August 24, 2006
Mobile Straps: Ghost Detectors and Shiitake Mushroom's are bestsellers in Japan
From ghost detectors to shiitake mushrooms, ultraviolet ray meters to jewels, mobile phone straps are among Japan's most successful consumer products, according to Mainichi Daily News. And the trinkets used on them are getting sillier than ever. Some bestellers:
-- The Ghost Detector mobile phone strap promises to detect any abnormal energy source in the air and shift into "barrier mode" to protect users from any savage spirits it picks up.
-- The Shiitake mushroom mobile strap uses authentic 40- to 60-year-old delicacies too small to be sent to pricey ryotei restaurants, but just right to hang off the end of a mobile phone.
-- Other popular straps include handmade glass baubles modeled on similar jewelry worn in Mesopotamia in 2500 BC and beads that act as a UV ray checker to let people know to take care when it's sunny.
Surprisingly, buying lots of these straps, especially the pricey ones, are older Japanese.
"Mobile phone straps first become popular in about 1997. Now, about 70 percent of all mobile phone users across Japan are said to decorate their phones with a strap. They've been popular and unpopular at various times since they first appeared, but I think it's fair to say that they are well and truly part of our lives now," says Atsushi Higuchi, operator of a store in Odawara, Kanagawa Prefecture, that stocks over 10,000 different varieties of mobile phone-related merchandise.
via [Tom Hume and Shiny Shiny]
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