This picture probably doesn't qualify as a spoiler, but I beat the #1 ranked assassin and then saw this:

Reason #7,437 why No More Heroes is such a great game. It plays with the form. I went for the "real" ending. I looked it up, and apparently you only get the real ending option if you have purchased all of the beam katanas. Since I'm super-anal about buying every possible upgrade as soon as possible, this wasn't even close to a problem.

However, I did miss ONE of the collectable trading cards, waaaay back around assassin #5. I was very concerned that having an incomplete set would somehow screw me up later in the game, but it did not. Turns out that finding all 50 of the (initially available) trading cards means absolutely nothing. As in, it unlocks zippo.

I've got to reveal this, sort of like how I couldn't not talk about Snake's iPod a couple days ago. This movie shows off one of the awesome experiences about No More Heroes. I can't really call it a spoiler because it happens about ten minutes into the game.

That is so goddamned awesome, I can't even stand it.

I started a second game (on the easier difficulty), just to see what's different about your second playthrough. You get to keep your upgrades, money and clothing, and there's more cards to collect... including a bunch that showcase production art. So that's cool.

Although I will definitely table the game for a while, since other milieus beckon. I have a feeling I'll come back to No More Heroes during some future downtime to be named later. Just to blast through on easy and soak in all the cutscenes.

And here's the game's intro (followed by some Japanese promo videos), which does a great job of showing off the brilliance.

Moe!