So how did Japan get so behind despite being on the bleeding edge in terms of most technologies? How is it that internet usage is can be so different? There are a lot of things at play here, but I have a theory: they are practicing internet isolationism. It’s the Tokugawa Era all over again, except this time it involves more LOLcats.

Japan’s First Big Isolationist Period

Let’s jump back a few hundred years. It’s 1641 and the Tokugawa family has gained control of Japan after a long, bloody war. In order to protect their newfound control, the new Shogun implements what is known as the Sakoku Policy. Basically, no foreigner could enter Japan and no Japanese person could leave Japan on the penalty of death. That being said, they actually allowed some foreigners (from Asia, mostly) to come to Japan to trade, but where they were allowed to go and what they were allowed to do was very restricted. It certainly was not the gay old times when everyone would sing songs together after crashing their boats off the Japanese coast.

There were a couple presumed reasons for this isolationism. First, the Shogunate was worried about foreign influence. Religion and colonialism were both a serious threat. Another reason was to keep the daimyo (basically like lords under the Shogun) down. Some of the Daimyo had pretty convenient trade routes with East Asia. Before Japan was unified under Tokugawa, these clans would use these trade routes to get rich and build powerful armies. In order to stay in power, the Shogun had to curb and control this trade so that he and only he got the main benefit from it.

Although Japan wasn’t totally cut off (just extremely restricted), it was quite isolated. During this time ship after ship was turned away. Sometimes they were even attacked. During this time the government built anti-ship defenses too just in case anyone got the wrong idea. You can see a giant list of attempts to trade with the Japanese government during this Sakoku Policy period. It certainly wasn’t easy.

After a while, though, the Western powers got pissed. Commodore Matthew Perry steamed into Edo Bay with four warships and showed off his big cannons so that the Japanese could know who was really in charge around here. A year later Perry came back with even more ships and Japan was all like “Okay, you cool. We can sign a treaty.”

The rest is history, as they say. So what about them Nyancats?

Isolationism In The Japanese Web

I should start by saying that the isolationism of the Tokugawa Era and the isolationism of the Japanese internet are two completely different situations. Of course, Japanese Internet Isolationism isn’t anywhere near as severe as the Sakoku Policy ever was (duh). It’s quite tame in comparison. It’s also more subtle, and not something that was instituted top down. Instead, the Japanese internet version of isolationism came from the bottom up. It happened naturally, slowly branching the Japanese internet off from the rest of the modern world.

The beginning of all this, I think, had to do with cell phones. The Japanese took to cell phones much faster than the West, staying way ahead of us for at least a couple of decades. Because of this, the Japanese didn’t take to computers like we did, and our internets took two very separate paths. Japan has been using the internet on their phones for a lot longer than us. Their infrastructure was made for it and the Japanese internet evolved accordingly.

One such evolution was the creation of services like i-mode. In i-mode, site creators actually make an i-mode version of a site to display that works well in cell phones. If there isn’t an i-mode version, for example, you can’t access it. It’s almost like a whole separate internet that you can only access from your phone. We experienced a very shallow version of this during the time before iPhones then smartphones became popular in the West.

Due to the speedy advancement of the Japanese cell phone internet infrastructure, the use of personal computers was a lot smaller. This means that the Japanese have seen the internet (as we know it, at least) for far less time than the West. It also means they’ve been (basically) using a different kind of internet than a lot of the rest of the world, aka a kind of internet that is very Japan-specific and somewhat isolated. This has caused web culture to develop separately as well causing a lot of the isolationist features you see in the Japanese internet today.

The Closed Japanese Internet

Perhaps the greatest example of isolationism in the Japanese internet comes from Mixi, one of Japan’s largest social network (as of 2008 it had 21.6 million users). It’s a lot like Facebook in that you share journal entries, thoughts, pictures, and so on. What makes it different is how closed it is. Due to the registration setup (you need a Japanese mobile phone email address to join) foreigners basically can never join unless they’re living in Japan and have a cell phone. As for as isolationist Japanese websites go, Mixi certainly takes the cake and has done so for a long, long time.

But it’s not just Mixi that does this. Gree and Mobage (the other two big social networks in Japan) also require Japanese mobile phone addresses to join. If you don’t have one, then you’re out of luck. Everything on the Japanese internet feels so closed, down to the users themselves. On Facebook using your picture and your full name is the norm. On Japanese websites it’s a rarity. There’s a level of anonymity on their web that you don’t see so much on the Western internet. In fact, 2chan (anonymous forum that 4chan came from) is from Japan. It doesn’t get much more anonymous than that.

