This videogame teaches you what?!

Most of the time I think it’s great when a male-dominated industry wises up to the marketplace and decides to include women, but I’m not so sure about Nintendo DS’s latest Japanese videogames. The popular, ubiquitous handheld device has cards for every game under the sun: action, sports, first-person shooter, and, in the U.S., it includes classic titles like Metroid, Super Mario and Legend of Zelda.

Now the Japanese company is branching out into “women’s titles” like “My Happy Manner Book,” and “DS Therapy” (hmmm). These so-called games are actually self-improvement exercises with quizzes and tests on par with questions you see in grocery store magazines, and I doubt they’ll be making their way stateside anytime soon.

I think the best title is (deep breath) “Female Power Emergency Up! DS.” You need to see it to believe it. Brought to us by, yes, a women’s weekly fashion magazine (called Anan), FPEU! (for short) is a videogame that encourages its players to improve themselves in the areas of beauty, romance, exercise and make-up application, and then tests you on your knowledge of diets and even fortune-telling.

These topics (well, maybe not fortune telling) certainly constitute an emergency if you’re competing on America’s Next Top Model, but for the rest of us the game might serve to point out inadequacies we didn’t know we had. Perhaps the target audience skews to junior high or high school age (after all, what 17 year old really reads Seventeen magazine?) with FPEU serving as a pocket-sized big sister giving advice, but this is one life coach I’ll probably skip!

Sarah S.

—————————————————————————
Thinking of doing business in Japan? We can make it easy for you!
JPBizDirect, a Los Angeles based company, provides practical solutions for U.S. – Japan business projects. Our experienced Japanese staff will support all phases of your business project to seize business opportunities and turn your vision into a reality. >> Learn more
—————————————————————————