Kyary Pamyu Pamyu

People with PS4s and 4K setups don’t like admitting that handhelds are fun. I stopped pretending somewhere last year, when my Nintendo 3DS XL became the only thing I wanted to use.

I was sick for a weekend and played Fantasy Life for hours, barely putting it down. I’m still at the beginning—haven’t touched most of the professions—but something about it just clicked. The game had this pull that made everything else disappear. By Sunday I knew where every monster spawned without even thinking.

The New Nintendo 3DS LL is coming to Japan, and they made this commercial for it that’s almost offensively charming. There’s a J-pop artist named Kyary Pamyu Pamyu who recorded a song called Kisekae, and it’s the kind of earworm that gets into your head and stays. Everyone I know who’s heard it has been looping it for hours.

There’s something disarming about watching something commit to being earnest like that. No hedging, no irony, just: we’re going to be cute and we don’t care if you think it’s stupid. The commercial just sits with it. That kind of directness is rarer than you’d think, and it’s hard to argue with once you see it.