This is all cultural, though. Like I said, this isolationism comes from the bottom up, not the other way around. It’s not wrong, it’s just different, and this has caused it to be very difficult for the big Western internet companies to break into the Japanese web. It’s like all those trading vessels that tried to land in Japan only to be turned away by the Shogun.

Of the big web companies to make it over to Japan, only a couple have stuck… and not even that much (though they are gaining traction, keep reading). Facebook had problems with its real name policy and real picture culture, causing it to see slower Japanese growth than it wanted or expected.

Google still lags way behind Yahoo Japan, though they recently pulled off a great deal where they took over all of Yahoo Japan’s search much like Bing did for Yahoo in America. Still, people visit Yahoo, not Google in Japan. Yahoo is the internet.

Speaking of which, Yahoo Japan is majority owned by Softbank, a Japanese internet company. It’s not even an American company, which probably explains why it did okay making the jump to Japan in the first place. Softbank knows what it’s doing over there.

Basically, if you’re in the internet, it’s hard to get into Japan. It’s closed, it’s different, and your Western trade vessels aren’t wanted here.

So Where Are Perry’s Black Ships?

If we’re going to pretend that the Japanese internet is like Tokugawa Isolationist Japan, where are Perry’s black ships? Who will come and flex some cannon muscles to get Japan open up their Internet for the rest of the world?

It’s not quite that simple, unfortunately. This isolationism has come from the people, not from the Shogun. No one person can open up the Japanese internet. It has to spread from person to person, slowly but surely allowing more and more outside internet in.

That being said, I think the black ships have already pulled into Edo Bay, metaphorically speaking. Google and Facebook have the best shot. After a bad year in 2010, Facebook made huge progress in 2011 (much to the thanks of the Facebook movie, supposedly, even though the Japanese thought Mark Zuckerberg was a hamburger). I’ve also seen a lot more of my Japanese friends join Facebook and add me as well. At the same time, Mixi is beginning to struggle. It’s having its MySpace moment. Twitter is probably the biggest success story. For the longest time, even before it was translated to Japanese, Japan was Twitter’s number two country in terms of users. It’s still very popular today, too. That being said, Twitter caters to you not having to use your real identity making it more acceptable to Japanese internet users.

As the Japanese people become more web savvy (at least on personal computers) we’ll see a lot of changes in the old internet guard. The Shogunate will crumble from within and we’ll see something interesting rise from the ashes. I think Facebook will start taking off and Google too. I don’t see all the Western internet companies getting a spot in the Japanese internet market, of course, but it will become more international. I think we’ll even see some trades, too. Japanese companies will make the jump to America and blow our socks off. Pixiv and Gree are a couple that come to mind, but more will wash up on our shores later.

But, the black ships have landed. They’re taking their time, though. They have to convince the individuals to open up, but once they get enough people on board it will snowball and hopefully allow Japan to show the internet world what they have to offer as well.

Just after I post about getting past the Mixi blockade by using a .edu address, Mixi shakes things up and I thought they closed up the .edu loophole. [UPDATE] Turns out, it still works, and the best part is, you don’t need to ask for a Mixi invite anymore. You can register all by yourself.

The Good News

Mixi has switched from being an invite-only service to being an “anyone-can-join” service. That means now anyone can join, as long as you’re using the workaround. Otherwise, you have to be Japanese / in Japan.

The Bad News

Well, there is no real bad news now that I’ve gotten word that you can use the workaround to register for Mixi yourself. Very cool.

What This Means

1. You can try to join anytime you want now.

2. My fingers won’t hurt so much sending all those replies and invites and so on!

3. You don’t have to write me a poem to get an invite. Sad for me, good for you.

Solutions?

Originally I had to offer some solutions for getting into Mixi, but no solutions necessary. Only the ol’ Mixi workaround, which should get you in.

So, no more need to leave sad comments in the comment section. Everyone be happy now and add me as a friend (just be warned I am super slow about processing friend requests).

Update: This loophole does not work anymore. The black ship has failed. Retreat! Retreat!

