My brother’s chief problem with RPG’s, or at least the one he always brings up when we talk about videogame RPG’s, is the lifeless townsfolk you deal with. Shopkeepers tend to be flesh-covered vending machines eager to turn your hard-earned gold into swords and potions. So how about this: a Japanese indie RPG in which you play the shopkeeper selling [...]

Back in 2006, Shapiro Keats and I took our honeymoon with Pop Japan Travel. We went on the February Sapporo Snow Festival tour, and it was amazing. We had great hotels with space-age toilets, a sweet-ass flight on Singapore Airlines (all the flight attendants were way hot, and we had a ton of movies to choose from- I watched Wallace [...]

Sumo wrestling has been in some deep shit lately because the wrestlers have been caught gambling on other sports games, a big no-no in Japan. Apparently the sumo commission has done a lousy job investigating too. All of this is being blamed on bad communication;: it seems sumo wrestlers can’t text each other…because their fingers are too fat for cell [...]

I don’t have time to properly eulogize him, but I was shocked to learn via Twitter that anime director Satoshi Kon (Paranoia Agent, Tokyo Godfathers, Paprika) died today at age 47. Rest in peace, sir…

Sorry to be scarce- I’m actually working on a couple reviews for once (Red Cliff FTW). Anyway, Threadless is having one of their awesome $10 t-shirt sales, with the usual glut of gaming-related tees: Cheat Codes Mario Mario in French Extra Lives And a couple Japanese-type ones: Tokyo Skyline Loooove This One But They\’re Sold Out in Adult Sizes!

MetaFilter recently had a couple of cool links on Asian pop culture topics. A discussion of Japanese director Seijun Suzuki (Branded to Kill) Visual Kei band X Japan embarks on first-ever US tour An awesome gallery of posters using pop culture images (Superman, Marilyn Monroe) to promote manners on public transit Share and Enjoy!

One of the most enduring images in William Gibson’s Neuromancer was Case’s oh-so-homey coffin hotel capsule – which became even cooler when you found out Japan actually had such things. Well, now that China’s economy has surpassed Japan’s, they’re looking to get in on the whole ultra-spartan living craze. But instead of being inhabited by weary sararimen who missed the [...]

American reporter Jake Adelstein sat down with a bunch of Yakuza gangsters and posted what they thought of the Playstation 3 game Yakuza 3. I’m not sure what blows my mind more – the fact that they did it in the first place, or that the game seems to have gotten more right than wrong. Choice quote: S: I don’t [...]

People in Okinawa aren’t happy about the U.S. military base that’s located there, and after reading several recent articles about servicemen raping Japanese teenagers I can’t say I blame them (not that all servicemen are rapists, mind you. Most are just fine). Now the U.S. military is trying to teach little Japanese kids to love the base- through manga! BBC [...]

Less than a week after Japan’s previous ‘Oldest Person’ was found to have been dead and mummified for 30 years, the person who inherited the title – 113-year-old Fusa Furuya – was not found at her last recorded address. Wow – Japan has to do a much better job of keeping track of their Oldest People. Maybe they can put [...]

Well – based on this image of the newly-designed Big G, I’d say ‘swell’. It doesn’t look like they’re going to be using any pregnancy tests on this one. Legendary Pictures Godzilla won’t be out until 2012, but so far this looks pretty good – although I suspect this version of Godzilla will be CGI, just like the last one. [...]

Sorry I’ve been MIA for a bit- we moved to a new house. It looks like things are pretty bad when the Japanese PM’s own wife questions his ability to govern. Wow… So, I’ve seen people who fought every day for 50 years and were married forever and loved each other and were secretly happy. And criticizing your man’s lack [...]

Uh, I thought at first it didn’t look as bad as I’d feared, but by the end I’d decided it really was as bad as I feared. Trailer From Tokyo Anime Fair Harlock is a badass, right? But this movie is making him look…too badass. Harlock is badass in a quiet manner. He knows he’s awesome and has nothing to [...]

Actually it was voice actor Peter Fernandez, who portrayed Greg ‘Speed’ Racer, in the American version of the seminal anime.  Hernandez also voiced Mark Venture in the U.S. version of Space Battleship Yamato, aka Star Blazers. Farewell, Peter – enjoy your final lap.

A Facebook frind alerted me to these divinely disturbing commercials produced by AFN (Armed Forces Network- the U.S. Army’s in-house TV station) and shown at the Air Base in Misawa, Japan. WASH YOUR HANDS! I SAID WASH YOUR DAMN HANDS! Ah, Mr. Soapy. How I admire your devotion to hygeine. How I will see you in my dreams tonight, hiding [...]