We've all been there: squashed onto a rush-hour commuter train with barely enough room to breathe, let alone open up a book to while away the journey; trying desperately to crush a book into an overstuffed backpack before a long trip; or cursing our own lack of foresight while bored at school or work with no handy distraction to relieve the tedium. But Japan's enduring love for "manga" and its knack for innovation have led to a convergence so simple as to be self-kickingly obvious: cell phone manga.
Falling somewhere between a traditional manga -- books that are hand-drawn in a variety of styles and covering a diverse range of subjects -- and animation, the stories offer frame-by-frame graphic novels that pan across an image, display cartoon boxes with and without the speech bubble, and emit vibrations from the phone at key moments. It's as subversive as a book but a darn sight more pocketable.
Leading the charge is Takarajima Wondernet, a subsidiary of publisher Takarajima, home to such magazines as Cutie and Smart. The company has licensed around 300 manga and painstakingly scanned every frame of the paper and ink versions, giving users an instant library to download and read anywhere. But more importantly, it has been creating its own original "keitai" (cell phone) manga along with leading manga artists. The first of these, "Rocket Girl," was launched March 22, followed April 16 by "XX." Takarajima Wondernet plans to release a new title pretty much every month until yearend, and beyond.