This ain't right: AKB48 dating sim on the way

12:00 PM on 09.16.2010   |   Josh Tolentino

The flurry of announcements from this year's Tokyo Game Show might make you think that most of Japan's games are looking pretty awesome, but to tell you the truth, it's a big industry out there, and not every game can make a big splash at TGS.

One such game is...an AKB48 dating sim. Starring the forty-eight (I thought it was sixty-three?) girls of real-life idol group AKB48. Yeah, a dating sim starring real, 3D people. This ain't right. Oh, and it comes in three special editions, including one with a special making-of UMD, kiss stickers from each girl, themed hardware covers, and strange things clearly designed to cause an idol overdose.

I mean, sure, fans can expect some ten thousand pictures of the girls and over eighty minutes of lovey-dovey video to swoon over, but isn't the point of the 2-D complex the fact that 2-D women are, well, two-dimensional, and thus less complicated than real women?

I suppose one could pose the argument that an idol's manufactured personality are about as 2-D as one can get short of flattening oneself, but one can't help but acknowledge that these girls are still people. Those that don't are far more insane than any otaku could be.