Brian Ashcraft

Woman Shows How To Kick Ass at Work

This is Nao Nagasawa. She’s here to unleash fists of fury. And do so at the office, apparently! With Wong Kar-Wai’s Grandmaster coming out in Japan, website Movie Enter! thought it would be a good idea for Nao Nagasawa to show off how Chinese martial arts can be used in your daily life—whether that’s dealing…

When Japanese Twitter Users Don’t Know Why They Drew Pictures

For the past few months, there’s been a cool Twitter hashtag circulating among the Japanese language Twitterverse. The tag is #なぜ描いたかわからないイラスト晒せ (Naze Kaita ka Wakaranai Irasuto Sarase), which translates to “Exposé of Illustrations I Don’t Know Why I Drew”. The hashtag is rather interesting because people continue to add to it, keeping things fresh and…

The Wii U Premium Set Is Now in White

One of the ways you could differentiate the Wii U Basic and the Wii U Premium bundles was their colors. Not any more. Until now, Nintendo has made the Wii U Premium Set available only in black (the Basic Set was white). But on July 13 in Japan, Nintendo is releasing the 32 GB Premium…

Hong Kong Starbucks Used “Toilet Water” To Make Coffee

In Hong Kong, Starbucks patrons are upset and for good reason: the coffee chain’s Central Hong Kong branch has used “toilet water” to brew coffee since it opened two years ago. According to Apple Daily, a staffer would push a cart into a men’s restroom in a nearby parking garage, fill it will water, and…

Quick update to the League of Legends mess in South Korea. Riot Games, as tipster Sang points out, is offering a ‘Silent Night Sona’ skin to those with log-ins between May 23 and May 31. Apparently, the ‘Silent Night Sona’ skin was previously seen as a badge of honor among diehard Korean players because it…

Phony Iron Man Fighting Urinary Tract Infections in China

Iron Man? More like Medicine Man. Or in this Chinese TV spot, Kang Zhi Ba Man. In China, Kang Zhi Ba is a brand of pharmaceuticals, and this commercial is for Norfloxacin capsules, which are used to treat urinary tract infections as well as typhoid fever, intestinal infections and gonorrhea. As recently noted by MIC…

Outrageous Japanese Fashion Wants To Go Global

Big hair. No, like, really big hair. Tanned skin. And incredibly long nails. Meet the young women of Black Diamond. They’re keen to go worldwide. In Japanese, this style of fashion is dubbed “gal” (ギャル or gyaru). The look flies in the face of traditional Japanese notions of feminine beauty: pale skin and black hair.…

This Music Game Cheat Sure Is Unusual

When you think of Japanese music games, you probably think of people doing elaborate dance routines. If you want to rack up a high score, you need to move. Or do you? Above, you can see YouTube user Aicecream777 dancing her heart out while playing Dance Evolution Arcade, the Japanese arcade version of the Kinect…

Make This Incredibly Realistic LEGO Gun

You are looking at a replica 92FS built entirely of LEGO. Impressive, right? Well, you too can put together your own. Here’s how. This how to is from Jeff Boen’s The BrickGun Book, which is a building guide for life-sized LEGO handguns, including the 1911, the BG22 with Magazine, the Desert Eagle, the MAC-11, and…

Yakuza on the Wii U Is an “Experiment” and Not Happening for the 3DS

Yakuza 1 & 2 HD is coming to the Wii U. But what about future Yakuza games? Are they headed to the Wii U? And how about the 3DS? So many questions! In a recent interview, Yakuza producer Toshihiro Nagoshi described the Wii U release as “an experiment” to see how many Wii U owners…

Shoot Resident Evil Zombies This Summer at Universal Studios Japan

For a limited time this summer, Resident Evil is coming to life at Universal Studios Japan. And apparently, you get to shoot zombies with the same practice guns the police and the military use. According to Famitsu, “Resident Evil The Real” is a five-to-ten minute long attraction that will be held at the park’s “Palace…

Which Ones Are Not Real Pokémon Trainers?

Popular smartphone game Puzzle & Dragons is coming to the Nintendo 3DS. The handheld version has two protagonists for 3DS owners to pick from: one male and one female. Can you spot them? And as commenters on 2ch, Japan’s largest online forum, are pointing out, the characters (below) really look like Pokémon trainers. Puzzle and…

League of Legends Is Still Pissing Off Gamers in South Korea [Update]

This past April, gamers in South Korea were upset about seemingly endless League of Legends server maintenance. It’s now late May. Things, apparently, have not gotten better. Last month on April 11, Riot Games made an official apology for all the server headaches South Korean gamers are experiencing. Since then, as tipster Sang points out,…

The “Masturbation Diet” Is Not Recommended

The Subway diet. The cabbage soup diet. The junk food diet. From Atkins to the Zone, there is an array of diets to help people slim down. Have you heard of the masturbation diet? You know, the one in which you drop pounds by playing with yourself furiously According to Nikkan Spa, a 28 year-old…

Two Melons Just Sold for $15,730 in Japan

Guess the Japanese economy is picking up? On Friday, two Yubari melons, weighing over 8 pounds, sold for 1.6 million yen (US$15,730). That’s a couple grand more than last year’s priciest melons. Things are looking up! What’s more, this is the third highest price ever paid for Yubari melons, AP reports. Typical melons are certainly…

Via Nova Crystallis comes word that Square Enix filed a trademark on April 24, 2013 in Japan for “FINAL FANTASY AGITO”. You might remember that PSP game Final Fantasy Type-0 was originally titled Final Fantasy Agito XIII. You might not! To contact the author of this post, write to bashcraftATkotaku.com or find him on Twitter…

New Japanese Photo Meme Is from Studying Too Damn Much

Online in Japan, teens often tweet things like, “I studied so much, my head hurts”, “I studied so much, my nose is gonna bleed”, or “I studied so much, I’m going crazy.” But what about when you study so much, you can defy gravity? For the past week or so, Japanese teens have been uploading…

Here, Have Some Games of Thrones in Japanese

There’s no Game of Thrones this week. How to cope? With a preview of its upcoming Japanese language disc release. While many of the books have gotten Japanese language editions, the series hasn’t yet reached the public in Japan in the way Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter have. The show is already being…

SuperDaE, the next-gen hacker, tweeted that he was granted bail and that he won’t be releasing his “treasure trove of gaming info”. According to SuperDaE (also via Twitter): “I guess everyone will have to wait for another day, I won’t be removing the trap however, just to be safe.” His comment was followed by a…

Stormtrooper Surrounded by Japanese Police After Murderous Tweet

Twitter account @vmlvlltl recently uploaded a message: “At noon on May 26, 2013, I will kill people at Sapporo Station.” This was @vmlvlltl’s sole message, and the user’s name was “Phantom Slasher Notice” (Toorima Yokoku or 通り魔予告). The account is now suspended, but Twitter users in Sapporo began re-tweeting the threat and warning each other.…