Kotaku East

Unseen Tetsuya Nomura Sketches From the 1990s

These days Square Enix’s Tetsuya Nomura busies himself with Final Fantasy XV and Kingdom Hearts III. But let’s take a look back in time, before he was the famous game designer he is today. Takashi Aki, who worked as a planner on Final Fantasy V and FFVI, was recently cleaning up and discovered a handful…

Chinese Buildings with Fake Windows Painted On

In the city of Qingdao, a new apartment complex is raising eyebrows. Some of the windows, it seems, aren’t windows. They’re paint. China’s iFeng reports that on one side of the buildings, there are “false windows” that were painted to look like the real deal. From a distance, it is hard to tell that they…

The PlayStation 4 has a day-one patch when it goes on sale on November 15 in the West. However, when it launches in Japan next February, the console will come with the patch pre-loaded on the console.

Who Thinks Japan’s Owl Cafes Are a Hoot?

Forget cat cafes. Or black cat cafes. Or penguin bars. Japan’s latest novelty cafe is the “fukurou cafe” (フクロウカフェ), or the “owl cafe.” Owl cafes like Fukurou no Mise (“Owl Shop”) and Tori no Iru Cafe (“The Cafe with Birds”) started getting noticed online in Japan late last year. This summer saw more owl cafes…

I Wish I Could Make a Transformer Like This

Japanese Twitter user Dori Asuka made this Golden Warrior Gold Lightan robot from candy boxes. It even transforms. Incredible, huh? But making the papercraft was no easy task. Anime Golden Warrior Gold Lightan aired in Japan during the early 1980s and followed the adventures of a young boy and a gold cigarette lighter than turned…

Monogatari Second Season is More of the Greatness You’ve Come to Expect

Back in summer, I called Monogatari Second Season one of the five anime you should be watching. This is because it is, like previous iterations in the Monogatari series, one of the best directed, well written, and most visually stunning anime of the past few years—and it’s only half done. Unlike Bakemonogatari—in which the stories…

You Aren’t Looking at Ramen. This Is “Ramen Cake.”

Love ramen? Got a sweet tooth? Listen up! You can now eat cake that’s shaped like the delicious noodle dish. “Ramen cake” (ラーメンケーキ), it’s called. But that’s not the only food in Japan that’s getting caked out. In Japan, more and more people started to take note of ramen cake earlier this year, and today,…

Super Danganronpa 2 Reload Improves on the Original in Every Way

Back in August, I played Danganronpa on the PSP. While eager to play the sequel, I decided hold back and wait a month for the Vita re-release of the second game before I played it. But whether it’s on the PSP or the Vita, Super Danganronpa 2 is a game that improves on the original…

Disney will be participating in this year’s Comiket for the first time as part of a promotion for Ender’s Game. The movie will be released in Japan next January.

Chinese Hairstyles That Might Make You Sad

In parts of Asia, when you get a haircut, there are hairstyle magazines from which you can pick a new ‘do. They tend to have the latest cuts and most of the hairstyles are fairly typical for Asia. But, among the normal styles, there are outliers: The wild ones, the edgy ones, and the very…

You’ve Never Seen Animated Baseball GIFs Like This Before

Japanese animation isn’t just for television programs or movies. It’s also for the internet. And thank goodness for that. These animated baseball GIFs were uploaded to 2ch, Japan’s largest forum, earlier this month. They are fantastic. 野球アニメ描いたンゴｗｗｗｗｗｗｗｗｗｗｗｗｗｗ [2ch] To contact the author of this post, write to bashcraftATkotaku.com or find him on Twitter @Brian_Ashcraft Kotaku…

Capcom is making a new fighting game, it seems. On Twitter, Capcom producer Yoshinori Ono tweeted, “I want… no, Capcom wants Game Designer and programer for New Fighting Game. Its location at Tokyo or Osaka Studio.” Ono added that he didn’t know the “target platform” yet.

What Yakuza‘s Producer Hates about GTA

Hold on. Don’t start sending hate mail to Sega just yet. Let’s hear the man out. Yakuza series top man Toshihiro Nagoshi was at the Otemae University in Japan for a special lecture back in 2011. During that Q&A session a student asked him what he thought about the Call of Duty series. Nagoshi replied,…

Behold the Majestic Power of Karate

This is Rika Usami. An her karate kata skills are truly a sight to see. Recently, a World Karate Federation clip featuring Usami has been getting lots of YouTube play, racking up over a hundred thousand views in the past month. The clip is actually from earlier this year at the World Championships in Paris.…

North Korea Might Be Unleashing a Cyber Attack with Online Games

South Korean police are warning that downloadable games might contain North Korean malware. It’s believed these could be part of a cyber attack. According to The Wall Street Journal, South Korea’s National Police Agency made the warning after it nabbed a citizen for illegally trafficking in North Korean developed online games. A North Korean hacker,…

You’re Not Ready for MGSV. You Need Ground Zeroes to Prepare

Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain will be divided into 2 parts: The prologue, Ground Zeroes, which takes place in 1975, and the main game, which takes place in 1984. Sound confusing? It’s actually done that way to make it less so. In a one-on-one interview with Weekly Famitsu, Kojima talked about the reasons…

The Bayonetta Anime Looks Enchanting and Sadistic

Bayonetta Bloody Fate is the upcoming anime, starring, well, Bayonetta. Bloody Fate was first revealed earlier this fall with a short teaser trailer. This trailer shows a bit more footage, if you’re into that kind of thing. 劇場版 「ベヨネッタ ブラッディフェイト [KagayakiJapan@YouTube] To contact the author of this post, write to bashcraftATkotaku.com or find him on…

Traditional Japan Gets All “Cyber”

Tatami is the traditional way to cover floors in Japan. These mats, however, are anything but traditional. As one Twitter user put it, they’re “cyber.” Recently, Japanese Twitter user Gouranga (via Togech) uploaded what looks like a traditional tea ceremony tableau, but one that’s taking place on illuminated tatami. Gouranga noted that the mats seemed…

In Kingdom Hearts III, Keyblades Can Transform Into So Many Things

Check out them guns on Sora. The D23 Expo Japan 2013 was an event last week at the Tokyo Disney Resort that celebrated both the 90th anniversary of the Walt Disney Company and the 30th anniversary of the Tokyo Disney Resort itself. Nomura was there with Japanese cast members to show the latest Kingdom Hearts…

Just How Different Is the PS4 Controller from PS3’s

A new console means a new controller, the DualShock 4. We know it looks different. But let’s see how the thumbsticks and D-pad buttons stack up when compared to the DualShock 3. Via Venture Beat, here are photos of the DualShock 4’s thumbsticks, compared with the DualShock 3’s. Also, check out the D-pads. The PlayStation…