Danny Choo
- Summary
- Productions
- Speaking appointments
- Radio, TV, Commercials, Movie
- Magazine/Newspaper/Books
- Online publications
- Contact
- Employment highlight details
Danny Choo resides in Tokyo and runs a small media production company called Mirai Inc who's main focus is to share Japanese culture with the world though web, TV, mobile, print, products and conferences.
Danny works with Japanese companies such as figurine manufacturers, anime/game producers, print publishers, e-commerce retailers and the Japanese government to bridge the gap between Japan and the world by aggregating/disseminating information and providing the technical and conventional means to do so through the "Culture Japan" brand.
Danny's clientele/collaboration partners include METI (Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry), Good Smile Company, Bushiroad, Dentsu, Ascii Media Works, King Records (Starchild), Sega, Nitroplus, Kadokawa, Kotobukiya, Konami, Production IG, Panasonic, JC Staff, Google Japan, Japanese Red Cross and more.
Danny is the Director and Presenter on TV shows Culture Japan and Japan Mode which are broadcast weekly on channels domestic in Japan such as Tokyo MX TV and BS11, across the whole of Asia on Animax Network, Star World and across America on Mnet America. Danny also presents on a morning TV show in Japan called Check Time.
Danny speaks at conferences and universities worldwide on Japanese Pop Culture and Consumer Generated Media and his activities are regularly featured in web, print and media worldwide such as CNN, BBC, NHK and G4TV. He was appointed as Creative Director by the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) for the project Mazer in 2012 and in 2013, Danny was appointed by the Japanese government as member of the Creative Industries Internationalization Committee.
Danny is also the creator and producer of Mirai Suenaga - the mascot character of Culture Japan who has made appearances in various anime titles such as King Records "Mayo Chiki," Kadokawa's "Twin Angel" and the Nitroplus game "Sonicomi."
In April 2012, Danny worked with the figure maker Good Smile Company to release a set of Japanese learning products called "Moekana" which sold out during the pre-order period and became a hit product overnight. The Moekana cards also feature illustrations of Mirai Suenaga.
Originally from the UK (parents are Malaysian), Danny has been working in the Japanese Internet since 1999. In his career, Danny served as Computer Engineer at Japan Airlines, Website Manager on the management team at Amazon and as CGM Product Manager at Microsoft.
Danny's spoken languages are English, Japanese, Mandarin, Cantonese, Korean.
You can read what Danny has been up to of late in the Summary of 2010 post or in the A Week in Tokyo series.
Folks who are interested in learning more can read about how he started to self-learn Japanese and how he ended up in Japan by reading his How Discovering Japan Changed My Life post which covers the following topics.
- How he discovered Japanese Culture
- How he started to self-study Japanese
- How he started to earn myself money
- Setting his first destination in life - living and working in Japan
- How and where he met his wife
- How he made it to Japan
- How he began my career in Japan
- Why being comfortable is dangerous
- Life at Amazon Japan as Website Manager
- How he started to make money online
- How dannychoo.com started to gain readership
- How he started a side business
- Why he left Microsoft to start up his own company
- Living with illness
- What his company "Mirai" does
I develop a character called Mirai Suenaga (末永みらい) who is the mascot character for the website and TV show "Culture Japan." Mirai started off as a single illustration in the corner of the site back in 2007 and since then has gained much popularity worldwide.
There has been many Mirai collaboration projects with Japanese companies such as Good Smile Company, Nitro Plus, Kadokawa, King Records and more. Read more about Mirai Suenaga.
Apart from being in her own story, Mirai makes appearances in other anime too. Mirai in the Starchild anime Mayo Chiki!
Mirai in the Kadokawa anime Twin Angel.
I also do product development all related to Mirai Suenaga - some in-house and some where I collaborate and develop with other companies such as Good Smile Company and Bushiroad.
Mirai Suenaga gets her own airline with Mirai Airlines?!
