Love Plus Message Board

#anime Female characters wearing large headphones is a trope in Japanese anime. The headphones make the characters' heads look smaller, thus, by anime standards, appear "cuter". Tropes aside, the headphones are often based on real products. But which ones? More »

#loveplus One day in college, a friend of mine* was awakened by the distinctive sound of a man's porn collection in a garbage bag hitting the bottom of an empty Dumpster (which was right next to my apartment.) "Ah, someone must have gotten a girlfriend," my friend said. More »

#cosplay Just as Comic Market (aka "Comiket") wraps up in Japan, several of the country's most popular cosplayers—Enako, Akira Itsuki, and Kuroneko—are releasing their singing debut for Sony Music's DefSTAR Records label. More »

#nsfw In Japan, there are numerous illustrated field guides (図鑑 or "zukan" in Japanese). Many of them are for kids and provide illustrated looks at things like dinosaurs, bugs, or trains. Then, there are zukan that are drawings guides—drawing guides for adults. More »

#newloveplus Konami's New Love Plus is a remake/upgrade of the virtual girlfriend dating game Love Plus, and was released to much fanfare this past Valentine's Day. As a remake, the game allowed players of the original to import their save data to continue their virtual relationships, and as an upgrade, the game incorporated the 3DS's capabilities for some ambitious new features. More »

#culturesmash Today is Valentine's Day in Japan. The day is slightly different from its American counterpart—2012, more so. Early this morning, gamers lined up so they could spend the day with someone special: their virtual girlfriends. More »

Konami's dating sim, Love Plus, is a hit in Japan, allowing players to have girlfriends without the hassle of actually having a girlfriend. The next installment, New Love Plus, launches for 3DS in Japan tomorrow and offers more ways to bring virtual girlfriends into real-life experiences, Siliconera reports.

Love Plus Tools, which allows players to import their previous Love Plus data into New Love Plus, will offer compatibility with AR cards that Konami will release every Monday. Users can take life-sized photos of their girlfriends and print them out on size A3 or A4 paper (16.5 x 11.7 in or 11.7 x 8.3 in, respectively).

New Love Plus will also introduce Girlfriend Mail, wherein players will receive email from their in-game girlfriends, accessible via PC and smartphone. Girlfriend Mail will cost 315 yen ($4) per month, but Konami is offering it for free until March. Owners will also be able to link their game data with Girlfriend Mail, so emails will include their pet names, and on birthdays or anniversaries players will get "special mail." Whatever that means.

Nintendo 3DS title New Love Plus, Konami's latest dating sim, won't be out Dec. 8 in Japan. Instead it will be released Feb. 14, giving the developers extra time to finish the game. Valentine's Day—how fitting! [Kotaku Japan] More »

#culturesmash Some people have flesh and blood girlfriends. Others have pillows. And some have plastic toys. One curry restaurant in Tokyo's geek district is sensitive to this. More »

#openwide Halls, maker of mentholated cough drops, is teaming up with dating simulator Love Plus for a product promotion. Love Plus character Nene Anegasaki appears on the packaging, but that's not all. More »

#loveplus Figure maker Max Factory showed off its upcoming Figma figurine of Manaka Takane from Konami's love simulator Love Plus. That figure shows off something else, apparently. More »

#reallove If going on a Love Plus vacation tour wasn't embarrassing enough, there's this: the upcoming 3DS version of the popular love simulator features a "girlfriend introduction" mode. More »

#mentholatedplus Back in December 2010, Konami launched a product tie-in with Halls mentholated cough drops. More »

#oddities Why get a boring old credit card, when you can get a really interesting one that probably says more about you than anyone really wants to know? More »

#culturesmash Akihabara. The mere mention of it conjures images of retro game shops, arcades, aisles of manga and maids, yes, maids. Wouldn't it be great to visit them? Like, right now? More »

Why are Japanese gamers flocking to a hot spa resort in Yamanouchi? Apparently, the resort took note of its similarity to a town in Monster Hunter -- and launched an event luring gamers to the real-world venue. The Mainichi Daily News details an increasing trend of small Japanese towns trying to boost their economy by launching events that tie in with the country's most popular games.

Konami's popular Love Plus games have also featured their own themed hot spa promotions. There have been other more inventive tie-ins throughout the country as well. A botanical park in Mimata has been selling out of bottled fish eggs by packaging special cards that can be used in Colony na Seikatsu Plus. Even vegetables are getting in on the action, with the town of Yuni promoting "specialty crops" via farm-related games. Somehow, that sounds much healthier than America's approach to games tourism: Farmville-themed Big Gulps at 7-Eleven.

[Image Credit: Travelpod]

#loveplus Anecdotal evidence at best, but a mountain of Love Plus items apparently didn't exactly move like hotcakes at Comiket. More »

#konami Love Plus, the love simulator from Konami, is coming to Japanese arcades, so get ready to fall in love all over again. More »

#loveplus Japanese magazines are big on the "street snap" — pictures of fashion plates. Many of the street snaps are of regular people with "regular" being a relative term. More »

#culturesmash Without a doubt, Love Plus is more than a love sim. It's captured the imagination of Japanese players, spawning erotic game and porno parodies and now what some are calling a straight-up rip-off. More »

#eroticgames Love simulator Love Plus is taking Japan by storm. Forget figurines and t-shirts, the game even spawned vacation packages! The girls in Love Plus, however, are on the thin side. That might not be to everyone's tastes. More »

#loveplus It was inevitable, bound to happen. There's now a Japanese adult video knock off of Konami's 2009 love simulator Love Plus. The alarming thing isn't the porn parody, but rather, that it's taken this long! More »

Love Plus, a DS game about having an ongoing relationship with one of three virtual girls, is a phenomenon in Japan. So of course Konami is going to follow the two DS releases (and two arcade games) with a 3DS title. See Manaka Takane idly chat about 3D gaming in a trailer after the break.

#clips Love Plus, the love sim that has launched cake lines and vacation tours, is coming to the Nintendo 3DS. That's right, a Love Plus is going to in 3D. More »

#screengrab An oldie, but goodie. As seen by AltJapan. More »

#gameface Photographers gather around a cosplay of Nintendo DS game Love Plus. As seen on 今日もやられやく via ANN by @mikedo2007. More »

#japan Busy this weekend? Those in Tokyo, you can check out the arcade version of Konami's love simulator Love Plus. Or you can do something else. It's really up to you. Not me. More »

#japan An online survey of over 300 Japanese women revealed that more than 50 percent of them do not think they can compete with females characters in dating simulators. Buck, up ladies! More »

#gameface Konami has kicked off its Love Plus tour. As seen on はちま起稿. More »