Kotaku East

Have Japanese Art Styles Gotten Better? Or Worse?

Time marches on. Things change. So do styles. But how did Japan’s animation and manga styles evolve? Twitter user @mayousa_desuga uploaded the above comparison between two children’s book versions of The Little Mermaid: one published in 1985 and the other published this year. The story is the same, but the art style is… different. It…

Amazing Fireworks for Japanese Comic Book Nerds

It’s summer! All across Japan, there are huge (and impressive) fireworks displays. And yesterday, some of Japan’s most popular manga characters got their own. Above is a fireworks version of Doraemon, the popular robotic cat from the future. For years now, Doraemon fireworks have been launched into the air. There are also Hello Kitty fireworks.…

God Eater 2 Looks Good on the PSP. It Looks Fantastic on the Vita

Namco Bandai’s hunting action game, God Eater 2–or as I like to call it, Monster Hunter with plot–is scheduled for release in Japan this upcoming November. In the meantime, both a PSP and a PS Vita version demo has been made available on the Japanese PlayStation Store, making comparisons possible. “The PSP version was so…

Xbox 360 and Windows MMORPG Monster Hunter Frontier G is coming to the PS3 and the Wii U this fall in Japan.

A New Breath Of Fire Is Coming. It’s an Online Mobile Game.

After twelve years, for better or worse, we’re getting another Breath of Fire. On their Network Game Conference stream, Capcom announced that Breath of Fire 6, the latest in the long-standing JRPG franchise, will be an online touch RPG for smartphones, tablets and PCs, released in 2014. Screenshots below. 「ブレス オブ ファイア 6」や，PS3/Wii U版「モンスターハンター フロンティアG」が発表！…

Deep Down, Capcom’s New PS4 Title, Is an Online Game

First revealed earlier this year at the PS4 reveal, Deep Down is being developed as an online game. Its keypoint is “dungeon”, so it sounds like this one will be a dungeon crawler. It was revealed at Capcom’s Network Game Conference and expected at this year’s Tokyo Game Show, where it will have a full…

When Facial Expressions Get Strange in Japan

Welcome to the world of “hengao” (変顔). Literally, it means “strange face”. And Japan has perfected it. “Hengao” is certainly not new—and it exists in various various forms around the world. In Japan, it’s an essential part of comedy, and numerous comedians have made careers out of their abilities to make funny faces. However, in…

Someone’s Mom Made Totoro Out of Noodles

And not just any old noodles, but with soba (buckwheat) noodles. But why make Totoro out of noodles? Twitter user @hy_s__ explains that his or her mom asked if there were any requests for dinner, and @hy_s__ replied, “tororo soba.” And this is what mom served up: Totoro soba! The white belly, however, is made…

Hideo Kojima Suits Up for Motion Capture

Today on Twitter, Metal Gear creator Hideo Kojima uploaded photos of himself wearing a motion capture suit and wielding a gun. “Why the hell?” Kojima tweeted. “What am I going to do? CQC?” he added. (“CQC” means, “close quarters combat.”) Does this mean we’ll finally get Hideo Kojima The Game: A Hideo Kojima Game? Hideo_Kojima_EN,…

Rain Would Probably Have Been Damn Hard as a Stealth Action Game

To me, Sony’s upcoming rainy day adventure, Rain, feels like a spiritual successor to the PlayStation 2 classic Ico – the visuals, the atmosphere, playing the part of a child lost in a (mostly) empty world much larger than himself… So much so, that I almost expect Fumito Ueda’s name to show up in the…

Our colleagues at Kotaku Japan are celebrating their fourth anniversary, complete with a new Kotaku-tan character, a cake, and Red Bull. Congrats!

Samsung Galaxy Allegedly Caught Fire While Gaming, Destroys Man’s Home

After dinner, a man in Hong Kong began charging his Samsung Galaxy S4 so he could play a smartphone game. Then, the man says, the smartphone caused his home to catch fire. According to reports on website IT’s House (via UPI), the smartphone’s owner, a 47 year-old man surnamed “Du,” was on his sofa playing…

Let’s Look at Macho Plastic

At last weekend’s Wonder Festival in Japan, there was an array of plastic figurines and models on display. Many of them were cute, a few of them were scary, and some of them were oh so very macho. Here’s a look at a smattering of the tough figurines and models on display. Robots, mecha, monsters,…

Wife “Steals” Car To Get Husband To Stop Gaming

Forgetting to lock your house door while at home isn’t that heinous a mistake, but to forget to lock your car, now that might be a big mistake; particularly if your wife has an agenda. First reported by Qian Jiang Evening Post, in east China’s Jiangsu province, one man busy enjoying his gaming marathon forgot…

What is XCOM: Enemy Within? There have been rumblings about this, but title recently showed up for PC, Xbox 360, and PS3 on South Korea’s Game Rating Board site. It’s been on the Steam Database. Hrm… [Thanks for the tip, Sang!] To contact the author of this post, write to bashcraftATkotaku.com or find him on…

Money, Exploitation, and Booth Models in China

Behind the glitz and glamour of China Joy allegedly lies a deep dark world of exploitation. The models that light up the booths and the cameras on the exhibition floor are both exploiting themselves and are being exploited by a system that is propagated by the very people that China Joy is for: the fans.…

Man Unsuccessfully Smuggles a Turtle in a Hamburger

A man in China loved his turtle so damn much that he tried to sneak it on an airplane by hiding it in a hamburger. According to Guangzhou Daily (via South China Morning Post), a passenger surnamed Li tried to get his “beloved” pet turtle through Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport in a KFC hamburger. When…

Korea’s Take on the “Virgin Floating Hand” Meme

You know hover hands? Those awkward photo moments that are called “instant virgin detectors.” South Korea has them, too, but they mean something else: Good manners. Behold, the “manner hand!” As tipster Sang explains, “manner hand” is basically when male celebrities don’t touch female celebrities while taking photos together. It can also be when celebs…

How To Turn Your Cat into Totoro

Have a cat? Like My Neighbor Totoro? Want to turn your pet into the titular character? Here’s how: This comes courtesy of Japanese Twitter user @bump_take, and the photo has been retweeted over sixteen thousand times. For good reason, too! It’s so adorable. In comparison, turning your cat into the Catbus seems way harder. Then…

In Japan, Square Enix just announced Dragon Quest Monsters 2, a numeric sequel in its popular Dragon Quest Monsters spinoff series. As some commenters have pointed out, this is a remake of the original DQM2. The game’s “general director” is Yuji Horii, and it will feature monster designs by Akira Toriyama. It’s also being developed…