I'm working on developing the story for Mirai Millennium which features our heroine Mirai Suenaga. So far, I've worked with Japanese animation studio JC Staff to produce the following anime sequence of Mirai Millennium which has been adapted for the OP for Culture Japan Season 2.
I developed and released a Japanese language learning product called Moekana in April 2012. The product became a hit over night - the first print run sold out during the pre-order period and became the second best selling anime product on Amazon Japan. The cards are released under the Culture Japan brand and distributed by Good Smile Company.
Even though Moekana was developed for foreigners to learn Japanese, Japanese folks also bought the product for their kids too!
Read more about Moekana. TV commercial for Moekana below.
Due to the success of Moekana, it only made sense to develop upon the product range - following Moekana came the booster packs - the first print run also sold out during the pre-order period!
Read more about the Moekana Booster Pack.
The next Japanese learning product that I'm developing is called Moekanji - the first pack will feature the 80 first grade kanji.
Read more about Moekanji.
I direct, produce and present on a TV show called Culture Japan which aims to bring Japanese Culture to the world. The show is broadcast on Tokyo MX TV in Japan and across the world on various cable, terrestrial and online networks including Animax Asia, Mnet in America and Crunchyroll.
While Culture Japan is targeted at folks outside of Japan, the national broadcast in Japan became particularly popular in its second season often trending on Twitter after each episode.
Just like this website, the TV show covers a ton of Japanese pop culture, tradition and history. We also do a lot of behind the scenes coverage, and got to see how anime and figures are made.
Culture Japan also covers some of the serious stuff too - in Season 2 Episode 1 I go to the parts of Japan which were devistated by the earthquake and tsunami in March 2011.
Trailer for Culture Japan Season 2 below.
All episodes for Season 2 available here.
My work to spread Japanese culture around the world was recognized by the Japanese government a few years ago.
To my left is Yukio Edano - currently the Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) and formerly the Chief Cabinet Secretary. I have been working for his team on the Cool Japan Project for a while now and was appointed as Creative Director for their Mazer Project in 2012.
I've been developing websites for most of my career starting at Japan Airlines moving on to the scientific journal Nature, Amazon and Microsoft. After I left Microsoft, I created a web platform that would not only cater for my own needs but for the needs of my clients too - the platform name is Mirai Gaia.
My programming skills are PHP, MYSQL, CSS and HTML. The current version of Mirai Gaia runs on PHP but we are migrating over to Ruby on Rails.
Good Smile Company use Mirai Gaia to manage their catalog data and showcase their products.
Trading Card Game company and anime content producer Bushiroad uses Mirai Gaia to manage their publishing and communities.
I've always loved Konami games since I was playing their titles on the Super Famicom and was delighted when they asked me to make websites for them! This is a community site for their Love Plus title.
While I dont get time to play eroge, I love the artwork of the girls - especially the artwork from Yuzusoft who asked me to develop their web and mobile solutions - this is their official website.
Produced the official Japanese and English language site for Hatsune Miku's world tour.
My team also develops for King Records which enable them to feature their anime titles with ease.
Kadokawa run the Japanese and English official site for the anime title Twin Angel on Mirai Gaia.
Official site for Tokyo Kawaii Magazine (Ascii Media Works) is integrated with the Apple iTunes store to manage their electronic publications.
I'm invited from time to time to various conferences around the world to talk about Japanese Pop Culture.
Cool Japan Tokyo Conference (Tokyo) Organized by the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. Panelist.
Representing Dentsu at Cannes Lions (France) giving a talk on Anime Culture.
Trend Day 2008 (Germany) (Speaker on Otaku Culture for marketing managers)
Invited by the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) to speak along with Yukio Edano (Minister of METI) and others on Japan's content strategy in Tokyo at the NicoNico Chokaigi.
Speaking at Anime Festival Asia (Singapore) about a redefined meaning of what a risk is.
Speaker at PromaxDBA in Singapore on the topic of otaku culture in marketing.
