Tentacle Bento is here!!! Oishii ^o^

   
    

I feel like I ought to have some ridiculously cutesy characters, or emoticons to dot around the place. Instead I have two limited edition miniatures, some posters, some foil cards, a bento box and a T-shirt. Oh and my copy of Tentacle Bento.  Here are some pictures for those of you who I know are still waiting for their stuff to turn up:

Yeah OK so it's a glorified lunch box from Japan... but still I think it looks utterly spiffing, and will actually provide a really good place to store those game cards. Because lets face it, once they're out of the shrink wrap, cards never fit back into there boxes properly!

The bento box opened up. You even get a plastic spoon, awesome. I'd have personally preferred a spork, the cutlery of kings... or chopsticks, but a spoon will do I guess.

The two limited edition miniatures you get with the Tentacle Bento campaign. On the left we have Marie-Claude Bourbonnais and to the right another version of Soda Pop mascot extraordinaire Candy and Cola, super cute! Both miniatures are one piece casts as you can see, and are rather nice sculpts, although they've clearly put the wrong sized skirts on as they're way too small.

This would be the front of the box. It's colourful and will stand out in a store I'm sure. Hopefully store owners will notice the rather large and prominent 16+ age rating on the front of the box at the lower left corner. It may not be adult themed, or contain mature content, what with most of it being a bit puerile, but it is content that is only really suitable for more mature gamers. So God only knows why I have a copy!!!

On the back the content is again spelled out for anyone who might be offended easily by innuendo and weird Japanese tropes.

The cards, they are colourful, clearly designed and have a nice amount of artwork on them, plus...

...you get a fair few of them!!!

Here's a random selection of the sorts of artwork you'll find on the cards. It's all cutesy anime stylie, and in keeping with the theme.

And if you backed the crowd-funding campaign you also get this rather wicked-awesome foil cards. What is it about foil cards that make grown men so excited? Seriously, I still have a need to own foild cards and foil stickers! Why?

These are the games rules. There's really not too much too them and after a brief read through it seems like a simple enough game to me. Obviously it could all go to pot once I add humans of varying intelligence to the mix, but there's nothing contained within that seems too taxing to me.

There is a small poster of the box art complete with bug eyes, unfeasibly large chests and skirts that are far too short. I'm not going to pretend I understand the culture that spawns such things, far smarter scholars than I have tried and failed. Lets just agree the Japanese see things fairly differently to us westerners shall we?

And here is the second of two posters, this one is much, much bigger than the first one and contains more crotch and pantie shots... plus tentacles, don't forget the tentacles. Sadly for those of you who would have liked to have displayed this in your home, or should I say your parents basement, it has been folded down the middle, so alas it won't look pristine next to your Sports Illustrated calendar!


So what do I think? Well Soda Pop have made it very clear on the box that the game contains content suitable for adults only, and there is a 16+ on the box. Plus the blurb clearly states it's a look at, and a parody of some pretty weird Japanese tropes, and is itself innuendo laden, which flicking though the cards it quite clearly is! I guess what I'm saying is that it is exactly what I expected it to be, a tongue in cheek look at Japanese Hentai culture, and done so with a dash of puerile innuendo. It's not taking itself, or it's subject matter too seriously, but it is certainly not a game about tentacle rape, despite what some would have you believe. We'll see whether or not the game is any good in a few weeks time, I've actually got a number of card games I need to finish off reviewing, so perhaps I should just lump them into a week of card game reviews? Sounds like a plan. I was also treated to some demo games of Z War One by Rob Butler and the guys at Ill Gotten Games yesterday, hopefully I'll have some more news for you on that product shortly. Peace out!