesnt care for "overwhelming response" just calculating the no. of searches. There are so many factors for why it probably topped searches. The original cast came back, the scriptwriter changing (which resulted in a lot of negative response and demand to switch back to S1&2 scriptwriter) could also be the cause.

And in the first place, saying "Code Blue didn't seem to get such fervent support online" is already kind of...dumb? How can you say that so easily when Code Blue's official twitter's followers is already an indication of how much people support it. It has 100k more followers than Quartet's twitter if I'm not mistaken and a simple tweet about Code Blue getting a movie in 2018 has likes and retweets that almost reaches the no. of followers they have.

"The winner list could have been very different if Google Japan was the one giving out awards" LMAO I hope you've already seen the results of Google Japan search rankings because it doesnt matter what kind of platform, Code Blue is still the most searched. Why? Because it's popular online and people have LOTS of reasons to look it up and talk about it, both positively and negatively.

I can understand questioning Code Blue getting an award that judges on quality writing (I love CB but imo the writing this season was poor compared to the previous) but this is simply calculating statistics. I'm surprised some people dont get this.

Chiaki said...

Hi Yuri Sakura, I'm really surprised to get such a heated response from you but I can tell clearly how much you love "Code Blue". Surely, we can have a more cordial conversation and share our differing views without coming to blows literally? ^__^

The last sentence in your previous comment seems too much of a sweeping statement to suggest that other people are not "enlightened" enough to see your point or why you think "Code Blue" deserves the title so it may create some misunderstandings which can easily escalate into a war of words. I certainly don't wish to see this happen here because I hope that everyone can give their views without feeling intimidated or uncomfortable about getting flamed or criticised for saying something which someone else does not agree with. We are all entitled to our views so there is really no need to get upset even if we do not agree with one another.

I just wish to state the following to clear the air so I hope that this will clear any misconceptions you may have about my previous comment:

- I didn't say that Eita talking about "Quartet" would have made the drama more deserving of the No.1 spot in the search rankings. It is just that Eita's passion for the drama was truly unusual because he is well-known for being quite "low-tension" and hardly exhibits a lot of enthusiasm or passion most of the time. There was a variety programme this year showing how Eita seemed so bored and disinterested in everything but suddenly got talkative and excited when he saw his favourite character from Godzilla. That's something which is perfectly normal for most people but in Eita's case, the gap between these two emotional states was so huge. Due to the media reports back then in winter revealing that Eita was faithfully following the drama and posting his tweets after his broadcast, proclaiming how much he loved it and even wanted to be in it as a guest, his behaviour made people take notice of "Quartet" to a certain extent considering his usual behaviour and that actors usually do not promote other dramas which they don't appear in. And not to mention, there were many signature lines in each episode which offered so much food for thought that there was a lot of active discussion online after each broadcast. My point was more about the "attention" and "online exposure" for "Quartet" rather than about the searches on it so on hindsight, I should have made this clearer.

- As for the part about Google Japan possibly showing up a different set of results, that was because there is a likelihood that the pool of users for both search engines might be different. I did not say for sure that Code Blue definitely won't be No.1 most search Japanese drama on Google Japan but was just suggesting that it might not be the same as what Yahoo Japan had. Another search portal might have thrown up different statistics too.

- About this number of followers on social media accounts, I don't know about other people but I tend to "unfollow" the dramas' social media accounts after they end their runs. And it's always normal to see the numbers drop after a while. In Code Blue's case, there is still continued interest in it due to the movie next year. I am not contesting the fact that Code Blue may have a lot of followers or have garnered a lot of likes, retweets, shares etc which could contribute to the number of searches on it. However, I do not have figures of Quartet's followers or their social media statistics so I really can't comment on or agree or disagree with that comparison you made between it and Code Blue's account.

Hope that this clarifies.