Japanese MOVIES AND TV PROGRAMS websites

Useful websites for teaching about Japanese movies and TV programs including TV guides, TV commercials, movie trailers, weather reports.  

Emoticons                    
http://club.pep.ne.jp/~hiroette/en/facemarks/
Japanese emoticons/smilies

Electrical appliances  
http://www.neverland.to/kanji/gate.html
Reading Kanji on electrical appliances.  Kanji explained with pictures.

Japanese 'My space'
http://mixi.jp/show_log.pl
Biggest on-line networking site in Japan with more than 4 million participants. Students can create their own profile, upload photos, write a diary entry etc. Japanese version of  ‘facebook’ or ‘myspace’,.

Movie, books, game top charts   
http://www.oricon.co.jp/rank/
Contains ranking charts for music, movies, books and magazines, as well as game software, comics, dramas and even commercials. Useful when gathering information for comparative cultural studies (or the new Intercultural Investigations). Compare what rates well in Japan with that back here in Australia or the US.

Movie new releases 
http://www.eiga.com/index.shtml
Information about recent releases and reviews of already released movies. 

Movie trailers           
http://www.apple.com/jp/trailers/
Free downloadable Japanese movie trailers.

TV commercials       
http://www.cmjapan.com/
Japanese TV commmercials

TV guide                    
http://tv.yahoo.co.jp/
Japanese TV program guide. Search by prefecture, day & date, timeslot or genre.

Weather                     
http://weather.msn.co.jp/world.armx
Japan's weather

Weather report         
http://www.tenki.jp/syoh/weekly_300k.html
Watch TV broadcast of daily, weekly or monthly weather through Windows Media player