Update: This loophole doesn’t work anymore, so you probably shouldn’t spend your hard earned time getting a .edu account. I hear some other .edu addresses still work (like if you have a school email), but can’t confirm this for every school and every email. As of right now, the only for-sure way to get an account is to get a Japanese cell phone email address, which of course isn’t really possible for most people. Boo, boo, boo :(

I’ve written two articles about Mixi so far (kind of a love-hate relationship going, I think). The first was about how you can use the Japanese social network Mixi to study Japanese. The second was about how Mixi essentially closed themselves off from all foreigners (or at least people outside of Japan) by making you input a Japanese cell phone e-mail address. This article is all about getting around that restriction and getting you your Mixi invite. Whew. Wait a sec, this reminds me of something…

Perry’s Black Ships Invade Mixi

I think this has happened once before… right? Back in the day, Japan closed Japan off to those damn foreigners. Then, one day Matthew Perry came in with his black ships and told Japan to open up or face the consequences. This work-around, I think, is just like that (though not at all significant in comparison). Mixi started off by letting anyone with an invitation in (and that was swell). Then, they decided, “hey, we don’t like your kind around here” so they made it pretty hard to join (unless you were in Japan / Japanese). Now, the preverbal black ships have come into port, and it’s time to show you how you can get in. We’ll have to see, however… I think this time the black ships could get themselves sunk.

Of course, keep in mind they probably closed Mixi off in the first place because non-Japanese people were probably being super creepy, so make sure you play nice and only request an invite if you really want one (for non-weird purposes, you weirdo).

The following is a video that walks you through it (and also includes a sweet giveaway at the end, which you can get a jump start on before it’s posted here on the actual Tofugu blog!). Of course, you can skip the video and just read the information below, and have your Mixi invite in 24-48 hours. How swell.

[yframe url='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCWMG44H0I4']

How To Get A Mixi Invite

Get a .edu email address

If you already have one, then that’s great. You can skip to the next step and just use that (probably, though I can’t say 100% for everyone). If you don’t have a .edu e-mail address, here’s how you get one.

1. Go to Australia.edu

2. Click on the email banner to request your own australia.edu e-mail account.

3. Fill out the information – there is a waiting period while they decide whether or not to accept you in. If you give them a $20 donation it apparently helps them make their decision more “effectively,” if you know what I mean. You should think about donating, though – they’re going to start hating how many people go over there for .edu e-mail handouts via Tofugu. Sorry Australia.edu folks!

4. Wait for a while.

5. Maybe after 24-48 hours, they’ll send you your australia.edu e-mail address. After that, you’re in business! If they don’t send you one? Well… pony up that donation.

Request a Mixi invite

After you get your .edu email address, you’ll have to get a Mixi invite sent to that address. Because only people who are already in Mixi can send you an invite, you’ll have to ask for one. Even though I HATE HATE HATE sending out Mixi invites, I’ll hook you up (you better really want it… just saying). Click the link below to request one. If you want to make me feel better, or if you want to learn Japanese so you can actually use Mixi (it’s all in Japanese, you know), consider becoming a member of TextFugu, my online Japanese textbook that will help you self-teach yourself Japanese, oh so good. Anyways, here’s the Mixi request form. Please give me a few days to get to the request, as I’m guessing there will be a lot of them coming in :(

UPDATE: INVITES NO LONGER REQUIRED

Whew, okay, I’m nervous, but looking forward to getting your requests.

Receive Your Mixi Invite

After I send out your Mixi invite, you’ll be able to sign up for Mixi (hooray!). Now, here is where I would normally spell out how to fill everything out… but, when it comes down to it, you should know some Japanese if you’re going to be using Mixi. That being said, hopefully you can figure out how to fill the sign up form all on your own. If that doesn’t work, you can always use Rikaichan.

By following all the steps above, you’ll be able to join the Mixi social network without a Japanese cell phone e-mail address. I don’t know how long this will last, but for now, it should do the trick. If it stops working, be sure to let us know so I can add an update up here. Anyways, get your Mixi invites now, while the hole is still open. Until then, best of luck to all of you!

Update: This loophole does not work anymore. The black ship has failed. Retreat! Retreat!

Wow Mixi, way to put a damper on things. About two months ago, I put up a tutorial on how to get started with Mixi so that you could use it to practice your Japanese. Now it seems like Mixi is pretty much off limits (for now) to foreigners without a Japanese cell phone email addresses. This theoretically means you have to be living in Japan, and own a cell phone if you want to be able to join Mixi now.

Here are the new rules:

1. You have to confirm a Japanese cell phone email address (docomo, AU, softbank, etc).
2. You also have to confirm a normal email address (hotmail, gmail, whatever).

If you don’t have both of these, you don’t get into Mixi, simple as that. I’ll still be happy to send folks invites, just know that you won’t be able to complete the registration process unless you have a Japanese cell phone.

Anyways, now the important thing is to try and figure out a way around this. Anyone know of a way to get a Japanese cell phone email without actually owning a cell phone? Anyone know a way to circumvent this? I invited myself to Mixi, but I couldn’t figure anything out. I looked around online as well. Still nothing. If any of you know, please let me know in the comments and I’ll make a post about it so we can get this Mixi train rolling again.

