This week is Golden Week in Japan—a series of holidays. Because it’s Golden Week, Japanese game news has pretty much come to a halt. The entire country is on vacation. Earlier this week, I had a day off. And I spent the morning digging up bamboo shoots, or as they’re called in Japanese, takenoko. (I’m…
There’s already been a real-life Boa Hancock doppelganger (check here). Online in Japan, netizens are calling Chongqing-born model Ai Shang Zhen China’s version of Boa Hancock. Boa Hancock is the Snake Princess from One Piece Zhen is a popular model in China, promoting electronics and Italian sports cars. She is also one of the image…
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…
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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The heat was intense. The distance far. David Yarnton, Nintendo UK’s honcho, collapsed during a charity bike ride in Greece, and English cricket star, Andrew “Freddie” Flintoff, discovered the Nintendo exec in the road. He needed to act fast. Yarnton was unconscious, and Flintoff, who was also participating in the cycling event, performed emergency first…
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…
Blink and you’ll miss it. The Guy Fawkes mask flashes on the screen only for a brief instant, but it’s there. Twice. The iconic mug first entered pop culture in the graphic novel V for Vendetta, but has since been re-appropriated by internet collective Anonymous as well as Occupy Wall Street protesters. That iconic mask,…
During the 1980s, Oliver North rocketed into the national spotlight with the Iran-Contra controversy. Decades later, North is still in the national spotlight, but this time it’s not for selling arms for U.S. hostages. It’s for selling a video game. In the clips, North explained why black ops needs high-tech devices and how new tech…
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