Kotaku East

See How The Attack On Titan Manga Will End

Hajime Isayama’s Attack on Titan debuted in 2009. Now it is entering its final arc, hurtling the popular manga to a conclusion. Warning: This article has spoilers. This weekend, Isayama (pictured) was featured in the Japanese TV program Jonetsu Tairiku He was shown working on the manga that made him famous, and the program featured…

Buying Plushies Of The Original 151 Pokémon Is Expensive

Earlier this year, Kotaku reported that a bunch of plush toys based on the first gen Pokémon plushies were going on sale in Japan. Twitter user Sekai bought all of them. The total cost? Roughly 180,000 yen or nearly $1,600. That, it seems, does include sales tax Here are more shots of Sekai’s collection:

Pokémon Go Led These Two Players To Marriage 

Shibu and Lily met in Odaiba, Tokyo while playing Pokémon Go. They fell in love and were recently married. Congrats to them! Their wedding ceremony was Pokémon Go themed Niantic Japan congratulated the two! And released Luvdisc during the wedding ceremony One of Shibu’s friends made this wonderful wedding themed clip that explains how they…

Tetsuya Nomura Says Final Fantasy VII Remake Is Progressing Well

Final Fantasy VII Remake was first announced back in 2015 with third-party studio CyberConnect2 handling development. Last year, development was moved in-house at Square Enix. Tetsuya Nomura says things are going well. Earlier this year, there was a Japanese job listing for “core members” for the remake. In a recent Famitsu interview, Nomura briefly discussed…

Top Street Fighter Player Arrested For Alleged Molestation (Again)

This summer, Street Fighter III 3rd Strike player Kenji Kuroda was arrested for allegedly committing indecent acts this February against a high school girl. He’s been arrested again for another alleged incident that happened last year. According to Sankei, the latest allegation took place in Chiba Prefecture on May 31, 2017. Kuroda is accused of…

K-Pop Pick Of The Day: Honey Bee

I have a thing about songs with saxophone riffs. And that thing is: I can’t resist them. Honey Bee was a once-in-a-lifetime collaboration between three singers from three very different girl groups: Luna from f(x), Hani from EXID, and Solar from MAMAMOO. Produced in 2017, the song—produced by Park Keun Tae—was an exercise in making…

K-Pop Pick Of The Day: Closer

When you’ve delved into K-Pop as deeply as I have (to be clear, this is not a brag), YouTube sometimes suggests artists, and songs, that you had no idea ever existed. This is how I found Haruna. I knew nothing about Haruna before yesterday. I still know basically nothing; English-language sites turn up zilch, and…

Today Was A Big Victory For Japanese Tattooing

Last fall, the Osaka High Court ruled that tattooer Taiki Masuda broke the law by tattooing without a medical license. Today, the court issued a ruling on his appeal. According to Asahi, the Osaka High Court ruled in Masuda’s favor, overturning the previous guilty verdict. Masuda’s lawyers argued that his intention wasn’t a medical procedure,…

K-Pop Pick Of The Day: Mistake

Drug Restaurant (yes, that is their name) is a four-member Korean indie band that is perhaps most well-known for its lead vocalist, Jung Joon Young, who rose to fame through Superstar K, a popular music survival program. This eponymous album and their title track, Mistake, was their second album—and their first since they changed their…

This Role-Playing Game Event Logo Sure Looks Familiar

“Brave Ground” is an upcoming event for role-playing game GranBlue Fantasy. I feel like I’ve seen it before. Yes, yes I have. As My Game News Flash points out, the logo appears to resemble Final Fantasy XIV’s emblem. Fans quickly noticed the similarity.

K-Pop Pick Of The Day: Blue Moon

There are two instances of Blue Moon as a proper noun. One is a resoundingly mediocre beer that college seniors buy when they take their first steps into microbreweries. The other is this. Rest assured, this is not resoundingly mediocre. Kyungri has been one of the most popular and most well-known of all of the…

The Reality Of Official Pikachu Donuts 

Mister Donut, the Japanese based donut chain, has started selling Pikachu donuts. Many of the images circulating online look fine. These, however, appear somewhat off. Here are what the donuts are supposed to look like, compared to the reality Via Pokemon Memo, here are the “mistakes” that have been served to customers Of course, people…

K-Pop Pick Of The Day: Downpour

How often do you see a new idol group that debuts with an expiration date already set in stone, even before their first performance? With I.O.I, that’s exactly what happened. This girl group was the product of a television show called Produce 101, and the premise went something like this: a bunch of agencies would…

Halloween In Tokyo Descends Into Chaos, Clean-Ups And Arrests [Updated]

It’s not Halloween yet, but the weekend before drew big crowds in Tokyo’s Shibuya. Costume-wearing revelers descended on the neighborhood, and the tricks made a much bigger impact than the treats. Update: November 1 – 6:30am: According to Japan Today, thirteen men were arrested last night for alleged theft and groping. A fire also broke…

K-Pop Pick Of The Day: Lonely

When Sistar—the group behind a veritable cavalcade of summer hits like I Swear, Loving U and Shake It—announced they were hanging up their hats, fans didn’t quite expect this. Sister had never been known for their ballads, having a discography that ranged from summer-poppy to sultry-poppy to cheerful-poppy and back again. And yet, for their…

DJ Hello Kitty Opens With “Motherf**kers”

Sanrio Puroland, the Hello Kitty and friends theme park in Tokyo, has been holding Halloween celebrations. DJ Hello Kitty got things started with a big “Motherfuckers, go!” DJ Hello Kitty is an officially licensed Sanrio character that debuted back in 2010. Since then, DJ Hello Kitty has been appearing in clubs all over the world…

K-Pop Pick Of The Day: Take Me To The Place

When Bekah, one of the original members of After School, became the latest victim of the group’s “graduation” concept, she released a surprise digital single that left her fans with not a dry eye in sight. I’ve railed long and hard against Pledis Entertainment’s treatment of their original girl group, After School, in several long-winded tirades.…

K-Pop Pick Of The Day: Goodbye

Welcome to Goodbye Songs Week, where we go through some of the most heart-rending and saddening goodbye songs from K-Pop groups whose numbers came up before their time. When Goodbye released in 2017—a full three years after 2NE1’s last album release, Crush—fans already knew what was a long time coming: 2NE1 was over. For three…

Here is the trailer for the upcoming Yakuza 4 remaster for PlayStation 4, which includes the first footage of Toshiki Masuda as character Masayoshi Tanimura. The game will be out next January in Japan. No word yet on an international release.

K-Pop Pick Of The Day: Cruel Fairy Tale

It isn’t often that listening to a K-Pop track makes you feel like you’ve accidentally stumbled into a tilted Victorian horror movie, but IU’s Cruel Fairy Tale does exactly that. IU’s Real+ album was a 2011 follow-up to her 2010 Real album and its breakout title track Good Day, which we’ve covered previously. It’s not…