Like many teenage couples, Kazumasa and Riko love documenting important memories in their relationship — say, an anniversary or a trip to Okinawa. They also like to share short movies about their life as a couple online, and so far their clips have been viewed more than 18 million times.
"It was almost two years ago we started, and I don't think we were shy about posting videos," Riko says about their creations, which they share under the name Cyanrico. "We are more embarrassed about how our videos in the beginning sucked."
The Kumamoto-based couple post videos on MixChannel, a social network that has become a popular digital destination for Japanese teens. Statistics provided by Donuts, the company behind MixChannel, show that by the end of 2015 the smartphone application had been downloaded around 5 million times. The main user base comprises teenagers, primarily in high school, with 81 percent being women. It has become the second most-used video application in Japan, behind only YouTube.