Kotaku East

This Young Woman’s Video Might Surprise Your Heart

If you’ve ever spent time on Japanese online video network Nico Nico Douga, you’ve probably seen young people do all sorts of crap. You’ve probably never seen anything like this. The clip is about two minutes long, and features a young woman who shows off her new bathing suit. Stick around until the end to…

Check Out Japan’s Badass Motorcycle Cops

Today, it was announced in the Japanese press that the country is getting a squad of off-roading police bikes. That’s good, because some of them have been practicing. Since 1969, police officers from across the country have competed in the “All Japan Police Motorcycle Safety Riding Competition.” The goal of the event is to promote…

Final Fantasy Turned into a Religious Experience

The Ise Grand Shrine is one of Japan’s most important Shinto Shrines. This week, as the Emperor and Empress visit, the shrine is launching a new web animation with music from Final Fantasy composer Nobuo Uematsu. The tune might sound familiar. The composition closely resembles the Final Fantasy “Prelude”—if it’s not, you know, simply that…

Would You Like Some Grotesque Sea Bugs? To Eat?

This weekend, Yokohama’s Omoshiro Aquarium is holding a special event: You can eat those underwater pill bugs called isopods. Delicious! According to Yahoo News, the aquarium’s “deep sea creatures food sampling event” will also include a shark dissection show. The shark will be served as a fillet. Note that people won’t be eating the Giant…

Racism Forces Soccer Team To Play in an Empty Stadium

Earlier this month, a banner reading “Japanese Only” hung inside Saitama Stadium 2002. The incident led to the Urawa Red Diamonds soccer team being punished: This weekend, the team was forced to play in an empty stadium. And yes, the team is being punished for the actions of insensitive fans. AFP reports that the Urawa…

Cowboy Bebop on the PS2 is a Bad 3D Brawler, But a Decent Episode

Over the past few weeks I have looked at both the series and movie of popular classic anime Cowboy Bebop. And as the PlayStation 2 game Cowboy Bebop: The Serenade of Reminiscence never left Japan, I just knew I had to play it as well. Unfortunately, it’s a pretty terrible game—though its cutscenes make for…

Japan Is Making an Anime Girl Vacuum Bot

Um, thanks? I guess? This is Cocorobo-chan. It’s an anime girl vacuum cleaner you can talk to. The original Cocorobo launched a few years back, and it might look like a Roomba clone, but it’s way smarter, featuring speech recognition software and the ability to utter a few phrases. From Sharp’s Cloud Labs, the idea…

Log Horizon Makes You Really Think About Being Trapped in an MMO

Log Horizon is one of the fall season’s best anime. It’s not particularly action-filled, but it takes its sci-fi premise and runs with it—addressing the logical implications of being trapped in an MMO world The second half of the series steps it up a notch and adds war, international politics, and magic to the mix.…

More Chinese Transformers Made from Trash

Bumblebee, Optimus Prime and other Transformers have risen from junked parts in Jinan, China According to People’s Daily (via Beijing Cream), “repairmen” took about twenty days to make all these sculptures. The largest Transformer weighs five tons and is 15 meters tall. The images below are courtesy of Iqilu.com: These aren’t the first Transformer statues…

Goku, Luffy, Kenshin, Naruto and 48 More Characters Face Off

J-Stars Victory VS, the new Shonen Jump game, is a 3D fighter that lets you pit all your favorite Shonen Jump characters in battle against one another. In fact, there are 52 characters from across 32 different series. So let’s take a closer look at the roster. Assassination Classroom: Korosensei Beelzebub: Tatsumi Oga with Baby…

Cigarettes Are Not Cool: The Anime

To stop Japanese teens from smoking, Okayama Prefecture released an anti-smoking anime. It’s over seven minutes long and features crap animation. Titled “Tabako wa Dasai” (たばこはダサい) or “Cigarettes Are Lame,” the anime was created with the cooperation of a professor in Okayama Prefectural University’s design department. According to The Sanyo Shimbun, this is part of…

Can you tell what’s going on in the trailer for the Mega Evolution Pokémon anime special? All I see is bright lights, roaring, bright lights, more roaring, kid falling over, more roaring. Guess that’s normal for an episode called “The Strongest Mega Evolution.” Look for it on April 3, when the special airs in Japan.

Cop Arrested for Allegedly Stealing Another Cop’s Video Game Handheld

According to Nikkei, 21 year-old police officer Ryo Yamashita allegedly took 75,000 yen ($733) and a game portable from another officer’s room in a police dormitory in Hyogo Prefecture, Japan. Apparently, the theft took place place while Yamashita was off duty and his colleague was on duty… fighting crime. Nikkei did not clarify what type…

Chinese Game Company Wants To Sell Raw Pork

You read that headline right. Chinese internet giant NetEase will soon be selling pork. NetEase operates Blizzard’s World of WarCraft in China. It funds and publishes its own online massively multiplayer online role-playing games, on top of running a highly trafficked internet news portal. It’s also into the business of raising organic free range pigs.…

How To Draw a Tiger from a Penis

You will probably never look at dick faces, I mean tigers, the same way ever again. Twitter user Milkuzz recently posted these very helpful how-tos that explain how to use a dick drawing to create tiger doodles. Below, you can see the explanations. While they are in Japanese, just go in numeric order, and you…

A Look At China’s Dizzying “Rubik’s Cube” Buildings

Architecture is art. Some buildings are just cool to look at. Others are mesmerising and hypnotic, like one compound in East China’s Jiangsu province, which has been dubbed by Chinese netizens as the “magical Rubik’s compound”. Located in the Kunshan district of Suzhou in east China’s Jiangsu province, the residential compound on Kong Xiang road…

Taiwan Holds a Superhero Race

Over the weekend, the Avengers assembled in Taiwan! Well… sort of. This past weekend in Taipei, thousands of superhero fans and running enthusiasts hit the ground running in a 5k marathon. That’s right, thousands of people gathered in Taipei’s MaChangTing Memorial Park to take part in what is probably better described as a fun run…

Well, Someone Has To Make Erotic Anime Character Sheets

People in the textile industry work hard. But imagine instead of spending the day making Polo shirts or slacks, they churn out adult anime sheets. Note: This article contains imagery that some readers might find objectionable. Recently on Chinese site TTmop, photos emerged of a domestic factory where hug pillows are made for Japan (and,…

The King of Fighters is getting, um, a rhythm game? Apparently, this February SNK Playmore filed a trademark in Japan for The Rhythm of Fighters. It’s for “game software for computers, etc.”

A Speed Eating Contest for Japan’s “Most Disgusting” Food

Have you ever heard of nattou (納豆)? It’s fermented beans that are slimy, sticky, and smell like socks. I quite like nattou, but many foreigners (and some Japanese) think it’s utterly repellent. Sounds like the perfect food for a speed eating contest! If you are not familiar with nattou, here is a video of people…