In a culture that prizes decorum, Hiroyuki Nishimura's Web video site and bulletin board are a chaotic — and sometimes obscene — free-for-all. Illustration: Christoph Niemann
I'm sitting in a sterile white conference room waiting for Hiroyuki Nishimura. Japan is a nation where the 3:17 train arrives every day at 3:17 — not 3:16 or 3:18 — and Nishimura is 45 minutes late. The PR assistant who painstakingly coordinated our interview, a typical salaryman with a dark suit and receding hairline, looks increasingly uncomfortable.
"I was late to two other meetings today," Nishimura says when he finally arrives. It's a semi-apology, delivered as he shuffles across the room in Velcro sandals. He has a slightly nasal Tokyo accent and speaks in an informal idiom rarely used in business settings. "I can't wake up in the morning or get to places on time. I often wonder whether I'm an adequate human being. Seriously."
In Japan, there are specific rituals surrounding the exchange of business cards. It's customary to proffer your card with two hands while bowing slightly, then study the other person's card intently for several seconds before putting it away. Nishimura fumbles in the pockets of his cargo pants, then sticks his card in my face as he receives mine with a dismissive nod.
The stereotype of Japanese office culture — rigid, formal, and hierarchical — is still the norm in most of the country. Nishimura observes none of those rules. In spite of that, or perhaps because of it, the lackadaisical 31-year-old with a soul patch and wispy goatee has become the most influential figure on the Japanese Web.
We're in the downtown Tokyo headquarters of Dwango, the company that runs a Web video site called Nico Nico Douga (Smiley Smiley Video). In just over a year, Nicodou, as it's affectionately known, has become the fifth-biggest online time-suck in Japan, with users spending more than 12 million hours on the site each month. Dwango owes much of that success to its partnership with Nishimura.
His salesmanship is unconventional, to say the least. "Nico Nico Douga is a total waste," he says with a grin. "You'd be in trouble if you didn't have Google, but you wouldn't dieif Nico Nico Douga didn't exist. But waste is our culture in Japan; look at how we package each candy individually." It's true — in Japan, if you buy a bag of gummies, each piece inside is swaddled in its own superfluous wrapper.
Nishimura has given his countrymen the tools to cut through all that packaging. He started with 2channel, a bulletin board service he created in 1999. It's become one of the few places where Japanese people can say exactly what they feel without concern for decorum or propriety.
Wired contributor Lisa Katayama gives an overview of Nico Nico Douga. Video produced by Annaliza Savage and edited by Michael Lennon. For more, visit wired.com/video.
Now Nicodou has brought the 2channel style of community to Web video. The site lets users plaster their comments directly on top of any uploaded video. Posts are sometimes so numerous that they obscure the clips. "Even when the videos are boring, the viewers are getting together and entertaining each other," Nishimura says.
"Hiroyuki's figuring it out as he goes along, not really giving a shit, but he hit the nail on the head," says Joi Ito, a Tokyo-based venture capitalist and CEO of Creative Commons. "Japan is an unhappy culture. The people are lonely and depressed, and the Internet is a release valve."
To the online communities at 2channel and Nicodou, Nishimura is a folk hero and role model. (In Japan he's referred to solely by his first name, a privilege afforded only to top-tier pop stars and TV heartthrobs.) And in a nation that actually has a word for "death from overwork," Nishimura takes pains to point out that he hasn't had to exert himself much to achieve success and fame. He's just a slacker who showed a nation how to goof off. In his 2007 book Why 2channel Will Never Fail, he wrote: "If running the site required me to get up at 9 am every morning, wear a suit, and not have time to play videogames, I'd probably quit."
"I taught myself to code in grade school," Nishimura says. "After that I did some odd jobs, and now I'm here." He gestures at the conference room and bows with exaggerated self-effacement, as if to apologize for his boring life and easy path to success. Nishimura is cracking wise; he thinks it's ridiculous that a journalist would travel from America to interview him about his silly Web sites. In the lingo of 2channel forum posters, I am kuki yomenai — someone who "can't read the air," who isn't in on the joke.
Nishimura downplays the importance of 2channel. He created the simple bulletin board system nine years ago as an exchange student at the University of Central Arkansas. "I was bored," he says. "I made it to kill time." There's nothing remarkable about the technology — the site is similar to BBS setups that were common in the US at the time. And indeed, navigating it is like time-traveling back to the Mosaic era: It's just pages of blue hypertext links and text punctuated by banner ads and a brick background pattern.
What was innovative about 2channel was its openness. Nishimura read the air and realized that what Japan needed was an outlet for unfettered expression. On 2channel, anyone can start a thread and anyone can post — there's no need to register or log in and no Web handles. There are no censors, no filters, no age verification, no voting systems that boost one thread or comment over another. "I created a free space, and what people did with it was up to them," he says. "No major corporations were offering anything like that, so I had to."
The people of Japan who pass each other wordlessly on the way to work each day suddenly realized they had a lot to talk about. They could argue, berate, complain, insult, opine, free-associate, joke around, and revel in their ability to entertain one other as a completely anonymous collective.
