How awesome would it be to control the Wonder Girls. If you can control the Wonder Girls, what would you do? From sources, there is a game called Star Tales that is almost finished that features the Wonder Girls. More »

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Here Comes another anime/video game that is being turned into a live action film. Gungrave is a video game franchise that was basically created Yasuhiro Nightow- the guy that did the Trigun manga/anime series. More »

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Yup. The video game franchise, Halo, will be animated Japanese style. More »

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Netbooks are all the rage right now. This is especially true of designer netbooks. I’ve seen Vienna Tam work with HP to produce some as promo from her fashion line. I’ve seen artists and athletes come out with their own design. Naturally, Japanese companies are going to get in on this and make the most adorable and cutest ones - like this Rilakkuma (relax bear) model. And it could be all yours for about $800 US!

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Atlus has spoiled gamers with artbooks, plushies, and soundtrack cds with their lineup of video game releases. Now they will do the same for the rerelease of the Shin Megami Tensei Persona game on PSP (originally released on the PS1 in 1996). The soundtrack of the game is redone by Shoji Meguro, famous for the soundtracks of Persona 3 and 4. More »

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I’ll bet any amount of money that Se7en has a girlfriend. Even Usher has girlfriends from time to time. A lot of celebs pretend not to be in relationships to seem more attractive to the fanbase because you know, celebs think their fans are stupid. Ok perhaps not the celebs themselves but the people who manage them. Here’s a photo of Se7en and long-rumored “girlfriend” Park Han Byul. True or not, the “mystery” probably makes Se7en more attractive to his female fan base, or at least that’s what the label is probably thinking.

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Today marks one week since I started doing this daily favorites feature on Ningin. So I got a nice little email from the boss today saying that I’m doing great. It’s nice to be appreciated. I gotta say it’s a pretty easy job that I’d probably do anyway. Anyway, on to the theme for today. I’ve noticed lots of art related articles in today’s feeds. So today we’re going with an art theme. First is this set of photos about restroom signs. It’s part of some online challenge to come up with funny restroom signs. There’s TONS of entries and all of them pretty funny. I recommend clicking on the thumbnail link since there’s so many photos.

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I’ve been a big fan of Final Fantasy related material ever since 9 years ago. I’ve played through Final Fantasy VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, X-2 and XII (incomplete) and both Kingdom Hearts. More »

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I haven’t played my DS in over a month and a half. Honestly, I just haven’t been in the gaming mood. However, I finally received my pre-ordered copy of Konami’s Suikoden Tierkreis for the DS and that broke my anti-gaming mood. Suikoden Tierkreis is the newest instalment in the series — a spin-off of some sort, making it drastically different from its console counterparts — but it still retains some similarities from the main series. More »

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Kingdom Hearts is one game series I couldn’t care less about. When I played the first one, I had fun with it, but I never bothered to complete it. For the next game, I bought the Greatest Hits version, but it sits in the box and collects dust. I will play it eventually. After all, I bought it purely for the fact of Captain Jack Sparrow being in the game.

Aside from that quirky info, I am an odd gamer. Instead of liking the actual game, there are games I find myself liking the soundtrack more than anything else. Kingdom Hearts happens to fall under that category. The music from that series amuses me greatly, and since it’s composed by Shimomura Yoko, that makes it even better. It’s even better when a piano arranged album is in the works. More »

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Like I’ve said several times, censorship in any shape or form simply sucks. I guess a new form of censorship and a violation of freedom of speech (if South Korea has such rights) has come down on South Korea, and this time it affects the online gaming industry. Korea Game Industry Agency (KOGIA) and game companies are bleeping out words they consider profane, vulgar, and unacceptable while online gamers chat with each other. While that’s all fine and dandy, I suppose, as an effort to minimise vulgar language among young people and to promote intelligence in individuals’ speech, reading this article makes me go buh and huh. Their reasoning for banning such words are: More »

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“Black Box” Reduces Traffic Accidents is the article’s title. To veer off onto an entirely different direction, I have to say that I’ve been playing Chrono Trigger too much. When I read “black box,” I immediately thought these taxis had those sealed black chests, and I nearly yelled WTF. More »

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Thanks to the head honchos at Ningin, I’ll be doing a weekly entry every Saturday. Each week, I’m going to showcase a song. The song’s going to be one of the following: Japanese, Korean, anime-related, video game-related, and etcetera. Basically, any song that’s from “Asia” will be chosen, which will usually be a song I’ve been addicted to for the entire week.

