Or the first heart transplant?

Or primitive birth control?

That’s why we must always celebrate our pioneering spirit, even when it is as stupefying as the inventions that follow.

Rodeo Boy

Leave it to the Japanese to invent a mechanism for dry-humping your way to slimmer abdominals. Given the host’s reaction to this apparatus I’m a little surprised they didn’t upsell this device with some kleenex.

This is the face of physical fitness

Pedi-Mouse
What is the number one concern of all modern-day gamers? Other than crippling ADD. And obesity. That’s right – finding spare moments for proper exfoliation!

With the Pedi-Egg Mouse you need not miss a single exquisite headshot while filing your epidermis down to a raw pulp.

Because every social recluse deserves soft skin

Pudding “Cups”
Sometimes a man wants pudding. Sometimes a (hetero) man wants boobs. But who has the time for both?!

Let’s pretend unmistakably thin quandary somehow justifies this Japanese skeeviness:

The censoring Japanese flags paradoxically make the nipples more prominent

Handerpants
People may tell you these make you look ridiculous, but you’ll laugh last in 20 years when your handballs aren’t sagging down to your elbows like everyone else.

Respect the handballs

Beer Can Simulator
Just when you thought there was nothing on this god forsaken planet that was more insubstantial than light beer, the good folks at Bandai delivered. This beer can simulates the delightful *sshhhhkttt* of opening a cold one, without burdening you with all that superfluous refreshment.

FINALLY technology has distilled all the joy out of beer!

My interest in these games isn’t simply part of my well documented love of the perverse.  I see these for what they truly are – warning signs.

When you catch a child tormenting animals or repeating lyrics from a Jonas Brothers song, you are rightfully terrified.  Time and again serial muderers later demonstrated these juvenile behaviors might further devolve.  You know you’re responsible to be vigilant of them or at least drug them into a well-behaved stupor.  Now imagine that child is actually 127 million Japanese people.

If you were going to shit your pants in abject terror, this would be the time to do it.

When a society promotes an arcade game that simulates playful sodomy, they are sending an important message that you ignore at your own peril.  Here’s 4 more warnings to carefully heed.

Muscle March

This game actually has a premise, but I’d prefer to let the crazy flow freely over you before explaining it:

Each of the game’s three levels involves bodybuilders tearing after a thief who has pilfered their communal tub of Human Growth Hormone.   The chase leads them through a section of Toyko where the buildings are contructed exclusively from styrofoam, allowing the lead character to crash through walls without any Roid Rage powerups.  The resulting holes are cartoonish silhouettes of various poses, which the player must match with the motion-sensing remotes to permit passage.

The premise builds upon Japan’s mutual love of Human Tetris and festively colored banana-hammocks.

For those not fluent in Japanese, the characters read “This man is not a deer.  We find this humorous.”

Japan’s fascination with body builders is an extension of their embrace of hyperbolized western characters and campy humor.  As mentioned before, their notion of camp is several exponents more extreme than the camp frail Americans are accustomed to.   This is why the Japanese enjoy Bob Sapp so – he’s equal parts bodybuilder camp and Blackzilla:

Mr. Mosquito

Mr. Mosquito received its first exposure in America when it was featured in the highly controversial and ultimately unsuccessful pilot for the National Geographic television series  ”What The Fuck, World?”.

In this game you play as a mosquito cruising around a home, trying to feed on the inhabitants blood often enough to survive the winter.  Oddly the mosquito was kind of an afterthought, since the original game was called “Maybe This Chick In The Bath Will Show You Her Cans”, but the developers thought it needed a slightly more dynamic playing experience.

This game was originally only slated for a Japanese release, but with West Nile Virus being the new hotness in the states gamers actively petitioned to make this available in the U.S. It was a shining example of Democracy in Action.  Never underestimate the power of the people when pursuing their most ephemeral needs.

Love Death 2

In truth, very little of this game has anything to do with love or death.  Unless you count the slow death of your soul when you find yourself playing it

The Love Death series is from a genre of Japanese games targetted at stress relief.  This would be particularly effective if every antagonist in your life also happened to be chirpy-voiced anime nymph.  If you’re not clear what is going on, take a look at the inventory panel on the top right of the screen and match it to the actions taking place center stage:

You have the option of partially undressing the girls, but that seems less geared at sexual gratification than ensuring the soccer balls you’re hurling produce bigger welts.

This probably builds upon a Japanese fetish called houtai (or kegadoru) which finds arousal in injured women.  I don’t know if that fully applies here since that fetish is more enamored with already bandaged women rather than the process of putting them in the ER, but I wanted to mention it to give the impression I know stuff.

