First it was tours companies and karaoke. Then a bundle of phone accessories. Now Konami has shown its adept collaborative hand yet again by getting together with giant Visa to produce a credit card themed on the Love Plus game.
Whereas some people might be embarrassed when, producing their payment method at the cash register, it emerges decorated with pictures of three skimpily dressed anime school girls — after all, the credit card is a archetype of adulthood, right? — the strength of otaku collect-ability cannot be underestimated.
Announced back in December, the Visa card can now be yours, but only until the end of April. Members can also receive a free present of an ID card for the fictitious Towano Private High School, where the three heroines from the Love Plus game attend, presumably so you can feel you are actually living out the role of the game’s protagonist.
These kinds of collaborations show how the Love Plus brand can be much more widely accepted than a snap judgement might conclude. Credit cards are traditionally seen as a status symbols but here otaku subculture can be married with it to produce yet another lifestyle outlet for displaying (or even flaunting?) your hobby.
Japan is refreshingly free from snobbery or any of the barriers that tend to restrain gaming elsewhere to a niche, and Love Plus is decidedly not ashamed of itself and neither are its fans. It might be easy to dismiss these kinds of innovations as “juvenile” but we perhaps need to give the makers and consumers credit, as Visa has done (quite literally), and recognize what is now a powerful brand.
Surely the most mainstream so far of its collaborations, what could Konami have up its sleeve next for the series? A Love Plus theme park?
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