[Photo Report] Valentine fair of Nameko Shop in Basement of Tokyo Station

A half year passed after an official shop of Japanese mobile game superstar Nameko opened.

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[Photo Report] Nameko shop preview in Basement of Tokyo Station

Now, the shop is doing good business very well and even Asian tourists came to drop in. The shop holds various events every season and it may be the secret of the prosperity.

They hold Valentine fair now.

LOVELY! The Nameko statue is covered with heart!

The stuffed toys of Nameko in conjunction with Valentine's Day are put on the front.

The Nameko goods have the various snacks and cakes. The cookie sets are good as a souvenir to a family.

 What?......

His name is Masaru, a kind of mysterious Nameko. The real Nameko occasionally come up in a shop and delight children.

They are what I bought.

 Cookie, langue de chat and mascot stuffed toy.

Nameko lies at full length :)

In addition, we get tote bag as a privilege when we do shopping more than 2,000 yen in Nameko official shop now. But it may disappear immediately because this is very popular.

Next is Yo-kai cat: Jibanyan of Yo-Kai Watch appeared in the reality world by PTAM

I wrote about the interesting example that let character appear in reality world using PTAM.

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Ideal fusion of AR and VR: Sony Cat Toro appeared in the reality world by PTAM

A certain Japanese developer made a newer work. Next is Yo-kai cat "Jibanyan(ジバニャン)" from Japanese popular game/anime Yo-kai Watch(妖怪ウォッチ).

Yo-Kai Watch is a series of role-playing games for Nintendo 3DS developed and published by Level-5. It is transmedia storytelling content, and their anime, manga, toys, various goods etc... every product are selling like hot cakes. It is right Pokemon(Nintendo) killer. (via wikipedia)

Jibanyan lives in the room of the Japanese primary schoolchild Keita. However, the common people cannot look at him because Jibanyan is Yo-kai(妖怪: supernatural creatures in Japanese folklore), so Keita looks at them using special gadget Yo-Kai Watch. You would already notice, this is good to AR/VR contents!

The developer put Oculus Rift and PTAM together and realized more real expression. It is really cute!

Japanese netizens personified ISIS as cute girls at last

Crappy Photoshops of ISIS by Japanese Twitter users are scattered all over the world, and they started a newer project. This is "personifies" - proud skill of Japanese.

Anonymous Japanese netizens personified ISIS as cute girl "ISIS-chan" ("chan" is nickname expression in Japan). They make her profile and show it in Tumblr. Some illustration works have been shared here already.

This is not the first time that Japanese netizens personified threats and booing as cute girls. In 2010, large-scale anti-Japan demonstration broke out in China, the anti-Japan sentiment of Chinese people increased and they shouted "Riben guizi(日本鬼子)" of Chinese racial term since World War II("Riben guizi" means "Japanese devil" in Chinese). However, a project of personify this as cute girls in Japanese textboard 2channel started. Japanese netizens chose to transform the racial and offensive term into a "Moe(萌え)" character.

Then the image search results of "Riben guizi(日本鬼子)" in Chinese major search service Baidu(百度) happened.

Where are images of Imperial Japanese soldiers and the anti-Japan demonstration? :D The Chinese government judged this to be a serious problem, strengthened the censorship by the great firewall(金盾) and prohibited the image search of Riben guizi(日本鬼子) in Baidu(百度). In other words, Chinese people were not able to search even Riben guizi as racial term, too.

The ISIS personification project aims at this again. If crappy images and cute girls were displayed on screen when youths searched ISIS, at least they may not think to join ISIS. We must upset WW(World War) and make MM(Moe Moe).
Of course the people except the Japanese can participate in this project, too. However it is necessary to note this rule.

The silly is stronger than the terrorism. Let's jump onto a bandwagon of ‪#‎ISISクソコラグランプリ‬(Crappy Photoshop Grand Prix)!

Ingress players draw phoenix on Kobe to celebrate the 20th anniversary of revival from quake

On January 17, 2015, Japan is the 20th year from Great Hanshin earthquake(Kobe earthquake). It's magnitude 7.3, occurred on January 17, 1995, at 05:46 JST in the southern part of Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan, and 6,400 people died by a collapse building and a fire.

