It occurred to me earlier today that rarely a week goes by here at 61 Frames Per Second without at least a cursory mention of how damn weird Japanese cultural trends can be. It isn’t particularly insightful or original to reiterate the fact; saying Japan’s a weird place to western eyes is a bit like pointing at the moon. But sometimes you just get bowled over by the country’s output and, more often than not, it’s a videogame that’s doing the bowling. Japan Scares Me will serve as a home on 61FPS for those games that are simply too odd to have come from any other place on Earth.
Way back in 2006, SNK walked into the Tokyo Game Show and, with straight faces, announced Doki Doki Majo Shinpan. Shinpan is a game about flicking teenage girls’ breasts to find out if they are witches. Now, it’s well known that pornographic anime games are more than a cottage industry in Japan; they’re more like a skyscraper. It’s also recognized that, unlike North America where salacious images of Miley Cyrus are decried but obsessed over by many, Japan’s pretty open about their fixation with adolescent sexuality. So Shinpan’s existence was only shocking insofar as its actual gameplay turned less racy than expected. And also that the damn thing started a trend on the Nintendo DS.
Case in point is To Love-ru: Exciting Outdoor School Version. No, seriously, that’s what it’s called. This is a game based on a manga and anime series about a schlubby boy in high-school who takes a bath one night only to be confronted by a nude alien princess who wants to marry him. No, seriously. The DS game, as far as I can tell from this clip, is about furiously rubbing a be-skirted schoolgirl’s erogenous zones to achieve high score. No. Seriously. It comes out in two weeks. It is the fourth or fifth game that is solely about boob-flicking to come out on the DS.
Japan, you scare the ever loving shit out of me.
(Link: GoNintendo)
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Trailer Review: Densetsu no Stafi 5
Trailer Review: Infinite Undiscovery
