I like my marketing deceptive and my women dipped in miso.

This is the first part of a multi-part series on the quirks and differences of cell phones in Japan.

Sometimes something simple surprises sensibilities. Cellular phones can be deceptively different is may ways. The majority of people stay put (to some degree or another) in one area so the chances of knowing how cell phones (or the contract you would enter) differ. You might not think that cell phones would be so varied as to warrant a poorly written article, but since you are Rear Admiral Wrongy Wrongerson I must show you the error of your ways.

I don’t want to my time discussing differences that everyone (should) know: North Americans talk more since texting is insanely expensive, everyone else texts more since calling is costly, etc etc. Since Japan is included in not North America people don’t call their friends that often, they text. There is no factor in the Japanese phone system that changes this oft stated, and quite correct, assertion. Given the well-known nature of this, I’m not going to spend anymore time talking about it.

I feel sorry for all those dumb bastards not in Freedom land who don’t have companies competing for our hard-earned dollars.

When buying a cellphone in a country such as the great US of A, your phone is usually either free or greatly discounted. This is made possible by making everyone pay more for minutes and text messages; i.e. gouging everyone. Now if you made the awesome and #1 conclusion that this is how everyone else does things, here’s a hat for you. Here in the country of giant-balled racoons we do things a little differently; the big three cell phone companies in Japan (DoCoMo, SoftBank, and AU) don’t usually subsidize their phone in anyway (the iPhone is a current exception to this rule). What they do is charge you a fee every month so that after 24 months of paying this fee you have a phone that is yours; if you decide to continue the contract without getting a new phone then your phone bill drops to just the services that you use. For the budget conscious, this way of doing things is vastly superiour to the American system, you can save money at first by buying a cheaper phone and then you can save even more money if you don’t get a super awesome phone that will give you hugs.

The above picture of an AU phone gives you an example of this. The amounts in the bottom right of the orange ringed box (top of the picture) show you how much you’d pay each month for either a 24 month contract or a 12 month contract, 2,055 and 4,110 yen respectively. The red number above those monthly figures is the retail price of the phone (49,320円 in this case) and the big red numbers are how much you have to pay upfront. These numbers vary depending on the phone you’re looking at, but unless if you’re here and you’re looking to buy a prepaid phone you’re going to see these numbers pop up again and again. And remember that none of these amounts are taking into consideration the price of the plan.

This way of paying for cell phones, albeit quite different than what many might be used to, is a good system. It doesn’t adversely affect the penny pinchers while still having monthly bills that would be competitive in many different markets.

Begin quivering in expectation for part 2 where Nancy Drew finds Mrs. Nickersons’s secret passage and gets caught in a stick situation.