By Wennie Chung
The Japanese phone is the best phone ever created because you can do basically anything on it – from watching TV, shopping, reading any materials, to being a credit card. Almost everyone owns a mobile phone, with most of them accessing the internet through them. This widespread and excessive usage lead to the development of the “kentai culture”, also known as the mobile phone culture in Japan.
What makes Japanese phone so unique is because of its unique features such as a fingerprint/face recognition system for the protection of personal data. In recent years, some mobile phones even can be used as a debit or credit cards. It can be swiped through most checkout lines to buy everything. The more popular phones with these services are NTT DoCoMo’s “Osaifu-Keitai” (mobile phone with wallet function). Today, DoCoMo aims to evolve mobile phone to take the role of assisting customers’ individual behaviour.
Mobile phones are also able to read information from special bar codes. The bar code can be scanned using the mobile’s camera or other input, decode the information, then take actions according to its content. This technology is mostly used in advertisings and are extremely popular.
Another popular activity among mobile phone users in Japan is nonetheless mobile phone novel “Keitai Shousetsu“. The novels are usually sent directly to the reader via SMS text message, chapter by chapter, mostly about romance.
In a nutshell the Japanese are really attached to their mobile phone. It acts not only as an entertainment source but also an important device for keeping personal information. With this, the mobile stores in Japan are definitely worth visiting.
Japanese Pop Culture 
My mobile is like a childs toy to what they have on offer in Japan. The amount of things these phones can do, you find it hard to believe that a gadget that fits into the palm of your hand could do so much.
Wow, this is more than what i have ever imagined about mobile phone in Japan although through the Asian cyberculture course I have learned a lot about Japanese Mobile Phone culture already. The fact that they evolve cell phone to multi-functional devices for paying, searching, scanning, even a wallet amazed me the most. I read an article said that Japanese could be in big trouble if they left their home without their mobile phone. And that article was written 4 years ago….