Magically exported by SEGA earlier last year, the game focuses on two ‘fashion witches’; Love, and Berry. ‘Oshare Majo: Love and Berry’ is originally from Japan where the game became an instant success with young girls, spawning a successful fashion line as well as a portable version of the game for the Nintendo DS. Created as a female oriented successor to the arcade/trading card game ‘Mushiking: King of Beetles’, Love and Berry has clearly surpassed its spiritual younger-brother by being magically whisked to other countries throughout the world on its own diamond powered private jet.

Taking place in the highly competitive (read: bitchy) world of Tokyo fashion, ‘Oshare Majo’ follows the lives of two close friends as they battle it out to be the best dancers with the cutest styles in the land. The game play itself occurs during three separate ’stages’, all located in and around the most fashionable districts of Tokyo. Across the three stages you’ll be required to ‘dance off’ against an opponent (either computer controlled or a real life fashionista friend/rival) by bashing your palm to the beat of the music. As a hugely simplified version of the Bemani games, obviously the game seems focused on allowing everyone to join in rather than limiting game play to those who play a lot of the time. The machine amplifies it’s soundtrack at such a low volume though, sometimes it becomes incredibly difficult to tap along to the beat of gunfire and roadside crashes coming from the other games in the arcade, either that or the game isn’t really designed for a journalist that’s almost twice the size of the unit and nowhere near as feminine as the intended audience.

It became clear pretty quickly that this isn’t only just about tapping a tambourine to the beat of what can only be described as ‘porn music’. It suddenly clicked, that bright pink cutesy card covered in glitter that fell out of the machine and into my large grubby hands, did that have something to do with this? As I was instructed to swipe the card on the machine I suddenly came over with the giddy excitement of a younger me being given a set of keys to the chocolate factory. I was playing dress up with a human shaped mass of polygons. From then on it became a race, an obsession to obtain more and more clothes to dress up my little dancer and together, we would be the best dressed in Harajuku, Roppongi and then, the world! The urge to collect more had overcome me, some times I even obtained duplicates of things I already had but that didn’t stop us, me and Berry, we were taking over Tokyo and that was all that mattered. The cool knit, active parka and miracle foundation were all we needed for success and it was great.

Shortly after my brief period of awe though we hit a terrible block in the road - an extensive summer ball had been announced and everyone was going to be there (especially that bitch, Love) and we didn’t have any new dresses to wear, this simply wouldn’t do. Gold kept leaping out of my wallet and into the machine, soon enough I had run out of funds. No money, no fancy new dress and certainly nothing to wear to the party. For at least an hour or so I was living the dream I had always had, people were respecting my groove and showing love for my style.

As I swiftly vacated the arcade following many strange looks from my crowd, it dawned on me that all I was holding onto from my experience were my tainted memories of my time at the top and several, very expensive pink sparkly pieces of card. My time in the public eye was something that I will always remember. With my tattered persona and negative image sprawled across newspapers, magazines and TV, maybe it’s for the best I bring out those clippers, eradicate my hair and spend some time in rehab - the comedown from stardom can be harsh.

[This piece also posted on Rhythm Gamer]

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