Kotaku East

Postcards from Japan’s Most Eagerly Awaited 3DS Game

Next March, Monster Hunter 4 is slated for the 3DS. The game is a huge boon for Nintendo as it will definitely move loads of 3DS portables. So many Japanese gamers cannot wait to play this game! Today, Capcom released a handful of “field” screenshots, showing off the game’s scenery and locations. Monster Hunter 4…

Taiwan’s Most Famous Cosplayer Just Wants Happiness

It all started with One Piece. Last fall, Macau-born Sunny Lin exploded on the scene with a cosplay of One Piece character Boa Hancock. Online in Asia, she was declared the closest the world would get to a real life Boa. Lin was able to parlay that into magazine spreads, such as this on her…

Namco Bandai is releasing a new PSP game called Battle Robot Damashii, featuring mecha from the Robot Damashii toyline.

Capcom thinks the Wii U could let it make a “unique Resident Evil game”. How about a scary one?

Why Japan Should Thank Nintendo. And Why It Shouldn’t.

Spend any time on Japanese websites, blogs, and forums, and you’ll eventually see it: ありがとう任天堂. It means “Arigato Nintendo” or “Thank you Nintendo”. “Arigato Nintendo” is a meme in Japan. It first appeared on popular Japanese game site Sinobi in 2009 in a piece that detailed the staggering first day sales of New Super Mario…

This Might Be the Best iPhone Theft Story Ever

A 27 year-old Taiwanese man surnamed Luo befriended a woman surnamed Lin, 21, a resident of New Taipei City. They met in an internet chatroom. And she allegedly made off with his phone. But there’s a twist. According to NOWnews website (via Global Times), Lin visited Hsinchu, a city in northern Taiwan, where Luo lives.…

How a Naked Japanese Man Launched Endless Photoshops

This March, a NSFW thread popped up on 2ch, the country’s largest bulletin board. The thread’s title was “Let’s Gather All the Nude Art Model Pics by Searching Google!”, and it featured an array of nude art models. But something funny happened. An internet superstar was discovered. The original thread from March seems to have…

Nintendo Says the 3DS Is Doing “Weaker” in the West Than Expected

Nintendo really turned things around for the 3DS. For a while, due to a variety of reasons (some out of Nintendo’s control), things did not look good for the handheld. Now, there are a bunch of games, and the 3DS is really starting to come into its own. That doesn’t mean it’s meeting Nintendo’s lofty…

In a recent Japanese magazine interview, Nippon Ichi confirmed that prep work on Disgaea 5 is starting.

World of Warcraft Outfits Look Lovely in Red as well as Purple

Tasha from South Korean cosplay collective Spiral Cats is back with a slew of new cosplay. She and her team are among the best cosplayers in Asia—and the world. Their outfits, in particular, are stellar. Here, via her Facebook page, Tasha tries her hand at World of Warcraft‘s Alexstrasza and Sylvanas Earlier this summer, she…

Lethal Resident Evil Enemies, Eating French Fries and Hanging Out

In Resident Evil, Tyrants are mass-produced bio-weapons. They’re scary! In Akihabara, they’re the bald dudes staring at their fries. Which isn’t so scary. It’s actually kind of cute. To promote the Resident Evil CG flick Resident Evil: Damnation, a trio of T-103 Tyrants roamed the streets, rode public transportation, took escalators, posed for pictures, and…

The Result of Nintendo’s Investigation into Underage Foxconn Workers

From the sound of it, kids as young as 14 could have assembled the Wii U. Last week, Nintendo issued a statement to Kotaku, saying it was looking into the matter. Today, Nintendo offered Kotaku an update on the results of its investigation. According to Charlie Scibetta, Nintendo of America’s senior director of Corporate Communications,…

Macross FB7 is More a 90-Minute Commercial Than a Film

Thanks to the surprise popularity of Macross Frontier, the Macross franchise has been riding a wave of popularity for the last five years. However, as popular as Macross Frontier is, the longest series in the franchise was 1994’s Macross 7 (52 episodes, a movie, and an OVA). So this year, as part of Macross‘ 30th…

Report: iPad Screws Up Kid’s Neck

Apple’s iPads are intuitive. Even kids can easily use them! But should they? Like, all the friggin’ time? According to NdDaily (via MIC), a seven year-old boy in China experienced severe headaches and neck pain after spending too much time playing his iPad. The boy spent long stretches of time playing games on his iPad,…

Sexy? Disgusting? This Silent Hill Statue Is Being Called Both

Next February, figure maker Gecco is releasing this 25cm Silent Hill 2 Bubble Head Nurse figure. It’s priced at ¥9,800 (US$123—though, you can find it cheaper). Online in Japan, bloggers and net users are calling the figure “eroguro” (エログロ), which means both “erotic” and “grotesque”. Fair enough, I guess, as that’s what the Bubble Head…

Hideo Kojima’s Iconic Mecha Will Soon Loom Over Tokyo

As part of the Zone of the Enders HD Edition launch, Konami is rolling out a large Jehuty mecha on the rooftop of a building in Tokyo’s geek district, Akihabara. On Thursday, the Jehuty statue will go up on Shimura Musen Building in Akihabara and should be viewable from the main drag until it’s taken…

The First Two Hours of Project X Zone are Wall-to-Wall Insanity

This last week I picked up the Capcom/Namco-Bandai/Sega mega crossover Project X Zone. The game sports characters from Space Channel 5, Resident Evil, and Tales of Vesperia, just to name a few. But nothing, and I mean nothing, could have prepared me for the utter and complete insanity of this game. Read on to see…

The Racial Politics of a “White Guy” Playing an Asian Bad Guy in Iron Man 3

Ah not a white guy, sighed a Kotaku commenter after seeing Sir Ben Kingsley as the Mandarin in the Iron Man 3 trailer. Kingsley, however, isn’t simply “a white guy”, and this isn’t simply another example of Hollywood whitewashing an Asian character. Quick background: Kingsley was born as Krishna Pandit Bhanji in England to mixed…

Watching Project X Zone In Action Sounds Like a Good Strategy

Project X Zone is a game that combines many of Capcom, Sega, and Namco-Bandai’s most famous franchises into one mega crossover—including series like Street Fighter, Valkyria Chronicles 3, and Tekken, among many others. On the battle map, it’s like most strategy games. On your turn, you move your characters around a grid-based map and attack…

You’ll Never Believe What Game Character This Volcano Erupted

When Kyoto resident Clifford Brown was in Kagoshima on vacation this spring, he noticed something familiar in the swirl of volcanic ash in the sky. He noticed Yoshi. On his Flickr page, Brown recently uploaded the photo and titled it, “Yoshi Volcano”, adding that it depicts a “Yoshi shaped eruption from Sakurajima”. Sakurajima or “Sakura…