…That’s the anguished cry that that precedes the action on each level of Inis’ (of Gitaroo Man ‘fame’) new DS based benevolent cheerleading extravaganza. The name of the game also has the word ‘Ouendan’ in it but as all the writing is in Japanese I can never remember what the game is actually called.

Above: The punk/pirate/ss officer themed cheerleading squad that you guide through the game are seen here helping a secretary to efficiently make tea.

Here’s a review:

• I love rhythm action games +50%
• Not as thumb cripplingly difficult as Gitaroo Man +10%
• No shark level style difficulty spike +10%
• The level where you help a secretary do her job well so she can get asked out by her boss +2%
• The level where you help a race horse foil a burglary +2%
• The level where the old sculptor goes to an aerobics class +2%
• The level where you have to help a dead guy manifest as a ghost to prove to his girlfriend he still loves here (yeah, i just got some dust in my eye, OK?) +2%
• The redemtive power of cheerleading +5%
• Think it might be quite annoying for people sitting next to me as I tap those infectious JPop rhythms out to the DS’s touch screen whilst sitting on public transport (though at least I wear headphones that don’t leak) -5%
• Those infections JPop rhythms +10%
• Sound quality crap even through headphones, probably compression related -1%

So… 87%

Typing ‘ouendan’ into google image search reveals that these militaristic cheerleading squads actually exist in Japan, though they are mainly pictured supporting baseball teams rather than orchestrating the citizenry of Japan in order to destroy incoming asteroids through the power of co-operation and positive thinking.