...Having overcome the country's sluggishness in embracing cyberspace and deregulating discount brokerage firms, day-trading has taken off in Japan...The number of accounts at Japan's electronic brokerage firms reached 7.9 million last September, up from 296,941 in 1999...The surge in day-trading has even created celebrities, including its own "stock idol," a young woman named Maiko Asaba who poses in miniskirts for photographs in day-trading and stock investing magazines next to captions describing her fondness for ice cream and index futures. "In Japan, every true subculture has celebrities," said Ms. Asaba, 28, a financial researcher and part-time day trader who keeps a giant teddy bear next to her trading terminal in her cramped Tokyo apartment...The rise of online traders, as well as their go-it-alone ethic, has its critics..."The sight of housewives trading stocks on personal computers undermines the education of children," said Shunzo Morishita, the chief executive of NTT West, a phone company. "Making money without sweating for it undermines the work ethic...more...