Kotaku East

Sword Art Online, Now With Flying

Japan’s popular series about life inside video games is getting another game. It lets you fly. Sword Art Online is a story with multiple arcs, perhaps the most famous being its initial story involving a game of death where players are trapped inside an MMO and dying in the game means dying in real life.…

Bootleg Console Maker Blatantly Copies the iPhone 6

The Chinese company best known for making knock-off Super Nintendo consoles is back again, this time with a mighty fine looking phone. 97973.com, the mobile-centric version of Chinese gaming news site 17173.com, reports the once console maker, Subor, is now making iPhone clones under its Little Tyrant brand. Back in the early days of console…

You Can Adjust “Bounce” in the New Dead or Alive

For their upcoming fighting game, Dead or Alive 5: Last Round, the developers at Tecmo Koei have created a new engine to bring their characters to life. Called the “Yawaraka Engine” (やわらかエンジン) or “Softness Engine,” it is the result of attempting to up the visual realism of character skin in order to make characters look…

The Anime Art Meme You Can Pinch for Real

The latest meme to come out of Japan has people drawing anime (or manga) style characters on the back of their hands. And? Pinch them The above photo was uploaded by Twitter user sakunyan3939 shows a back-of-the-hand getting a good cheek pinch. Cute stuff. The image was retweeted 17,000 times and spawned other photos. Here…

Endless Runner Nabs Gamer Over $3,000 In Prize Money

Endless runners are simple games. The genre, popularized by titles such as Temple Run and Jetpack Joyride, has players running endlessly and grabbing coins. Well, for one young man in China’s Macao, the endless run’s earned him a paycheck of over $3,000. The Communist Party newspaper, People’s Daily, reports that insurance salesman Zhou Yongjian walked…

Don’t Use Real Rabbits as Your Smartphone Case

Earlier this month, a Twitter user in Japan uploaded a photo of a “bunny smartphone case.” The image was retweeted over 37,000 times and, of course, has spawned a meme. Of course! Here is the pic that started it all. [Photo: ryooneokrock1] But hey, these are real animals. And they have feelings. They’re not smartphone…

Japan Is Even Censoring The Evil Within‘s “Uncensored” Version

The Japanese version of The Evil Within has filtered gore. So while the game is certainly creepy, it’s just not as bloody as it is in the West. Good thing there’s a download for an uncensored version. Shame this DLC doesn’t actually do that, though. As our colleagues at Kotaku UK previously pointed out, the…

High Fashion Is Best When It Looks like Anime

It really is! Take this this outfit created by fashion designer Junya Watanabe. It looks like Bobobo from the manga and anime series Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo. The similarity was noted by Twitter user Hound_7, who wrote, “This appears to be clothing designed by a famous fashion designer, but sorry, it looks like Bobobo.” The images have…

Turn Your Cat into an RPG Character

If you’ve ever dreamed of being able to play a cutesy RPG with a character based on your cat, good news. Your dreams are apparently reality. Slated for smartphones, the game, titled Neko Mimi Sabaibaa! (or Cat Ear Survivor!), has players to take photos of their cat with the “Nyanko Camera” function, which creates an…

Making Anime Faces Is Hard in Real-Life

You know sometimes the expressions you see in anime are incredibly exaggerated? They look hard to pull off in real life. Turns out, they are. This is Sekaichizu Kinoshita, whom Kotaku first introduced this past spring. Kinoshita has been trying to make a name for himself as the guy who imitates the various twisty facial…

How About Some Delicious Gundam Cake?

Sure, I mean, why not? Because this is green tea flavored cake modeled after the MS-06 Zaku II mobile suit. It’s not the first Zaku Gundam cake from Bandai, and it probably won’t be the last. The sponge cake is made with of coffee flavored mousse layered on a green tea mousse. The Beam Saber…

Oh Hi, Terrifying Toilet Paper

I’m not sure what I’d do if I opened the stall door and saw this. Perhaps shut it and back out of the restroom slowly? “I found something shocking in the bathroom,” tweeted Mea. She sure did. And she doesn’t appear to be the only one who thinks so. These “toilet paper art” photos have…

How Japan Makes Winter Food Very, Very Cute

You’ve seen what creative people in Japan have done with bentos, right? Well, imagine the same thing with hot stews. It’s fall! Soon it will be winter. And in late fall and especially during winter, people in Japan traditionally make hot-pots, called “nabemono” (鍋物) or simply, “nabe” (鍋). And now, some folks are making them…

Why You Should Play The Longest Journey and Dreamfall

With the first episode of Dreamfall Chapters coming out today, now is the perfect time for me to inform you why you should play The Longest Journey and Dreamfall. (Spoiler: it’s because they are awesome.) In the time before I discovered JRPGs, point-and-click adventure games were my favorites. From Space Quest and King’s Quest to…

You Can Buy Replica One Piece Swords for Nearly $1,000

Calling all One Piece fans! (With money to burn.) Now, you can buy some of the most famous swords from the famed manga and anime series. Toho Animation is teaming up with Japanese sword craftsmen for a series of four replica One Piece blades. These are expensive replicas that are built-to-order and are not mass…

Fatal Frame V is a Solid Survival Horror Game

I am a long-timefanof the Fatal Frame survival horror series—despite my aversion to scary things. And while I’ll be the first to agree the franchise has had its ups and downs, the series’ Wii U debut, Fatal Frame V, is a solid outing for the series. Good – A Decent Fatal Frame Story Fatal Frame…

Japanese TV Is Actually Pretty Dull, But This Show Looks Interesting

Online in Japan, people are calling new children’s show Dxuntsukupa: Music Time, well, “odd,” “awful,” and even “very interesting.” When foreigners visit Japan, one of the first things they say is that the country’s television is unusual. Generally speaking, I don’t think it’s too peculiar. Most shows are just people eating stuff or talk shows…

Anime Hilariously Explores What Makes Something “Romantic”

You’ve seen the same romantic scene a thousand times in a thousand different movies and, yet, every time it still gets you right in the heart. But what exactly makes it romantic and what would happen if you changed one little detail? In Monthly Girls Nozaki-Kun, the answer is hilarity. Good – Shakespeare in Love…

Pizza Hut Unleashes a Cranberry Crust Pizza on South Korea

And it’s in a cream cheese-filling. I dunno, I’m hip. I’ll try it! Dubbed the “Star Edge Pizza” (due to its shape), the 13-incher is covered with bacon, beef, sausages, calamari, shrimp, broccoli, and, yes, cheese. As Korea Realtime adds, you can either get cranberry cream cheese stuffed in the crust or apple cinnamon cream…

A 21-year-old man was arrested in Tokyo’s geek and gaming district Akihabara for allegedly robbing a maid cafe. Before committing the robbery, the suspect apparently got his photo taken with a maid.