While 1995 was a simpler time, that doesn't mean it wasn't a sexier one. Just look at the saucy hijinks Japanese game developers slipped into Kirby's Dream Land 2. Oh là là!

This game's 5-5 secret stage shows what looks like lady parts in Game Boy pink.

Kirby's Dream Land 2 was re-released earlier this year on the 3DS's Virtual Console, but for obvious reasons, it was not retitled Kirby's Wet Dream Land 2.

【動画あり】星のカービィ2の5-5エロ過ぎ抜いたｗｗｗｗｗｗｗｗｗｗｗｗｗｗ [ラビット速報]

---

The coastal city of China's Dafeng will soon play host to One Piece fans across the country—and perhaps, even the globe.

See, China is constructing a new One Piece amusement park. The theme park has a budget of approximately US$76 million and will be built on 133-hectare plot of land.

Unlike previous unlicensed theme parks in China (China Gundam, anyone?), this appears to be an official and approved project. What's more, a Japanese company is overseeing the entire project.

This comes as One Piece's popularity is on the uptick in the Mainland. Last year, the manga began serialization in Chinese newspapers.

Thanks to its coast, woodlands, and wetlands, the area of Dafeng is one of China's biggest tourist attractions. The One Piece theme park could also help the area attract Japanese, Korean, and Western tourists, too. I guess you could say this One Piece theme park will help Dafeng become The King of all the Chinese Tourist Spots.

今度はパクリなし？　中国上海近郊に「ONE PIECE」のテーマパーク [Excite]

This morning in Japan, kids and adults alike paused momentarily. They wore funny glasses and turned their eyes to the skies. This Monday morning, just as a new week started, a solar eclipse was visible. And Japanese television chronicled the whole thing the best way it could: sometimes serious and sometimes anything but.

For several minutes, people could witness an annular solar eclipse at locations across Asia as well as North America. As The Mainichi Daily News pointed out, this was the first time in over 900 hundred years that a solar eclipse of this sort was visible across Japan.

It wasn't visible everywhere in the country (or Asia, for that matter)—AFP reported that in some parts of Japan and China, it was too hazy or cloudy.

The eclipse was a big deal, and that certainly didn't escape Japanese morning television. To get people hyped, there were countdowns—complete with comedians, idols, and boy band concert—and live feeds. Not everyone had eclipse fever, though, and some channels ignored it completely in favor of their regular programming.

In the above gallery, have a look at this morning's festivities (via 2ch) as well as some of the photos snapped by regular folks across Japan (via Gigazine).

The next annular solar eclipse in Japan will be in 2030. See you then!

---

Kotaku East runs from 4am to 8am Eastern. For more info about Kotaku East click here.

As a rule, Portal guns don't make everything better. But they can certainly liven up a round of Street Fighter II.

Poor Blanka.

Super Street Fighter II with a Portal Gun [YouTube, via Gamefreaks]

Raheem Jarbo, aka Mega Ran, aka Random, is one of the more noted video game musicians out there. For his latest album, though, he went a little further than just rapping about video games.

With financial help from fans, he's been able to put together a concept album that includes not just the music, but accompanying comic and video game material as well, all centred on his partly-autobiographical idea of a man who is a teacher, rapper and hero.

The album, Language Arts: Volume One, isn't bad! And while I haven't read the graphic novel, I have played the game, which for a guy called Mega Ran is unsurprisingly based heavily on Mega Man. It's pretty good!

Language Arts: Volume One is the first in a series of three planned releases based on the idea. You can check out more info below.

Language Arts: Volume One [Random]

Scourge of internet comments sections and saviour of countless rainy days, the humble animated GIF file turns 25 this year, Compuserve having first introduced the file format back in 1987. To celebrate, here's a ton of the things compiled in a mildly nauseating video.

Note: only celebrate if you call it a "giff". If you say "jiff", don't celebrate, because there is clearly something very wrong with you, and that's hardly something to celebrate.

A 25th Anniversary GIF Mashup set to 8-bit Dubstep [PBS, via it8bit]

This week's cosplay roundup here on Kotaku is mercifully short on Final Fantasy and/or Kingdom Hearts, two series that are a little, let's say, over-represented in the field.

In their place, we've got some costumes that are way more interesting, including some stuff from Warhammer, Tekken, Kiki's Delivery Service, Lord of the Rings and even Avatar. Not the James Cameron Avatar. The other one. The good one.

As seen on Magoro.
As seen on 0kasane0.
As seen on hybridre.
As seen on Nebulaluben.
As seen on Gone-Wrong.
As seen on Witchiko.
As seen on the-mirror-melts.
As seen on ivettepuig.
As seen on ivettepuig.
As seen on andrewhitc.
As seen on Jack-Dan.

Indie adventure game The Journey Down, which has actually been available in various versions for a while now, but today sees the release of a "HD" version which turns the formerly low-fi experience into something a little shinier.

If you've never played it, but love adventure games, you should see about fixing that. Of all the games in the last twenty years to have tried, The Journey Down probably does the best job of all in capturing that special mix of humour, puzzles and quirkiness that made the 1990s the golden era for the genre.

It's playable for free, but if you like what you play I'd say pay the $14 and get the HD version (available below). It's definitely worth it.

The Journey Down [Official Site]

For all the concern over Diablo III's requirement to always be online - and it's a very legitimate concern, given many people's twitchy connections - let's not forget the trivial flip side to that situation: the gamers trying to push the limits of just how connected they can be while playing.

Reddit user puttputt has posted some images of he and a friend playing the game on top of Canada's Mt. Yamnuska (7,349 ft high!), using their laptops tethered to a 3G connection picked up on their mobile phones.

It was hardly an ideal situation, with ping in the 300-2000 region resulting in fairly laggy conditions, but they say it was playable.

Playable and beautiful. That's one hell of a view.

Mom told us to go play outside, so we did. Playing Diablo 3 on top of Mt. Yamnuska [Reddit]