The is video from the site Nico Nico Douga (Smiley Smiley Video). It has been viewed over 650,000 times received over 75,000 comments. Older comments drop off unless the users who submitted them have paid premium accounts.
This ugly, lo-res site gets about 500 million pageviews a month, and Nishimura runs it with the help of nearly 300 volunteer administrators. "The only person who gets money from 2channel is me," he says. "Well, I guess I pay for the servers." It earns him 100 million yen a year — about $1 million — mostly from ad revenue. "But I don't think that's all that different from some dude who opens a convenience store in front of a train station," he says dismissively. "They can make a million yen a day."
Nishimura is chuckling over a 2channel thread on a recent news item. "There was this 66-year-old man who was killed by his 61-year-old wife — she beat him to death with a bamboo sword," he says. "It's kind of funny, the contrast between the classic bamboo sword and the modern Internet. Posters were writing things like, Grandpa was probably becoming a pain in the ass to take care of.'"
The snarkiness, the sophomoric humor, the questionable taste — 2channel posts often have the sort of tone you'd find on a site like Something Awful. There's also a prankish streak: When fast-food chain Lotteria held an online poll asking customers to vote for a new flavor of milk shake, 2channelers stuffed the ballot box in favor of kimchi — fermented cabbage. (Lotteria dutifully offered the vile concoction for sale.)
But 2channel isn't just for geeks. Yes, there are threads where programmers discuss PHP and Ruby on Rails, and threads where otaku debate the latest manga and anime. But there are also threads on sex, politics, sports, and motorcycles. Bored housewives gossip about celebrities. Students and teachers discuss their peers in school-specific threads.
The commenters have developed their own jargon and shorthand. There's that put-down kuki yomenai, a dismissal of the clueless who can't read the air. And there's the catchphrase omae mona, a comeback that translates roughly as "I know you are, but what am I?" Omae Mona is also the name given to a catlike character that commenters frequently append to posts:
Though 2channel is text-only, users have circumvented that restriction by raising ASCII imagery to an art form, typing out elaborate illustrations that are often closer to editorial cartoons than emoticons.
Nishimura's primitive bulletin board has become a hot brand. Book-length collections of comments have become best sellers and have been adapted into manga, TV shows, and movies. There are popular blogs dedicated to highlighting interesting threads. 4chan, a US-based site dedicated to anime, griefing, and all things NSFW, is one of several foreign imitators of 2channel. "Its weirdness dominates Internet culture," Ito says.
I'm watching a video on Nico Nico Douga, Nishimura's follow-up to 2channel. A cute girl in a skimpy outfit has set up a camera in her bedroom and filmed herself dancing. Suddenly, a barrage of comments begin to scroll across the video. "She's pretty good!" "Boobies boobies boobies boobies!" "She's kinda fat." "Cuter than my girlfriend!" "What is happening to our country?" "Is it just me or can you see armpit hair at 1:15?"
In many ways, the site is a standard Web video portal. What's unique is that the Flash-based video files have an extra interactive layer that lets viewers insert text on top of any clip as easily as if they were typing an instant message, and it displays that comment whenever someone else loads the video. Think YouTube meets TRL.
Every kind of clip imaginable gets the Nicodou treatment. A British news item on dolphin fishing in Japan has some commenters declaring the slaughters a disgrace; defenders say it's no different than killing any other animal for food. Amateur videos riffing on the latest Web meme garner enthusiastic praise as well as criticism on editing techniques. US sitcoms show up perfectly translated and ready for annotation just hours after they air, and Sunday-morning anime programs have thousands of comments by afternoon. For many, the site isn't just a viable alternative to TV — the added layer of commentary makes it better than TV.
Nicodou got its start when Nobuo Kawakami, CEO of the mobile-applications developer Dwango, saw an opportunity to port 2channel's irreverent, free-for-all sensibility from an archaic BBS to a full-fledged Web 2.0 application.
Dwango, a public company with nearly 500 employees, already had a relationship with Nishimura. The company advertised on 2channel and even sold ringtones of him reciting popular catchphrases from his BBS. In 2005, when Dwango created a subsidiary called Niwango, it chose a name that further linked the company to Japan's most notorious BBS: Ni is the first syllable of Nishimura and also the Japanese word for two — as in ni channeru, or 2channel. Nicodou is the subsidiary's flagship service.
Nishimura continues to run 2channel independently, but he shows up at Dwango headquarters a couple of days a week to help develop and promote Nicodou. "Hiroyuki is the Steve Jobs of our company," says Koji Mizoguchi, a Niwango board member. "He's the idea man, but he's not concerned with the specifics of how to make it work."
This news item from Japanese TV got the Nico Nico Douga treatment. A woman claims that Hiroyuki Nishimura is irresponsible because he refuses to police posts on the site 2channel. He insists that its impossible for him to do so. Commenters seem to side with Nishimura.
Nicodou launched in January 2007. It now has 6 million registered online users, and 1.3 million people view the mobile phone version. It gets almost a billion pageviews a month — twice as many as 2channel — and Dwango estimates that the site accounts for 8 percent of Japan's total bandwidth use.