UPDATE: Just because some of you seemed worried, if you are already registered with Mixi, you’re okay (for now). I can’t see them shutting down already created accounts just because you don’t have a Japanese mobile email…though, perhaps I wouldn’t put it past them as well. Mixi has done some other crazy stuff that makes me think they are internazis (Thanks for the link, Caitlin).

Update 2: If you want a Mixi invite

If you want a Mixi invite, head on over to this article on “How to get a Mixi invite” and request one over there.

What is different about Mixi?

• Everyone is Paranoid: The most important thing to know about Mixi is that nobody wants to be your friend. That is, the folks who use Mixi listened to their parents, and will often refuse to talk to strangers. I feel like this is quite different from Myspace, and even Facebook. When I first got Mixi, I joined a community (which you will learn about later) for everyone who went to the high school I went to in Japan. I thought I would add some people I didn’t know (but who went to the same school as me). I thought this was reasonable. I have a decent amount of “friends” on Facebook from high school or college that I’d never formally met, but still added because we shared a common educational experience. Although most people were nice about it and added me, I got a handful of people who refused my Mixi friend offer saying they didn’t know me personally, so I should stop pestering them, or something to that extent. I suppose the best way to learn is to make mistakes.
• Centered around Journal Writing: In a sense, Mixi is somewhat similar to Livejournal in that a lot of it is centered around journal writing. When you write a journal entry, all of your added friends see it on their front profile pages. Many of them read it and comment on it too. I know several people who are absolutely addicted to this feature and will get a little bit restless if they can’t read their Mixi journal articles on a regular basis.
• Communities are Big Big Big: Another big part of Mixi is their communities. Unlike Facebook groups, people are often active members. Communities don’t usually have silly names, and anything written in the community is relayed to your front page, which keeps you on top of things (as long as you don’t join too many big communities). Joining a communities might be a good way to make friends as well.

What you should know before joining Mixi:

• Everything is in Japanese: If you are just starting to learn Japanese, it won’t be easy stumbling around the controls and setting up a profile (not to mention meeting people and making friends). You should probably have a pretty good grasp on hiragana and katakana at the very least. Having some kanji knowledge would definitely be a plus. At least you can always pop stuff into Jim Breen to get English translations, but if you don’t know hiragana/katakana I wouldn’t bother for now.
• It’ll be hard to make friends (you can be my friend, though!): Like I said before, people don’t want to become friends with strangers (for the most part). Joining communities and becoming active members might be a good way to make friends. Emailing any Japanese people you know and asking them for their Mixi accounts might be another good way to network out. At the very least you can become my friend, though (the link won’t work unless you are logged on).

Mixi Top Menu:
The Mixi top menu is full of information. The most important thing, though, is that you distinguish the two menu rows from each other. Both of them are similar, but they actually have very separate functions. The top one has to do with things that are not your own. For example, if you clicked on the top menu’s “journal” button, you will see everyone else’s recent journal entries. If you clicked on the bottom one, you will see your own recent journal entries. Below is an image of the top menu, fully translated. Click on it to zoom in.

I am now going to go through each menu item and talk a little bit about each one. For sanity’s sake, I will only go through the bottom menu row, plus “search friend” and “invite friend” up in the top left.

• Home: This will just take you home, to your main page.
• Messages: This section allows you to read and send messages to your friends (or not friends).
• Journal: This will allow you to write a journal entry. This can be about pretty much anything. Think of it more like a diary, where you say stuff almost at random (at least that’s what it feels like when I read people’s Mixi Journals). Don’t say anything you want to keep private, though.
• Movies: Upload movies here. Mixi tried to make a video service to rival Youtube’s and failed. Still, there’s some neat videos in here, and people like to see your videos as well.
• Photos: Upload and manage your photos in this section. I haven’t tried it out yet, but I bet it’s pretty cool.
• Music: I’m not sure what this section is about, honestly, but it has something to do with music. Either way, it won’t affect your social networking experience too much. If anyone knows more information about this section, feel free to comment and let us know.
• Reviews: You can review places, things, etc in this section. I thought this was a pretty neat idea. You can search for products and places, too, and find out what people thought of them.
• Bookmarks: Put up your favorite websites here.
• Traffic: Who has visited your page?
• Options: A huge array of options pertaining to your account.
• Search Friends: Find friends already on Mixi.
• Invite Friends: Invite others to join you!

Left Column: Profile Picture, Friends, and Communities:
On the left column you’ll find profile pictures, friends (also known as my miku (マイミク), short for my mixi(マイミクシー), and communities. Depending on how deep you are into the system, you will either have a lot here or nothing at all. Let’s go through each section, because everything works a little bit different than you might expect. For your reference, a full sized left sidebar can be found here.

