Author Archives: DarkMirage

Predictions on the fallout from Tokyo’s anti-manga law

Gadget Tsuushin (getnews.jp) has made some tongue-in-cheek predictions about what will happen now that the Tokyo Metropolitan legislation restricting sales of certain targeted manga and anime has been passed.

Posted in Otaku | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 7 Comments

Tokyo Government passed anti-manga bill into law

Sad panda is sad Today, 15 Dec 10, the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly passed Bill 156 into law. As previously discussed, this law gives the Tokyo government additional powers to restrict the sales of manga, anime and video games based on … Continue reading

Posted in Otaku | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Tokyo Government to pass tough ordinance against mature manga

The law doesn’t touch this The Tokyo Metropolitan Government is set to pass new legislation restricting the sales of manga depicting certain sexual acts to minors under eighteen. Contrary to what certain easily-excitable individuals may proclaim, this is not a … Continue reading

Posted in Anime, Manga, Otaku, Rant | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 29 Comments

WikiLeaks

(Sauce) “I thought what I’d do was, I’d pretend I was one of those deaf-mutes” WikiLeaks may turn out to be the real-life Laughing Man. Whether as a hero or villain, it has already secured a spot in history with … Continue reading

Posted in Rant, World | Tagged , , , , , | 16 Comments

Windows Phone 7

How the mighty has fallen. Once upon a time, Microsoft could sell garbage and people would still buy them because it was the only garbage in town. Now it’s desperately playing catch-up to iOS and Android with its late-to-the-game abysmally-named … Continue reading

Posted in Reviews, Tech | Tagged , , , , , | 13 Comments

Virtual Idols and Hatsune Miku

Recently, renowned sci-fi writer William Gibson of Neuromancer fame annoyed a bunch of Miku fanboys when he tweeted, “Hatsune Miku doesn’t really rock me. I want higher rez, less anime.” This was immediately parsed by some to mean that he … Continue reading

Posted in Otaku, Rant | Tagged , , , , , | 19 Comments

AFA X

A very expensive piece of plastic Or the one where I got to see SCANDAL perform live but showed up too late to get an autograph. Alternatively, it is also acceptable to refer to it as the one where I … Continue reading

Posted in Music, Otaku | Tagged , , , , , , | 12 Comments

Hoshi wo Ou Kodomo Trailer

An extremely short trailer for Makoto Shinkai’s latest project “Hoshi wo Ou Kodomo” has been released on the official site. The length and amount of plot details contained are about the same as the Byousoku 5cm trailer. It looks like … Continue reading

Posted in Anime | Tagged , , , | 8 Comments

Hinomoto Oniko

日本鬼子 (ri ben gui zi) is a common disparaging term in China for Japanese, dating back to the Sino-Japanese War(s). After the recent Diaoyu/Senkaku geo-political drama, the term has seen a resurgence in popularity in China, where the anti-Japanese movement comes back in fashion every so often.

Some creative Japanese folks noticed that 日本鬼子 can easily be parsed as a female Japanese name “Hinomoto Oniko” and the moé-fication began. Continue reading

Posted in Otaku | Tagged , , , , , | 10 Comments

Torrent the whole Geocities

We have won one or two Internets before in our lifetime and now we can finally claim our hitherto figurative prize. The entire hosted content of the defunct Geocities free hosting service will be released as a 900-gigabyte torrent file … Continue reading

Posted in Tech | Tagged , , , , , | 4 Comments

Google v Major Networks

I’ve long been a keen observer in the growing war of opinions over the future of intellectual property rights. Just a few days ago, ABC, NBC and CBS decided to block Google TV devices from streaming from their websites, joining … Continue reading

Posted in Tech | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright

Two of the NDS’ top selling franchises decide to get into bed together. I suppose this makes one compelling reason to get an overpriced Nintendo 3DS.

Posted in Games | Tagged , , , , , , , | 1 Comment