Highjacked from Pink Tentacle is the awesome/freaky mutated x-man version of a monster Octopus that’s on permanent display at the Shima Aquarium.

Check it out… it has definitely more than 8 tentacles… Can you count how many?

96… 96 freaking tentacles…

The only things I’ve ever bought in a Japanese vending machine have been Coke and Boss (a drink endorsed by Tommy Lee Jones and advertised all across vending machines and billboards in Tokyo).

But after reading an article on CScout and Danny Choo about a Smart Car vending machine, I just had to look for more pics. And below is my top 5 best vending machines and a bunch of photos to go with them.

1) The Smart Car machine (even if its fake)

2) The Eco Machine (with nice grass on the sides)

3) The Porn Machine (3 machines secluded in a shack… I would be scared of finding Zed and some guy in a gimp suit in there)…

4) The Used Panty Machine (even if its old news its still hilarious)

5) The Egg Machine (would you buy eggs from a vending machine?)

Honorable mention, the Robot Machine (!).

Picture sources: Photomann, Pingmag, CScout & Darkroastedblend.

It’s Monday morning, 6:30 pm… nothing better to wake me up than 3 cups of coffee in a row and some good Japanese Robot fighting. The best is that they even have their own professional referee! Sometimes they look a bit “displaced” but some of these robots even have special moves… its just great!

Who do you think will win?

By the way, my favorite is “balloon dude.”

Yesterday was a fun day at the Anime Expo, some really nice cosplay and I also managed to buy some goodies (not as many as I wanted, though)…

This year the Expo was moved from Long Beach to the LA convention center, which gave it a lot more room to breath. I don’t know data un numbers right now, but for a Thursday, the Anime Expo looked pretty packed, but well spread out. Moreover the registration process was easy.

Still, finding a place to park proved to be a bit difficult and the lines at the Starbucks and the ATMs (for all those who wanted to buy more stuff than they thought…) were really long.

At usual great cosplay and statues (more pics of those here)… so lets have a look.

But let’s have a look at the at some Cosplay.

This Ichigo’s sword was really well done… and I thought it would be the biggest around, till later I saw Zabusa…

Something is going on at the Funimation booth.

I don’t know what anime/theme was the most sought after at the show. Since we’re in the US and A, Naruto and Bleach had probably the most cosplay fans, but also Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy had a lot.

This Son Goku was so good I made it available at a higher rez… :) And I mean, the guy was striking serious poses… once I did the pic he relaxed and gasped for like a minute.

Some FF and Naruto fans here… and this Kakashi was the best I saw around even if I later met a good runner up…

Zabusa was tired. I bet, look at the sword he was toting around!

Good old Alphonse…

This Kaneda was so well done I asked him to turn around so I could show the back of jacket detail.

Your beard and hair aren’t the right color, but this guy is a 9 out of 10 Solid Snake for me.

But what about this Link?

I don’t know what character this guy is, can you help me out?

I ended up staying till close looking around for a Range Murata statue I always wanted. Found it just before the show was closing down.

Below I’m adding some morethumbnails, have a look. I’l be updating shortly with more.

(Not enough? Check out more cosplay and Anime Expo at Broken Anime)

]]> http://www.americajin.com/2008/07/04/anime-expo-08-cosplay/feed/ http://www.americajin.com/2008/07/01/astroboy-defends-your-home/ http://www.americajin.com/2008/07/01/astroboy-defends-your-home/#comments Tue, 01 Jul 2008 17:53:19 +0000 Americajin http://www.americajin.com/?p=95

Highjacked from Danny Choo is this awesome article where you can see a Japanese TV ad for house security services that has everybody singing the Astroboy soundtrack.

The ad is just great… apart from how well dressed the guards are, I just love the whole theme.

Do you know of other ads with classic cartoon music?

Maybe the reason they are using Astroboy is because they are also advertising their robot guards (!!!)

We all remember what happened with the ED 209 model…

I wonder when I can see a Hokuto No Ken ad…

Astroboy picture source.

Following the early June news that Tomonobu Itagaki (the brains behind games such as DOA and Ninja Gaiden, more on him here) was leaving Tecmo and filing a lawsuit against them (see more here)… and the news that other game designers were leaving with him (see more here)… now Tecmo has managed to obtain a restraining gag order against him:

“Famitsu reports that Tecmo has won a gag order from the Tokyo courts, restricting Tomonobu Itagaki from giving any interviews to the press on the subject of Tecmo, or indeed from making any comments about the company or the case to any third party.”

-Source: Wired

Let’s see what happens next - sure thing, Itagaki and Tecmo had brought some really good games to market together up till now.

What do you think of the situation? Ever played any Itagaki/Team Ninja/Tecmo games?