Seriously though, I'd rather have a hacking cough than go through...whatever Halls drops give you in place of it, if the vid below is any indication.

Seriously.

[Via Japan Probe]

I don't know exactly why some kind of Sengoku-era craze is sweeping Glorious Nippon, or for that matter if it's particularly new, but I'm more than happy to blame Sengoku Basara for these awesome-looking bento meals.

Fully microwaveable, these "Ikusa Bento" ("War Lunch") are aimed at 20-somethings and salarymen, the boxes are reusable and decorated with the emblems of the samurai they represent. The meals inside are also themed.

The best-looking one is the meal representing samurai warlord Naoe Kanetsugu. The character "Ai" (love), which was printed on his soldiers' banners, fully adorns the rice, inflaming the soul with manly power and energy. Other meals are themed around the newly minted icons Date Masamune and Sanada Yukimura.

Gigazine theorizes that were these bento made prior to the Sengoku Basara phenomenon, the meals would instead be centered around more traditionally remembered figures of the era such as Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi and Ieyasu Tokugawa. I'm inclined to agree, though a Nobunaga-themed meal would have to be quite demonic and poisonous to achieve the full pop-culture association.

Oh, NTT Docomo, you and your strange-yet-desirable cellphone models. First a wooden phone, and now this?!

The latest fashionable gadget from the Japanese telecom giant is a flip-phone by Sharp, customized by jewelry maker Q-Pot to look like a bar of delicious melting chocolate.

It's not just an overpriced vinyl skin either. The covering is textured, so you can feel the little squares and practically taste the diabetes-inducing decadence. The phone comes in two "flavors," Melty Bitter and Melty Strawberry, and will have a limited production run of 13,000 units.

If you've got cash to burn, this'd be a pretty creative Valentine's Day present for whomever you're confessing to. Although, if you try to use it yourself you might want to make sure that it doesn't stick out of your pocket. Then folks might think you're carrying an unwrapped chocolate bar in your clothes. Yummy, but gross.

A couple of weeks ago, we told you to be afraid, or delighted, for Nico Nico Douga would be making an English-language debut in the form a live stream of the Space Shuttle's launch.

Well, it happened, and the header above is a screenshot of the opening. It confirms both our greatest and worst fears: first, that Nico Nico's signature scrolling comments remain, and second, that Nico Nico's signature scrolling comments remain.

The comments above are relatively benign, but I imagine that any popular video on the service may eventually be overwhelmed by torrents of racial and homophobic epithets. FFFUUU-

Other than its planned 2011 opening, that's all you really need to know. For Christ's sake, it's called Mini-skirt Space Pirates!

Fine. If you're that obsessive type who's into things like "information" and "details," it's based on a series of space opera light novels by Yuichi Sasamoto, involving the adventures of a Marika, a high school girl, who by some accident of inheritance, takes command of the great space pirate ship Benten Maru. Truly, a classic story for the ages.

The show's scripts will be handled by Tatsuo Sato, who too care of Stellvia of the Stars, and the studio rocking the animation will be Satelight, who brought the awesome in Macross Frontier. There's some considerable space-pedigree right there.

I expect great things from this.

This is really just a bit of trivial non-news, but Canned Dogs reported a post by game auteur Hideo Kojima met with Type-Moon's head honchos Kinoko Nasu and Takeshi Takeuchi, in a dinner meeting through Chunsoft's Jirou Ishii. For a bit of Captain Obvious-level background info, Kojima made Metal Gear, Nasu and Takeuchi made Fate/stay night, and Ishii made several installments of Dragon Quest and Pokemon Mystery Dungeon.

It seems the meeting had quite the impact on Kojima, as he posted about it on the Kojima Productions blog:

"The meeting only lasted for a short while, but the meeting was pure enjoyment and I have not had something like that in a while.

It was the first time we met but I felt like we had already known each other for a long time, I felt a kind of affinity that was like deja vu.

It’s a special privilege that only creators have. Even when age or race are completely different, we can still understand each other instantly when we have the same “smell”.

Even though we’re from completely different areas, it does raise my spirits to get to know people who are working really hard and suffering in agony but continue to still create new work."

