shimejis wont appear but the taskbar icon does

[GoogleCodeExporter]

What steps will reproduce the problem?
1. opening shimeji application
2. choosing any character
3. loading program

What is the expected output? What do you see instead?
i should see the shimeji's drop onto my screen, but instead nothing appears yet 
the icon is on the taskbar

What version of the product are you using? On what operating system?
1.0.3, windows 8, most recent java, 

Please provide any additional information below.
i did everything right to set it up, i even helped my friend put it on their 
computers the same way (they have windows 7) and it worked for theirs but not 
mine, and i've tried searching for help videos for shimeji on windows 8 but no 
matter what way i try to open it, it still doesn't work. :(

Original issue reported on code.google.com by angelica...@gmail.com on 25 Mar 2015 at 2:34

[GoogleCodeExporter]

I am having this same exact issue and also cannot find a fix

Original comment by Psychopa...@gmail.com on 13 Apr 2015 at 5:21

[GoogleCodeExporter]

ive found a solution for this problem, if you open the executable jar file 
instead of the application it works

Original comment by angelica...@gmail.com on 22 Jul 2015 at 1:34