ABSTRACT
In the Almond coffee shop in Roppongi, a popular haunt for teenagers in Tokyo, a group of young girls are chatting excitedly while playing with their keitai (mobile phones), taking and swapping photos, as well as downloading movie times and reviews and sending instant messages to absent friends advising them of the group’s current location. Suddenly, one girl asks the others to be quiet and listen to a new music track coming across the café’s FM radio system. This is the track she had mentioned to them earlier-what is it? Who is it by? No one seems to know. One girl takes her phone, points it in the direction of the music, and hits a menu button. The song’s artist and title is immediately displayed on her screen. “I told you it was a new track by Gackt,” she says excitedly, as she hits another menu button that takes her to a popular chaku-mero site where she can download the song’s chorus as her new ring tone.
