Johnny's net become multilingual

Starting on the 1st of August Johnny's net, the official website for Johnny's & Associates, has become multilingual. It has added an English, Chinese (both Mandarin and Cantonese) and Korean versions of the website. I have checked out the English version, as that is my native language.

Not everything is translated, titles, for songs, concerts and such are simply put in romanji instead of being translated. Of course videos are still in Japanese but there are subtitles for the newer ones. But they are translating the Japanese subtitles on the original videos, not what is actually said, and some are missing this. Like A.B.C-Z choreography video still has the Japanese text for the subtitles and then with NEWS' video about their album as the only subtitles are just listing the release date in the Japanese video that is all there is in English for the English site.

Also not everything is updated completely at the same time. Like with the new release page if you click on something to get more information instead of having a new window with that information pop up like in the Japanese version of the website you are instead redirected to the discography page for the artist. So if you were trying to find out what the songs are on Kis-My-Ft2's upcoming single, Kimi tono Kiseki, you will need to go to the Japanese version of the website to find it as it has yet to be added to the discography page in the English version. And the videos look to be on delay, as the update for a new Sexy Zone and A.B.C-Z videos is listed as an update but if you check the video page they are no where to be seen.

And there are some announcements that the Japanese site has that the other languages don't, but they seem to really only to pertain to those who are living in Japan so international fans are probably not missing anything by missing them.

Despite that though I love that I have this resource in mostly English. While I know enough Japanese to be able to get around the site it is just easier to have everything in my native language. And the English subtitles for the videos will definitely give me more reason to check them out when they come out. Not to mention the fact that they went the extra mile to make the site be as much like the Japanese version instead of a simplified version of it gets props from me.

I am also glad that it looks like Johnny's is getting serious about being more international. This is definitely a good step towards that though. If I have learned anything from being an international fan in various fandoms that the first step to attracting a larger group of fans is getting things out in other languages.

Now if only they can open an official youtube channel with at least the short versions of the PVs and I would think they have the first foothold towards going worldwide.