If you can generate profits during a 不景気 (fukeiki, a business recession), you must be doing something right. If you can generate a ヒット (hitto, hit) and sustain it in the face of deflation, imitators and low-cost imports, then you're to be heartily congratulated for your business acumen.

Year-end compilations of the preceding year's ヒット商品 (hitto shōhin, hit products) have been around since 1971, when the 日経流通新聞 (Nikkei Ryūtsū Shimbun, Nikkei Marketing Journal, NMJ), a retailing and distribution newspaper, came up with the idea of issuing a sumo-style listing it called the ヒット商品番付 (hitto shōhin banzuke), in which popular products and services were ranked in the same manner as sumo wrestlers, with 横綱 (yokozuna, grand champion), 大関 (ōzeki, champion), 関脇 (sekiwake, junior champion) and so on, in descending order.

The concept of a "hit" product, a Nikkei editor once told me in an interview, came about at a time when households' 普及率 (fukyūritsu, ownership ratio) for items like refrigerators, rice cookers, washing machines, TVs, etc. was close to 100 percent. In order for manufacturers to expand their 市場占有率 (shijō senyūritsu, market share), they had to develop products that could be differentiated from competitors in terms of design, performance, price and so on.