The COVID-19 pandemic hasn’t hit Japan as hard as other places in the world: there are only about 600 new cases per day, and life is relatively back to normal after a quasi-lockdown earlier this year. Still, many places are seeing the impact of less …Read more »
Assassin’s Creed Valhalla will be released next month and Makoto Yukimura, creator of the Viking manga series Vinland Saga, has taken notice. Yukimura has written a short manga crossover where his main character, Thorfinn, meets up with Eivor, star of Assassin’s Creed Valhalla. The short …Read more »
Shu Uemura, a high end makeup brand in Japan, has previously released Super Mario and Pokémon inspired makeup for their holiday collections. According to Japanese site grape, this year their holiday collection will be all about One Piece makeup. Someone put time into coming up …Read more »
Japan has a thing for specialty cafés, including the Studio Ghibli Museum’s Straw Hat Café. The other day Studio Ghibli founders Hayao Miyazaki and Toshio Suzuki attended to their café like any other customers, and they shared a video of it. Along with the two …Read more »
Rent-a-Girlfriend is doing so well it’s gotten its own exhibition. The exhibition is currently in Tokyo until Monday, October 26, and after that it goes to Osaka for a December 24-January 4 run. As Japanese site grape reports, the exhibition opens with an autographed message …Read more »
Bandai has come out with a fancy new life size Demon Slayer sword (that talks!). But YouTuber Tsukuru-san has made a name for himself making anime and manga weapons out of cardboard, so that’s the way he went for his own Demon Slayer sword. Tsukuru-san …Read more »
Giving blood isn’t much fun, but it’s a vital thing to help out the health community. That got the Natori City Health Centre in Miyagi Prefecture thinking, and they’ve come up with a very successful idea: have a cute, fanged virtual YouTuber nurse anime girl …Read more »
There are Hello Kitty themed hotel rooms. So why not have anime hotel rooms? The EJ Anime Hotel in Tokorozawa, north of Tokyo, is here to fill that gap. According to SoraNews24, the hotel boasts guest rooms that give themes for the anime Uzaki-chan Wants …Read more »
Otaku USA was one of the first American outlets to cover the 59-foot tall, giant moving Gundam robot in Yokohama. Since then the story’s been picked up by everything from CNN to The New York Post to The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. And we’re …Read more »
Western fans were getting into the VTuber scene even before Hololive’s official expansion into English-language content, so YouTube was ready when new digital stars premiered. Chomping her way to the front of the pack is hoodied Atlantean Gawr Gura, with a fanbase nearly half a …Read more »
People are trying different ways to get through the COVID pandemic. In Japan, robots are increasingly being used. The Japan Times explained different ways robots are being utilized. There are now robot waiters: “Multi-sensor fusion technology, based on infrared, 3D mapping and machine vision, also …Read more »
Last summer, the Yu Yu Hakusho play got off to a successful start with its first performances. Now the second stage adaptation of Yoshihiro Togashi’s hit manga is gearing up to return with performances on Tokyo, Osaka, and Kyoto this December. Ticket pre-sales will be …Read more »
How can you make learning a second language fun? Japanese public broadcaster NHK has an idea. They’ve published a 178-page isekai light novel called The Legendary Girl Who Was Reborn in an Alternate World that’s written in junior high level English. The thought is that …Read more »
Gundam Factory Yokohama was supposed to open next month and show off his giant, moveable RX-78 Gundam anime mecha. While the opening has been postponed (yet again because of COVID-19), we are able to catch some sneak peeks of the nearly 60-foot mecha during a …Read more »
Japan’s national pastime with karaoke has been suffering as a result of COVID-19, and that extends to the karoke joints themselves. Even though new, specially made karaoke masks have been created, they still only protect so much, and many people would rather just avoid big …Read more »
Matt Schley
Danica Davidson
Kara Dennison
Joseph Luster
