This is not exactly new news, but I recently returned from Japan, and failed, for the 2nd time, to acquire some tamagotchi for my kids. Okay, so I was able to get them a special edition hanerucchi over the summer, purely by chance, because there were a few left at the toy store in Narita airport. But just as in the summer, when I hit the toy stores and department stores for the cuter tamagotchi, everywhere has been sold out. I finally realized that they were already out in the US, and I just ordered a friendship pair from toysrus.com.

Apparently, unlike here in the US, in Japan Bandai seems to be pursuing a strategy of producing demand through scarcity and special edition products. At Kiddyland, one of the largest toystores in Tokyo, the salesperson told me that there have been lines at opening every morning that they get a new Tamagotchi shipment. He says the next will be a few weeks after my scheduled departure from Tokyo, and that maybe if I made it to the store that day I might get one, but it's hard to know how many they would actually get.

But it's not all hype and corporate sales strategy. Next generation tamagotchi/hanerucchi are wonderfully designed things. Unlike the older version, current tamagotchi allow for infrared communication between different devices/creatures, so that kids can collect "friends" on their little devices, exchange and collect treasures, and play games with each other. As they continue to beam between devices, the friendship between creatures deepens, and if they become close with a tamagotchi of a different gender, they can eventually get married and will give birth to little twin tamagotchis. One will accompany each parent. Eventually the parent will take off to back to Planet Tamagotchi, and you will be left with a little baby tamagotchi to raise. A photo album lets you view departed parents and grandparents and great-grandparents. Unlike first gen tamagotchi, you are not left to keep up the care and nurture of a single creature, eventually to grow bored and let it die. Instead you become part of a cycle of life and renewal, waiting expectantly to see how your new creature will develop and what new friends you might make through it. So what if you have no tamogotchified friends? When you creature hits maturity at 7 years old, you'll get a visit from a go-between proposing an arranged marriage. My kids have resorted to this option when their hanerucchi are of the same gender.

It seems schools generally don't allow these devices on their premises, but imagine the scene in the hallways if kids could be beaming and collecting friends through their devices that they almost invariably wear around their necks. Even between my two kids, their hanerucchi have become one of their primary social mediators. The little games and interactions are the perfect 2-3 minute distraction after they climb into the car or as they wait for dinner to be served. Unlike the PSP and the Nintendo DS (which I also acquired this summer in Tokyo), the tamagotchi is perfectly designed for small, in-between times and interactions, not for 30 minute or 1 hour engagements that have me tearing out my hair as I try to transition my kids to the next activity. The PSP and the DS are perfect for beauty salon waits or plane rides, but at least in our household, they are never going to acquire the status of an always-with-you digital companion.

Tamagotchi users are an instantiation of a networked public that relies on information and wireless technology but not centrally on internet communication. Although relyling on radically different technologies, the ad hoc networks built through infrared communications between kids beaming each other in the hallways and parks is reminiscent of some of Julian's ideas behind wifi bedouin--local networks disarticulated from the global internet. When stiched together by a commercial apparatus of Bandai's Tamagotchi brand and content, these micro-networks articulate into a broader social movement among kids that is both global and local.