Kotaku East

In This Dating Game, You Impress Ladies with Your Drifting

Car racing meets dating game. This is Drift Girls, and in it, you try to impress women with your racing—and drifting—abilities. The app is being released in South Korea and is heavy on both drifting and fan service. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a game that mixes a specific racing mechanic like this with…

CG Train Car is Better than Reality

Look at this beautiful train car. Look at it. Ton, who uses the twitter handle @ton_kenji, loves trains. As a former game developer, part of his former job consisted of making CG train cars. Over a year ago, he undertook the personal project of recreating a 103 series passenger train car in CG and yesterday,…

How To Make Black Burgers

You’ve seen Burger King Japan’sblack cheese burger. You’ve seen McDonald’s black burger. You’ve read the review. Now, learn how to make your own. Warning: If you get squeamish around dead sea creatures, maybe sit this one out. On 2ch, Japan’s largest webforum, one net user decided to make a black burger from scratch. It doesn’t…

Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate Is Monster Hunter at its Best

This is the Monster Hunter game you’ve been waiting for. If you’ve been waiting. Monster Hunter is hands down one of Japan’s biggest video game franchises. The game pretty much single-handedly set both the PSP and later on the 3DS as the dominant handheld consoles in Japan. Now, with the release of Monster Hunter 4…

“I will make anime until I die,” said Hayao Miyazaki in a recent interview. “I like telling stories and drawing pictures.” However, Miyazaki stressed that he no longer has the physical strength to do feature length anime, so expect him to work on short anime and manga.

Nintendo President Responds to Worries Over His Health

Recently, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata appeared at a company shareholders meeting. He looked quite thin—something that did not go unnoticed. But Iwata wants you to know he’s recovering. Earlier this year, Iwata missed E3 on the advice of his doctor. Later, it was revealed that he had a growth removed from his bile duct. Online…

Hey Japan, Have Some Orange Coca-Cola

Well, the official name is actually ” Coca-Cola Orange.” And it tastes like, wait for it, Coke with orange. As you can see, the drink is not orange colored. That’s good. [Photo: runaebi] [Photo: ksasahar] While people in Japan are quite surprised to see orange Coke, some folks abroad may not be! Back in 2007,…

Rumored Naruto Leak Might Spoil the Upcoming Movie

The Naruto manga is ending. The upcoming feature film is called The Last: Naruto the Movie. And supposed leaked images might give away some of the film’s biggest surprises. Or might be totally fake. Warning: This article contains possible spoilers, which might be complete bunk. However, if you do not want any part of The…

Star Wars Sandtroopers Do Not Need Nipples

Samurai or not, Sandtroopers don’t have nipples. Well, didn’t. This one does, it seems. Heh. Here, you can see a photo of an Imperial Sandtrooper figure. The photo was created by Rich Alot from RebelScum.com. Notice how many things are labelled? Notice how not one of those things is nipples? Er, two of those things.…

Aldnoah.Zero is a Dark Twist on Gundam

Each season, there are guaranteed to be a few mecha anime—usually following a young male protagonist who ends up as the pilot of a super powerful giant robot and becomes the good guys’ only hope for victory. Aldnoah.Zero takes this common formula and turns it on its head. Good – A War Never Ended Aldnoah.Zero…

Pirate Bay Co-Founder Arrested in Thailand

Until recently, only two of the three The Pirate Bay co-founders were in police custody: Peter Sunde was arrested in Sweden this past May, while Gottfrid Svartholm was just sentenced to 3.5 years. And yesterday, a third co-founder, Fredrik Neij, was arrested while trying to cross the border into Thailand. As Tech in Asia reports,…

A Figure Buyer’s Guide to Otaku Mecca Akihabara

So you’ve come to Japan and have even made your way to otaku mecca Akihabara. Since you’ve followed our guide, you already have all the Japanese games you could want! But that’s not enough to satiate you: You want anime and game figures as well—but have no idea where to look. Don’t worry. We’re here…

Watch Tetsuya Nomura’s Hatsune Miku in Motion

Last month, Kotaku brought word that famed Square Enix game creator and character designer Tetsuya Nomura had done a version of Hatsune Miku. Now, we can see his take move about. This short clip was created for a Hatsune Miku exhibit in New York City. So, whaddaya think? HATSUNE MIKU × TETSUYA NOMURA [HatsuneMiku@YouTube] To…

Ten Things You Might Not Know about Godzilla

This month is Godzilla’s 60th birthday. So, happy birthday Godzilla! And to honor the famous kaiju, here are ten things you may—or may not—know about the ‘Zilla. The following is gleaned from a Wall Street Journal feature on Godzilla. The whole piece is worth a read. Without further delay, here goes: 1. The first Godzilla…

I Could Slay Zombies to this Soundtrack All Day Long

Going into OneChanbara Z2: Chaos, I was expecting a lot of fanservice and some surprisingly enjoyable hack-and-slash action. However, I was not expecting an excellent soundtrack to carry me through the six hours it took to beat the game. So here is some of the game’s best music to slay zombies to. ICHIBAN WA ME…

So Far, the Chinese Xbox One Has Room for Improvement

I’m in a quiet room. My coworkers type away at their keyboards on a slow Saturday morning and then their attention is drawn towards me. They look at me with mix of disdain and bemusement. I was attempting to turn off an Xbox One with a voice command and nothing happened. Those feelings of disdain…

Hamster Bartenders Are the Best Bartenders

And hamster waiters are the best waiters. By day, Twitter user Kawanabesatou oversees grave sites. And in his free time, he uploads photos of his pet hamsters tending bar, serving sushi, selling tombstones, and relaxing in their hamster homes. The resulting photos are, you guessed it, adorable. The miniature items, which some people collect or…

How the Resident Evil Movie Actors Compare to the Game Characters

There’s another Resident Evil film in the pipeline for next year. So now is as good a time as any to see how the previous films compare to the games. While not brand new, the image below was recently uploaded to 2ch, Japan’s largest internet forum. It’s an excellent look at how the film actors…

Top League of Legends Player Worth Close To $1 Million

How much is a good League of Legends player worth? Well, if Korean media reports are correct, a cool million dollars. That’s supposedly how much is being offered for LoL super star Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok. Sina Games reports that Korean media has unearthed information that two Chinese media companies have tendered offers on players from…

Zombie Omelets Are Both Terrifying and Delicious

Rice omelets (オムライス or omuraisu) are one of Japan’s favorite dishes. But you know what makes them better? Zombies, that’s what. This is omurice. [Photo: Logsoku] If you’ve seen anime, you’ve probably seen omurice pop up somewhere. Often, people write messages in ketchup. [Photo: netamichelin] Sometimes the messages are romantic or cute. Sometimes, they’re funny.…