I wish I had more material to back this section up, but here's one major bit of news for the week. Gust confirmed earlier this week at an Akihabara event that the next Atelier title is in the works. It will be the third game in the Arland branch of the series, and will be on the PS3. Aside from that, we know pretty much zilch about it. We have no name for the heroine, and thus no name for the game. We know that it will probably take place in or around Arland, but nothing else about the story or how it connects to Rorona or Totori.

We do know that the main character is cute, but with this series that's a given.

For this week in sales, there was a whole slew of new games that made a sweep of the top fourteen spots on the list. Six of them were for the 3DS. As a result, a lot of games that made the list last week were displaced earlier than they should've been. They'll probably be making a resurgence sometime in March.

Position	Up / Down	Title	Publisher	Platform
2	New Arrival!	Phantasy Star Portable 2 Infinity	Sega
4	New Arrival!	Disgaea 4	Nippon Ichi
13	New Arrival!	Rune Factory Oceans	Marvelous
15	Last seen at 1	Catherine	Atlus
17	Last seen at 5	Monster Hunter Portable 3rd	Capcom
22	New Arrival!	Rune Factory Oceans	Marvelous
24	Last seen at 13	Pokémon Black/White	Nintendo
25	Last seen at 6	Two Worlds 2	Ubisoft
20	Last seen at 4	Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology 3	Bandai-Namco

The folks at Imageepoch certainly have a lot on their plate. There are two major PSP titles coming from their studios this year, plus a supposed strategy RPG on the 3DS sometime in the near future. In the middle of all this, they put out a browser game:

This is Puchi Rock Shooter, "Puchi" being the Japanese version of "petite." Its sole purpose is to be cute and promote the upcoming Black Rock Shooter. Oh, and to let players dress up BRS in a maid outfit.

Is anyone's interest whetted?

Next Monday is White Day. As most Japanophiles probably know, White Day is the day when all the boys who got chocolate on Valentine's Day reciprocate by giving the girls cookies and marshmallows. Last month, Luida's Bar in Tokyo had a special V-Day treat for gaming lovers. This month is no different.

It's all part of an event happening at Luida's, starting today and lasting till the 21st. It seems to be largely a lucky dip and scratch-n-win sort of affair, and the prize is the Pink Momon Sable cookies seen above. Lucky gamers may move on to the Luida's Roulette challenge, with the chance to win things like the 1000 G Coupon, Legendary Honey Toast ticket, or a Legendary Dinner Course.

I am so tempted to make a crass Mardi Gras reference for the header here, based solely on the acronym for this game's title. Legend of Heroes - Trails in the Sky FC is a highly anticipated title on the RPGamer forums, so I thought this might be of interest to everyone.

Directing this is Masaki Tachibana, who worked on .hack//Quantam. The writing will be done by Makoto Uezu, who also did Utawarerumono. Atsuko Nozaki, known for her work on Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 is doing the character designs, and Cinema Citrus is handling all the animation.

This all comes as part of Nihon Falcom's 30th anniversary. A manga adaptation of TitS appeared in stores at the end of February. Fans have until the end of April to order a "special set" consisting of a drama CD, a promotional DVD for the anime, and a collectible notebook.

Just to say it one more time I AM PERFECTLY FINE RIGHT NOW.

And that's the news from Hi-no-Kuni,

Your man in Japan,

Gaijin Monogatari