The always great JapanProbe, this time, is totally misunderstanding the  E-mobile moneky commercial stating that this commercial is a “parody of Barack Obama’s campaign”. Seems that bloggers don't have time to watch TV. If you are american and watch the E-mobile commercial on Youtube maybe you could think that Emobile is making fun of Obama but in reality CHANGE is just a parody fo the homonym, and super famous Japanese TV drama (as stated by many Boing boing readers in the discussion about this bogus issue)!

Yesterday I went to the Firefox 3 Japan release party held at Shinagawa Grand Prince Hotel  with Kirainet's ubergeek Hector and the legendary Peter Payne!!
 After few beers and few  sushi I found a table serving my favourite Japanese food:  kushikatsu! Damn Great party!!! Firefox 3... CAMPAI!!!!

Seems that Hatsune Miku is going to appear as a playable characater in the Korean online game Pangya ("a casual golf game that takes difficult rules of golf and transforms it into cute and easy to understand format so that everyone can enjoy it together"... whatever it means...)

Seem that on waiwai closure I was WRONG!!
Sankakucomplex posted a great article about the real reasons of the WaiWai extinction:

The mangaka defunct rag WaiWai branded a paedophile, over his using a tastefully dressed girl character (above) to illustrate an official manga version of an otherwise dry defence white paper, has shot back at Mainichi, demanding a public apology, only to be told that he can expect an under the table settlement, but under no circumstances must he write about it on his blog.

So seems that the GREAT mainichi editorial policy  and the writer Ryann Connell finally hitted a huge rock (aka 2chan) when they published this Journalistic nonsense:

“Defense Ministry turns to ‘Lolita’ manga character to reveal inner self”

From the successor of the government ministry that gave the world Pearl Harbor and the Rape of Nanking now comes a cutesy little girl cartoon character dressed as a maid with a hawkish stuffed teddy bear to give a simple explanation of Japan’s defense policies, according to Cyzo (August).
Growing numbers of government agencies have used borderline pedophile manga characters to promote their activities in recent years, but it’s the Defense Ministry’s little girl character that is attracting attention among Japan’s otaku, the monthly says...

I feel foreign writers  living in Japan are finally getting a REALITY CHECK: as you can't write whatever you think about Bush and his " War Ministry" in the USA so, while in Japan, you should think twice to say lies like Japanese government agencies uses pedophile manga charcaters...

if you can't understand this  probably you got no idea of what being a Journalist means...

Anyway, if you don't like otaku culture you can always go back to your own safe and "super-moral" country wherever it is...

After realeasing the great mini Theremin kit, Gakken has just announced a new build your own analog synth kit called SX-150. This synth is controlled trough a slider (this is a clever choice made by Gakken to keep the kit super cheap) and can even be connected to the teremin kit. The kit will be realeased on July 27 at 3360 Yen.

Following a post about Keromin from Tokyo Mango the blog writtend by  super Lisa Katayama (she just published an Urazawa book that's a must read for eveyone), I found out that Mainichi Daily censored the legendary WaiWai column... after their "great" article about the Kamagasaki riot published a couple of weeks ago I decided to delete Mainichi from my bookmarks... 

MDN readers,

Some readers pointed out that various articles published in the WaiWai column were inappropriate content for the Mainichi Daily News. We respond to this criticism by halting publication of this column. We plan to start a column with a new concept to replace WaiWai in the future.

Thank you for your understanding.

Mainichi Daily News

LOL I suppose that they don't have stopped the column because the Keromin article...  actually I posted about Keromin last november  and I really love how a meme can spread after so many motnhs in the blogosphere just because Waiwai posted about it!
So I'm not complaining because my 7 months old post went under the radar of every other blog (even tough last year I diligently submitted the news to many of the blogs who have now posted about it), but because a great meme generator like Waiwai has been shut down after some idiots Mainichi readers complains...
anyway, it's good that Keromin has finally received the blog exposure that it deserves!

(via Hobbymedia) During the Tokyo Toy Show I spotted these super cool Buddha statue model kits made with Biomass. Finally tthe hobby world meets spirituality and ecology!

