On our visit to the Tokyo Game Show, it seemed like just about every flat surface outside and around Makuhari Messe, the event’s venue, was plastered with ads for upcoming horror title Psycho Break. Inside nearby Keihin Makuhari Station, though, there was a different advertising blitz going on.

Adorning the train station’s walls was a series of posters showing nothing but legs. We’re sure they caught the eyes of plenty of male attendees, but just what the heck are they advertising?

The logical guess would be that they’re promoting the new smartphone game where you massage the thighs and calves of tired young women. After all, the posters and game certainly share an admiration of leggy ladies.

That’s not the case, though, and the differing art styles are an easy tip-off. Whereas the massage game uses what appear to be actual photographs, these posters are all painted, anime-style images.

Actually, these ads are all for one of the biggest players at the show, collectable card game company Bushiroad. (wrtten ブシロード in Japanese).

So what do legs have to do with cards? Well, while the play mechanics of Bushiroad’s games are evidentially enjoyable enough to have propelled the company to the top of its field in Japan, there’s no denying that a big part of what keeps fans buying new packs of cards is their artwork of attractive anime girls, with as much space dedicated to showing off their shiny flesh as the card’s in-game effects.

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But you can only go to the same well so often before saturation sets in and people become desensitized to the mammary-based marketing you’re waggling in their faces. It could be that someone at Bushiroad saw the Tokyo Game Show as a chance to try something new and revolutionary. This might signal a shift in the industry, and a new challenge for artists who’ll now have to learn to differentiate their characters from one another based more on their footwear than their hairstyles.

Or, maybe, dudes just really like looking at girls’ legs.

Sources: Twitter, 
Insert image: Bushiroad