The campaign revolves around the “dynamic photos” that the Exilim phone offers, and allowing you to use these as deco mail on your phone. Deco mail (”decoration mail”) is where users add tiny animations into their messages. Dynamic photos technology allows you to crop and insert moving images easily.

The strikingly designed official site has a dazzling array of grotesque characters (the eponymous “deco-monsters”) for you to use in your photos and mails, including sweet girl “merci”, “gomebuta” (ゴメブタ) and “GERA GERA” (ゲラゲラ). Currently number one on the download rankings is “burichan”, so I guess the cutest characters win out in the end. They have a mixture of facial and physical expressions, varying from “love” to “work”, or simply “reaction”.

With dynamic photos you can take your own motion photo and turn it into a deco mail, including removing the background from the photo. Pretty neat, huh?

We’ve previously done round-ups and reports on other avatars and deco-mail campaigns on phones in Japan. Clearly there is a trend for fun and cuteness that seems to show no signs of abating.

The name of the product has changed a bit — now it’s the Ocean Theater (海洋楽園). It works both as a light and a clock, or just as a funky gadget. On the dome you can see over a hundred different kinds of animated fish, dolphins and other marine lifeforms. They even form the time (that’s what I call synchronized swimming!) and react if you touch the top. The dome can be removed and the scenes projected onto a wall too.

Ocean Theater is a clock, a gadget, a projector, a light — it’s even a music player! The product can be pre-ordered here.

The product is quite similar to the Private Ocean interactive clock light carried on the Japan Trend Shop online store.

Now, as part of its HEAT TECH range, Uniqlo has released a new blog part for the adoring public. UNIQLO TUNES is, as the name suggests, musical. You can upload the blog part onto your website to play UNIQLO’s music. Or, if you’ve got your own MP3 files uploaded you can even get the widget to play those.

HEAT TECH has been a runaway sales phenomenon in Japan. The clothes are meant to absorb body moisture to keep the body warm. No one likes to bundle up in thick clothing in the winter and now you don’t have to! Their online store also means you don’t even need to go out into the cold outside to buy your clothes.

The movie changes with the music. Here’s what it looks like:

Rakuten Auctions is similar to ebay, in that it offers a platform for vendors (and individuals) to sell to consumers. It is one of the big players in the Japanese online auction industry, along with bidders and Yahoo Auctions. It is part of the overall online retail site Rakuten Ichiba, a large competitor of Amazon in Japan.

NicoNico Douga is well known for being a members-only video sharing community site with unique UGC interactivity. Most notable is that comments left by viewers appear on the video as rapidly scrolling text (see below).

Some of the services that the official Rakuten Auctions channel will offer are live broadcasts and product demonstrations, as well as special limited auctions and “today’s 1 yen product” (本日の1円商品) where only the users currently viewing live can bid.

Convenience store giant Lawson is teaming up with Mitsubishi Corporation, Showa Shell and Geo to produce the PONTA point card, launching from Spring 2010.

The card has the hallmarks of others on the market: a recognizable cute tanuki (raccoon) mascot and a catchy, semi-English name (an abbreviation of “point terminal”). Starting with its four chief participants, the card will be expanded to 30 affiliates in three years’ time. The target is 30 million cardholders.

Lawson et al are clearly here trying to combat the ubiquitous T-Card run by CCC (the group which includes TSUTAYA) and Family Mart, which at the end of September had 33 million members and 56 affiliates.

The Ponta card will be administrated by Loyalty Marketing, a subsidiary of Mitsubishi Corporation, and, although Lawson aims to offer the service alongside and incorporating their current Lawson Point Card (at present 10 million members), Geo will be disbanding its own customer loyalty card (also 10 million members) when current cards expire. Lawson has some 8,600 stores nationwide and its cooperation with Geo’s 950 outlets and Showa Shell’s 3500 makes Ponta a grand coalition that might just have the T-Card allies quaking.