Authenticity in Japanese Cell Phone Novel Discourse

Abstract

Among internet forms of fiction that have arisen in the twenty-first century, the Japanese cell phone novel (keitai shōsetsu) holds a unique position as a genre that can be created, disseminated, and read entirely via the medium of a cell phone. Since the online release of the first keitai novel in 2000, similar works have cropped up in other countries across the globe, but the undeniable commercial success of keitai novels—many of which have sold printed copies in the millions and spawned highly profitable media mixes extending to manga, television drama, and film—is a phenomenon unique to Japan.1 In its early years, the growing popularity of these works, created by amateurs and available as free downloads, went relatively unnoticed by mainstream media. Written primarily by and for teenaged girls and young women, keitai novels were dismissed as little more than a casual pastime, a trend that would soon run its course. However, in 2007, when the top three best-selling printed novels for the year turned out to be works originally published online as keitai novels, critics and scholars began to respond.2 This banner year was followed in 2008 by a flurry of studies on keitai novels, such as Yoshida Satobi’s Keitai shōsetsu ga ukeru riyū (Why cell phone novels are so well received) and Honda Tōru’s Naze keitai shōsetsu wa ureru no ka (Why do cell phone novels sell?). The primary focus of many of these studies has been to explain the baffling popularity of what appear to many to be little more than poorly written works with clichéd plots. Experts in a range of fields, from literature to anthropology and media studies, have