Video arcades are a dwindling business in Japan. Since the peak of the market in 2006, the number of arcades and scale of individual arcades has been dropping steadily. Kiyoshi Kameyama, the owner of the Amnet Gotannda arcade described the current video arcade climate in an interview with website Online Player EX. Arcades used to…
Mario, the Italian plumber with a kidnap prone girlfriend is the poster child of Nintendo. But is there hidden sexual innuendo in the world of Super Mario? Some Japanese players seem to think so. Consider the following: Mario: The size of his nose as a metaphor for a large member. Luigi: His name in Japanese…
Scrolling and swiping. Flat on her back, a young girl in Taiwan was playing with an iPad on her bed. When she got tired, the iPad slipped out of her hand and hit the girl in the mouth. The corner of the iPad hit her front teeth, causing them to chip. Cracked smile aside, the…
On Twitter, just because you follow someone, that doesn’t mean that person will follow you back. That’s just how it works. Aoi Sola is one of Japan’s most popular adult video actresses. She also has a huge following in China. No wonder she has over 300,000 Twitter followers. People love Aoi Sola. A 40-something man…
The anime scene in Japan, while not exactly booming in recent years, has certainly kept up appearances, starting over 50 new anime series in the month of April alone. Most are sequels or are based off of existing properties, like manga or light novels. Among some of the recent popular shows based on light novels,…
It’s like best of both worlds made better—way better. Japanese model builder mashed Gundam Wing with Pokémon to create this Pikachu Wing. Brilliant! Have a look at more pics in the above gallery. Pikachu Wing Version [Modelers Gallery]
Hatsune Miku is a Japanese virtual idol. She is not the first Japanese virtual idol, but she’s the most successful. And China, well, China now has its own virtual idol, which recently apparently on television. Online, people are calling this Chinese virtual idol a Hatsune Miku rip-off, complete with a Vocaloid sounding voice. I’ll just…
Hearing complaints lavished on the use of chopsticks. People praising your Japanese after you utter an “arigatou”. The endless and repetitive questions. In Japan, some find these remarks and questions irritating—a form of “soft racism” called “microaggression”. But are they? As Derald Wing Sue, Ph.D. and David Rivera, M.S. pointed out in a 2010 Psychology…
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Persona 4: The Golden is getting a Western localization—that we know. But, as Japanese websites have pointed out, it *might* be getting a PS3 version and an Xbox 360 version as well as a Kinect version. Persona 4: The Golden was released on the PS Vita. Since the Western version’s website also has a PS…
Futsuno Fantasy might look like Final Fantasy—or maybe Dragon Quest The game’s initials, FF, echo Final Fantasy‘s. There are Chocobo-like characters called “Choko” and even Dragon Quest Slime characters called “Slimy” (“Metal Slimy”, too!). And the in-game sprite maps reek of DQ But make no mistake. Futsuno Fantasy is not Final Fantasy—nor is it Dragon…
Like this! Above is a sample of the game’s Korean voice track compared with the English voice track. While some non-Korean speakers seem to think this voice track is pretty groovy (even saying they’d prefer it over the English track), many Korean speakers aren’t exactly thrilled. Case in point? At around the 2:17 to 2:20…
Just because cable cars offer wonderful nature views, doesn’t mean they should offer views of folks getting down au naturel. The cable car service in China’s Yaoshan mountain is supposedly safe, but bumping and grinding might cause the cable car to start-a-rockin’. That seems far less safe. It’s not just shaking cable cars that led…
Crane games typically offer stuffed animals, not real animals for prizes. This crane game, however, looks to be anything but typical. Spotted by author and game localizer Matt Alt, this UFO Catcher is stocked with fugu (poison blowfish) and axolotl salamanders. According to Alt, “they’re almost impossible to win” due to the weak claw arm…
The latest iOS version of The King of Fighters, The King of Fighters-i 2012, features a beefy rooster with 32 playable characters. That’s a lot! It also has wireless versus battles. [iTunes]
Japan does not have a shortage of video game inspired porn parodies. In the past few years, dirty moviemaker TMA has specialized in skin flick takes on popular games, anime, and manga. One parody, however, will vanish from its line-up. Layers;Gate is a blue movie version of Steins;Gate, a visual novel originally created for the…
Good news, Japanese game fans! Persona 4 Golden is getting an official Western release. It will be out this fall in North America. Persona 4: The Golden is a PS Vita version of the PlayStation 2 role-playing game, Persona 4. It adds new animation, at least one new character and new voice acting to the…
In the West, porn star Billy Herrington is known for flicks like HotMen CoolBoyz. In Japan, he’s an internet icon and dubbed “aniki” or “big brother”. He’s achieve meme status, and his clips are often humorously mish mashed and edited. He’s the live action equivalent of the Yaranaika Guy In Japan, there are even Billy…
Remember Toylets? It’s that toilet-based gaming system Sega created for drunk people to pee on. If you thought that you had to go out to bars to enjoy pee-powered Sega mini-games, you were wrong. Sega recently let it dribble out that individuals can purchase the system, too. The hardware is ¥140,000 (US$1,747), while each mini-game…
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