• Profile Picture: Mixi allows you to upload three profile pictures, which can be viewed if you click on a link below someone else’s image. The funny thing about profile pictures, though, is that most people don’t put up their real faces. Usually there will be some kind of animal, an actor/actress’ photo, or some inanimate object. Like I said above, though, everyone is paranoid. I would say one in every thirty people put their real images up, and that’s it. You will often see non-Japanese using Mixi with their real pictures, but that is rare as well.
• Friends: You can find your list of friends here. I always get confused because real names are not displayed (just nicknames) and the images above them are of kittens and ferris wheels. Even if it is someone I know really well in real life, most of the time I’ll have no idea who they are on Mixi, even though we are Mixi friends.
• Communities: The Communities section can be found at the very bottom. This shows off the communities you have joined. I didn’t join too many communities because then I get too many messages on my front page, which makes it too difficult to keep track of everything. Some people can handle it but I just read to slowly.

Center Column: Friend and Community Journal Entries, Reviews, Photos, Movies, Music, and Introductions:

• Newest Friend Journal Entries: When one of your Mixi friends writes a journal article, it will show up here for you to read and comment on, if you choose. Many people are very addicted to this feature.
• Newest Community Posts: When something is written within a community page that you are a part of, it will show up here. This will help you keep up to date on discussions going on in different communities. I had too many of these messages, so I left a bunch of my communities and kept only the really important ones.
• Most Recent Friend Reviews: Whenever a friend reviews a place or a product, it will show up here. These are sometimes pretty interesting to read, since you’ll learn about things you’ve never heard of before.
• Most Recent Friend Photos: Woo, photos of friends.
• Most Recent Friend Movies: Woo, movies of friends.
• Most Recent Friend Music: Woo, I don’t know what this category is. Does someone else know?
• Friend Introductions of YOU: This section is my favorite. In Mixi, you don’t write on people’s walls like in Facebook or Myspace. That space is for people to write introductions about you. Most introductions explain how the person knows you and then a little bit about your personality. Occasionally you’ll see a non-Japanese person writing on it as if it were a wall, but this is incorrect. A typical translation of an introduction post would be: “I know this person from high school. He was in my Soccer Club, and he is the type of person who gets along well with everyone,” or something like that. Just remember that this section is for you to write about other people and their personalities/abilities/etc. I think that most of these are positive things about the person, so don’t go around and say that people are real knee-biters. Here is an image of my introduction wall, click on it to zoom in:

Using Mixi to Learn / Practice Japanese:
All in all, mixi is a great way to learn and practice your Japanese. The real hard part is getting people to add you as their friend. If you can get over that boundary, you’ve got yourself an incredible resource.

• Reading Practice: Reading other people’s journal articles is a great way to practice reading. Although it isn’t formalized like a text book, people on Mixi tend to write in short, simple sentences. A lot of people write their journal articles on their phones, which means it’ll be easier for you to read. If you’ve never seen Jim Breen, take a look. It’ll help you translate journal entries in a jiffy. Mixi journals is a good (and quick) daily practice for reading comprehension.
• Writing Practice: If you really want to get into things, you can start writing regular journal entries. If you have enough Mixi friends, you can probably ask people to correct your mistakes in the comments section of your post. It’s a good (and usually sure) way to feedback and corrections on your writing, at least in my experience.

How Do I get an Invitation to Mixi?
I’ll send you an invitation if you comment below. Please note: I think there might be a lot of requests, and although I plan on getting to everyone eventually, sometimes things get busy with school and work. I’ll be giving priority to those who I see or have seen commenting more often (on other posts, not this one) over those who only commented here for the first time. So, if you want a faster return, please comment elsewhere too. Here’s a good list of articles, though anywhere (or nowhere) is fine. Also, please enter your correct email into the comment box, otherwise I won’t be able to invite you.

The Full Translation of Mixi’s Front Page:
I thought I’d translate the whole front page for you all, too, while I was at it. You can see it here in it’s full glory, or click on the image below. Both will take you to an “actual-sized” image.

Everyone, good luck with your Mixi’ing! It’s a lot of fun, which is good motivation to learn more Japanese.

UPDATE: Mixi now requires you to have a Japanese mobile email address to join! This means, if you don’t have a Japanese cell phone, you’re pretty much screwed. More information here. If you still want an invite, AND you have access to a Japanese mobile phone e-mail address, please e-mail me the request as I am no longer checking the comments. Now to see how many people don’t read this big, bold, red update…

Update 2: If you want a Mixi invite

If you want a Mixi invite, head on over to this article on “How to get a Mixi invite” and request one over there.