Namco Bandai's idol simulator The Idolmaster seems to be getting more than inspiration from an online retailer.
The "rare" Idolmaster card for character Megumi Ijuin looks exactly like a photo spotted on Japanese internet retail site Sunflower. Just look at the above comparison.
The card is featured in the new socialIdolmaster game called Cinderella Girls. Players collect cards and then level them up.
Many artists use fashion magazines as inspiration in creating new designs. But there's nothing new created. Even the pose is the same. It's a straight-up copy!
In Tokyo Jungle, animals try to survive and procreate in Japan's capital. The game has an array of animals (from dogs to dinosaurs), funny outfits, decaying urban sprawl, and apparently panda sex—or rather, panda mounting each other to have panda sex.
Above is a quick commercial for Tokyo Disney Resort. It doesn't look very Disney! There's a reason for that: Disney roped in Japanese anime studio Madhouse to create this spot.
Madhouse is known for Ninja Scroll and Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust.
It's interest to see Disney greenlight something that diverges stylistically from its own animation style. But perhaps that was the point? It would not be a first, though, as Madhouse also handled the animation duties for Stitch!, the anime version of Lilo & Stitch.
Kotaku previously reported that Hironobu Sakaguchi was working on three iOS games. He's revealed one of them: a surfing game with the temp title Party Wave.
Sakaguchi, who lives in Hawaii, is a huge surfer himself.
Above is the first concept art for the game. See that expression on the surfer girl's face? That's kind of how I feel.
There's a set iconography. Costumes or accessories that immediately evoke imagery and associations. For countless idol groups, the go-to iconography is the Japanese schoolgirl and all the youthful associations she entails.
Not the Sexy All Sisters. They largely eschew schoolgirls in favor of superheroes, juvenile delinquents, and waitresses.
The group was born out of low budget Japanese cinema. It all started with the announcement of exploitation flick Bakunyuu Sentai Pai Ranger (Huge Boob Sentai Tit Ranger). Yuu Tejima, its star showed up in superhero gear with her squad of well-endowed super heroines. The group sang the flick's theme song.
Previously, Tejima starred in Onichanbara The Movie VorteX, one of the low budge flicks based on the bikini cowgirl games. She even appeared in one of the Yakuza PSP spin-off games.
Bakunyuu Sentai Pai Ranger wasn't pornography, but a tongue-in-cheek Benny Hill style parody of Super Sentai (Power Ranger) flicks. The song's video featured the Pai Rangers in low-cut outfits, singing boob pun after boob pun. It's lowbrow stuff, but that's the point.
The umbrella group Sexy All Sisters expanded, creating more silly spin-off pop groups, such as the Dynasty Warriors-like "Bakunyuu Sangokushi" or "Annals of the Three Busty Kingdoms" as well as Bakunyuu Yankii—a juvenile delinquent inspired group—and Bakunyuu Koshien—a baseball inspired group. Koshien is a legendary baseball field in Japan. There's also a group that wears Anna Miller's waitress outfits. It's like they're going through a cosplay checklist, ticking off every box.
The girls aren't very good singers at all—but many "real" idols aren't either. What is refreshing about them is that there's a complete and utter lack of pretense with the Sexy All Sisters. Everything is very blunt, instead of playing coy with sexuality, like so many Japanese pop groups tend to do.
Anime and games regularly feature female characters with large breasts, but they often end up being window dressing—not the actual window. This actually makes the characters far more passive; they're unable to call people out for leering at them, because they seem completely unaware of their own appearances. However, Sexy All Sisters release songs—not very good ones, mind you—in which they call out the perverted listeners for looking at their chests, instead of just standing there passively for people to gawk and gaze. It's overdone and exploitive, but oddly empowering.
The Battlestar Valkyrie, Bill Adama's last command before taking control of the Galactica, isn't exactly as famous as the show's namesake, or even the Pegasus. But it looks magnificent in this LEGO recreation.
LEGO builder Garry King has, by getting hold of images of the old ship, done a fine job of bringing the dead ship back to life in a model that's made up of 43,341 pieces, weighs a staggering 110lbs/50kg and stands (well, lies) around ten feet long.
Remember Def Jam Rapstar? The SingStar for...rap? It had promise, but ultimately fizzled on the vine and died without making much of a splash. Now, making things worse, a record company is trying to squeeze the game's creators for millions.
EMI is suing both 4mm Games and Terminal Reality, claiming that they used songs in the game they weren't entitled to. Sounds clear-cut, but it's actually far from it: while Rapstar obviously got clearance to use songs from labels like Def Jam, EMI says it owned small percentages of other tracks nominally owned by other labels.
Examples include DJ Khaled's "I'm So Hood," which EMI claims 10 percent ownership, MIMS' "This Is Why I'm Hot," a song with 16 writers which EMI claims 16 percent ownership, and Lil Wayne's "Got Money," which EMI claims 30 percent ownership.
In total, EMI claim 54 tracks infringe on their rights, and they're after over $8 million in total damages.
First announced last year, Sideshow Collectibles has finally unveiled product images and details about its upcoming Darth Malgus statue from Star Wars: Old Republic.
Namco Bandai's idol simulator The Idolmaster seems to be getting more than inspiration from an online retailer.
Kotaku previously reported that Hironobu Sakaguchi 
The Battlestar Valkyrie, Bill Adama's last command before taking control of the Galactica, isn't exactly as famous as the show's namesake, or even the Pegasus. But it looks magnificent in this LEGO recreation.
