[Excerpted from the October 2007 issue of Otaku USA Magazine] It is Friday night in Kansai (the eastern side of Japan) and whether you are a furita or a salaryman there is only one thing on your mind -a good place to have a drink. …Read more »
For many diehard fighting enthusiasts, Street Fighter II was one of the ultimate escapes from the outside world during the arcade boom. In 1991, the arcade release set a precedent that has been credited with launching the fighting genre into the mainstream and giving the …Read more »
[Excerpted from the December 2007 issue of Otaku USA Magazine.] This right here is everyone's worst nightmare, so try not to get too scared! You hit up the local comic shop one day; it's a fine, breezy afternoon. The sun is out, kids are playing …Read more »
Recently, Japanese film and anime companies have been establishing their own US branches in the hopes of making more profit than they would from just licensing the show to a US publisher. The problem is that more often than not, they churn out substandard releases …Read more »
What we have here, for those that don't have their Tivos already rigged to record it, is a Starz cable special that documents the rise of anime's popularity in the US, from its origins in Japan to the way that it pervades many facets of …Read more »
[Excerpt from the current issue of Otaku USA magazine, on sale now!] A festival parade of marching appliances. Evil, laughing, building-sized dolls. Movies come to life, a 50-foot woman, a butterfly collection with a centerpiece human butterfly. If surrealist tea parties are your bag, baby, …Read more »
When Baoh first arrived stateside, store shelves offered a Mother Hubbard-like selection of anime (then still under the colorful moniker of ...Japanimation') titles, and Yokoyama Hiroyuki's 50-minute parasitic child landed comfortably in the sub-genre of "really short and violent" OAVs. Sporting a few differences from …Read more »
Interview excerpted from the December issue of OTAKU USA ] In spite of the success of his groundbreaking 2004 film Appleseed and the buzz surrounding the upcoming sequel, Ex Machina , Shinji Aramaki is quite possibly the most famous and influential anime insider you've never …Read more »
Publisher: Atari Developer: Pipeworks Software System: Wii / Playstation 2 Available: PS2: Nov. 13 - Wii: Dec. 5 Rating: E 10+ If you happened to dig into any of the previous Godzilla titles of the past generation, like 2002's multi-platform Destroy All Monsters Melee …Read more »
This evil season may be just about ending for you boils and ghouls, but Halloween's restless spirit can float on eternally for those with a taste for truly macabre manga delights. For a meaty primer, we've concocted a list of some of the most sinister …Read more »
In his book Making Comics , Scott McCloud makes a good argument for the case that, in the past 25 years, American comics have gotten more realistic while manga has gotten more fantastic. And indeed, after thousands of spirit-possessed super-powered teenagers and science fiction futures …Read more »
Michael Arias is the director of Tekkonkinkreet . He's also the first American (or foreigner, for that matter) to direct a feature-length anime movie in Japan. Although Tekkon is Arias's directorial debut, the Japan resident of 15 years has long been active behind the scenes …Read more »
It is pure nerd heroin. THE iDOLM@STER doesn't star rocket-launching giant mecha or sword-slashing metrosexual heroes. No, it features something far more addictive: J-pop singing, Para Para dancing, and 10 teenage girls. From Tokyo's Akihabara to Osaka's Den-Den Town, THE iDOLM@STER has been nothing short …Read more »
Gaming scholars are incredibly adept at swiftly pointing out what's missing from a particular game or series of games. For some, the root of a title's evil lies in clumsy and half-baked AI, while others find the lack of a solid narrative disturbing. There is, …Read more »
Anime viewers who are attentive to the people who actually make animation itself may have previously picked out the name Mamoru Hosoda thanks to his distinctive work on the first two Digimon movies and the sixth One Piece movie. Alternatively, his name may have been …Read more »
Ed Chavez
Chris Scantleberry
Joseph Luster
Daryl Surat
ie Davis
Matt Alt![[Preview] Godzilla: Unleashed](https://otakuusamagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/0d63cc47-8ae9-4f09-b2bd-fb0efff58dfa.gif)
Jason Bradley Thompson
Brian Ashcraft
Scott Green