3,Questionnaire

Questionnaire
      We conducted a questionnaire about Tamagotchi to 112 people. We considered what Tamagotchi is from the result of this questionnaire. Respondents include 36 males and 71 females, and they include 57 college students, 24 staffs and 10 others (high school students, housewives, elementary school students, and junior high school students). Of the respondents, 80 people answered that they had played with Tamagotchi, others said that they had not done.

      Firstly, we analyzed the answer of those who had played with Tamagotchi. The most frequent in the period when they had played with Tamagotchi was when they were elementary school students, the second was before they entered elementary school, the third was when they were university students. Also, the most common reason for starting Tamagotchi was that it was popular and that their friends, brothers and so on were doing. The majority of respondents were college students, the most frequent in the period when they had played with Tamagotchi was before or after current college students entered elementary school and most of the reasons why they started it was that it was popular, therefore Tamagotchi was very popular in 2002-2006 when is before or after current college students entered elementary school. The older people are, the fewer they were not playing with Tamagotchi, and the most common reason why they quit it was that they quit before they knew it. Other many reasons are that they came to feel the care of Tamagotchi busy and that they got bored it. It seems that age is related to whether we think that playing with Tamagotchi is fun. Actually Tamagotchi was targeted to the people of age around elementary school students, and the characteristics of Tamagotchi became clearer by such a result of the questionnaire.

       Then, we analyzed the results of the questionnaire about what point of Tamagotchi is popular among elementary school students. The most common answer was that the characters are cute. There are a lot of characters of Tamagotchi, it is easy to find our favorite character. In addition, there were many opinions that when they take care of the characters, the character changes or reacts somewhat. Tamagotchi is uncommon for toys for elementary school students, incorporating what is called "death", and it is so realistic to feel the life to characters. Tamagotchi is popular in that in such a reality the character lives, and unless we take care of it yourself, it dies, and if you take care of it, it grows up healthily.

      Finally, we analyzed the results of questionnaires for those who have not done Tamagotchi. Among those who answered that they had not done Tamagotchi, 25 people did not want to do Tamagotchi and 22 people answered that they wanted to do. Moreover, the opinion that it was hard to raise was the most frequent in the image to Tamagotchi. However, since the opinion which was the second most was fun and the character was cute, the nature that we must take care of Tamagotchi may be thought to be disadvantage, but it is not a problem due to the character's loveliness. 

References

LINE GAME official blog (2018). Retrieved November 30, 2018, from http://game-blog.line.me/archives/54141699.html

Tamagotchi Lineup (n.d.). Retrieved November 30, 2018, from http://tamagotchi.channel.or.jp/tamagotchi/lineup.html

Tamagotchi Meets (n.d.). Retrieved November 30, 2018, from http://tamagotch.channel.or.jp/tamagotchi/

Tamagotchi Plus Color (n.d.). Retrieved November 30, 2018, from http://tamagotch.channel.or.jp/toy/tama_color/

What is Tamagotchi? (n.d.). Retrieved November 30, 2018, from http://tamagotch.channel.or.jp/about/

2,Background Information

Background Information

       The first phase of our research about Tamagotchi consisted of collecting information from the Internet.

We have got information about what is Tamagotchi and a history of it.

1. What is Tamagotchi

Tamagotchi is a toy released by BANDAI. Players can bring up creatures called “Tamagotchi” with it. They can raise the creatures, giving them food, making them play with items, having them go to restroom and so on. If they properly take care of the creature for a while, they can make the creature get married. After getting married, the creature bears a child and leaves the player, and then he or she bring up the child.

2. History of Tamagotchi

On 23rd November 1996, the first Tamagotchi were sold. In 1997, they were in fashion between high school girls mainly. On 20th March 2004, “Kaettekita Tamagotchi Plus” which is Tamagotchi equipped with infrared communication was sold. On 22th November 2008, “Tamagotchi Plus Color” which is Tamagotchi having color display was sold. Since October 2009 until September 2015, TV animation with Tamagotchi as a theme was broadcasted. On 18th September 2018, “LINE De Hakken!! Tamagotchi” with which we can bring up Tamagotchi on our smartphone begins. On 23th November 2018, “Tamagotchi Meets” was sold, players can bring up very distinctively designed Tamagotchi.

1,Topic

Topic and Rationale

      We have decided to do our research project about “Tamagotchi”, which is a toy released by BANDAI in 1996. We chose this topic because we often used to play with this toy when we were young and we want to know the reasons for its popularity and which people purchase it.

Methodology

       We planned to do our research in two stages. First, we carefully searched for background information about Tamagotchi using the Internet. These results are reported in the next section. In the second stage we conducted a questionnaire about several points. These points include what kinds of Tamagotchi people have played with, when they played with Tamagotchi and why they did so. We conducted the questionnaire at Meiji University and on Twitter. After more than 100 answers gathered, we aggregated and analyzed it. These results are reported after the next section.