Puzzle Fighter was kind of a surprise back when it came out on Playstation in 1997. Surely the spirit of Street Fighter couldn't be siphoned from its fighting game trappings and transported into a cutesy head-to-head puzzle game, right? Yeah, tell that to a sixteen …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 »
Action-adventure games like Zelda have hit a rut recently. They're suffused with time-stretching content and yet contain little in the way of actually compelling gameplay. They stretch their quests over dozens of hours and force you to repeat the same puzzles ad infinitum to pad …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 »
For a solid recent example of sakuga, Trigger’s Little Witch Academia (now a TV anime!) short is truly exceptional. Since the days of Astro Boy, the Japanese animation industry has by and large followed a conservative production model, relying on cost-saving limited animation tricks. Sometimes, …Read more »
Japan is the breeding ground for videogame-related fervor and its latest phenomenon is the Monster Hunter series. Returning to the PSP, Capcom's Monster Hunter Freedom 2 has sparked a surge in Japanese school children sleepovers and "educational" camps, all dealing with the way of monster …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 »
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 »
Publisher: THQ Developer: 5th Cell System: Nintendo DS Available: Now Rating: E There's a lot you can do with two screens and a stylus pen, but let's face it, most developers ignore the obvious: drawing! One of the best uses of the touch-screen for drawing …Read more »
Publisher: Q Entertainment Developer: Q Entertainment System: Xbox 360 Available: Now Rating: NR Tetsuya Mizuguchi is one wild son of a gun. Best known as the virtual king of music-themed videogame escapades, the hotshot designer is behind such beat-thumping classics as Sega's Space Channel 5 …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 »
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 »
[Excerpted from the October 2007 issue of Otaku USA magazine.] My main collecting habits center around soft vinyl figures of Japanese characters. Known in Japan as "Sofubi, " these toys trace their heritage back to the mid-1960s when now-legendary companies such as Marusan and Bullmark …Read more »
Plant yourself, if you will, inside the soft, roped footings of a ninja sneaking about Japan in the 1500s. Your clan has been scattered and politics have become a precarious position with which you need to intertwine yourself discreetly if you want your group to …Read more »
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Dave Riley![[Preview] Godzilla: Unleashed](https://otakuusamagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/0d63cc47-8ae9-4f09-b2bd-fb0efff58dfa.gif)
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