Ghost in the Shell Publisher ‘Never Imagined’ a Japanese Actress in the Lead Role

While Scarlett Johansson’s casting as Japanese cyborg Motoko Kusanagi has been controversialin the West, the original Tokyo-based publisher of the Ghost in the Shell manga seems totally cool with it. Kodansha, one of Japan’s largest publishers, first put out the manga in 1989, and as AnimeNewsNetwork reports, began reprinting the manga after Production I.G successfully…

Old Japan Meets Disney 

John Ramirez loves Japan. He’s also a Disney storyboard artist. This is where things get interesting. “I try to mix my love of animated characters and old Japanese photos for a laugh,” Ramirez tells Kotaku. Many of the images are from the late 19th century and the early 20th century. Disney and Disney-influenced characters appear…

Kerbal Space Program Gets Its First Big Update Since Release

“Turbo Charged” is the name of the 1.1 update for Kerbal Space Program, the space rocket building/kerbal murdering sim released in late April last year. After a year’s worth of development, and a short hype-filled pre-release period this past couple months, the update is now fully released. Taken from the KSP discussion thread accompanying the…

These Are Not Photos, But Incredible Pencil Drawings

Japanese artist Shinichi Furuya can wield all sorts of magic with pencil and paper. Furuya is a middle-aged salaryman, but in his free time, as pointed out on Ota News, he draws portraits of famous Japanese female celebrities like Satomi Ishihara, Rino Sashihara, and Suzu Hirose. It’s not surprising that his work has been featured…

Mother 3 Is Ten Years Old Today and Still Japan-Only 

Today, on April 20, 2006, Mother 3 was released on the Game Boy Advance in Japan. Ten years! Can you believe it? That’s good reason to celebrate. Oh, it still doesn’t have an official English release. Can you believe that? Fans in Japan and around the world have been uploading art and photos to the…

The Psycho-Pass Visual Novel is Messed Up

Psycho-Pass: Mandatory Happiness is set somewhere within the first eight episodes of the first season of cyberpunk dystopian animePsycho-Pass. And it’s made me do things so messed up that it’s hard to keep playing. [This post contains spoilers for the first two cases of Psycho Pass: Mandatory Happiness.] In the world of Psycho-Pass, Tokyo is…

Bukchon Hanok Village. Seoul, South Korea. By Lexi S JPGs is a photo peek into wherever gamers might find interesting. If you’re a photographer and have images you want to share, drop us a line!

The Mind’s Eclipse is a visual novel in which a mysterious AI leads you through a fallen utopia. System Shock overtones, anyone? The game’s visual style and atmosphere look excellent, though, and the story seems like it’s very much its own thing. It’s on Steam Greenlight right now, and it’ll be out later this year.…

Still Dreaming Of An Ocarina Of Time Remake

Look, it’s fine to remake Zelda games for the 3DS, but in 2016 when people hear the word “remake”, they want a remake. So the next time we get an Ocarina of Time re-release from Nintendo, hopefully it looks something like this. We’ve seen plenty of CryZENx’s Unreal Engine work here on Kotaku before, and…

Never Change, Guile

When you’ve gotta write parking tickets at 12 but be Maverick’s wingman any time at 3. Guile is April’s DLC character for Street Fighter V

Kotaku ‘Shop Contest: Lighten Up, Dark Souls

I know that fans of From Software’s brutal action role-playing games love their darkness, but with the third game hitting shelves last week I am getting sick and tired of dreary screenshots. Let’s brighten ‘em up a bit, shall we? Update Tuesday 4/19: Four days left! Let’s make it light and fluffy, people! In this…

And Now For An Absurd Call of Duty Play

They thought they had the bomb covered. No way the other team could get to it. They didn’t count on flying ninja squirrel soldiers, of course. No one expects a flying ninja squirrel. All you really have to know to understand this play (via MLG) by Call of Duty pro Jared “Nagafen” Harrell is that…

In Can’t Drive This, You Race While Someone Else Builds The Track

Can’t Drive This is a multiplayer driving game where one player putters along in their car while the other furiously scrambles to finish the road their arch-frenemy is driving on. In real time. Those are some grade-A ingredients for a batch of chaos-and-yelling soup. Here’s the game’s Steam Greenlight description: “Drive your Big Rig WHILE…

Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair: The Kotaku Review

Good morning, everyone! Welcome to Kotaku’s review of Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair. Since the two of us—Jason and Kirk—have already spent a ton of time talking about Danganronpa, we figured we’d team up to review the sequel together. [This review originally ran on 9/02/2014. We’ve bumped it up in light of the 2016 PC port…