Kotaku East

Japanese Manners Made Easy 

Maybe you’ve been to Japan or plan on going. Perhaps you recently moved here, or it could be that you’re simply interested in the country. Japanese manners can be complex and filled with all sorts of intricacies that are tricky to navigate. The following tips can help. What makes manners in Japan such a potential…

Japan Has BBQ Restaurants For You And Your Dog

Going out for yakiniku (literally, “grilled meat”) is always a treat in Japan. At the Ushisuke chain of restaurants in Tokyo and Yokohama, you not only get to grill delicious meat for yourself but also for your dog. Pets can sit at the table and order Then, they watch patiently as the food is cooked…

Let’s Admire Sailor Moon Anime Scenery 

The original Sailor Moon anime had some seriously stunning backgrounds. Look at those pastels! Adapted from the popular manga, the Sailor Moon anime debuted in Japan in 1992. And the artists that worked on it created something really special and truly beautiful The interiors are also terrific This article was originally published on April 4,…

K-Pop Pick Of The Day: Bomb Bomb

It would be too easy to say that KARD’s latest track is—*coughs*—the bomb, but when a song absolutely slaps as much as this one does, I really can’t think of a better descriptor. Bomb Bomb is unquestionably the bomb. Bomb Bomb might be one of the best party songs that K-Pop has put out in…

Sega Producer Discusses Halting Judgment‘s Sales After Cocaine Arrest

After actor and musician Pierre Taki was arrested for alleged cocaine use, Sega decided to stop selling PS4 game Judgment. In a recent livestream, Toshihiro Nagoshi discussed the decision Currently Sega’s Chief Creative Officer, Nagoshi is credited with launching the Yakuza series and now works as Executive Producer on the games and their spin-offs. Nagoshi…

Senran Kagura Creator Is Leaving Marvelous

After 13 years, Senran Kagura creator Kenichiro Takaki is leaving Marvelous. Last December, Takaki discussed how making the curvy ninja Senran Kagura games has become more complicated. “Recently, regulation of sexual depictions has gotten stronger globally and taking that into account, it’s been said [games] need to be made so that they don’t cause misunderstandings,”…

K-Pop Pick Of The Day: 2 1 2

Urban Zakapa is one of Korea’s more prolific R&B groups, with five full albums and multiple extended plays, plus a bevy of K-drama soundtrack contributions, counted in their relatively young careers. 2 1 2 is the title track from Urban Zakapa’s third extended play album, UZ, released in 2015. It’s one of my favorites, with…

Japanese Pop Idol Apologizes After Being Allegedly Attacked [Updated]

Maho Yamaguchi is a member of Niigata-based idol group NGT48, a sister group of AKB48. Two men have been arrested for allegedly assaulting her. Yet tonight, it was Yamaguchi who apologized. Update Jan. 15 – 6:30 am: On Monday, an AKS official for NGT48’s parent company apologized this week, saying that the reason why it…

An official Pokémon baby brand called Monpoké is launching in Japan with Pokémon themed goods for infant and parents, including maternity clothes and baby gifts. The designs are simple, tasteful and refined.

Collectable Figures Make For Excellent Stop-Motion Animation

Twitter user Kenta Shinohara makes excellent stop-motion animation clips using game and anime figures. Case in point, this one of Ryu beating the crap out of a Red Bull can. Here is how the made the stop motion clip Here is more of Shinohara’s work:

K-Pop Pick Of The Day: Twinkle

The debut title track for Girls’ Generation’s first subunit is interesting for several reasons, not least for its gorgeous set design, outfits, and the well-produced music itself. But Twinkle is also the perfect poster child for one of SM Entertainment’s ethically dubious moneymaking schemes. Periodically throughout the video, viewers are subjected to intrusive, baked-in advertisements…

Not All Blu-ray Releases Overhaul Anime

It’s become expected that the disc release of an anime will go back and fix any spotty animation that the show let slide during the broadcast. That’s not always the case! As pointed out on 2ch, Japan’s largest bulletin board, the Blu-ray release of The Quintessential Quintuplets (Gotoubun no Hanayome) didn’t exactly clean up some…

K-Pop Pick Of The Day: Love Tonight

Trot is a uniquely Korean genre that’s had somewhat of a resurgence recently, after years of it being treated as “old people music”. Hong Jin Young is one of the artists leading that charge. Teu-ro–teu, also colloquially known as ppongjjak, traces its origins to Japanese colonial rule in the first half of the twentieth century…

Realistic Yu-Gi-Oh Duel Disk Costs Almost $200

A nearly one-to-one scale Duel Disk is going on sale in Japan. In Yu-Gi-Oh!, the Duel Disk is a piece of dueling hardware for card-carrying Duelists. Priced at 21,600 yen ($195), this realistic Duel Disk has light up effects, and it can play four Yu-Gi-Oh songs and forty different Yu-Gi-Oh catchphrases. It was released on…

K-Pop Pick Of The Day: Neon

What exactly is K-Pop? Does it exclusively refer to mass-produced idols, or is there room for a broader definition? Is it kosher to call independent artists K-Pop? How about artists that aren’t even Korean? I bring this up because Neon is bound to become a lightning rod for this argument. Yukika, the artist behind this…

Sega is making a new Yakuza game for PS4 that will star Ichiban Kasuga, who made his debut in Yakuza Online. Sega is holding auditions for one of the game’s female co-stars.

Pokémon Go Grandpa Is Now A Mobile Phone Spokesperson

Last year, Taiwan’s Chen San-yuan went viral with his bicycle contraption to which nine phones were affixed so he could play Pokémon Go around Taipei. Now, he has more phones and a new gig: ambassador for Asus ZenFone smartphones. As Apple Today recently reports, Chen now has a whopping twenty-two smartphones rigged up to his…

Japanese Arcades Light Up The Night

In cities across Japan, arcades are beacons of the night. They are a place to take refuge, escape, and unwind, which is what makes them so special. Photographer Victor Gonzalez has started documenting Japanese arcades, hoping to tap into the nostalgia they invoke. For more, you can follow him on Instagram. He will also be showing…

K-Pop Pick Of The Day: Nothing Lasts Forever

With Girl’s Day’s Sojin announcing her departure from her agency, yet another one of my favorite groups has bitten the metaphorical dust. Nothing lasts forever, indeed. This is another one of those cases where fans saw the writing on the wall far before any official rumblings of trouble started. Girl’s Day’s last album released in…

How Anime Art Has Changed Since 2009

Anime art is not static. It is constantly changing with each passing year. Some of those changes are noticeable. Others less so. On 2ch, a forum member has posted the above image to explain how anime art has changed in the past ten years. The comparison shows prevalent stylistic touches then and now. The most…