He also got his copy of Kara no Kyoukai autographed. It's so sweet! BFF at first sight, as fellow auteurs meet! Dense background fictions intertwine, the Nasuverse and Metal Gear database merge into a terrifying, mesmerizing monster of plot threads. 

I hope something comes out of this, because the chances are it will be frighteningly awesome.

The Fate/stay night TV anime ended some time ago, but Type-Moon and Studio DEEN are reworking the show into a special rerelease to mark the theatrical debut of the Fate/stay night Unlimited Blade Works movie.

Unlike a typical repacking though, the studio's reediting and reanimation footage from TV series' original twenty-four episodes into two 60-minute DVD/Blu-ray volumes entitled Fate/stay night TV Reproduction I and II. New OP and ED songs and animations are also being put together for each volume.

Both volumes will be shipping January 22nd, just a day before the film hits screens. This move intrigues me, since the original game had several distinct scenarios, and that the series picked elements from both. Assuming the movie sticks more faithfully to the Unlimited Blade Works scenario, doubtless some of the scenes from the series would be invalidated.

Our merry friends at Destructoid first broke the story, but it seems that Atlus has once again proven its ability to read nerd demand, and From Software's 3D Dot Game Heroes will be heading to the PS3 on May 11th, 2010, at the attractively budget-ranged price of $39.99.

Billed as "the ultimate love letter to all things retro," Atlus announced the game in their newsletter and on the PlayStation blog. Players will be cast as the hero destined to save the troubled land of Dotnia, fighting monsters and engorging their pixelated swords in faux-8-bit glory.

The game looks pretty spiffy. Who knew that one of the better uses of the most powerful console generation would be to pay tribute to the visuals of several generations past? Most relevant to my interests is this little feature, though:

Customize your hero -- When pixels are your building blocks, the possibilities are unlimited. Freely edit the look of your character, or design one completely from scratch, and then trade designs with friends via a compatible USB storage device. Your hero's blade is also upgradeable, letting you add length and width to create a sword that fills the whole screen!

Perfect. I can't wait to save Dotnia with my block-built waifu. Check the gallery for blocky pictures and below for a trailer that reminds me of Demon's Souls.

[Beware: Some of the links contain NSFW content]

The English-language eroge/visual novel scene is really heating up, as higher-profile titles are finally making their way overseas, where previously only manga or anime adaptations would manage the journey.

The digital distribution outfit MangaGamer looks to be on the forefront of that. Having brought Shuffle! over to us filthy gaijin, they went and licensed the original "sound novel" installments of Higurashi no Naku Koro ni (aka When They Cry). And now we have a firm(er) release date!

A post on the MangaGamer forums brought some "updates from the meeting room" listing tentative release dates for a selection of upcoming titles to be localized, among them the first four installments of Higurashi, due December 15th, with part five and beyond set for February 2010. That's in just a month, which is great news for folks who missed the manga and won't watch the anime for fear of the dreaded "QUALITY cabbage" (see below).

Other titles listed included sequels to KiraKira and Da Capo, and some new titles like Edelweiss Eiden Fantasia, Soul Link and the fabled Romance of the Three Kingdoms-based eroge Koihime Musou. A few unnamed adult titles from developer NEXTON were also mentioned. Good news for fans of eroge, eh?

This is probably old news to you by now, but it seems that British pop star Leona Lewis has been drafted into singing the theme song for Final Fantasy XIII's international release.

The song is titled "My Hands" and is from her album Echoes. The Japanese release of the game, however, will have its own theme "Kimi Ga Iru Kara," sung by Sayuri Sugawara.

While I've never preferred using pop songs for games in a fantasy setting (for me it "breaks character"), doing this was a good way to make the move. Some previous games and other RPGs with lyrical themes attempted to write English lyrics for dub over the Japanese music, which usually ended up sounding ridiculous. May as well license an actual English song/singer for it.

Or, go the Persona route and have your Japanese singers sing in hilariously lovable Engrish. Baby baby baby baby baby!

Check below to listen to both songs. Which do you prefer?