Valentines Day is a day of love and affection in many places around the world. However, the holiday isn’t handled the same way in Japan as it is in the United States and many other countries. Instead, it’s part of a two-part celebration where women show their affection on one day, and men show their affection on a separate, later date.

If you’ve played video games, particularly dating sims like Tokimeki Memorial, watched anime or read manga, you probably already know this. Both the Tokimeki Memorial and Tokimeki Memorial Girl’s Side games provide fairly accurate reproductions of the affairs. The Tokimeki Memorial Girl’s Side games all even have mini-games where the main character creates chocolate to give to the guy she’s pursuing. And many anime or manga series that take place in school settings will often feature an episode or chapter devoted to the Valentine’s and White Day traditions.

To help readers better understand how Valentine’s Day, and the complimentary holiday White Day work in Japan, and celebrate Valentine’s Day itself, which is Sunday, Important Importables is going to go over how people in Japan celebrate both holidays…

There’s good news for fans of otome games, dating sims for girls, that don’t speak Japanese. A group of devoted Tokimeki Memorial Girl’s Side: 1st Love Plus fans are working on an English, fan translation of the DS game. Since it seems like Konami will never release the Tokimeki Memorial games outside of Japan, this is fantastic news!

The Tokimeki Memorial Girl’s Side: 1st Love Plus fan translation is being worked on right now by translators named Jewel, Miruki and Elaine, with Jewel heading up most of the translation work on the project. It seems to be going quite well, as the official website already has some translated screenshots uploaded, like the one at the right, and has a Translation Progress that is constantly being updated with the project’s status.

There haven’t been any Tokimeki Memorial Girl’s Side: 1st Love Plus English patches released yet. However…

Konami is enticing all otome fans to shell out cash for a game they may already own with Tokimeki Memorial Girl’s Side 1st Love Plus (TMGS).

The original Tokimeki Memorial Girl’s Side 1st Love was released in March 2007 and, now, exactly two years after its initial release on the Nintendo DS, players will be able to experience this cult classic with full voice acting (which was missing in the previous version). This updated version is currently scheduled for release on March 12, 2009, for the Nintendo DS (again) at 5250 yen (approx. US$53).

This update will also feature…