 

 

 

Yesterday I was reading about the protest caused by brutality of Japanese Police on Mainichi Shinbun. Actually this news has been passed to me before by Pio D'Emilia (personal blog), an International Journalist  working for the european TV channel SKY NEWS. When I read  the Mainichi article I tough it was another news since the Japanese journalist never cited that the protest has take place in Kamagasaki . This area is known as Japan's largest slum, and has the largest day laborer concentration in the entire country. 30,000 people are estimated to live in every 2,000 meter radius within this region. Homeless people can often be seen sleeping in the streets throughout the day. Pio D'emilia personally saw almost 20 people arrested during the protest when the Mainichi Shimbun talks about 10...
 
You can watch the video here. It's a precious testimony since no Japanese media showed up at the event so it's quite amusing how Mainichi Shimbun got the photos and the informations published in the article...
 

Seems that a 2chan user found out that the earthquake that today (14 june) hit the northern part of Japan has been predicted by Osamu Tezuka’s BlackJack manga Volume 17. Osamu predicted the magnitude, the date/time, the location!

These days walking in Denden town and Akiba the buzz around MSG4 is way less than I expected... I'm sure the MediaCreate will clear this (and MSG4 will move 500.000 pieces in its first week)  but right now I don't feel the huge promotional efforts made by Konami are giving the effect expected in Japan so I wonder if, after a couple of weks from now, MSG4 will still be a system seller for PS3 or just a great game... anyway the MSG4 Famitsu cover is the best Famitsu cover in the last years!!

I just found this great radio show celebrating the 20th anniversary of...  ACID HOUSE
Damn I will never forget my Londons days back then!! After 20 years the only event that can give me the same rushis the Comiket!!
 

Japan Probe posted a great story about otaku hunting for the idiots that, last sunday, were joking around akiba after the tragedy. I'm sorry to admit it but I support 2chan users efforts!!Youtube video here.
Meanwhile, the legendary otaku editor Patrick Macias, is doing a great series of posts about this tragedy.

UPDATE: Konami cancelled the MSG4 launch event... seems that the image of Solid Snake overlooking the stabbing rampage in Akiba has touched other people than me...

During the sixities Manson never killed anyone (almost personally), the good thing in this case is the fact that we don't have an "otaku guru" telling people to kill everyone... that guru in a certain way has been Shoko Asahara. He has never been an otaku guru but, before the sarin terrorist attack, he was in synch with the otaku subculture... Now the akiba killer is just a crazy guy who choosed Akiba since on Sunday there isn't a more "media dense" area in the World. There isn't a group behind him, nor a subculture supporting his hate/killer instincts, he just wanted his 15 minutes of fames, so it's pretty impossibile to stop this kind of tragedies...

20 years have passed since Tsutomu Miyazaki. In all these years the otaku culture permeated the Japanese society (and jpop culture) so, this time, I think the "Otaku is  socially dangerous" meme will not get grip in the Japanese mediasphere almost not as before... I feel this bloody sunday is more the otaku "September 11" than anything else...

Our friends at Neo Amusement has started the preorders for this new PS2 title for SNK Freaks. This collection features two games produced by Sunsoft for the Neo Geo:  Galaxy Fight and  Waku Waku Seven.
As every Neo-Geo Online Collection, both games have been updated with an online mode (BB Multi-Matching) and character editing. Sunsoft Collection will be released in Japan on thursday 26 June

Few days ago, while I was raiding used games shops in Akiba, I found this super sweet board game ispired by Capcom's Makaimura. This game has been ported to all classic platforms (Commodre 64, Sinclair ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC 464/6128, Amiga, Atari ST, IBM PC, Commodore 16, Sharp X68000, Nintendo Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance, Famicom/ NES, Playstation and Sega Saturn) but I'm sure this analog version would still play great if adapted to a DS!

(via HobbyMedia) Last week, the legendary Akiba game center HEY held the latest Street Fighters 4 location test. Photo were forbidden but I managed to take some pictures of moves lists. During the next location test Sagat and Vega will be playable

The italian monthly magazine XL (published by the newspaper La Repubblica) has just posted my reportage about the Dreamparty: the Japanese hentai game show. There is also a photogallery with some hentai game images provided by Light.