Japanese Actress Tamao Nakamura Who Collaborated with Tamagotchi Passes Away at Age 86
Sad news, Japanese actress Tamao Nakamura known for her roles in popular films Satan's Sword (1960) and Sleepy Eyes of Death, Ten Dark Women (1961), and more has passed away on June 9th, 2026 at the age of 86 years old. If you’re an original Tamagotchi fan you may recall that she had a collaboration with Tamagotchi!
Back in April 1998 a limited edition Tamagotchi named after the actress was released.
The TamaOtch was released in one pink shell, and the objective was to raise the character to grow up and become a movie star!
Rip to a legend who inspired the wackiest growth chart we’ll ever get. Playing this device to its fullest and knowing how to get each character was so exciting to experience after rhubarb managed to decode its programming two years ago. I had a lot of fun running mine in my shell swapped unit!
I noticed all these odd jumpers behind the screen of my V2 and decided to see what would happen if I shorted them together with a pencil, these are the results:
How to Download CH347 Drivers without wanting to crash out : Tamagotchi Style.
While this guide isn't specifically for Tamagotchi Meets/Smart flashing, I encountered the error while trying to flash my Meets! So, here you go!
This should fic the below error showing in AsProgrammer when "read IC" is selected (no matter if it's attached to a chip or not). This is NOT for if flashes are showing as F's and 0's. This is STRICTLY for the below error.
Error connecting CH347(-1)
First, easy things to check:
do you have the correct device selected?
are you in administrator mode? (google it if you don't know wtf this means)
is it plugged into a USB? Maybe try a different plug!
If none of those work, ensure you have drivers for both the CH341 and CH343 installed.
How do I install the drivers?
For CH343 drivers, navigate to the below link:
https://www.wch-ic.com/downloads/CH343SER_ZIP.html
Click the BLUE download button to download it.
Extract the folder. Right click -> extract all. Downloads folder works for this application.
Once extracted, the application we're looking for is under the below path inside the folder, wherever it's extracted. I made a new folder for the guide.
CH343SER > CH343SER > Driver > SETUP
Double click on SETUP.
Run the application with administrator privileges.
There will only be ONE option in the drop down: CH343SER.INF
Click INSTALL
Exit the program and continue with the guide.
For CH341 drivers, navigate to the below link:
https://www.wch-ic.com/downloads/CH341PAR_ZIP.html
Click the BLUE download button to download it.
Extract the folder. Right click -> extract all. Downloads folder works for this application.
Once extracted, the application we're looking for is under the below path inside the folder, wherever it's extracted. I made a new folder for the guide.
CH341PAR > CH341PAR > SETUP
Double click on SETUP.
Run the application with administrator privileges.
There will only be ONE option in the drop down: CH341WDM.INF
Click INSTALL
Exit the programmer and TURN OFF your computer. I know, it's annoying. Just do it. Do NOT reset. TURN OFF YOUR COMPUTER. And then turn it back on :)
When AsProgrammer is opened next and you have the CH347 programmer connected, click on Read IC:
The first collection was a hit, so there is now a sequel! Bandai Candy has just announced the Tamagotchi Custom Keyring 2, which features even more Tamagotchi Tamagotchi Original, Tamagotchi Angel, Tamagotchi Keitai Melon Soda, Entama, iD, Paradise, and more!
There is even one style that is a mystery. These not only feature a little Tamagotchi in their original packaging but also a keychain to strap them onto your bag. Each package includes a piece of gum which is soda flavored. Available August 2026 in Japan at confectionary stores for ¥418 including tax.
Don’t forget to set your Tamagotchi’s clock forward one hour for daylight savings today! That means you lose that additional hour to play with your Tamagotchi today. Perhaps consider waking up earlier?
I was recently sent a 4U to diagnose as to what might be causing it to not turn on. Once it had arrived to me and I was able to inspect it up close, my first thought was a dead capacitor due to the great condition that everything else within the inside was in. No corrosion on the battery tabs, none running down any of the wires, everything was still tightly soldered to the board, and upon testing the cap with my multimeter it came up completely dead. Easy enough of a replacement... But upon putting in a new one, it still wouldn't turn on! The old capacitor had a green insulation cover around it and my new one here features a blue insulation cover as seen below.
