Love Plus, the ever-so-popular Nintendo DS dating sim that I wrote about on Boing Boing, is going to be available on the iPhone, according to Asiajin.com. The iPhone version will have all three virtual girlfriend characters as well as a feature that lets you take couple shots with the girls with the iPhone camera and some yet-to-be-announced GPS-enabled features. Exciting!(?)
In case you missed it, here's the YouTube video report we did of Sal9000, the guy who married Nene Anegasaki in a real-looking wedding ceremony at Maker Faire Tokyo.
I knew Magibon had become somewhat of a celebrity in Japan after her strange stare down YouTube videos, but I didn't realize she had made the big screen. Here, an ad featured at the Akihabara branch of electronics store Yodobashi Camera.
On Boing Boing today, I scripted and narrated a BBVideo episode about the man who married his Love Plus girlfriend in an official-looking ceremony on Sunday:
On Sunday, a man named Sal9000 married the love of his life. Her name is Nene Anegasaki, and she lives inside of a Nintendo DS video game called Love Plus. The wedding took place during a Make: Japan meet-up held at the Tokyo Institute of Technology. In attendance were a live audience, an MC, the bride's virtual video game girlfriend — who made a speech — and a real human priest.
I don't know if I ever posted this video on TokyoMango — while readying my Wired Mag article about Hiroyuki Nishimura and Nico Nico Douga for publication in early 2008, a bunch of Wired staffers got together in the office kitchen in San Francisco and danced the Uma Uma. Then, we uploaded the video onto Nico Nico Douga and watched as comments filled the screen. Some people made fun of us for being old, or American, or both; some wondered whether we had real work to do; some just "sang" along.
Watching this makes me happy and nostalgic for my Wired days. By the way, stay tuned for an imminent video story on Boing Boing about showcasing one guy's latest stunt on Nico Nico Douga.
I write articles about culture, technology, and human rights for Wired, Popular Science, Fast Company, and the New York Times Magazine. I also produce radio segments for PRI's Studio360 and am a Correspondent for Boing Boing, one of Time Magazine's five most essential blogs of 2010.
I am also the founder of The Tofu Project, a boutique program that helps Japanese entrepreneurs and creators think deeper, tell better stories, and go out into the world in a much bigger way. We work with companies like Mixi, Japan Airlines, and Salesforce.com.
Sometimes I try to explain Japanese culture on CNN, BBC, CBC, WSJ, ABC (so many acronyms!) or in person at places like the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan, ETech, and Ignite!
