Kotaku East

The World Cup of Iffy Japanese and Chinese Tattoos

Some of the best athletes in the world are facing off at this year’s World Cup. Shame that a couple of them are sporting some rather interesting, if not unfortunate, Japanese and Chinese tattoos. Previously, Kotaku profiled the perplexing tattoo of Greece’s Theofanis Gekas that was baffling people in Japan. As noted on Mixi News,…

A Diary of My First Day at Pokémon Art Academy

Dear Diary, after Mom kicked me out of the house because of my radical views on the role of Pokémon in our society, I didn’t know what I was going to do with my life. Everything in our world seems to rely on Pokémon slave labor—from construction work to farming! Heck, even photography seems to…

This Boring 7 Star Hotel Wants To Be Removed From Transformers 4

Earlier last week, Chinese property company Pangu holdings abruptly canceled their sponsorship of Transformers: Age of Extinction. Pangu holdings, which owns and operates the Pangu 7 Star Hotel in Beijing, now wants to have its image removed from the movie. The Pangu hotel is huge Chinese and Western outlets such as Variety have reported on…

​College Women Mysteriously Collapse in a Tokyo Street

Students getting drunk and passing out is part of the university experience. But this weekend, something strange and quite possibly sinister happened in Tokyo. Note: This article might contain content some readers find objectionable. On Twitter and Instagram (via 2ch), photos of a group of young women passed out in the middle of the street…

Chinese Video Likens Valve’s Big Dota 2 Tournament To The World Cup

The 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil is in full swing! As with the previous two World Cups, China doesn’t have a team in the tournament. But in the upcoming 2014 Dota 2 International in Seattle, China makes up 1/8 of the 16 teams. China has two teams participating in the 2014 Dota 2 International…

These Trash Transformers Are So Bad, They’re Good!

Chinese bootleg Transformers are a dime a dozen. The “robots in disguise” are so popular here that we can seldom go a few months without another Chinese fan making a legion of the robots, and now we have a set that’s so bad, they’re slightly good! Images of these “trashbots” showed up all over Chinese…

Pancakes on a Stick? There’s a Machine for That.

Pancakes on a stick have been a thing for a while now. Hell, Jimmy Dean has offered it with sausage. But now, there’s a machine that enables you to easily make them at home. Progress! In the past, people who wanted to make pancake on sticks resorted to using a corn dog maker—which has been…

Don’t Put Digimon Stuff in Your Butt, Please

Your pocket? Yes. Your bunghole? Just don’t. Please. If you didn’t think that was common sense, there was apparently a warning to Digimon players about just that. This week, photos supposedly of a Digimon Mini how-to book show the following warning: “Shiri ni Irenai” (しりにいれない) or “Don’t put it in your butt.” Because these little…

Chinese Supermarket Fashion Is Absolutely Wonderful

From tank tops made of toothpastes to dresses constructed with tissues, China’s in-store displays are incredibly creative. Screw clothes, check out how supermarkets and hypermarts dress up mannequins to sell vegetables, toilet paper, floor mats, and utensils. Recently, some of China’s best supermarket mannequins appeared online in Japan. The images are from Chinese social networking…

Makeup Turns Young Women into Old Dudes

You’ve probably seen photos of how makeup can change people’s appearance. Usually, makeup makes them look younger. It doesn’t turn them into old dudes. Well, makeup can do that, too. In Japan, “ossan” (おっさん）means an “old dude.” For little kids, it’s pretty much all adult males and for young people, it’s probably guys in their…

Persona Q Reminds Me of Playing My First Online Game… in 1991

New Persona series spin-off Persona Q has a fair number of elements that are a direct throwback to the first video game RPGs. But instead of reminding me directly of those, the first thing it brought to my mind was the first online game I ever played way back in the mythical year of 1991.…

Phantasy Star Online 2 is currently unavailable to play in Japan due to an ongoing DDoS attack, according to an official statement released by Sega (translated by PSUBlog here). Sega plans to compensate players for the downtime, and promises to release a follow-up report on Monday.

Gundam Optical Illusions Will Mess With Your Mind

To promote its Pixus printer, Canon released a video with Gundam plastic model optical illusions. They are pretty cool! In the video below, you can see how the illusions were created. Have a look: PIXUS×GUNDAM PROJECT「ガンプラ トリックアート スペシャルムービー」 [Canon@YouTube] To contact the author of this post, write to bashcraftATkotaku.com or find him on Twitter @Brian_Ashcraft…

The Original Sequel to Persona 3 is Better Than I Was Led to Believe

As I was recently watching the new Persona 3 movie , I remembered that before Persona 4, there was already a sequel to the hit PS2 game Persona 3 in the form of the anime Persona: Trinity Soul. However, only hearing negative things about it for years, I wondered if it was as bad as…

The Gargantia Game is Basically a Bare-bones Version of Pilotwings

Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet was one of last spring’s best anime. Now, just over a year later, it finally has its own (free-to-play) game—a game that is basically a visual novel mixed with a bare-bones version of Pilotwings Gargantia: Sky Courier takes place between episodes five and six of the anime, where Ledo—the pilot…

Let This Man Entertain You With His Giant Ring

Isaac Hou is a Taiwanese-American street performer hailing from Taipei City in Taiwan, where he lives for one thing: dazzling people with his amazing skills. Hou was recently the subject of a clip done by Kuma Films, a group of YouTubers who travel around the world to record and share all sorts of unique and…

We Didn’t Ask for This King of Fighters Music Game

As hinted at earlier this year, The King of Fighters is getting a rhythm game. Dubbed The Rhythm of Fighters, the game is a cross between a music game and a fighting game. Slated for iOS and Android, The Rhythm of Fighters should be available for download shortly, reports Gamer It’s good to see a…

Bad Tattoo Baffles Japanese Soccer Fans

When not watching one of the most boring World Cup matches in recent memory, Japanese soccer fans were watching the tattoo on the arm of Greece’s Theofanis Gekas. The tattoo fail, that is. As noted on Hachima, the tattoo reads “寒冷殺人魔” (kanrei satsujin ma) in Japanese, which literally translates as “cold (weather) murder demon.” The…

Microsoft revealed the Xbox One’s Japan launch line up, which includes Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes. That title, however, will be digital download only in Japan. Other launch titles include: Titanfall, Need for Speed Rivals, Battlefield 4, FIFA 14, Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare, Strider, Musou Orochi 2 Ultimate, Onigiri, Call of Duty Ghosts…

Korean Schoolgirls Wearing Backpacks Made of Junk Food

Forget rucksacks. You want a snack pack. And you want it built with your favorite cookies, chocolate and potato chips. Well, I sure do. Recently in South Korea, photos of these junk food bags have been appearing on numerous websites, with, apparently, teens making them for each other as birthday presents. Though, it’s possible some…