Then for 20 years, current Kobe is this.

Therefore Japanese Ingress players drew phoenix on Kobe on the map in commemoration of this. The phoenix is right a symbol of the revival.

This is not the first time that Japanese Ingress players expressed prayer through a game. They prayed for peace in Hiroshima on August 6, 2014 and drew a crane of origami.

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Ingress players of Hiroshima prayed for peace and drew paper crane on the map

These succeed by cooperation of Resistance and Enlightened.

Japanese mobile game company Colopl released the 2nd VR game "Shironeko VR Project"

Japanese mobile game company Colopl released the 2nd VR game that supported the Oculus Rift. The title is "Shironeko VR Project（白猫VRプロジェクト)". (*Shironeko means a "white cat" in Japanese)

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Japanese mobile game company Colopl developed a game for Oculus Rift

Shironeko VR Project was developed based on their popular mobile RPG "Shironeko Project(白猫プロジェクト)". It's released in July, 2014 and passes 20 million downloading in Japan. In addition, it was released in Korea in October, 2014 and released in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao in future.

Shironeko Project is a full-fledged RPG of full 3DCG. Players can bring up a character and enjoy powerful battle with huge enemies. Colopl released the controller apps "colopad" for VR games to experience this comfortably in Oculus Rift. This is controller apps to use a smartphone and a tablet as a game pad. Players can operate the action such as move and attack with one finger by using this. They have yet released only an Android version of this, but release the iOS version in a few days.

Originally Colopl was the startup which developed geolocation social game for Japanese futurephones. However, they are VR game companies as well as a representative mobile game company for smartphones now.

Awesome Collaboration! GungHo announced "PUZZLE & DRAGONS SUPER MARIO BROS. EDITION"

Unfortunately the presence of Nintendo gradually fades in Japan. One of the causes is the prosperity of the mobile game business, but surprising press release was announced. GungHo releases a game for the Nintendo 3DS series "PUZZLE & DRAGONS SUPER MARIO BROS. EDITION" that combined the Mario series of Nintendo with Puzzle &Dragons on April 29. The price is 4,000 yen(about 33.3USD).

Needless to say, Puzzle & Dragons is a popular mobile game of GungHo, passes 33 million downloading in Japan, and passed 6 million downloading in the North America in this month, too. This collaboration is "bitter enemies in the same boat" for Nintendo.

Stages of the games is the mushroom kingdom which is the world of the Mario series. Mysterious "drop" with mysterious power appeared in the mushroom kingdom suddenly, bowser(Great Demon King Koopa) and other Mario's enemies get it and do evil, and Mario Bros. and their friends do the adventure of the puzzle battle to fight against them. According to the screenshot, its rule of game seems to be same as Puzzle & Dragons. However, an outlook on the world is Mario series itself. It is unknown whether this is sold in countries except Japan.

Supercell carried out Japan's original promotion for New Year holidays

Shōgatsu(正月: Japanese New Year festival) is one of the most important event in Japan. Therefore Supercell carried out Japan's original promotion "Hay Day O-mikuji" from January 1.

O-mikuji(おみくじ) are random fortunes written on strips of paper at Shinto shrines(via Wikipedia). Supercell opened a time-limited special site until January 18 emulating this and let players draw Hay Day O-mikuji.

These are kinds of O-mikuji.

Great blessing (大吉: dai-kichi) 
Middle blessing (中吉: chū-kichi) 
Small blessing (小吉: shō-kichi) 
Blessing (吉: kichi) 
Ending blessing (末吉: sue-kichi) 

 Fortunes of this year, characters and items of Hay Day are drawn on each O-mikuji, and players can tweet them to Twitter. Furthermore, players can apply for a present campaign from this site. If we lucky, we can get various Hay Day goods :)

Why did Supercell do such a promotion? Probably because, in The twelve branches(十二支), this year is "the year of the sheep" (What is the twelve branches? via Wikipedia). Players can keep sheep in Hay Day. By the way, next year is "the year of the monkey". Are the monkeys added to Hay Day until the next year?