Speed Pokemon

Not strictly something to do with Japan, but certainly something to do with Pokemon and that's just as good. There's a group of gamers in America who call themselves 'The Speed Gamers', and the idea is that they play marathon sessions of games to raise money for charity. From the 19th of December they'll spend 72 straight hours attempting to catch every Pokemon available and transer them all to one cartridge. Since Shaymin and Arceus can't be accessed yet, they only have to catch 491, not all 493 Pokemon. At least that's what they say, but I don't know how they intend to get Deoxys.

Because a lot of Legendaries can only be accessed through particular games, this means that they're going to have to start new games of: FireRed, LeafGreen, Ruby, Sapphire, Emerald, Diamond, Pearl, XD: Gale of Darkness, Colosseum, and its bonus discs, Pokémon Ranger and My Pokémon Ranch.

The group will be hosting a live web-cast of the games being played, and will also have an online checklist so you can see their progress. Should be interesting.