I got to testing other spots and found that the battery tabs connected to the axial leaded fuse were collecting the majority of the voltage from the batteries at a little over 2V, which they shouldn't except in the case that the fuse had blown from some sort of surge. Nothing within the battery compartment appeared to be damaged, so I couldn't understand what would cause it to fail. Talking to a friend of mine, he thinks the cause was the original capacitor shorting do to age, which in turn caused the fuse to blow (which is what it is designed to do in the case of surges/shorts), preventing power from going to the motherboard in order to protect it.
Battery and capacitor shorts are not a common place malfunction, so coming across a blown fuse was not something I expected to mark off on my bingo repair card. It did what it's designed to do though by failing like it did and protecting the rest of the device. Unfortunately I have no way of measuring it's amperage limit and had to simply replace it with a normal wire in order to complete the battery circuit and get power flowing to the rest of the device again. Here's a before and after photo showing what that looks like:
I had left the batteries in as I was soldering the wire to the contacts and as I touched the wire to the upper contact the device gave off it's start up jingle. The jingle of life!
Success! And a very interesting lesson and adventure in fuse and capacitor failure. Everything now runs smoothly~
If you happen to have any devices that are in need of repair, feel free to reach out to me on my Kofi!
Thought I'd start this blog out with my very first Tamagotchi from 1997, the purple and pink P1 pictured above! I was visiting family during the summer up in the Seattle area a couple months after the initial release of the first wave of devices that May. Tamagotchi fever was in full force by then and apparently pretty darn hard to find, it being the world's first virtual pet and all, but I seemed to have lucked out! Pink was my favorite color as a kid, but due to there not being any solid pink shells available among the shop choices I went with the purple shell for its pink accents. I didn't get much out of at the time since I was only 5 and had no idea how to really care for my new virtual creatures, but I've luckily held onto it since then and brought it out a couple years ago to spruce up after stumbling upon @oldschoolvpq and her delightfully fun "i break my toys" tag. Click through if you'd like to read more about my device's customization and what makes it a surprisingly unique release:
Following her Magical Multicolor Morino post, I grabbed a couple of extra original rerelease shells and cut at their buttons to give my shell a more fun and colorful flare! A pink button to match the pink accent of the shell and the blue and yellow buttons to match the blue and yellow found in the background sheet. But what really gave it some shine is the sheet of holographic laminate I added to the background, something I was also inspired by VPQ to try as seen in this post, and something that I've made a habit of adding to nearly every one of my vintage or connection era devices ever since XD
Sad to say, this device had remained in a box for decades as I had largely lost interest in the Tamagotchi trend all the way up until 2016 when I had purchased a Sanrio M!x, and then lost interest again until I purchased a Uni in 2024. Tamagotchi is certainly going through a renaissance of sorts with the amount of promotional events and merchandise they've been putting out since the global release of the Uni, making the 2020s a very exciting time to be a fan of the franchise. I am having a Tamagotchi Renaissance of my own with the amount of customization, repair, and translation work I've been lucky enough to partake in since getting back into the hobby! I have some newfound love for my original shell as well after learning that it is a "flipped mold variant." I had shared a picture of it with VPQ during which she mentioned the phrase for the first time and explained how mine differs from the average device. Can you tell the difference between the two photos at the top of this post?
Referring to one of the vintage Japanese guidebooks we can even see where the flipped mold originated from. A text bubble from the Tenshitchi to Asobuhon (てんしっちとあそぶ本) mentions:
The jagged pattern is different on the Spiral shell!
Look closely at this new color (design) and you may discover something amazing! That is...the jagged pattern that circles around the screen of only the Spiral shell seems different. Can you tell the difference?
As explained in the guidebook, the flipped mold was meant to only be used for the Spiral shell's design but it somehow managed to breach containment. Many, many releases can be found with flipped molds if you keep an eye out. The flipped variants could be found more often in devices released for the Asian regions in wave 2 devices onward, as the Spiral shell was a wave 2 design, meaning that the wave 1 shells cannot be found with flipped molds. However, any wave of releases from regions outside of Japan can potentially be a flipped variant, which explains my P1, since they released after the original wave of Japanese P2 shells. My purple P1 is particularly special to me now after learning this, thanks to VPQ, especially due to these flipped molds being harder to find in releases from the North American and European regions. Given its special nature, I felt it even more appropriate give it some new flare and glimmer ✨ I now leave it out to hang where it happily reminds me of my Tamagotchi origins whenever I look at it 💜 (now featuring a vintage style pink Mametchi charm made by Electronic Days)
Please look forward to what's coming and expect even more deep dives into Tamagotchi history and lore, as well as posts going into customization and repair methods! You can also follow me on IG @ mikachutchi and on Kofi at mikablu!
