What happens when the publisher of games like Need for Speed, Lord of the Rings and countless other huge worldwide hits attempts to break into the Japanese market?

This:

Those are gameplay screens from Hachikoi, EA's latest Japanese DS title.

Hachikoi is a love sim. Players learn from the death god that they're going to die on their next birthday, which happens to be one month away. There's only one way to avoid this fate: fall in love and make someone fall in love with you.

(By the way, the protagonist in this game is male. This isn't a boys-love sim... let's take things one step at a time!)

Both of the above shots are from something called a "Touch Event." The girl in red is saying "I want you to touch that area gently with cotton."

EA didn't share any other gameplay shots or details, so I'm going to assume -- I think reasonably -- that this is a game where you get to touch little anime girls with the stylus. It won't be the first one (I'm looking at you, SNK Playmore!).

The rest of the media shared today was artwork

Those are the seven girls you get to touch.

I don't know if you get to touch this girl:

The girl (the real one) is Haruka Nagashima, a new voice actress who will be performing the game's theme song, Ray! Flower. She appears in the game as the idol Haruka Nagashima (shown to the right).

I look forward to EA's latest attempt at tackling the Japanese market. Those console and DS Sim games tend to not make much of an impact on the sales charts here despite having totally Japanese aesthetics, so perhaps they will have better luck with the Doki Doki Majo Shinban crowd.