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Aside from the mind blowing, colorful, overused, (negatively speaking) layout and design. my lack of understanding Japanaese language, and their strange font… it really makes me screamin:

AAAAAA……MY EYEEESSSS…IT BURNSSSS!!!!

(it reminds me of one of those pokemon series that makes kids go epileptic…)

Very nice. Cluttered at first glance, but then they seem like e-brochure. So much effort must have gone into creating them — balancing them. To western sensibilities they could be.. no-go. Common theme …Prices — in biggest possible fonts. Eye catching.

wow! my eyes, they really have spent some time on these, im not sure if they have crammed quite enough information in them for me!!!

These designs are mindblowing when looked at from a US perspective. They do, however, point up the fact that if you are designing for a global community, the design must appeal to a broader culture set. Maybe that means a different design for different markets not just one design translated to a different language.

I think if you took a lot of English sites and replaced the text with a language you can’t read, to which your brain is going to react to as ‘noise’, you’re bound to come away with the impression of a noisy site / design. While some of these examples are on the ‘busy’ side of J design, the Sunstar Veg juice and the Soy Milk face cream look really quite clean and impressive to me – I’ve been in Japan 16 years and I do read the language – so it immediately tells me what I need to know – no hunting around.

I agree with James. It’s because we are used to reading websites in English language and see them as clean. These Japanese characters / fonts are alien to me and to most of us and they definitely look like clutter for us BECAUSE they’re not friendly to our eyes and we can’t read them. Their fonts don’t have the reading help of the “serif” effect. But hey, Japanese always come out creating their own style (even tho some of them are originally copied)

This is a joke right? What a way to waste my time.

Somehow i wonder if you can really have one design translated into different languages, i just don’t think it works, anyone seen msn localized sites?

I don’t know… Maybe I don’t see what everyone else sees… I’m from the US but they seem fine to me. They have a lot crammed into a small space, but isn’t that just typical Japanese-ness?
If you understand the language, the pages seem to shout quite a bit at you, which is sort of smart in my opinion – get the info out fast to lure people further in. :-\
I kind of like them, compared to typical US sites haha.

What you never bought any KOSHER food?

Your cosher is not funny. Don’t you know any jews?

Japan and much of Asia is world of difference in regards to culture and design. The above are so common. it can be overwhelming but in a world where everything is flashy and bright, companies have to outdo themselves to stand out. As a designer who learned my skills there it was a completely refreshing experience as I really got to experiment with creativity. I mean, how many US companies would go for something as outgoing as a giant pink dinosaur with glitter? Ah memories…

There’s no different way of looking at things here, just poor design.
I know of a quite a few 8-year-olds that can do better collages with just a pair of scissors and some old magazines.
This is not a matter of opinion, different cultures, blah, blah, blah.
That’s why all big Japanese multinationals hire their creatives OUTSIDE Japan.