Kotaku East

Make a Gummy Snack of Yourself. Because That’s Romantic.

March 14 is a special day in Japan. It’s White Day. On White Day, men are supposed to give chocolates to the women who gave them chocolate on Valentine’s Day. But why give chocolate when you can make a gummy version of yourself? As website Spoon & Tamago points out, Shibuya’s FabCafe is doing a…

Japan’s Advice for the Next Xbox

Japan loves foreign products—Apple, BMW, and even Red Wings shoes are popular here. Yet, there’s the Xbox 360. Gathering dust on store shelves in cities like Tokyo and Osaka. Unloved. People in Japan just don’t care! Poor Xbox. The original Xbox was a failure in Japan. The Xbox 360 was a failure in Japan. Microsoft’s…

Famed manga artist Mari Yamazaki is doing a biographical manga series on Steve Jobs (via ANN).

Delight in How These Photos Totally Look Like Anime and Video Game Characters

Sometimes, people look familiar. You know you’ve seen them before. Maybe they look like a friend from college. Or an animal. Or an electrical appliance. In the West, there are websites such as Totally Looks Like that compare images which… totally look like each other. On web forums, Japan does the same thing, finding images…

Special Effects Team To Blame For Asura’s Wrath Plagiarism, Say People Blamed for Plagiarism

Stephen Chow’s latest box office offering, Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons, is slated by the Chinese press to rake in billions of yuan by the time its run is over. However one thing is still causing problems for Chow: the allegations that his movie stole assets from a video game. Chow, the director,…

Is Final Fantasy XIV Coming to the PS4? Somebody Asked That Question.

Final Fantasy XIV‘s road to the PS3 has been rough. But now that the game is finally coming to the PlayStation 3, Square Enix’s Yoichi Wada was asked whether or not the game is headed to the PS4. “Basically,” said Wada, “I want to offer it through any means possible, but only after we’ve nailed…

Voice Actress Invents a Thong That Turns into a Wristband. (No, Really.)

Dubbed the “Wristunder” (geddit? GEDDIT?), the special panties were invented by Chiaki Takahashi, the voice actress who brings life to video characters in The Idolmaster, BlazBlue and many more. Takahashi is dubbed a “sexy voice actress”, and it often seems like she tries really hard. Probably too hard. But, hey, she tries. There’s always trying.…

Chinese MMO Adds Crane Riding and Space Ships, Ruins The Movie It Was Based On

Video game adaptations of movies are a dime a dozen—you’ve got Transformers the Movie the game, E.T. the game. No matter the subject matter, very few of the games turn out as well-received as the films—not everyone can be a GoldenEye—oftentimes these “tie-in” games are just a repeat of the movie but with some interactive…

Learn How To Make Swords, Guns, and Other Weapons from Japanese Video Games

Usually, when there’s a geek event in Japan, cosplayers show up in droves. Somewhere between the folks in skimpy outfits, there are always cosplayers carrying enormous swords and guns. They’re not real weapons, of course, but they can really help complete the cosplay. Want to learn how to make those awesome custom weapons? Like, yourself?…

It’s the year of the snake, and this snake drawing will blow your mind. Promise.

Pikachu Used To Be Way Cuter (and Fatter)

Pikachu, the iconic Pokémon from Pocket Monsters, looks slightly different these days. Adorable, sure, but not nearly as adorable as in 1997, back when the Pokémon anime first debuted. Not nearly as fat, either. Over the weekend, a thread called “Pikachu in the early days was way too cute” (初期のピカチュウかわいすぎ) appeared on 2ch, Japan’s largest…

This Japanese Popstar Has Truly Insane Gaming Hours

If someone played a video game, any video game, for a couple hundred hours, you’d say, wow, that person must really like that game. If someone played a video game, any video game, for a couple thousand hours, you’d say, woah, that person is hardcore. How about seven thousand hours? Popstar Maki Goto is taking…

Japan Lists Its Favorite Studio Ghibli Flicks from Hayao Miyazaki

Do you have a favorite Studio Ghibli film? You know, the anime house behind such wonderful movies as Princess Mononoke, My Neighbor Totoro, and Castle in the Sky. In Japan, kids and adults alike love Ghibli films. But is there one Ghibli film—rather, Hayao Miyazaki-helmed Ghibli film—that the country likes best? According to Shunkan News,…

In Japan, People Do Not LOL. They wwww.

You see it on Japanese forums. Strings of “w’s”. I often quote individuals as writing “lol”, “LOL”, or even, “lulz”. But let’s get something straight. People in Japan do not laugh out loud. Oh, no. They wwww. Using “w” is not new. Online in Japan, people have been using them for over a decade, which…

Serving Cooked Penis in Tokyo Won’t Get You in Prison

In May 2012, a Japanese illustrator named Mao Sugiyama oversaw an event during which his post-op genitals were served up for dinner. Five people paid money to eat them! And that they did. The event gained international attention. Japanese police began investigating the event, hoping to pin Sugiyama and the event’s organizers for breaking food…

Sony told a Japanese journalist that the PS4 won’t support CDs or Super Audio CDs, like the PS3 did.

Why I Gave Monster Hunter a Second Chance

Monster Hunter: it has sold millions of copies in Japan. I have personally seen it played in parks, on trains, and in countless fast food restaurants in the Tokyo area by everyone from kids to adults. Simply put, it is one of the most prevalent and popular gaming franchises in Japan. The same cannot be…

A Badass Samurai Helmet Fit for Mickey Mouse. Yours for $2,600!

Every spring in Japan, families with sons display miniature samurai armor. The armor, called yoroi (鎧), or samurai helmet, called “kabuto” (兜), are for Children’s Day. Families want their sons to grow up strong and healthy. It’s a Japanese tradition. Starting March 1, Disney, never one to shy from merchandising, is offering a “Disney Pure…

A New Disgaea, The Guided Fate Paradox, and Time and Eternity Are Coming to American Shores

Last night at their press event in San Francisco, NIS America announced they would be releasing three new Japanese titles this year. The first of these, Disgaea Dimension 2: A Brighter Darkness, is the newest PS3 title in the long-running strategy RPG series, Disgaea. It is a direct sequel to the first game in the…

Deciphering Pokémon‘s Mysterious Language

The Pocket Monsters anime originally used Japanese writing for on-screen text and signs. A pain in the ass if you need to localize the cartoon into other languages. So the Pokémon folks came up with a solution: a made-up language. A Pokélingo, if you will. Starting with anime series Pocket Monster Best Wishes!, the anime…