OK. So I'm watching the Japanese TV Drama "Sunao ni narenakuete".

Watching the first episode now and it seems like a really great drama.

It's a show where all the characters (young adults) communicate
through Twitter. They can even see all of their Twitter friends on
a GPS map in real-time.

They're all strangers in the beginning, but eventually take part in
an "offline meeting" where they all meet each other and become friends.

Kind of like a Facebook party.

Anyway, I was just wondering. Are there are good websites or software
for doing group chat in real-time with Japanese people? I prefer more
of an IM-chat style as opposed to a keijiban (Bboard forum) system.

Any suggestions?

http://irc.2ch.net/
http://wikiwiki.jp/2chIRC/

Ninetimes,

Thanks for the links. I went there and it seems like a slow chatroom, though it was 2am in Japan at that time.

Chamcham,

Sorry for not recognizing you. How embarrassing. Plus, I guess my normal moniker did not go over well in a Japanese chat room. Who knew.

@Nukemarine what channel are you on?

Thanks for the hookup ninetimes.

The irc.juggler link, though they all seem to connect to the same server. I was in the beginner and Japanese rooms.

Well now that the 2ch irc link is already posted... Most of the channels there are just used as notifiers and to link stuff for others to see, occasionally with some short bursts of discussion regarding the link, from what I've seen. The channel #japanese is the only one that's an actual active chatroom and is for japanese-english chatting (users ranging from very very basic level to fluent). Oh, of course, there's that bokura no saga chatroom too, there was quite a bit of babbling in there but unless you love nicovideo flash games it's not really for you. In case anyone's missed it, bokura no saga is one of the games accessible through the "playground" in the flash thingie to the right of niconico videos, I guess it seems well-made for what it is?

If you can stand the site layout of http://www.chaberi.com/ there's quite a lot of active chatrooms. I haven't been there much, I tried it once and good "creepy dude hanging around watching your convo" times were had. Then I ended up in a room where two young women were chatting and the older one was talking about how her marriage was really boring and her husband was so cold to her, and the other one was all like "yeah that's just how it goes isn't it" and it was just so depressing

Edit: I myself had a lot of problems finding a good IRC client once I wanted to move over from the browser-based one on 2ch. This one's freeware, excellent and in Japanese http://limechat.net/

Surreal Wrote:Then I ended up in a room where two young women were chatting and the older one was talking about how her marriage was really boring and her husband was so cold to her, and the other one was all like "yeah that's just how it goes isn't it" and it was just so depressing

Bored Japanese housewives that don't get any from their husbands?
Which chat room did you find them?

I wouldn't mind showing them a good time..... :-)

Well, the IRC links are just a network, the activity is going to vary wildly based on what channel you join once you're there. In general though IRC seems to be notably more niche in Japan than it is in the States (which is already more niche than it is in Europe, I think).

Poke around though, do a /list or whatever passes for in your client and see what is publicly available. It can take some digging to find an active community.

Also, Surreal, that would be pretty supremely depressing.