Staff writer

As if bulky straps and Print Club photo stickers aren't enough, young people looking for new ways to make their cellular phones even more unique are now turning to manicure shops.

Reiki Otani, 16, said she had blue flowers painted on her white cellular phone simply "because it's cute."

Add painted flowers, fruits and animal designs to a mobile phone that looks like any other and suddenly it becomes a one-of-a-kind item -- a hot proposition to teenagers.

"People want a cellular phone that no one else has," said Nobuyuki Abe, general manager of Roco Nails, a nail-art salon in Tokyo's Shibuya Ward that also paints designs on cell phones and accessories.

But in a country where one-third of the population, or 45.5 million people, possess cellular phones, not to mention another 5.7 million personal-handy-phone system users, Takahiro Otsuki, a folklorist and expert on Japanese culture, says there's more to it.

"This customization phenomenon first started with straps, then ringing tones and melodies. Now it has spread to the phone itself," Otsuki said. "People are seeing cellular phones not just as a communication box but as a tool with which to express themselves."

Otsuki said the phenomenon is similar to that seen in the '70s, when people started decorating their automobiles with all kinds of accessories.

Although most nail-art shops began offering "cell phone art" as a side business, it is proving to be quite profitable.

About a dozen customers -- mostly teenage girls or women in their early 20s -- come into Roco Nails every day to have their cell phones painted, Abe said.

"But more people in their 30s and 40s are now flocking to the store," he said. And the trend is not limited to women. "Male customers, like businessmen, say they want to show the phones off to their subordinates."

A simple design takes about 20 to 30 minutes and costs 2,000 yen, while a complete paint job takes about 90 minutes and costs about 12,000 yen, depending on the design.

Plumeria, a flower used to make Hawaiian leis, is Roco's store logo and its most popular design. Palm trees and banana leaves have also been in demand this summer.

"Pictures of fruit such as cherries and strawberries are looking to be hits in the coming season," said nail artist Shizumi Haseyama, 22, as she dried a plumeria design freshly painted with acrylics.

At Yuiz Nail, another nail salon in Shibuya, unique three-dimensional cell phone art is drawing attention.

The store's staffers paint cell phones with color powder, a material used to make fake nails, to create a bumpy surface, then apply various colors on top of it.

While the shop's hibiscus and butterfly designs are typical, the creeping spiders and growling tigers offered at Yuiz are something one might not see at other stores.

Unlike most other nail salons, Yuiz tends to attract more men than women.

"Male customers of various ages come to our store with cell phones," said 24-year-old nail artist Satoko Makino. "They ask for designs such as car wheels and vines, or simply want the phone painted another color."

The work starts at 8,000 yen for a simple 3-D design and can top 20,000 yen for a complete overhaul with acrylic paints.

"The work is permanent and not removable," Makino warned.

The shop also gets requests for phones to be painted using car paint, which adds more shine and durability to the finish, but such orders take about a week, she said.

Folklorist Otsuki scoffs at the idea of calling the phone-painting trend creative, saying these customers are merely picking their favorite design from a catalog rather than painting truly original designs themselves.

But for Otani and others who follow the fashion dictates of ash-blonde hair, dark tans and platform shoes, "cute" is usually enough to fuel the spread of an emerging trend.