AKB1/48: Idol to Guam to Koishitara First Print Limited Edition unboxed!

Everything came in this box about the size of an arcade stick.

AKB1/48 Idol to Koishitara is probably the best game for studying kanji. As mentioned in a previous post, learning kanji is a bitch. I don't have a patience to slowly work my way through a kanji book. So what makes AKB1/48 for PSP such a great game for studying Japanese?

Back of the box.

First, its all pure text gameplay like a dating sim and its fully voiced except for the words from the protagonist, which is the player. Second, it doesn't auto go the next line so you can take your time looking up the kanji dictionary. Third, its got the can look through all the lines of dialogue and play the voices again.This helps when I see a kanji character that I think I saw a few lines back and I go back and its voiced. If I don't know what the word means at least I know the pronunciation so I don't need to waddle my way through the kanji dictionary.

Game, card with download code for 48 PSP themes and blu ray of all the movies in the first game. I am happy to report that the blu ray is region free! If only Oz had the same blue ray region as Japan, I would be buying Japanese blue rays.

Lastly its basically basic spoken dialogue. I tried replaying this old SRPG Terra Phantastica and as it was a political middle ages type story, its was old Japanese and lots of kanji that I can't be stuff learning. Hhm, come to think of it, its a bishoujo game without sex. When I play, its in front of my pc with two tabs on tangorin.com, a tab for Denshi Jisho kanji dictionary and a tab for romanji to hiragana converter. I have a notebook that I write the kanji I look up. It doesn't help me as much as coming across certain words multiple times during gameplay which will hopefully reinforce it in my memory.

UMD of game and making of video. I've not even watched the making of UMD from the first game.

I wasn't planning on getting the first print limited edition but I thought my preorder of the special edition of another game, Ico/Shadow of Colossus Collection wasn't coming through because play-asia marked the game as sold out but my copy had not been sent and went in search of another source. The reason I wasn't sure was that the preorders had sold out long ago but one morning before work, I spotted a preorder button and made my order hoping that it was because someone canceled and not because of a glitch, which has happened. My search took me to HMV Japan, Ico was sold out but they still had AKB1/48 First Print. I was pissed off thinking I missed out on the Ico Collectors Edition and decided to get another special edition in its place.

Three making of DVDs for each of the 3 teams and a fashion collection DVD which I hope translates into cosplay. No idea what the team 4 special DVD is.

Anyway, because of the crazy drop of the Australian dollar and HMV Japan charging in yen, this has become a very painful purchase. Essentially, its the same game with a much better looking interface and ability to move the 'camera' during dialogue which just means that you can scroll down and look at their thighs/legs. The other addition to the sequel is the ability to choose whether you want to refer to yourself as boku, watashi or ore. Don't think this has any bearing on the game but to be more manly, I chose ore.

10 photos. I think I need to burn the one on the middle right cause that looks like a man.

I've gotta say one thing and its that AKB girls DO NOT looking good in swimsuits. Very few of them have womanly bodies. Akimoto Sayaka's body is like a dude's. Wide shoulders and straight hips. Kayo Police is 10 times for feminine than her. They should have been wearing one piece swimsuits.

Yup, you get 48 mini posters from the game.

Final note, I'm not a big fan of AKB48 despite spending almost $200 aud on a game. Started listening when they weren't famous and liked how explicit their lyrics were and now that they are famous, we will never hear songs like Sailor Fuku jama suru na again. They got big had nice songs but bloody mimed all the time. That's why I swore of Kpop many years ago. On the very very rare occasions that you get to hear someone from AKB48 sing live, let's just say I've heard a lot better at karaokes.

Super skinny Shinoda Mariko in 2 piece? Not a good look.

However, spending so much time on the first AKB1/48 game, the songs have ingrained themselves in my brain and I've gotten really fond of some of the girls in game character. No idea how they are like on tv since I don't have time to search. That's my excuse to keep what little dignity I have left.

At least we finally got some cleavage here. The rest of the mini posters are too horrible to be shown.

After I finish up this post, I'm going for the Yokoyama Yui ending because kansai-ben turns me on. You don't usually hear idols speak kansai-ben but when there are 48 of them, you gotta do something to be different. I wished someone had made a game like this for Morning Musume back in the day. Imagine Tsuji and Kago fighting over the player!

 My PSP screen.