The site still trails YouTube in traffic among Japanese, but it's twice as sticky — fans check back often to see how others have embroidered upon their favorite clips. Some users time their comments with the dialog or music, creating a call-and-response feel. They've even figured out how to anticipate scrolling speeds to create elaborate screen-filling ASCII animations.
Kawakami points out that Nicodou is one of the few successful sites in Japan that isn't simply a localized or reverse-engineered version of some Western concept. Like 2channel before it, the site seems to scratch a cultural itch that other countries just don't have. "In American movie theaters, everyone laughs out loud when they're excited," says Tomohito Kinose, another Niwango board member. "You never see that in Japan — you'd probably get punched if you made a sound. But if there were a keyboard next to each movie seat that made comments show up onscreen, people would be typing like crazy."
One of the more than 1 million videos available on Nicodou is a TV news item about Nishimura himself. The segment begins with a narrator introducing Eiko, a woman who was subjected to some libel on 2channel. She submitted a request asking that any comments about her be removed but was told it would not be possible unless she identified each offending post.
"I think the person in charge of this site would be considered very irresponsible in a normal society," Eiko says in the clip. "I continue to be slurred in places I don't even know about. This online society is so irrational and difficult." She is presented as if she were the victim of a violent crime: Her voice is computer-altered to protect her identity, and all we see onscreen is a tight shot of her hands folded in her lap.
"This is horrible!" posts one Nicodou viewer as the woman speaks. Most commenters are less charitable: "That's Net society for you, you sow." "People will forget with time. You're worrying too much." "It's your fault for doing something stupid enough to be written about."
The TV newscast cuts to Nishimura, and ominous music begins to play. The narrator gravely explains that this man refuses to screen the millions of daily posts on his site. "They say 2channel is at fault, but I think 2channel is actually the victim," Nishimura says into the camera. He continues, not even trying to conceal his annoyance: "Something like this is bound to happen when you communicate on the Internet."
As the videoclip plays on Nicodou, commenters are in a frenzy: "I am speechless at how reasonable his explanation is." "I love Hiroyuki!" "He's so young!" "Big nose."
His online fans may adore him, but 2channel is becoming increasingly controversial. There have been stalking incidents and suicide pacts supposedly planned through the site. (Nico Nico Douga is more supervised: Users must log in, there's a six-page agreement, and Dwango responds to takedown notices.) Nishimura's nonchalant response to complaints and libel suits probably doesn't help. "I used to show up in court," he says. "Then one day I overslept, and nothing happened. So I stopped going."
Nishimura has lost about 50 lawsuits and owes millions of dollars in penalties, which he has no intention of paying. "If the verdict mandates deleting things, I'll do it," he says. "I just haven't complied with demands to pay money. Would a cell phone carrier feel responsible when somebody receives a threatening phone call?"
Japan is just now having the debate about free speech online that roiled America a decade ago, but it seems to be reaching different conclusions. A government panel recently proposed to start regulating "influential widely read news-related sites in the same way that newspapers and broadcasting are regulated." Many believe this move was triggered by outrage over 2channel.
Nishimura giggles at the prospect of a government crackdown. "Our lawmakers aren't that dumb," he says. "Besides, 2channel's servers are in San Francisco."
This indescribably odd fan-made video, which was posted to the site Nico Nico Douga, mashes up fast food mascot Ronald McDonald with anime girls. Comments are sometimes so thick that they create what's called "danmaku," a solid curtain like the enemy fire in some videogames. Posts that simply read "wwwwwwwwwwwwww" would translate as "hahahahahahahahaha."
He looks out the 10th-floor window at the Tokyo skyline. The setting sun is bouncing off the silver high-rises. Nishimura is already late to his next meeting, but he doesn't seem to care. His arduous day in the office is nearly over. Soon, he'll be back in his Shinjuku apartment watching movies and playing Final Fantasy.
Even if 2channel is forced to play nice, the BBS has already served its purpose: opening up Japanese Web culture. At Nicodou, users are increasingly likely to show their faces in their homemade videos. On blogs and social networking sites, many younger users are now willing to reveal their real names. More and more services are launching that rely on user-generated content, and some say that Nicodou is just the beginning of Japan's Web 2.0 boom.
Ever the iconoclast, Nishimura scoffs at the idea. In a chapter of Why 2channel Will Never Fail titled "Debunking the Myth of a Bright Future," he predicts there will be no more major innovations on the Web. He believes his success is a fluke and encourages young people who idolize him to keep trying to land one of the dwindling number of jobs at big corporations. "Everyone's writing, You should join a startup or go to work for yourself,'" he says. He has no patience with anyone who's so clueless, so kuki yomenai, as to fall for that. "They're so stupid, they actually believe the stuff they read on the Internet."
Lisa Katayama (www.tokyomango.com) is the author of Urawaza: Secret Everyday Tips and Tricks From Japan.
ONLINE EXTRAS
Art and ASCII: The Stories Behind All Those Brackets, Slashes, and Carets
A Brief Tour of the Japanese Web
US Fans of the Japanese Web