I emcee for various stage events and broadcasts in English and Japanese. Have previously looked after many Japanese voice actresses such as Chiwa Saito, Miyuki Sawashiro, Hanazawa Kana and so on.
Artists that I've looked after include LiSA, May'n, FLOW, Angela, Hatsune Miku and so on.
I also staff at Anime Festival Asia and Anime Expo helping with guest management and logistics.
Talk show with Chiwa Saito on stage at Anime Festival Asia Singapore.
Live broadcast by King Records with anime producer Nakanishi Go and co-host Yoshimi.
Co-hosting the Good Smile Company Live Broadcast with Yoshimi.
Cool Japan Forum 2010 (Singapore) (emcee and speaker)
Emcee for the first Hatsune Miku concert Mikunopolis to be held at Los Angeles - this is a photo of the blu-ray because I dont have any other decent photos ^^;
I'm occasionally invited to give lectures at university's here and there. Most of my lectures are conducted in Japanese.
Speaking at the Nagaoka Institute of Design (Niigata Prefecture) about my career path.
Speaking at the University of London SOAS - this group photo taken with the folks who came to listen.
Speaking at Digital Hollywood University (Tokyo) about my career path.
Speaking at Nihon University (Tokyo) about my career path.
I host an event worldwide called Culture Japan Night (also known as CJ Night) which brings together folks who share a passion for Japanese Pop Culture. Because we all share the same interest, its easy for us to make new comrades at the event and grow our network. Culture Japan Night is *the* place to be to build your network in the anime/otaku industry.
Many folks from the Industry have attend and up until now including Good Smile Company, Kotobukiya, Volks, Obitsu, AmiAmi, Hobby Search, J-List, Google Japan, Amazon Japan, Microsoft Japan, Sony, Bushiroad, Ascii Media Works and more.
Folks who attend CJ Night can expect to see and/or participate in cosplay, doll and figure displays, meet industry and like minded folks to seek friendship, collaborations or opportunities - but I only provide the venue and means - the rest is up to you!
Culture Japan Night in Tokyo. This venue was the Good Smile cafe in Akihabara.
Culture Japan Night in Singapore - held at the official AKB48 cafe.
Culture Japan Night in Taiwan - location is the Good Smile cafe in Taipei.
Culture Japan Night in Los Angeles - venue is the Los Angeles Convention Center.
I was brought up on Star Wars and have always wanted to be a Stormtrooper since I was a kid - but had to wait until I was an adult to become one ^^;
Got some armor and customized it a wee bit and decided that it was a waste to just hang it up in the wardrobe - so I decided that I would attempt to "dance" in it ^^;
Talking on Channel NewsAsia about the anime industry.
Screencaps from the Nikon commercial.
A is ASIA (NHK World) Feature on Danny Choo.
CNN (Feature on Danny Choo)
Second or third time on BBC? Talking about Japanese culture. Video in this post.
On France LCI talking about Japanese Internet. More in the LCI Broadcast article.
Mac Fan (feature on Danny Choo and Mirai Inc)
BMW Magazine (Worldwide) Trends in Japan.
Nikkei Sangyo Newspaper (Talking about dannychoo.com and online monetization)
The Star (Malaysian newspaper)
La Repubblica XL (Italy) (feature on Danny Choo)
Japan Times (Japan) Feature on Danny Choo.
Was born and raised in the East end of London - this photo taken in Victoria Park Hackney while I was still living with both parents. Parents are both Malaysian Chinese.
Later on in life during my early years, times were tough for my parents who both worked hard day n night. As they were both busy trying to make ends meet, they decided to put me in various foster homes which I lived in for most of my childhood. In some of the homes, I wasn't treated incredibly well but didn't say anything to my parents as I knew they were having their own financial and other problems. I ended up living with a white, black and then with an Indian family for what seemed like an eternity.
As luck would have it, one of the foster homes had guardians who would take my clothes and consider it theirs while their kids would constantly bully me - was easy to pick on the boy who had no parents. I was made to feel as unwelcome as possible in their house.
