Doki Doki Majo Shinpan!

Doki Doki Majo Shinpan! (どきどき魔女神判！, lit. "Thump-Thump Witch Judgement", or more accurately translated as "Heart-Pounding Magical Investigation") is a video game developed by SNK Playmore for the Nintendo DS.

A game journalist from Kotaku asked an SNK spokesperson if this game would be released in the US, and the response was "...this title is only for Japanese market. We do not have any plan for localize to the other versions." despite the game originally having official sites in English, Chinese, and Korean. These were taken offline when the Japanese language site was rewritten to focus on the upcoming sequel game.

The player assumes the role of junior high school student Akuji. He has been asked by an angel, Lulu, to locate a witch that have sneaked into his school. In order to find the witch Akuji must search the suspects' bodies for a "witch mark". The preferred method is by using touch (using the stylus to guide his hands).

Screenshots for a sequel game, Doki Doki Majo Shinpan! 2, were unveiled at the 2007 Tokyo Game Show.

Main Characters

 * Akuji Nishimura (Seiyū : Miku Ozaki)
 * He is a junior high student hard at work on finding witches.
 * He is proud to be a bad boy and forced to cooperate by the threat of being changed into a good boy.


 * Angel LuLu (Seiyū : Hiroko Sonoda)
 * Apprentice angel. She follows by the arch-angel's instruction about Akuji, and helps with the witch search.

Suspects

 * Maho Akai (Seiyū : Misami Sato)
 * 14 years old. She has pigtails. She is in the cheerleading club. Ability: Energy balls


 * Maria Abe (Seiyū : Masako Ueda)
 * 14 years old. She is a Meganekko daughter. The crystal-ball fortune-telling is her unique skill. Ability: Potions and barriers.


 * Renge Oda (Seiyū : Erika Goto)
 * 13 years old. She likes retro games. Her most prized possession is 'Athena' on the Nintendo Entertainment System (with cassette tape), which is a clear reference to SNK. Ability: Teleportation and 'power sneeze'


 * Yuuma Mochizuki (Seiyū : Yuki Sakata)
 * 13 years old. She takes everything too serious and gets injured all the time. Ability : Wolfwoman transformation


 * Ayame Midoh (Seiyū : Oma Ichimura)
 * 15 years old. She is the only daughter of Shinto shrine. She is also the maiden of the shrine. Ability: Summoning familiar and talisman


 * Merry Watabiki (Seiyū : Oma Ichimura)
 * 12 years old. She is always wearing a rabbit costume. Ability: Meteors and explosive replicas


 * Eve Seiya (Seiyū : Hazumi Itoh)
 * 23 years old. The school nurse. Ability: Energy balls


 * Noel Seiya (Seiyū : Hazumi Itoh)
 * The archangel. Sister of Eve Seiya. Ability: Energy balls, summoning holy slugs and holy sword.

Other Characters

 * Cawasen Chiyo
 * She is on the cheerleading club. She has light blue hair made up of 2 small pigtails.


 * Reverse-Panda
 * The color of this type of panda is quite opposite to a usual panda. It hides itself in 100 places throughout the game. The number obtained at the end of the game reveals more episodes in the "Extra Episodes" mode.

Manga

 * The Doki Doki Majo Shinpan! Manga will be included in Akita Shoten's "Champion Red". It has been scheduled for September 2007. The illustrator is manga-ka Yagami Ken (八神健).

Book

 * The Doki Doki Majo Shinpan! Fanbook by Soft Bank Creative is scheduled for sale on July 5, 2007 (ISBN 9784797343472).
 * Doki Doki Majo Shinpan Complete best by MediaWorks is scheduled for sale on August 10, 2007 (ISBN 9784840240345).

Soundtrack

 * The Doki Doki Majo Shinpan! Soundtrack by Sten Och Flod is scheduled for sale on July 25, 2007.

Web Radio

 * An on-going web radio program, sponsored by Animate TV, is currently being released. It updates each Thursday. It can be found here.

Mobile Series

 * A mobile simulation for the series was also announced for release on July 16, 2008. Each entry will be split into episode segments, allowing subscribers to download the following entries.

Cosplay

 * Outfits for the characters are available for sale on SNK Playmore's website. The costumes were released on August 7, 2008.

Reception
According to Amazon.com, the game is the best selling pre-order game in Japan, and is more popular than The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass. Although there are no plans for a North American release, it has been the subject of a number of webcomics. These include:
 * A Penny Arcade comic in April 2007.


 * A Dueling Analogs comic in March 2008.

The import review of the game in the UK publication NGamer (like its predecessor NGC Magazine, famous for comical reviews of particularly bad games), felt so disturbed by the game that they abandoned their normal percentage scoring system and awarded it a 'score' of simply "NO" in every category. In a later issue (18) they "awarded" it "The Superman 64 (a reference to what the magazine considered for years as the worst game ever made) Award For Worst Game of 2007" remarking, "There are bad games - technically flawed and conceptually lazy - and then there are bad games. Evil bad. Doki Doki a.k.a The Meh Witch Touching Project, is one such title. Bothering schoolgirls? That bothers us."

Links

 * Doki Blog
 * i-mode mobile site
 * Interview with Gamespot Japan