Hasta La Gadget!

One of the biggest trends last year was the promotion of otaku favorite game Love Plus to the higher and more mainstream echelons of the iPhone and, even more interestingly, the emergence of tie-ins with travel and karaoke services.

The band wagon will keep on rolling till its run out of steam, of course. Not content to simply play the virtual dating SIM game on your mobile phone or DS, even when charging your handset up you may want to get your fix of cute character charm.

Enter the new Love Plus Phone Charger, which works with your Japanese cellphone, iPhone or game console and is, needless to say, fully decorated with one of the game’s leading ladies. Apparently every activity, no matter how mundane, can now be refined to have relevance to your SIM romance.

After choosing which girl you want (Manaka, Nene or Rinko) you then have to put on your patience cap and wait till February for the official release. No doubt, if this latest merchandise is a hit then there’ll be more to tempt the wallets of otaku consumers. The local price is 5,480 yen (about $67.50), which, though the charger works with a lot of different handsets, still seems quite a lot to pay to the uninitiated at least.