I remember a particular evening where we came back to the house to discover the front door open. We walked in to discover that the place was a mess - burglars had got in. I was scared and started to cry. The eldest child of my foster family shouted at me:-
"What are you crying for?! This isn't even your house!"
Other memorable moments in one of the homes was when I was strangled until I had red patches around my eyes. When asked the next day at school, all I could think of was saying that I put cups on my eyes ^^;
Another unforgettable time was when I was beaten with car racing tracks - a bit like these ones but were made of rubber with an orange strip down the middle. Was left with lovely bright red marks all over. Remember looking in the mirror after the beating session and still remember exactly what I looked like back then down to the green jumper that I was wearing.
The only thing I had in life back then were the occasional weekends with my parents. Dad would come to pick me up for the weekend and I would either stay with him or he would drop me off at mums. But at times he was just swamped with work and couldn't make it. The phone would ring and my foster parents would pick up and hand me the phone.
After hanging up I would sit crying on the stairs looking out at the small window above the door. I couldn't even go out to cry because I wasn't allowed out on my own apart from going to school. All I could do was go back to my room which was a small stock room with a bed. I would have dreams of my only friend Buck Rogers coming to visit me with his trusty robot Twiggy.
Mum and dad were paying my foster parents to house and feed me and not to particularly care about how well or bad I done at school. My childhood was school > go home > eat > occasionally watch TV > go to room > repeat.
The TV was my first encounter with Japanese anime where I watched Gatchaman (called G-Force in the UK). I didn't particularly know it was Japanese - not that it was important at the time anyway.
This photo was taken during the time I was staying at one of the foster homes. Didn't have much fun in school either. Was constantly bullied and most of my memories were of being dragged through gravel, gang beaten up, having my possessions burned, football constantly aimed at my face, and having the big guy in the school playground say to me "If I smash your head with this bat and kill you then I would go to jail. But it would be worth it." I remember having to ask the same person to punch me so that I could be part of his posse.
Memories attached to emotion are easy to remember as the brain releases a chemical which helps the memory to be stored for longer. This is why we easily remember moments of joy, sadness or embarrassment.
If you think back to your childhood, many of your memories with either be a mix of these emotions. I have no memories of happiness during my childhood apart from one of when my parents still lived together. It was Christmas and we were sitting in front of the Christmas tree in the living room back in Blurton Road Hackney.
Used to be quite depressed when I thought about my childhood until I started to think about what some other kids go through as a child - I had it easy compared to them.
Completely unmotivated throughout my school term, I ended up taking subjects because of what others in class took - I had absolutely no idea what I wanted to do in life. With no destination in life or passion for the subjects that I studied, I didn't do well in school at all with average grades of D or E. Now you know why my English grammar is terrible ^^;
Cant remember at which point in life but I started to live with my parents again - with dad for a couple of years and then with mum until I moved out. This photo taken with mum last year. I want to be able to buy her a house somewhere so that she doesn't have to live in that council flat anymore. Love her to bits but she's as stubborn is as stubborn does and wants her own place and not one where I pay the rent for her ^^;
Don't have the cash quite yet after I nearly went bankrupt in 2009 but have been able to recover a wee bit of late. Getting a place for mum now would pretty much use up all of our savings and also mean that I would not have enough cash flow to continue to run the company which is not a good thing.
This is mums place in Hackney. Lived here until I moved out to live with wifey. Was veeeeeeeeery depressing living here. The neighbors would play thumping reggae music all day and night. The floor boards literally shook.
Mum got mugged in Hackney 3 times - once she was left unconscious after somebody hit her head. After getting a call, I ran to the hospital to find her with dried blood down her face and bruises on her arm where she tried to hold onto her handbag (continue reading the rest)
There are many resume templates that you can download from the Internets but I thought I'd share a tried and tested resume format that got me jobs at companies like Amazon and Microsoft and interview/job offers from Google and Apple - which I turned down to go to Microsoft ^^;
Anyway, the word file for the my CV is here - feel free to use it. Read more about my resume format.
