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December 21, 2024
 

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Samantha Low
Video game music has come a long way from its humble origins.
LIFE / Digital / ON: GAMES
Dec 7, 2024
Beyond beeps and boops: Video game music has grown up
Video game music has gone from 8-bit chiptunes to fully realized productions that bring the gamer’s experience to life.
Held weekly at the Red Bull Gaming Sphere in Tokyo’s Nakano Ward, Tatakai Tuesday brings together both local and visiting fighting game enthusiasts.
LIFE / Digital / ON: GAMES
Nov 2, 2024
Blood, bruises and brotherhood at Tokyo’s fighting games club
Organizers Jonathan Metoyer and Andrew Fidelis started the events to 'replicate a sense of pressure you’d feel in competitive space.'
As is the trend in movies and TV, the games with the biggest budgets at Tokyo Game Show 2024 were by and large remakes and remasters.
LIFE / Digital / ON: GAMES
Oct 5, 2024
At Tokyo Game Show 2024, nostalgia was king
Indie gems were on the show floor, but the nostalgia from remakes and remasters drew the biggest crowds this year.
Tokyo Game Show opens to the public on Sept. 28 full of cosplayers promoting a full slate of new and upcoming titles.
LIFE / Digital
Sep 26, 2024
Tokyo Game Show 2024 stacked with big returns and hyped announcements
PlayStation returns to Tokyo Game Show for the first time since 2019 as Japan's biggest gaming show opens to the public on Sept. 29 and 29.
Held annually in Cologne, Germany, Gamescom is the world's largest gaming convention, meaning it attracts attendees and exhibitors from near and far.
LIFE / Digital / ON: GAMES
Sep 7, 2024
Traveling to Germany is ‘worth the cost’ for Japan’s indie studios
"Nothing beats seeing players' faces as they play our game in person, and getting to ask them directly about their experience, both positive and negative.”
Kingdom Hearts-inspired action-adventure game Luminous Nights was one of many indie titles that had to fight for attention on an increasingly crowded show floor.
LIFE / Digital / ON: GAMES
Aug 3, 2024
Bigger than ever, BitSummit’s indie spirit wears thin
As the indie game show grows, the question looms as to whether its current trajectory continues to be true to its original spirit.
While MyDearest's games are understably digital, employees also joke that sometimes they known coworkers only by their avatars used during meetings.
LIFE / Digital / ON: GAMES
Jun 21, 2024
Action drives VR, but Japan prizes anonymity and plot
A far cry from origins as a tech novelty, Japan's virtual reality industry is currently valued at $3.9 billion (about ¥615 billion).
SungWon Cho is a veteran with more than 10 years of experience portraying characters in anime, cartoons and video games.
LIFE / Digital / ON: GAMES
May 19, 2024
Want to be a voice actor? Stay 'true to the character'
“Most people think of just the cutscenes," SungWon Cho says, "but you end up voicing everything — the sounds a character makes when fighting, like battle cries, for example."
Since the original 2010 release, visual novel series Danganronpa has spawned eight mainline games (and several other titles) for a total 5 million copies sold worldwide.
LIFE / Digital / ON: GAMES
Apr 6, 2024
Are visual novels ready for a great leap forward?
Where reaction time and manual reflexes are in other genres, visual novels prize critical thinking and the ability to interpret characters’ motivations.
Chorus supported A Space for the Unbound by publishing the console versions of the game, which meant working closely with platforms like Nintendo for the eShop and physical versions while also providing additional Japanese localization for the game.
LIFE / Digital / ON: GAMES
Feb 24, 2024
How a small publisher links Japan to global indie gaming hits
Chorus Worldwide was founded in 2014, but the combined games pedigree of its core team goes much further back.
Final Fantasy VII Rebith, the second installment in the modern remastering of the 1997 classic scheduled for a Feb. 29 release, leads the slate of Japan-made games this year.
LIFE / Lifestyle / ON: GAMES
Jan 13, 2024
Final Fantasy and Tekken kick-start exciting year for gamers
Many upcoming titles are legacy franchises with recognizable faces that have withstood the ebb and flow of gaming popularity.
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital
May 4, 2023
Why IRL streaming in Japan is 'not for the faint of heart'
Privacy concerns and overzealous viewers can wear off the shine of filming in Japan, but many streamers say it's still very much worth it.
Mother hopes for reunion with daughter ensnared by Tokyo host clubs
The Kabukicho district in Tokyo, where the daughter of a woman in her 60s fell deeply into the host club culture.
A year after going private, structural reforms bearing fruit for Toshiba
Toshiba's Corporate Senior Executive Vice President Koji Ikeya speaks during an interview in Tokyo on Monday.
Taiwan lawmakers brawl over bills that would 'damage democracy'
Lawmakers from the Democratic Progressive Party and opposition party Kuomintang brawl in parliament in Taipei on Friday.
Record 78% of people in Japan feel anxious, government survey finds
The public opinion survey on people's lives, conducted by the Cabinet Office, found that 28.1% of respondents think that their standard of living is at a lower-middle level among the general public — the highest percentage to give that response in 35 years.
Police raided suspect's home to arrest him after fatal Kitakyushu stabbing
Broken window glass is seen at Masanori Hirabaru's house in Kitakyushu's Kokuraminami Ward.
Japanese officials inspect Yokota Air Base over PFAS concerns
The Yokota Air Base in western Tokyo in September 2019. An inspection of the base by Japanese government officials on Friday came amid public pressure to investigate suspected links between the use of PFAS-containing firefighting foam by the U.S. base and contamination of soil and groundwater in western Tokyo.
Crime numbers rise in Japan for second straight year
A police officer stands in front of the residence of a man alleged to have stabbed two junior high school students in Kitakyushu.
A year of Oscar wins and a quiet push for diversity
Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s “Evil Does Not Exist,” released in Japanese theaters in April, sharply dramatizes the clash between rural and urban values. The film won five awards at the 2023 Venice Film Festival, including the second-place Silver Lion prize.
Curiosity didn’t kill the meme: Why cats still rule Japanese YouTube
A screen shot from YouTube user @lagelda shows the simplicity of going viral in Japan in 2024: A cat dancing to EDM in front of a green screen.
With rare Asia carrier deployment, France seeks greater interoperability
The flight deck of the French Navy's Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier during a stop at Changi Naval Base in Singapore in May 2019

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

Yasuyuki Yoshida stirs a brew in a fermentation tank at his brewery in Hakusan.
The quake that shook Noto's sake brewing tradition
By Alex K.T. Martin

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