Making it in the Japanese entertainment industry ain’t easy. You need to stand out! And being cute is no longer enough. Just ask BiS. The group’s name stands for “Brand-new Idol Society”, and the girls have been doing an array of publicity stunts to build a fan base. Their latest? Auctioning themselves off to be…
According to the unpublished issue of this week’s Famitsu, Sega is launching a sequel to last year’s role-playing game 7th Dragon 2020 (pictured). The game will be out next spring. The sequel is apparently called 7th Dragon 2020-II and is set in the year 2021. The PSP game will feature a new job class (idols!)…
The morning commute in Tokyo (or Osaka, or Yokohama, or any other huge Japanese city) can totally bite. As if you already didn’t know that. Photographer Michael Wolf documents that in his latest volume of Tokyo Compression. For years now, Wolf has been snapping photos from a train platform, capturing the cramped conditions of the…
It’s called Monster Monpiece, and it’s a card-based game. That’s fine and all until you realize that it’s from Compile Heart, the folks behind Hyperdimension Neptunia. Oh, and that you have to stroke your PS Vita to play it. Developer Compile Heart loves making deliciously subversive games, and Monster Monpiece looks to be no exception.…
Square Enix’s Galaxy Dungeon is a new iOS/Android card battle game that features female mecha.
Even over a decade and a half after the release of the anime that started it all, the Evangelion franchise is one of Japan’s most lucrative properties. Each year, it floods the market with accessories, spin-off manga, and action figures—and I mean tons and tons of action figures. On top of this, a year can…
This is apparently virtual idol Hatsune Miku. Other than the pony tails and blue eyes, the drawing looks nothing like Hatsune Miku. It does look like Louis Vuitton’s 2013 spring collection, though. At least they got that right! Hatsune Miku originally debuted as a character for Vocaloid software, but has since gone on to become…
Akihiro Hino, the guy who runs game maker Level-5, usually looks like he does in this Game Watch Impress photo. Or sometimes, he looks like complete hell. That’s why Hino was quick to jokingly ask for forgiveness because his manga counterpoint looks “way too handsome”. He also added that he was “a little happy” about…
When you think of Evangelion, what comes to mind? Giant robots? Angsty teens? Massive amounts of religious imagery? A complete mind-fuck ending? But what about the soundtrack, does that leap to the forefront of your mind? Well apparently it did for Grasshopper Manufacture—the creators of No More Heroes, Shadows of the Damned and Lollipop Chainsaw—when…
This is Mimei Sakamoto. She’s a manga artist, a model, an author, a singer, and an awful-sounding person. Sakamoto, best known for her Rapunzel manga, is opinionated. Back in 2006, she blasted otaku for idolizing young girls. It was a fair argument to make, and one worth making. Her latest rant, however, seems insensitive and…
In years past, you’d always see them outside convenience stores and in parking lots, coping a squat next to their Subarus and Hondas, smoking cigarettes. They were tough looking. They were thugs. And they’d sit like they’re squeezing out turds. In Japan, there’s a style of squatting called “yanki zuwari” (ヤンキー座り) or “Yankee sitting”. Here,…
PS Vita’s 2.0 System Update hit, adding PC style email, PlayStation Plus, WiFi transfers with a PC, better browser functions, weather for Maps, and easier usability, among other features. Above is a Japanese promotional clip for the update, which should be hitting all Vitas. PS Vitaシステムソフトウェア2.00アップデート [YouTube] Kotaku East is your slice of Asian internet…
3DS game Inazuma Eleven 1・2・3!! has been delayed from late Nov. to “winter” in Japan.
Over the past few weeks, we here at Kotaku East have been taking a look at the previous Rebuild of Evangelion films as we eagerly awaited the release of the third in the series: Evangelion 3.0: You Can (Not) Redo Well, this past weekend, the long anticipated film was released in theaters across Japan. But…
When the latest Neon Genesis Evangelion flick hit theaters this weekend in Japan, the next Evangelion film was revealed. And at first look, its title appears annoyingly pretentious. It is. But it’s also interesting. The teaser webpage this appears on has the world “final” in the URL. The text says, “Next time, a new Evangelion…
Sega is teasing its latest, unannounced game with this site. Full reveal later in the week.
The Tetsuwan Dash is a long running Japanese series that features boy band (and former Xbox 360 spokesmen) Tokio. On the show, the group tries to pull off a variety of feats, like building a foam house or seeing who can last longest on the least amount of money—stuff like that. This weekend’s show had…
To help launch the all new A-Class in Japan, Mercedes Benz is releasing an animated short in which the car chases after a noodle truck. One of the country’s biggest studios, Production I. G, carries out the animation duties, while Yoshiyuki Sadamoto of Neon Genesis Evangelion fame does the character designs. Miyuki Sawashiro lends her…
This weekend, when folks settled into dark theaters across Japan to watch the new Evangelion anime, they were, as with most movies, bombarded with previews. Sandwiched betweem the ten or so trailers, was a short, 15-second clip that probably made the audience’s collective mouth drop. Most people probably didn’t know what the hell they were…
Some gamers are very good at video games. Some are just awful. And that’s okay! Still, there must be common traits of crummy gamers, and that’s what a recent thread of Japan’s largest bulletin board, 2ch, tried to pin down. The name of the thread was “Common Traits of Zero Gaming Aptitude”, and the forum…
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