Disturbing signals from distant Planet Y

The observation that teenagers live on another planet is nothing new. But in Japan today, that planet seems more like the asteroid belt -- tumbling rocks of teen culture that are not only harder to reach, but inhabited by ever smaller communities.

Those communities still gather at places like Harajuku, where goths in black leather warily eye girls dressed like Little Bo Peep, but more and more are meeting in cyberspace, particularly in the chat rooms and on message boards that attract everyone from death-metal fans to hamster lovers. Adults lurk at their own risk -- overexposure to the attitudinizing, self-absorption and bad writing therein can cause everything from existential despair to profound withdrawal into the prose of Jane Austen.