Katamari Damacy

Imagine you are a tiny prince from a tiny celestial world.  Your father, The King of the Cosmos (who bears an uncanny resemblence to the guy from Digital Underground)…

…accidentally destroys the universe during a drinking spree.  He tasks you with a mission to rebuild the stars, constellations and Moon using a sticky sphere called a Katamari to collect matter.  Since you don’t have the sack to explain that a star is massive luminous ball of plasma that can’t just be cobbled together with 2x4s, you decide to quietly make a wasted effort to go to earth and collect random crap.  At this point the earthlings think the heavens have evaporated and End Times are upon them anyway so it would be hard to do too much more damage.  So lets have some FUN with it!

The game play is mostly you rolling the ever-inflating Katamari, chewing through earthly infrastructure and toppling society.  It is occasionally interspersed with drunken abuse from your judgemental patriarch.

Here’s a few other examples of mental torture that are pretty funny:

You Call That Torture? (Part 1)

You Call That Torture? (Part 2)

Look for more at iancheesman.wordpress.com.

I approached numerous experts in Japanese culture, seeking a rosetta stone that would contextualize the madness that passed for entertainment.  I compiled the results of their survey responses and interview comments for brevity’s sake:

I think that pretty much sums it up.

Boon-ga Boon-ga

Everyone has at least one person in their life that is a persistent thorn in their side.  Whether it be a domineering mother-in-law or a boss hellbent on micromanagement, someone always seems to have an agenda to chip away at your sanity.  All of us yearn for the day when we’ll be finally able to get revenge by telling them off or viciously plunging our forefingers into their rectum.  Wait, what?

It turns out this is actually reminiscent of something called kancho, the Japanese equivalent of a wedgie.  Only in a country where an impromptu prostate check is considered a harmless prank would this sort of gameplay make sense:

Chulip

In Chulip you pilot a young man who meets the love of his life in a dream, but finds himself rebuked by her in real life.  In order to demonstrate his worth, you must build his reputation by having him make out with anyone who will have him.  This includes girls, the son of Godzilla, and some old guy with a 3-stage rocket growing out of his skull:

Though it is never specifically detailed, the reason his dream girl probably turns him away is that all who kiss him are mysteriously compelled to burrow into the subterranean depths and live among the Sewer People.

Bishōjo games, the heterosexual flavor of japanese “Dating Sims”, have been around some time, but most of them focus on learning how to spit game at various saucer-eyed ladies with the end goal of sleeping with one.  This game sidesteps the sex payoff and opts to focus on getting to first base with any willing species.

Chou Aniki

Using the descriptor “gay” isn’t terribly politically correct.  Making the blanket observation of a game being gay sounds like the vernacular of a douchey, insecure fratboy.  But, seriously, this game is gayer than the lakeside fight scene in Roadhouse if George Lucas digitally inserted dildos into Dalton and Jimmy’s hands.

Yeah.  THAT Gay.

This is a side-scrolling shooter in the classic tradition of Gradius, only this particular space ship has the option to upgrade its weaponry to include amply greased men.  I’d recommend having at least two of them armed if you plan on passing through the “Skyscrapers With Remarkably Well Sculpted Abs” zone:

As shown in the video, one of the first boss battles takes place in some sort of futuristic Greek Bathhouse, where your cutting-edge technology and lightning reflexes are pitted against a balding japanese man in repose.  If his lackadaisacal can-can doesn’t kick you straight to hell, he can still unleash the Mr. Fantastic clone that has taken residence in his crotch on you.  It’s how I’ve always wanted to meet my maker.

The japanese embrace campy entertainment with a vigor that makes John Waters’ Pink Flamingos feel like Schindler’s List.   However, I think the line for camp gets crossed somewhere around the time your “ship” is being attacked by a speedo-clad enemy using another man as a pogostick.  I just don’t know where the hell it leaves you.

Super Galdelic Hour

This game was originally conceived as a vehicle to engage female gamers, an audience that is seldom pandered to.  It was to be futuristic decathalon of sorts, but there was little concensus among the designers what the competitions should be.  With the game’s development deadlocked, the deciding vote came in the form of “Well, which events make their tits jiggle the most?”

In addition to the Whack-off A Mole, Street Fighter styled pie warfare and sumo ass wrestling, the girls engage in similarly empowering contests like big glove boxing and shimmying.  The tree chopping contest does seem a bit out of place until you note the detail with which the graphics desigers show the shock absorbsion capacities of the juggs on the yellow bearcub chick.

Hungry for more gay porn thinly veiled as video games?  Sorry, I can’t help you.  But reading is fun too:

3 Studies That Prove Knowledge Isn’t Power

Peek-A-Bullet!

If those are too convenient you can always visit iancheesman.wordpress.com for more.