From CyberAgent in Japan comes a new Facebook application (game) called Ameba Pico (or Pico for short). You can play outside of Facebook too but the real fun is to play within Facebook so you can get all your kawaii loving friends to play with you.

The game was originally called Ameba Pigg in Japan and racked up a couple million users in less than a year. You know how much they love all that is cute and childlike in Japan so I imagine the populairty is due to location and that it appealed to young women in the tween and up age range.

What is most fascinating about this essential glorified chat space (with adorable twee little characters that you can dress-up and play with) is that it is truly an International social actvity. Most people playing the game are Japanese but other countries I have seen represented include the Phillipines, Macau, China, Chile, Spain, France, the UK, Singapore, New Zealand, Russia and of course the USA.

You meet people by giving them “props” and then earn “gummies” for this which you can use to buy things. The more robust form of currency however is Ameba Gold which you can purchase for real money or complete offers (joining a book club, getting your credit report, taking surveys and many others) to earn Ameba Gold.

You have your own room and can hold parties in it to earn “stars” (which give you more gummies) and you can decorate it with the limited items available around the virtual world (which is basically a NYC street, the Statue of Liberty, a couple of parks, a high school and a Stone age location with a volcano) as well as shop for clothes and expression (smiling, laughing, dancing) that you can purchase from various vendors.

It takes a whole lot of giving and getting props to generate gummies and the only way to get “tokens”(which can be used in place of Ameba Gold) is to play Gatcha which gives you a random prize out of an animated vending robot (essentially gashopon). I’ve played it quite a bit and all I get are filing cabinets, food and balloons. No tokens yet.

There are only two games to play (a memory card game and reversi) and the specific themed chat rooms don’t seem very active. You can have private chats (called whisper) and send each other letters within the system, plus send each other gifts and share food. Other than that there is no much to explore and not much to do except give props, go to your “buddies” rooms (you may friends within the world and they become your buddies), visit different locales, shop (though this is limited) and change your clothes. The chatting is very minimal since there are many languages spoken. Many Japanese speak no English whatsoever and they tell you right on their character profile.

I’ve been enjoying the game however because it is super kawaii and love meeting all the Japanese people. There are quite a few who do speak some English and would love to practice it with you which is seriously fun.

The people are VERY YOUNG however, though it seems to vary at times. Later at night I run into many people from the US in their teens and twenties. I have only runa cross a few people my age (old as the hills in the world of Kawaii) but that is to be expected. I think it would be a fun hang-out for girls in their teens and twenties if they are Japanophiles and love to talk about similar things.

I am on usually as “girliewhirlie”. Please come find me! I will give you props, I promise!

Here are a few fun things you can do:

I had seen some of the new line from Simone Legno (of Tokidoki and cutie patootie fame)(cute patootie being my own humble opinion of Simone) at TARGET geared toward kids going back to school on several websites. There are all kinds of folders, binders, notebooks, backpacks and satchels – it is totally awesome. If I had gone back to school in such style  I would have been the coolest kid on the block.

It was my Mom however who sent me to the TARGET website to see another uber-adorable interview with Simone. You must check it out! Thanks for keeping my kawaii on track Mom!

Here is what I found:

Until I actually get to visit Japan I spend a lot of my free time reading books by other people who have either visited or lived in Japan. I like to live vicariously through their experiences and I have learned so much about Japan it is almost like I have been there. That and a healthy addiction to Flickr Japan groups where I can look at many photos of Japan as well as watch TV dramas and movies from Japan have helped to make me feel much more…well, Japanese.

I know I am NOT Japanese nor would I ever be confused as such, since I am quite the gaijin yet there is a part of me that feels deeply connected to their culture through the many aspects I love such as Zen-Buddhism, kawaii, food, art, dolls, anime, tea, communal bathing and wearing slippers (just kidding about those last two).

Thus, this is the long way about telling you how much I loved Aimee Major Steinberger’s book Japan Ai (even though it bugs me how she spells her name because I once went to college with a girl who spelled her name like that and she was nasty to me and – oh wait that is a long story and it was 20 years ago so never mind.).

The book is set-up as manga which is completely appropriate since Aimee is an illustrator. It is perfectly layed-out, has adorable drawings of an anime sort and a great handwritten commentary that accompanies Aimee’s travel in Japan. One of the reasons I adore the book so much (I bought it twice, once on Kindle which does it no justice because it needs to be in full-color so I ended up buying it AGAIN in paperback!) is that it is kawaii itself and written by someone I actually identify with.

