Syllables and K's are strong sounds (Kodak). Most English words in English have been claimed; there's no domain name available and there likely at least 5 other businesses registered with that word in their name.

Romaji[1] seems like a fun place to plunder exciting sounding words from.

Anime and Manga became mainstream popular X years ago, where X is long enough for those early fans to become old enough to start naming products.

And lo and behold; the menu folds up just like one of those mats. Japanese yes, random no.

Why would it be "random Japanese stuff" ? It unfolds/unrolls kind of like a makisu. I think it's a good name, not an unrelated, random one.

As another responder noted, it's not actually a random word in this case, but in general, "random japanese words" have been popular for naming in the software industry since the 1980s ("Wasabi Systems" etc).

As far as I can tell it's simply because Japan (and the Japanese language) is perceived as exotic, futuristic, and cool, which are exactly the image the tech industry wants.

My perception is that in the '80s, it was done even more randomly ("pick cool-sounding word off of sushi menu"), and people are a bit more sophisticated now and more likely to actually consider the meaning, but the root cause seems the same.

I suppose the image of "futuristic Japan" might be waning these days, but the mainstream popularity of Japanese anime/manga in other countries probably picks up the slack...

> I suppose the image of "futuristic Japan" might waning a bit these days

It's funny, because anyone who's actually been to Japan can tell you that it's not the least bit futuristic anymore. And I'm not talking about traditional culture - I'm talking about an entire country stuck in the 70s/80s, technologically speaking. There are rare pockets of fresh air, mostly provided by the outside world (like smartphones), but the Japanese have by and large failed to understand or grasp the digital revolution.

Tell me something - is there a single internationally famous Japanese software company that you can name? Even if you want to talk about famous Japanese programmers, the only one I can think of is Matz, but he's Mormon and has 4 children - not exactly your average Japanese guy.

Japan was never really very futuristic in terms of technology as far as I can tell, although an enthusiasm for futurism (as opposed to, e.g., the rather backward-looking U.S.) means that things are often more futuristic in appearance, and there's often less arbitrary resistance to change when it happens.

but this: > because anyone who's actually been to Japan can tell you that it's not the least bit futuristic anymore ... > the Japanese have by and large failed to understand or grasp the digital revolution.

... is quite silly.

Japanese society's adoption of tech advances, as far as I can tell, is neither particularly advanced, nor particularly backwards compared to other societies. The details differ, so from certain narrow perspectives it may appear as either. It's simply a different place, and simplistic comparisons ("more" or "less") don't capture much. I know when I visit my relatives in America (I've lived in Japan since the '90s), walking about town there's a definite perception that not a whole lot has changed since about 1950, even in the richest and most urbane areas, because American society is both rather conservative and kind of cheap; Japan is a whole different story, because they love "new".

In terms of industry, the stereotypical Japanese style of working, which favors continual incremental advances and attention to detail (sort of a "craftsman's" approach) over large but disruptive leaps and fixation on "the big picture", is fundamentally sort of conservative, and this is not well-suited to very fast-changing tech nor to software (where avoiding big changes inevitability leads to massive unmaintainable heaps of bit-rotting code...). This factor affect big companies (a mainstay of Japanese industry) more than small ones, because big companies also have the usual bureaucratic overhead, but it's a cultural artifact, and can be seen everywhere.

In addition, a big damper on Japanese software has been the relative isolation of Japanese software developers from the west, where much of the important research and development is happening. There's some interaction, but the Japanese are often a conspicuous absence in forums with otherwise international participation, despite a large domestic software industry. As far as I can tell, this stems in large part from a simple lack of confidence in English: Europeans are willing to participate even if their English is pretty shaky (it may be a chore, but it gets the job done), but Japanese are not, even when they have a fairly workable grasp of English. I know many Japanese whose English is perfectly acceptable when they're forced to use it, but they're absolutely loathe to do so unless forced.

The Japanese software developers I've talked to about such things are perfectly aware of these issues. But awareness, unfortunately, is not enough to change the system, at least quickly.

Things will work out in the end, I'm pretty sure, because the competence and work-ethic of Japanese software developers in general seems pretty good (many of those I know are top-notch); but before that comes the pain...