Culture

Human Family Transformed Into Mario, Luigi & Friends

The Smith sisters, aka Twiznik cosplay, attended this year’s Anime Matsuri in Houston in Mario costumes. As did their dad. And four younger brothers. That’s awesome, but even more impressive than the final result is seeing the video below of them transforming from human beings into residents of the Mushroom Kingdom via some elaborate facial…

You Can Cosplay In Secret, Wearing Regular Clothes

Regardless of the personality of the person wearing the outfit, cosplay is an incredibly extroverted pastime by virtue of what it is: a human being walking around dressed as a make-believe character, usually from a fantasy or science-fiction universe. That being the case, it’s certainly not for everyone. At least not all of the time.…

League of Legends pool party. Photo by Vaxzone, cosplayers listed exhausitvely here

The Next McDonald’s Happy Meal Toys Are Going To Kill Me

Today Activision announced a second round of eight Skylanders Happy Meal Toys will be launching March 27, but they will not be alone. The Skylanders: Swap Force characters will be the “boys” toy, and the “girls” option? It’s My Little Pony, dammit. “I think you’ve been triangulated,” said Kotaku boss Stephen Totilo when I showed…

Little Dogs Make Attack on Titan Cosplay Cuter

Attack on Titan isn’t exactly an adorable anime. But this doggy cosplay sure is. Twitter user 30miomio3030 created an Attack on Titan dog outfit, complete with Three Dimensional Maneuver Gear made from Amazon boxes. Bravo. miomio3030 [Twitter via Otaku News] To contact the author of this post, write to bashcraftATkotaku.com or find him on Twitter…

Future Batman Glows In The Dark (And Is Really Old)

A community site for game artists is holding their annual fan art challenge for Comic-Con, which means everyone gets to take a break from drawing space marines and draw some superheroes instead. Some of these images are just recreating the existing look/style of a character, while others are getting a little more imaginative. Satoshi Arakawa’s…

The Week In Games: Don’t Fear The Reaper

It’s a great week for fans of Japanese games and expansions for North American blockbuster hits. More Diablo III. More BioShock Infinite. Like, a hundred knights or something. That’s a lot of knights. TUESDAY, MARCH 25 BlazBlue: Chrono Phantasma (PS3) The Witch and the Hundred Knight (PS3) Cut the Rope: Triple Threat (3DS) Dynasty Warriors…

There’s So Much To Eat And Drink In Titanfall, You Guys

Hold up, everybody. Cease fire! Why are we shooting at each other, when we could be looting Titanfall‘s levels of booze, snacks, pizza, soda, and the odd Cup Noodles instead? Check out how much food Enjoy the Bits‘ Paul Yan has found in the game. Yan’ mission is to chronicle the appearance of food in…

Track: Battle Flag | Album: How To Operate With A Blown Mind | Artist: Lo Fidelity Allstars featuring Pigeonhed Kotaku Soundtrack is a selection of the stuff we’re listening to – and gaming to – at the moment.

Sunday Comics: Another Word For Plot

Welcome to Kotaku‘s Sunday Comics, your weekly roundup of the best webcomics. The images enlarge if you click on the magnifying glass icon. Nerf NOW!! by Josué Pereira. Published March 22. Read more of Nerf NOW!! Awkward Zombie by Katie Tiedrich. Published March 16. Read more of Awkward Zombie Penny Arcade by Jerry Holkins and…

Try The Chalupanator And Other Horrible Fast Food Mash-Ups

Are you craving a bacon-pregnant burger from Wendy’s, or one of Taco Bell’s countless variations of the same couple of ingredients? Why not have both? It’s so easy to lose sight of the bigger picture when determining which terrible yet cheap-and-tasty fast food to put in your mouth. We look at each individual restaurant as…

This Week In The Business: Virtual Insanity

QUOTE | “You really need those experiences to help people understand – most people just can’t suspend disbelief.” – Oculus VP of product and co-founder Nate Mitchell, talking about the difficulties still ahead in bringing virtual reality to consumers Elsewhere in the business of video games this past week … QUOTE | “Now we’ve got…

Pikachu Cake, I Don’t Choose You!

Things don’t always go according to plan when you cook meals—that’s normal. Your end result doesn’t always look like the snazzy pictures on the recipe instructions, or the boxes containing the ingredients. But this monstrosity that someone baked is something else. Normally, Pikachu is supposed to be a cute monster—like in the picture above. Recently,…

Some of Japan’s Most Wonderful And Strange Cosplay

Today, Osaka’s geek district Nipponbashi held a big street festival. The area’s main drag was closed off to cars, allowing cosplayers to roam free and cause all sorts of cosplay chaos. Every year at this event in particular, the costumes get more and more outrageous (though, there are some old favorites on display below). Either…

The End Of The World Doesn’t Have To Be Ugly

The Last Of Us’ singleplayer DLC, Left Behind, continued the main game’s legacy of taking place in some beautiful locations. Well, relative to the fact everyone’s dead and everthing’s busted, at least. One of the people to thank for that is artist John Sweeney, whose work on the main game we featured last year. Here…

C.O.S.P.L.A.Y. POWER

Sorry for that headline. I get terrible flashbacks, you see… This was taken at last week’s All-Con. Photographer is Neither Noir, the turtles are Turtle Power Entertainment, Casey Jones is Zander Yurami and Shredder, as he should be, is a mystery.

Demonic Puppy Needs To Be A Boss In Dark Souls III

Paul Canavan is art director at Scottish indie developer Blazing Griffin Studios, the guys who are probably most notable at the moment for picking up the rights to The Ship. You can see more of Paul’s work at his personal site To see the larger pics in all their glory (or, if they’re big enough,…

Milk and Cookies: remember those scrumptious-looking milk and cookie shots? You can make them too, using this guide/recipe by karinsurance.

A boatload of Metal Gear cosplayers, hanging out with series creator Hideo Kojima. As you do.

Track: Awake | Album: Awake | Artist: Tycho Kotaku Soundtrack is a selection of the stuff we’re listening to – and gaming to – at the moment.