- To share Japanese culture with the world though web, TV, print and conferences.
- Serve as a mediatory between Japan and the world by aggregating/disseminating information and providing the technical and conventional means to do so.
- To provide manufacturers and service providers with solutions to bring them closer to the consumer/end user through marketing and other means.
- Licensing of our proprietary online platform called Mirai Gaia which enables clients to easily manage their online publishing/e-commerce and community strategy with ease. Current websites that run on Mirai Gaia include:-
- To direct/produce terrestrial and online broadcasts themed on Japanese Pop Culture. Current TV productions include Culture Japan and Check Time.
- Clients and collaborators include Google, Disney Online Japan, NHK, Mozilla Japan, Columbia Japan, Good Smile Company, Nitro Plus, Bandai, Kotobukiya and the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry.
- Feature planning, service evaluation, development, implementation and execution of online services.
- Responsible for the management and recruitment of software development, web development and catalog systems/operations in China.
- Introduced Amazon style guidelines - this meant that we were able to reduce the number of hours spent on creatives by using guidelines that have been proven to be effective at increasing conversion.
- Implemented SEO techniques to joyo.com to increase the number of pages indexed by search engines and to also increase result rankings.
- Responsible for the management of software development teams to develop and deliver ASIN (Amazon Standard Identification Number - a unique identifier for our products) metrics systems. The types of systems we developed were;
- Competitive monitoring systems which were critical for Amazons ability to understand competitor pricing trends and maintain the lowest prices for our customers.
- Selection analysis systems. Amazons business owners can make improved critical business decisions through understanding their categories by using our systems.
- ASIN metrics systems. These systems are used by teams like Marketplace, Catalog Operations, and Product Managers. These systems aggregate and perform calculations on an ASIN level which allow these groups to perform at a higher level of efficiency by concentrating on the top XX% which make up XX% of sales.
- Competitive monitoring systems which were critical for Amazons ability to understand competitor pricing trends and maintain the lowest prices for our customers.
- As a senior member of the management team within Global Site Development (GSD), I would make key decisions on project execution / prioritization and the top grading / performance evaluation of GSD subordinates.
- Give presentations on ideas and project status / initiatives to Amazon employees, to senior vice presidents and to Amazons CEO Jeff Bezos together with his team of direct reports.
- Work closely with the Alexa team on the CMT project (see below).
- Developed and deployed the CMT system. CMT is a revolutionary system which....I cant talk too much about.....CMT also allows Amazon to better understand competitor selection.
- Developed and launched the Selection Tool. Selection Tool gives our business owners a greater understanding of their products by presenting to them detailed information aggregated from various internal systems API's.
- Responsible for the production team of 30 heads. The team comprised of Web Development, Quality Assurance, Design, Browse Development, Content Build and Deployment, Cross Site Editorial, Imaging, Program Management and Catalog Operations.
- I was responsible for providing the optimum organizational structure, workloads, direction, hiring, firing, performance evaluation, and determined compensation / career advancement.
- Lead development teams remotely across the globe to coordinate and deploy website features.
- Responsible as a member of the senior management team in Japan to make critical decisions regarding company direction. Also was a member on interview loops for key members of staff including directors.
- As a member of the senior management team, I would participate in top grading, promotion and organizational decisions.
- Travel to each of our locales to meet with the other country website managers to discuss, plan and decide resource allocation, technological constraints / advancements that influence the following quarter's website initiatives.
- Worked with and have good working knowledge of all departments across all locales in Amazon including Vendor Management, Buying, Merchandising, Finance, Legal, Retail, Marketing, Web Services, Public Relations, Human Resources, Supply Chain / Operations, IT.
- Responsible for onboard orientation for new key hires and constant education of website features, technology and processes for the business owners.
- Present technology updates and QA sessions at the company all-hands each quarter.
- Worked closely with Customer Service to understand the nature and cause of customer contact - allowing my team to keep their assigned contacts to a minimum.
