Nintendo DS title Love Plus is a popular game. It a dating sim with young girls and has sold something like 180,000 copies in Japan. But nobody walks around advertising their adoration for the game. That is gonna change.

Last week, Chiaki Kuriyama, best known in the West as Gogo Yubari in Kill Bill, released her first CD single "Ryusei no Namida", the theme for Gundam Unicorn.

Nerd hero and cat-butt-sniffer Shoko Nakagawa (pictured) belted out a the ending theme for the televised Pokémon. Sadly, her song has been replaced. But is the new song better?

This month, Koei is bringing anime/manga series Fist of the North Star to the PS3 and Xbox 360. The company is best known for its Dynasty Warriors hack-and-slash action games. Let's hope it doesn't screw this up.

I've lived in Japan for a long time. When I first came here, I liked living here. Now, I don't. I haven't changed. Japan hasn't really changed, either. Something else, however, has.

Maybe all three of these things are part of the same problem.

Before the brouhaha at Tecmo, game designer Tomonobu Itagaki made a name for himself making fighting games. He's currently working on another title, which he hinted at last year.

...before you cut your pinkie off! With Yakuza 3 coming out in North America and Yakuza 4 coming out in Japan, is there a better time to talk about Japanese gangsters? No, no there isn't.

These films are grounded in yakuza mythos, fantasy and, yes, fact. And like Hollywood mobster films, these motion pictures have even influenced the way yakuza portray themselves and are portrayed.

At 12 years-old Motoki Nishimura became a gaming recluse. At 17, he became an author, writing a book about his experience.

Earlier this year, Nishimura published My Online Gaming Devil, which details his descent into online gaming when his parents divorced. "I didn't care what happened in real life," he told The Mainichi Daily News. "I didn't think there was any point in living..."

In the 1980s, robot video games were sold with robots. It's not the 1980s anymore and robots alone alone are not enticing enough for in-store retail displays, it seems.

Super Robot Taisen OG Saga: Endless Frontier EXCEED, the sequel to Super Robot Taisen OG Saga: Endless Frontier, is another tactical role-playing spinoff of the Super Robot Taisen. The game features characters from Super Robot Taisen and Xenosaga as well as boobs and butts.

As part of a promotion to encourage repeat business, a "Film Bookmark Repeater Campaign" was launched for anime The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya. This film book mark just went for nearly US$4,000.