I took a couple years of Japanese in university and while my aspirations of ever becoming fluent are rapidly vanishing, I'd prefer not forget what I've learned. This latest demo shows a primary focus on Kana and relatively simple Kanji. Seeing as how I've played this game already (er, several times, actually), I'm not too worried about missing some plot details. I see Play-Asia has it for about 75$, which isn't cheap, but I'm thinking of importing.

Any other games you recommend for a PS3 owner w/ relatively simple Japanese text? A kids' game which I'm already familiar with, like KH, seems like the safest of bets.

I can't give any recommendations for other games, but I can say that KH is definitely a good choice. I've never learned any Japanese in my life and I was able to navigate the menus and stuff with little trouble on both Final Mix games back in the day. That said, I think I'm gonna wait for it to come out over here since that's gonna be happening in the fall.

I'm personally looking into getting Kamen Rider: Battride War in May, which being a Dynasty Warriors-style game I'm hoping will be easy enough to figure out.