Japan News Roundup: The rise of cellphone novelists

The New York Times has a piece about the rise of "cellphone novels," serial dramas, usually first person, written by the thumbs of young women on cell phones. Millions of people are composing such "novels" and posting them to a popular Web site. Some actually hit it big, with their stories published in print. Last year's top-selling novel in Japan was one such wireless composition. Says the Times:

Fans praised the novels as a new literary genre created and consumed by a generation whose reading habits had consisted mostly of manga, or comic books. Critics said the dominance of cellphone novels, with their poor literary quality, would hasten the decline of Japanese literature.

Later the article they note that young people here grew up using their cellphones -- not personal computers -- to live their digital lives. That makes sense from what I see. When we assigned a class of 40 high schoolers here to send me an e-mail, all but one came from a cellphone. Meanwhile, one of my friends in Tokyo, also 24, is using her cell when she's chatting with me on MSN Instant Messenger. When we tried to sign up a class with Web-based e-mail accounts, a task I thought might take 20 minutes, it took the whole class because of confusion, and even then there were many who didn't do it right.

It's all about the cellphone over here. Though I still hate using mine for messaging because of the slow-ness and sacrificed quality of language. I do it, though. I almost always use messaging instead of calling. I could really go for a phone with a qwerty keyboard. Perhaps this summer when it'll be time to re-new my phone contract.

The Asahi Shimbun reports in its English edition (this story is not available online) on a 16-year-old boy in Saitama who went on a more than $3,000 binge at a bar, which he was unable to pay ... because he didn't have enough money (surprise).

The news brief says that the boy ordered "two bottles of expensive champagne and 60 glasses of whiskey and cocktails." On top of that, he asked for four to five hostesses to chat up his table (hostesses are attractive female bar staffers who will sit and talk with your for money).

Here's the kicker ... the boy told the cops that he did the whole thing just to see how it would pan out. Enterprising young man.