Many of the books I’ve read about Japan have been written by people that I simply could not get with, you know what I mean? I felt like I could totally be buds with Aimee and her friends AJ and Judy who are all girl geeks just like me. So much of what these rad home-girls experience is the kind of stuff I dream of doing in Japan even including an obsession with Japanese dolls (they like Volks ball-jointed dolls and I am a Momoko girl).

I was really tickled to find even more fabulous pages of the book at the publisher’s site and also actual photos from the trip. It is really neat to see the photos of many of the things that Aimee has drawn.

This is abook you will come back to again and again. It’s completely adorable but the content is right on the money. You will learn along with Aimee and her g-friends and it will definitely spark an interest in Japan if you have none (but of course you do – it is the most kawaii place in the world!) and really get your blood pumping if you already have an obsession the way I do. I cannot recommend it enough. Click here to purchase from amazon.

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I love trading cards and have since I was a kid. This will probably date me but I began collecting trading cards with baseball cards (huge Boston Red Sox fan) then Star Wars cards and Superman cards. Those would be the original versions of the films from 1977 and 1978 respectively. In other words I am an old-timey trading card collector.

I collected many different cards over the years, never losing my fascination with them. I started to play Magic: The Gathering some time ago and that got me collecting cards again. From there I collected Neopets trading cards, then Webkinz, got into the trading cards (and game) for World of Warcraft (many cool series with incredible art) and finally my favorite, the Free Realms card game, which I got into last spring and have been playing non-stop.

Except for Neopets and Webkinz most trading cards are made with males (boys, guys, whateveh) in mind. Neopets and Webkinz cards are probably purchased by more girls but they are in general for kids and tweens, non-gender specific.

When I found out about Bella Sara, trading cards for girls – the first ever made for a female demographic – I couldn’t wait to check it out.

Hidden City Games, run by Peter Adkison, the founder of Wizards of the Coast (a company that made trading card games popular again through Magic: The Gathering and the kawaii little Pokémon cards) got together with Danish social worker and avid horse fan Gitte Braendgaard and Poul Villadsen,who had created a series of trading cards called Bella Sara. Gitte was inspired to create Bella Sara during her tenure as a social worker, caring for the disabled. In line with the focus of her former career, Bella Sara features socially conscious, positive messages and imagination-building game play, designed to uplift girls. The trading cards for girls depict beautiful, mystical and magical horses. Gitte named the series after her daughter, a horse lover named Sara, who became the Goddess of Horses in the magical land called North of North (sounds a bit like Denmark, to me).

I found out all about the cards through their interactive website bellasara.com that has online mini-games, horses to play with (groom, feed, love), a cottage to decorate and now soon to be unveiled online adventures with avatars and quests. It is an entire world of delights aimed at girls but enjoyed by females of all ages.

The cards are a marvel. They also have plushies. board games, novels, card folios, special tins with cards and stickers, an awesome huge sticker book and sweet little fuzzy miniature horses that you can collect too.

The artwork is spectacular ranging from high fantasy to magical faerie to kawaii. The mini-games are fun and easy to play – you can zen out on them.The games are similar to sites like Neopets and Webkinz. Everything online is free, there are no ads and it is a safe and secure environment for young girls to play in.

You can purchase the card packs (they are $2.99 per pack and you get 5 random trading cards plus temporary tattoos and a sticker and a Bella Sara horseshoe card which unlocks all kinds of goodies online) at stores like Walmart, as well as online through Bella Sara and on ebay too.

I’ve been enjoying the beta-testing of the new online adventures that Bella Sara will be offering soon. These new trading cards have already inspired other cards geared toward girls with The Littlest Pet Shop trading cards and new online destination. I hope to see this continue to be a boon for cards because they promote friendships, community, collecting and spark intelligent game-play too.

Plus I am a sucker for trading cards, stickers and goofy online mini-games.

Cute Purikura Online cute

Yes that is me above – I have been puricuted!

The site is adorable, offers all these neat little photo frames (and the application to use to puricute yourself and your friends) stamps and artsy tools to cutify photos to use on myspace or your website. It is positively irresistible and I can see myself playing around there with big ol’ ugly mug photos of myself making me cuter than I could ever possibly be in real life.

I signed up to be a member and you can keep your photos private or let others see them. You can also view other peoples cuteness too. You can also get stickers made – don’t think I am not tempted to get stickers of myself made up and start posting them all around where I live. Ok, it is a bit egocentric but jeez – look at how freakin’ cute I am!