Aksys Games is bringing over the popular Japanese shooter Deathsmiles to North America, with a release set for end of June. The limited edition is available for pre-order now at GameStop and at Amazon.com for $49.99.  The North American release of Deathsmiles will also include the DLC that is sold on the Japanese XBLM.
 

• Deathsmiles Faceplate featuring four cute angels trapped in a creepy gothic cage! This faceplate was never released in Japan, go us!
• Deathsmiles Premium Arrange Album! 15 spooky high energy tracks selected by Manabu Namiki, Director of Deathsmiles!
• Deathsmiles horizontal artbox and gameto compliment the shmup orientation!

 Damn, that's awesome news for you guys. I love Cave's shooters.  The Japanese version wasn't region free so I had to miss out.

Totally picking this up.  The art style is really cool and it looks challenging, in the good way that only shmups can provide.

Unfortunately it sounds like this game will be region protected as well, only playing on North American or Asian Xbox 360s. Region protection needs to die. Are there any potential publishers on your end that you could write to? It'd be great to see more games like this succeed outside of Japan; and Cave is taking note of sales.

I'm not sure if I'm going to get this game.  I'm terrible at bullet hell shooters.

@Linkshinks: Yeah, I've seen they had a stick out for the game. Little spendy for my needs, but a nice looking stick nonetheless. 
 
@JJOR64: From what I've read Deathsmiles is one of the easier games to get into for the shooter genre. There's still the classic hardcore modes though so noone is left out.

Official Aksys Deathsmiles site is up now. Character and game info as well as movies and screen shots. Less than a month away!
 
Deathsmiles Aksys Web Site

I've been looking forward to this for months now. Deathsmiles is a great shooter though I only got to play it a few times. CAVE isn't known for horizontal shooters but Progear no Arashi was fantastic and one of my favorite shooters of all time. I just wish they also made a non-limited edition of Deathsmiles since I have no use for the soundtrack or skimpy anime girl extras. 
 
Also, if you're doing your research and noticing that there's already a Deathsmiles II, don't feel too bad.. it's not that good.

Being published by Aksys, I would imagine that a non-limited edition will be released later at a lower price as was done with BlazBlue and Record of Agarest War. In fact, that is probably why GameStop had the game disappear, then reappear at a lower pricepoint, only to be adjusted back to the original price again; they were adding a non limited edition.  
 
I'm into shooters as I am into fighting games for the same reason, just for the fun in them. While I don't completely suck at them, I'm also not very good at them either as I'm not really into memorizing patterns and moves. Speaking of which, the combination of those two genres just got a sequel (Sendo no Ronde). Wonder if that'll get picked up as well?

Aksys has put up gameplay trailers for each of the playable characters on their website. Game looks great, can't wait! 
http://www.aksysgames.com/2010/06/21/deathsmiles-gameplay-videos/#more-4155