Launching day-and-date with Atlus’ sexy Persona spin-off Catherine, Another Take on Catherine is 70 minutes of Japanese gravure idol CoCo demonstrating how much she looks like the game’s title character both with and without clothes. Just don’t ask her to play the game.
Another Take on Catherine is one of the latest releases from Studio Happy Chicken Pink, a gravure idol studio based in Japan. Gravure idols are Japanese models with a flair for teasing, rarely appearing completely naked but getting pretty damn close. We’re talking wearing a piece of string with strategically placed flower petals while a massage chair shakes their bodies close. That’s an actual scene from another Studio Happy Chicken Pink release, currently featured on the studio’s not-particularly-safe-for-work website.
Studio Happy Chicken Pink has the distinction of being the only gravure idol studio in Japan run by foreigners (in this case, Americans), and is the first studio to distribute gravure DVD’s to a worldwide market, which is why you can currently preorder Another Take on Catherine on Amazon.com.
Atlus has nothing to do with Another Take on Catherine. According to my contact at the publisher, no one there was aware it existed.
Studio Happy Chicken Pink is very aware of Atlus, of course. The studio’s Charlie Maib told me that while Studio Happy Chicken Pink is full of gamers that studied the Japanese version of Catherine closely, the gravure film will be a rather loose interpretation. “Keep in mind Another Take on Catherine has not been endorsed by Atlus, so we have gotten as close as we can to the source material without treading into dangerous legal territory. It is not a retelling of the game’s story, but as the title suggests, another take on the character of Catherine.”
Judging by the box shot, gravure idol and former Pocky Girl CoCo definitely gets into the spirit of the character, even if she’s less-than-stellar at the game itself.
“I can report that CoCo is particularly not good at it,” said Maib, adding “Even after Atlus released the patch to make it easier.”
Another Take on Catherine ships on July 26, the same day Catherine hits the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in North America. I may have to order a copy, purely for research purposes.
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