These dancing Aliens from Toy Story 3 are going to be released in Japan in July for 5000 Yen (ca $50).  Me want!!

“Politics of Popular Culture” at Temple University will focus on developments in videogames, digital media and youth subcultures and explore how these are being employed for political means and driving social trends in Japanese popular culture.

This two-part conference, hosted by the Institute of Contemporary Asian Studies at Temple University’s Japan Campus, will be held on June 5 and June 26, and will include a diverse array of academic panels comprised of leading scholars of Japanese popular culture.

The opening session on June 5 will examine how popular culture is informing emerging alternative cultures and practices, and shaping notions of Japanese national identity and foreign policy, as the “soft power” appeal of the popular becomes politicized. The keynote speaker will be Frederik Schodt, author of “Manga! Manga! The World of Japanese Comics,” and “Dreamland Japan: Writing on Modern Manga.”

I will definitely follow the "Gaming Reality: The Politics of Digital Appropriation" panel with John G. Russell, Peter Mantello and Rebecca Suter and "Politicalizing Otaku" panel with my favourite Otaku writer  Patrick Galbraith!!

More info: www.tuj.ac.jp/events

Digital Satin Productions (NDS Uncensored) released a port of the classic PC eroge Fatal Relations (produced by Himeya Soft in 1994 and translated in english by C's ware).

File size: 54.1MB

Click here to download the game for your DS (over 18 registration without email confirm needed).

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Thanks to Karen and Nick last Saturday I've been interviewed by Aljazeera TV (a global channel like CNN). It was fun and I promise I will brush up on my english!

^_^

My friends at Sansai Books are working on a new TV show called after their uber cool Wonder Japan magazine. The show will be broadcasted from June.

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Last weekend I while visiting the Shizuoka Hobby Show 2010 I spotted this wonderful model kit replica of the Gunkanjima: Battleship Island produced by Aoshima. The island has been made famous in 2003 by the Japanese photographer Saiga Yuji  book "Gunkanjima: Awakening of a Dead Island" and has been featured in videogames like Killer 7, Siren 2 and movies like Battle Royal 2.

The reproduction is really detailed and the abandoned concrete buildings and the sea wall can be observed trough a magnifying lens.

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Today I visited Bandai headquarters in Tokyo for the Tamashii Nation press event where the new Super Robot Chogokin series has been revelead! The new chogokin are smaller than the traditional ones but way cheaper and, even more interesting, more posable.
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Till sunday I'm in Shizuoka for the Hobby Show 2010 to find the most interesting new models that will hit the (Japanese) stores shelves in the next few month. In this video (yes I know: I'm not a great cameraman) you will see all the new gunpla and plamodels presented by BANDAI.

 

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In june Lego will release the Shuttle Adventure 10213 created for AFOL (Adult Fans Of Lego). It features realistic engines, retractable landing gear, opening cockpit with seats for 2 astronauts and even a ground maintenance vehicle!

Nintendo's Satoru Iwata hates Apple... What we should expect? Flash on Wii?! Direct export of DS games from Adobe CS5? If only the Big N followed "us"  and produced a Gameboy Phone 10-15 years ago (when we asked for it) probably the situation would be way different now...

Photo: Pixiv

TOKYO - From May 27 the T-Shirts 8Bit Memorial exhibition (orgranized by The King of Games) will be held in Shibuya Parco.

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Otaku  breakdance in Akiba in 2006. The  suzumiya haruhi moves are simply great!!
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If you are hanging out in Shibuya you should go to the new Famicom City game bar (located new Tokyu Hands). If you miss the last train with 3480 yen you can even spend the night playing famicom games while waiting for the first densha in the monring...

Juda from oneworldoneband.com turned a Dreamcast arcade joystick into a midi Controller using an usb adapter and a software called Multicontrol (needs max runtime to work: www.cycling74.com). It's possibile to do the same with any other old videogame controller. If you are not into electronic music I suggest another cool mod: Dreamcast Joystick to USB with a Nokia LCD display in place of the VMU.

Revenge of the Cherry Tomatoes is a new game for the Meggy Jr RGB: the open source 64-pixel video game kit. It is a sequel to Attack of the Cherry Tomatoes, the built-in game on Meggy Jr. It was written from scratch by Chris Brookfield. Click here: to watch the video.

I'm in the latest issue of Make Magazine dedicated to Remote Control Everything. What makes me even more happy is that I've been featured with Wired editor-in-chief  Chris Anderson (who is a big fan on UAV drones) and I-Wei "Crabfu"  creator of Steampunk radio controlled masterpieces!

Thank you Gareth!
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Super Mario Bros running on NES emulator on Amazon's Kindle emulator developed by the Japanese company Klab. They even developed a Tetris clone...

http://code.google.com/p/kdk-emulator <- You can't do this on iPad ^_^

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Japanese modeller Dorobou Hige from Studio ACCESS (he has been featured by magazines like Model Graphix) posted several great guides (in PDF format) to build impressive dioramas (with LED illumination) of Star Wars model kits!

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Mai Nishida...  Life is good!!

^_^

I hope that Sake breweries will forgive me but I found my new favourite drink: Medea Vodka! The first inebriant that features a programmable scrolling Led Matrix message screen!

