reviewed by John Drake
Destination Japan bills itself as "the first comprehensive electronic reference book on Japan, its businesses, industries, politics, educational system, geography, history, culture and customs." An eclectic conglomeration of over 2,000 pages of data, Destination Japan does indeed offer a wide breadth of information in all these essential areas, and more. The depth and accuracy of that coverage, and the presentation style, however, are less impressive.
I'm willing to concede, as Digital Destinations' President David Govett claims, that this program is "the best available reference software on Japan." But remember that "best" is a comparative term. My son's "C-" on his high-school biology test could be termed the best grade in the class if everyone else gets an "F."
Destination Japan is a Windows-based application that uses a point-and-click interface to lead the user through megabytes of data via menus, indexes, navigation keys, and hypertext links. There are numerous glossaries of essential terms and directories of major companies and institutions, and some "zoomable" maps of prefectures, major cities, and train/subway lines.
After a short session with Destination Japan, though, I found myself asking, "Is that all there is?" The program does little more than transfer a basic printed reference book metaphor to the computer screen. Aside from providing keyword search capability, Destination Japan offers little that could not be accomplished just as well by a paper guidebook. It makes limited use of the computer's graphics capabilities (just a few photos) and completely neglects sound. The Sightseeing section, for example, gives only text descriptions of popular locations -- no photos, no audio or video clips, no clickable maps. After checking out a few destinations, I felt more frustrated than informed.
One touted advantage of disk-based data versus a printed book is that information can be kept up-to-date. On this point, too, Destination Japan falls short. While the program does a good job presenting general, "evergreen" information, the data in several Directory and Profile sections is incomplete and sadly dated. I was pleased to find Computing Japan's publisher, LINC Japan, included in the Business Phone Directory -- but the company hasn't been at that address or phone number for over three years. And for that matter, why is LINC Japan even included when companies like Dell Computer KK and Microsoft KK are not?
Destination Japan is more anthology than comprehensive reference guide. The various pages were obviously gathered from a plethora of sources, and thrown together with little or no attempt at coordination or correlation.
The section on Pronunciation cautions that long vowels in Japanese must be pronounced properly, giving the difference between shGjo and shojo ("young girl" and "virgin") as an example of possible confusion. Yet the Dictionaries and Phrases sections, written in romaji, do not bother to indicate long vowels at all. (And on the topic of pronunciation, one page claims the Japanese "‚¤" sounds like the "u" in "bush"! Say what?)
Other items still have me scratching my head. The Housing section, for example, informs the user that, "Because Japan is so active seismically, houses traditionally have been build [sic] of highly combustible materials...." So, the Japanese want their houses to burn after an earthquake? And portions of some sections are nothing less than humorous. The glossary of the Marriage section, as just one example, provides the curious reader with definitions for such essential terms as inpo (impotence) and misuta redi (Mister Lady; actually a tranvestite, though the glossary defines it merely "homosexual man").
The text and graphics of Destination Japan are optimized for 256-color SVGA resolution; minor screen layout problems can result if it is run in VGA mode. And there are a few minor bugs and shortcomings in this 1.0 version: the notebook function is not supported under Windows 95, for example (registered users will eventually be sent a free fix), and some topics are covered only cursorily (these will be expanded, and new topics added, in subsequent versions).
Nit-picking aside, Destination Japan is worth having if you need a basic, more-or-less comprehensive reference guide about Japan, especially if you are planning to visit Japan for the first time and want to be prepared. It truly is the best available reference software on Japan, if only because there is no real competition.
R&R (requirements and ratings)
Destination Japan comes on six 3.5-inch floppy disks and requires MS-Windows 3.1 or later, 8MB of RAM, 15MB of hard disk space, and a pointing device.
Concept: A
Content: B-
Execution: C-
Usefulness: B
Copyright 1996 Computing Japan Magazine