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If you were a foreigner in Japan in the mid-2000s you may have been shocked by the state of their cell phones. They were feature-rich beauties! Camera phones with all sorts of fabulous designs and interesting quirks. The caveat: these wonderful devices only worked on this small set of islands floating to the east of China, and that was it.
They had evolved wildly to suit their own digital ecosystem in a small country, which earned them the name Gara-kei, short for Galapagos phones. Just like the creatures living on the Galapagos islands, they had evolved to fill extremely specific niches, but nothing like it had worked anywhere else in the world.
One of the exciting features of these phones was their ability to connect to the Internet through the mobile network. You may take this for granted today, especially now that we all have an awful little device in our pockets for daily use, but this wasn't always the case. We only got to browse the Internet when smartphones became more widespread; in Japan, people were already making websites on their flip phones.
People would write emails to each other on their phones. There were websites for publishing web novels (usually fanfiction, heh) on mobile. There were gallery websites, in case you felt like showing off, and there were services for blogging. Many websites had alternate, mostly-text versions for easy display on one's little screen.
In 2004, a website named Zenryaku Profile (前略プロフィール) was launched, hosted at pr.cgiboy.com. Zenryaku is a pretty old-fashioned phrase I can best think to translate as "Skipping the formalities". The service allowed people to fill out a questionnaire using their phone and upload an image, creating a cute little profile to represent themselves with.
As the name implies, it's a good tool to introduce yourself without all that formal junk. You might pass your ID to a new classmate and they would instantly have an idea of your personality. You might see someone online and learn more about them on their profile. Maybe you would see that you live in the same area and have the same hobbies, then you would decide to meet in person...
It's no wonder such a website was a hit. I could see myself using such a thing if I were a young Japanese man back then.
Anyhow, I came across this service because the members of a certain band all used it for their member profiles. They had some interesting answers! As an example, one member listed his favourite book as Hara Hara Tokei, a bomb making manual written for far left extremists. I found it charming enough to find the questions and do the questionnaure myself. :-)
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