The most talked about book at the end of last year wasn’t written first on a mobile phone but it’s author is no less mysterious than the infamous Mika (of Koizora fame). The book in the spotlight is “Self-explanation Book for B-type” and the unknown author goes by the name Jamais Jamais.
B-type refers to the blood type, particularly a blood type commonly associated with selfish or irresponsible behavior for those who believe in “blood type theory.” The idea that blood types can determine one’s personality is taken about as seriously in Japan as zodiac signs in the West—some people swear by it, others consider it nonsense, while the majority has what can best be described as a passing interest in the subject. Still, “what’s your blood type?” is a question that often comes up in social situations.
Editor’s Note: I snapped this picture a few weeks ago near Shibuya. The entire bus was branded just for this book series.
Countless books have been published on the subject, but what made this particular one stand out is that it offers pages of questionnaires that allow readers to actually determine for themselves if their personality matches the blood type’s characteristics—as opposed to just being told.
The anonymous male author is purported to be a B-type himself, though since the book’s initial success he has rounded out the series to include all of the other types as well. The four book series, from publisher Bungeisha, has sold a total of over 5 million copies in little over a year.
It has also, perhaps more interestingly, made the jump to the mobile internet, with the December 30th (2008) launch of “Self-explanation by everyone, the mobile phone version.”
This registration-based site from contents maker G-Mode offers similar questionnaires as the book series and allows users to create their own “self explanation.” The results, the user’s own explanatory “book” (ah, and now we are back to the user generated mobile phone novel!), can be forwarded as a text to friends and family.
Not only does this tie the traditional publishing world to the dynamic mobile one, but the site is also a nice example of the current trend of ultra-personalization.
I find this all frankly hilarious, but also rather too timely. I’m a B+ but I’ve just been diagnosed with several severe bone marrow disorders, meaning I’ll need to have a bone marrow transplant within the next few months. Reading through all the literature about what to expect throughout the whole process, I discovered that my blood type after the transplant will become whatever type the donor was. So I’ll no longer be B+ – does that mean my entire personality will change post-transplant? I seriously doubt it…
This comes ironically on the day i got my results from my medical test where, after having been asked numerous times in the last 2.5 years what my blood type was, i got the results. Exactly what EVERYBODY had suggested it would be …. A.