Authenticity in Japanese Cell Phone Novel Discourse

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 attempted to shed light on the keitai novel phenomenon by situating these works as an outgrowth of light novels and shōjo (girls’) manga, a result of decreasing literary skills among young people, a response by youth to Japan’s ongoing stagnant economy, and/or the effect of increasing shifts toward mobile-based communication.³

One similarity which all these studies on keitai novels share is the fact that they consistently locate the phenomenon exclusively within the framework of contemporary culture. This study seeks to build on these earlier analyses through a broader perspective that situates keitai novel discourse—the discursive space in which keitai novels are created, disseminated, and consumed—as an extension of the gendered nature of communication patterns among young women that have been present throughout the modern period. The discussion will be framed around notions of authenticity, a feature often anecdotally observed as a distinguishing characteristic of keitai novel discourse.

Other critical works have focused on notions of authenticity or realism in keitai novels deriving from the autobiographical first-person narrative voice and/or the common worldviews shared by writers and readers.⁴ This present analysis, however, is concerned with how the medium of the cell phone itself, together with the new roles it creates for both writers and readers on keitai novel sites, contributes to this sense of authenticity. Built on a forum of user-created content to which all users may contribute, this two-way flow of information downplays the notion of the author as a single, authoritative voice, instead recognizing the heterogeneity of voices in the communities of users that develop on keitai novel sites. I begin with an overview of the gendered nature of female speech and mobile communication in Japan leading up to the emergence of the keitai novel. I then consider relevant characteristics in the creation, dissemination, and consumption of user-created content on keitai novel sites. Finally, I examine how specific characteristics of keitai novel texts draw upon notions of authenticity associated with mobile communication.

From Schoolgirl Talk to Schoolgirl Texts

The use of a distinct gendered form of communication among young Japanese women, one that frequently perplexes and disturbs critics, is not unique to keitai novel discourse; it can be traced back to the early decades of the modern period. As Miyako Inoue has shown, the schoolgirl speech (jogakusei kotoba) that emerged in the 1880s reflected a new...