- Maintained excellent Service Level Agreements.
- Maintained high morale and optimal working conditions for my team members.
- Delivered the following major incremental features to the site.
- Incremental product lines include: Video Games, Software, Gift, Marketplace, Consumer Electronics and Home&Kitchen.
- Features include: My Store, Vodafone, Listmania, Wishlist, Cash On Delivery.
- Incremental product lines include: Video Games, Software, Gift, Marketplace, Consumer Electronics and Home&Kitchen.
- Implementation of Search Engine Optimization changes to all the Amazon retail sites resulting in incremental revenues of millions of US dollars.
- Introduced procedures such as the Quarterly Planning Process which enabled the business to prioritize the most important feature rollout and projects - allowing my team to execute and deliver with minimal resources whilst minimizing the need to work overtime.
- Executed new and innovative website features which have resulted in incremental revenues of millions of Japanese yen.
- Implemented a vast array of user interface and usability changes to not only improve our customer's online shopping experience but also to increase conversion.
- Delivered Amazon.co.jp's first syndicated store for Virgin Mega Japan.
- Through the introduction of technology, improvement processes and top grading, I kept headcount flat throughout the 3 years as website manager whilst continuing to deliver 100% of the projects and initiatives that were required for Amazon.co.jp to meet each quarter's financial targets.
- Gained excellent working knowledge of Amazons proprietary database, catalog, content / software deployment systems and data processes.
- Also gained excellent working knowledge of our online usability tests - this refers to the tests that we implement when launching incremental features online to a certain percent of users to establish how colors, element / widget positioning, number of clicks involved etc affect customer behavior and conversion.
- Gained excellent working knowledge and concepts of email marketing, content management and online promotional management systems.
- Marketing of Nature and 12 sister journals in South East Asia (Japan, Korea, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore).
- Coordinate with outsourced designers and printers to ensure that Nature's high standard and policies were adhered to.
- Organization of the print run schedule coordinating with translators, designers and printers.
- Execution and planning of numerous marketing projects and promotions by electronic and conventional means.
- Development and maintenance of Nature's regional sites (English, Japanese, Simplified and Traditional Chinese and Korean).
- Development of online subscription system.
- Budget allocation and expenditure.
- Develop community websites and Gateways.
- Management of outsourcing (schedule and compensation).
- Organization and management of conferences (sponsors, display material, time tables)
- Negotiating with advertising clients for sponsored placements in print and online.
- Design of advertisements, mailings, posters, subscription forms using Illustrator and Photoshop. Design and creation of web graphics, logos, and interfaces.
- Print buying.
- Communicate with our offices in London and New York regarding print buying, print run, marketing issues.
- Drove the concept, creation and deployment of Nature's Korean language site (which accounted for 90% of all subscription orders from Korea).
- Improved the delivery system of journals to Korea speeding up delivery time of up to 72 hours and reducing costs.
- Developed from concept to deployment "NWEB" - a member program whereby subscribers earn points depending on the price and length of their subscription. Points can redeem products such as free online access, free limited subscriptions to another journals and Nature merchandise.
- Launched Nature Immunology in Japan and Korea and drove circulation to be the highest worldwide.
- Launched Nature Genetics, Nature Molecular Cell Biology and Nature Neuroscience.
- Developed metrics systems to analyze subscription data by a wide variety of variables - essential for understanding the effectiveness of various channels of subscriptions.
- Software/hardware support and maintenance of Japan Airlines reservation systems throughout Europe.
- Maintenance and configuration of our client's computer systems and networks. Clients included NHK, NTT Data, Mitsui Kaijyou and Marubeni.
You may have guessed by now but I is being liking figurines. They are not just representations of anime or game characters but also works of art. See more reviews and event coverage in the Figures category.
At the end of 2008, I started to acquire a brand of dolls called Dollfie. Many Japanese folks call them "daughters."
You can see more of my daughters in the Dollfie category.
This is Saber.
Aoi.