"Please drink and program responsibly"

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Osaka Tsutenkaku Tower Robot visits Tokyo Tower and Akihabara: moeeee!!!

via ameblo.jp/tsutenkakurobo - mainichi.jp

As magazine publisher I'm a Adobe CS user + I'm a Flash supporter since it was still called FutureSplash so: "Go, screw yourself Apple"! Funny that Steve Jobs few months ago said: "Flash performs too slow to be useful on iPhone". He should call the next OSX release "Pinocchio"!

Creative Suite 5 global webcast on Monday 8am PDT at http://cs5launch.adobe.com: the future of tablet magazines outside the Cupertino luddites dictatorship...
 

If you are in Japan from 7th April till the end of may, thanks to a collaboration between Capcom and a chinese restaurant frachising, you can eat original chinese dishes inspired by 10 characters from Super Street Fighter 4 (+you can get a free badge)!
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Bandai classic logo printed on Computer Robot 1960

Ladyada posted a nice tutorial that explain how to convert a console game pad into a USB keyboard mouse for playing emulated games on your PC. The USB game pad can be used with nearly any software, such as a MAME emulator, game, simulation software, or for custom user interfaces.

The young Japanese photographer and sexy idol Julie "Samurai Girl" Watai (aka Amano Ai) is working on her new project: learning Arduino at the Soldering Cafè organized by Switch Science in Akihabara while creating a crazy toy that can play Acid sounds.
Here is the NicoNico video...

Konami released the scale replica of Pop'N Music (W170mm×D105mm×H180mm) as third intallment of the super kawaii Desktop Arcade Collection. Me want!
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Ok, today Apple released the iPad but it's still to early to throw out the iPhone if you are an RC cars freak like me. Team Tekin has just presented HotWire for iPhone: an application created to let Apple's mobile phone users fine tune the performance characteristics of their RC car Speed Control (ESC) without the need of a computer...

 

The Lego Minifigures Collection will be distributed in Japan as GatchaGatcha series that will be released by Takara Tomy in July.
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Japanese Schoolgirl Confidential: How teenage girls made a Nation Cool
By Brian Ashcraft with Shoko Ueda - Kodansha International

Japanese Schoolgirl Confidential is a must for anyone curious about the girls that dominate Japan’s pop culture. For years schoolgirls have shown up in internationally popular anime and manga such as Sailor Moon, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, and Blood: The Last Vampire. There are kick-ass schoolgirl characters in videogames like Street Fighter, Quentin Tarantino included one as an assassin in Kill Bill,  and magazines such as WIRED keep an eye on the trends emerging among these stylish teens. With chapters covering everything from sailor-suited pop-idols and cult movie vixens, to the power of shopping and uniform fashion, Japanese Schoolgirl Confidential takes you beyond the realm of everyday schoolgirls to discover the secrets behind this iconic creature. Learn the origins of their famous sailor-style uniforms, and how they became a brand used to sell anything from kimchi to insurance. Discover why these girls have become such a symbol of girl power, and why they are so very, very cool!

ON SALE APRIL 2010 (JAPAN)

Brian on Kotaku asks why CNN is talking about Rapelay after 4 years of the game release... Reading  the Korean journalist's posts on CNN blog (the  very same person who interviewed DannyChoo) I wonder if she likes Japan at all as it's hard to find positive pieces about the Country (but she loves Korean cars)...

Probably her religion background "Much of my family life revolved around the church, and that is where I had my first experiences with the community. On Saturdays I was at church for Korean study school and at service on Sundays" is not helping in covering sexual related news with objectivity (OK, this "news" is a year old one, but you know old media are slow...) but maybe I'm wrong as few years ago she got fired for cheating her husband in his own office...

Watching the NSFW video on CCN (I fear filmed illegally in the shops) the journalist never states that hentai videogames are for "adults only". It would be like talking about American Pornos and let viewer assume that porno DVDs got the same market of average Hollywood movies...

The journalist says: "Now, once a game goes on sale in Tokyo, it is digitized and shared everywhere". "Digitized"?!  Wow that must be a new secret technic used by pirates to copy games...

Now I'm going to eat. Should I go for sashimi or Korean dogs?!

Update: Dr. Olson Brings Some Reasoning to RapeLay Hysteria [GamePolitics] via Kotaku  and no I didn't eat Korean hot dogs but I went for fugu as I'm on a diet and whale sashimi is too fat...
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Cave posted the promo video of the iPhone & iPod touch version of Espgaluda II.
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iPod & TouchOSC Controlling a Real Commodore 64 (SID Chip)

Sebastian Tomczak, on Little Scale, posted a guide to make a commodore-64 midi interface using an Arduino board! It gives the user real-time control over the SID chip via MIDI data in terms of basic synthesis. If you already have access to an Arduino , then this could be quite affordable. The setup (and the outcome) is relatively simple, but it works fine for me and what I need it for. You can use either a MIDI connection or a USB connection with a software-based serial to MIDI converter patch.

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On Modellismo HobbyMedia I posted this interesting mashup of Arduino, Wii Nunchuck and an RC buggy from Tamiya.