Without further ado, here’s this week’s song. More »

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Okay, European video game music lovers! Save a spot on your social calendar (any calendars, really) for the Symphonic Fantasies Concert in Cologne, Germany during September 2009. This concert will feature music from Final Fantasy series, Chrono series, Kingdom Hearts series, and Mana (Seiken Densetsu) series. More »

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Gyakuten Kenji, also known as Perfect Prosecutor, will be a spin-off from Capcom’s popular Gyakuten Saiban (Ace Attorney) series. As a fan of the series, when I heard that the new spin-off game for the DS was going to be featuring Mitsurugi Reiji (Miles Edgeworth), I nearly cracked my skull at the news. Obviously, I’m a fan of his.

Well, according to this site, there’s a release date, and it’s for May 28, 2009. WHAAAAT. That is a long way off, and with that being the Japanese release date . . . if Capcom USA ever localizes this, it will be a long time before we English gamers see this. Unless the Japanese one comes with an English option like the couple of the GS games had. Then I’d gladly import the game!

. . . But seriously, May 28?! Aigoos. Oh well. At least we have a release date now.

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Apparently, Nintendo is “recession-proof”, or so says this article. Even though South Korea is suffering from a pretty bad economic setback, people still want to have some fun in their life, which makes sense. And the DS and the Wii are great for casual gamers, which the article notes on how the gaming user-base has shifted here. Kudos to Nintendo for doing that, even if some their stuff is too cutesy/family-friendly and doesn’t appeal to me. I still love my DS, though!

Although I can’t help but wonder on how if the economy is pretty bad here, how can the South Koreans afford these extra stuff like games and other “frivolous” merchandises. If the poor economy affected me, I know I wouldn’t be spending my funds on materialistic items. But oh well. Whatever makes people happy.

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Or so says this article. But then I read this article and go HUH . . .

I can understand the reluctance from South Korea’s side. I can sort of understand how some South Korean officials do not want everything to be “Japanised.” However, I can’t help but think, uh, sorry South Korea, but Japanese mangas, novels, and etcetera intrigue me more. Heck, even this entry just sort of proves from my side of the world that Japan rocks in certain areas. I admit that I am more biased towards Japanese products and media than I am towards South Korea’s, but I’ll blame that on my Japan-oriented hobbies. More »

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According to my dad, I’m living my third childhood because I went to Gyobo book store at Gwanghwamun today to look for Boxcar Children and The Baby-Sitters Club books. Well, I didn’t succeed in that department, but I did see this sexy looking thing.

It was sexy until I saw the price. 48,000+ won. Which translates into about $36. But then, compare that to $27 when you convert the price from 2500 yen. Um. Yeah. I know $36 is about the average price of an imported artbook, but my mind still thinks of June 2008’s conversion rate of 900 won to $1 USD and makes me think this is a $50+ book. Plus, I only had about 60,000 won on me, and I was not going to spend all my money at once like that.

But still! It looked sexy. At least, the cover did. Since it was in the plastic wrap, I couldn’t flip through the book to see if it’s worth that price. Then again, imported artbooks are so expensive. Once again, I ask myself, why must I have expensive hobbies!

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After many months of depriving myself of this fun (mostly because my throat and sinuses were stricken by some disease), I finally went to a no rae bang (private karaoke room) with a friend. Actually, it was a really long and freezing day. I had to haul myself to Yeoksam-dong, to Gangnam-gu for an errand, and then I waited for my friend in a coffee shop in my neighbourhood. When she arrived, we went to another coffee house/bar to have dinner. Then we decided to go to a no rae bang since we couldn’t go last time due to my sinusitis.

We went to the one we always go to, paid about $9-10 bucks for over an hour and sang our hearts out. Whenever we go, we sing a bunch of weird combinations of songs. Here’s a list of what we sang and of what I can remember. More »

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Just mere hours ago, I had a Daewoo TV. Now that I have a new JVC TV, I just realised something: I own nothing that’s Korean-made, with the exception of my cellphone. Hahaha! Seriously! If I put all my electronics together, these are what I have:

* JVC TV (Nicknamed: Pita = Pain in the Arse) * Hitachi VHS * Panasonic DVD Player * Panasonic Stereo * Nintendo SNES * Nintendo GameCube * Sony PlayStation 1 * Sony PlayStation 2

No Korean-made products. I find it very ironic considering where I live. On the flip side, I love my new (well, second-hand) TV. HOMG. Playing video games on it will be a very smexy experience. I already tested it out with one game and am absolutely floored by the big, crisp graphical and audio output.

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