Ryomo.
Nanoha.
Karin.
Reimu.
My wife next to our car which has been given the Itasha treatment plastered with our lovely mascot character Suenaga Mirai. Photos of our new Itasha in the Mirai Suenaga Itasha Ver 2 post!
Below are a list of bits n bobs that my company has been producing.
- Culture Japan - Director and presenter for the TV show about Japanese Pop Culture - broadcast on Tokyo MX in Japan and across Asia on Animax.
- Character creation of Mirai Suenaga and Haruka Suenaga.
- Otacool 1,2,3 - Publications featuring photos from users around the world.
- Development of a Web platform called Mirai Gaia which is used by Ascii Media Works, Good Smile Company, Kotobukiya, Cospa and King Records (Starchild).
- Figure.fm - an active Japanese Pop Culture online community that mainly features figure and dolls.
- Tsubuyaku - Image uploader for Japanese Twitter users.
- Tokyo Figure Show - a show featuring Japanese figurine art. Held so far in Tokyo and Singapore.
- Chinka - anime production.
- Tokyo CGM Night - one of Tokyo's largest CGM networking events.
- Cool Japan Conference at Chokaigi (speaking with Yukio Edano the Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry)
- Cool Japan Conference by the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (Speaker)
- 2012 Winter Good Smile Broadcast (Presenter)
- Tokyo International Anime Festival (panelist)
- Nagaoka University (Nagaoka, Japan) (2011/10) (Speaker on my career)
- Wonder Festival 2011 Summer (Tokyo) (Speaker at Kotobukiya stage)
- MIKUNOPOLIS (Hatsune Miku Concert) (MC)
- Anime Expo 2011 (Los Angeles) (Speaker and MC)
- Cannes International Advertising Festival (Speaker for Dentsu on Anime Culture)
- C3Hong Kong ( speaker on my TV production Culture Japan)
- Japanese Media Culture Conference (Tokyo) (Panelist)
- Cool Japan and Japanese Industries Seminar (Tokyo) (Ote News College)(Panelist)
- Anime Festival Asia 2010 (Singapore) (speaker on my TV production Culture Japan)
- Cool Japan Forum 2010 (Singapore) (host and speaker on "My Cool Japan")
- Anime Festival Asia 2010 (Singapore) (MC for voice actress Kana Hanazawa and Milky Holmes)
- Cool Japan Tokyo Conference (Tokyo) Organized by the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. Panelist.
- Anime Expo 2010 (first day panel) (second day panel) (Los Angeles)
- Digital Hollywood University (Tokyo) (Lecture on Creative Industries in Japan)
- University of London - (Speaker on Creative Industries in Japan)
- Animation Asia Conference (official site) (Singapore) (Speaker and panelist on Japanese Pop Culture)
- Anime Festival Asia 2009 (Singapore) (official site) (Performer and speaker on dannychoo.com)
- Good Ideas Salons Tokyo (Tokyo) (official site) (Panelist on Pure Living)
- Nihon University (Tokyo) (Speaker on my career and dannychoo.com)
- Apple Store Ginza (Tokyo) (Speaker on Consumer Generated Media)
- Remix Tokyo (Tokyo) (Speaker at Remix 2006 for Microsoft on "Windows Live Gadgets")
- Imprint Culture Lab (Los Angeles) (Speaker at Imprint Culture Lab on "dannychoo.com & Blog Culture")
- Trend Day 2008 (Germany) (Speaker on Otaku Culture and dannychoo.com)
- Promax BDA Asia 2008 (Singapore) (Speaker on Otaku culture and dannychoo.com)
- Animax Blogging Workshop (Singapore) (Speaker on history of dannychoo.com, monetization and userbility)
- Pecha Kucha Night (Tokyo) (Speaker on Tokyo Trooper)
- Channel NewsAsia (Singapore) guest on the morning Primetime Morning to talk the anime industry and monetary aspects.
- Culture Japan (Tokyo MX TV / ANIMAX Asia) Presenter and Director.
- Nikon Commercial
- CNN (Feature on Danny Choo)
- The People vs George Lucas (Theatrical movie)
- Kira Kira Asia (BS11 / Shanghai / Taiwan) Presenter.
- A is ASIA (NHK World) Feature on Danny Choo.
- Fantastico (Brazil nationwide broadcast) (video here)
- TBS Radio
- O-Japan Senryaku (Tokyo MX TV)
- La Chaîne Info (France TV Broadcast)
- iPhone 3GS Launch (Nationwide press coverage)
- BBC News at 10PM (Otaku Subculture)
- BBC World Fast Track
- Google My Fave Places
- Firefox 3.5 Welcome Video
- CNN (iPhone 3G Tokyo Launch)
- G4TV (Attack of the Show)
- G4TV (Ninja Fest 3)
- Lily Allen and Friends (UK BBC)
- Won Hobby 5
- Boing Boing TV
- Blog TV (Tokyo MX TV)
- News Zero (Nippon TV)
- Akiba Report part1 (Tokyo MX TV)
- Akiba Report part2 (Tokyo MX TV)
- Asamade Nama WonHobby (Good Smile Nico Nico Broadcast)
- The Star (Malaysian newspaper 2010/05/17)
- Japan Times (Japan) Feature on Danny Choo.
- Weekly Ascii
- BMW Magazine (Worldwide) Trends in Japan
- Otacool 1,2,3 (a collaboration publication with Kotobukiya)
- Otaku Encyclopedia (featured under "C" ^^;)
- La Repubblica XL (Italy) (feature on Danny Choo)
- Mac Fan (feature on Danny Choo and Mirai Inc)
- Weekly Ascii (100 famous folks gadgets)
- Game Axis (Malaysian game magazine)
- Tokyo Sports Newspaper (Feature on Otacool)
- Nikkei Sangyo Newspaper (Talking about dannychoo.com and online monetization)
- Weekly Ascii (Japanese Internet publication)
- Windows 100% (Japanese computing publication)
- Freesouls (a book by Joi Ito)
- Monoqlo
- Yahoo Internet Guide (Japanese publication)
- Windows 100% May 2006 (Japanese publication)
- Metropolis (Magazine for gaijin folks in Japan)
- Weekly SPA Jan 15th 2008 (Japanese publication speaking on Second Life)
- Weekly SPA Aug 15th 2007 (Japanese publication speaking on dannychoo.com and online affiliating)
- Monoqlo 2 (Japanese publication)
- Giant Robot Magazine 51 (Asian culture publication)
- Boing Boing (Guest blogger)
- Best Japan Blog (Forbes)
- Yahoo.com top page (my Akiba dance trooper vid was featured)
- Gyao Trend (interview/Japanese)
- Ascii (interview/Japanese)
- Wired Magazine (my otaku guide)
- Ameba News
I get quite a bit of spam that gets through the filters and another 1653 mails a day asking me everything from "can you buy me x" to "could you translate this for me."
I would love to answer all mails but if I did so then all I would be doing is answering mails all my life - and life is too short too do that. Please don't hate me if I cant reply ;-)
I tend to skip the long mails due to lack of time - short mails are usually read. If you don't get an answer, please resend mail again after 2 weeks. If I manage to make a clone of myself I promise to read and reply to all mails ;-)
Please contact me through my FaceBook.
Folks who are interested may want to hook up on the following communities which I participate in - feel free to add or follow.
- Tsubuyaku - updated often.
- Twitter - updated daily.
- FaceBook
- Tumblr - updated daily.
- Google Buzz
- Plurk - updated daily.
- FriendFeed - updated daily.
- YouTube - my Tokyo Dance Trooper videos go here too.
- Linkedin - my Linked in account.
- Flickr - I upload photos to my Flickr account nearly every day.
- Mixi - the Japanese Social Networking Service.
- PlayStation 3 ID = "dannychoodotcom" - watch me loose in any online battle ^^;
