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Raising awareness in the competitive gaming community – two female perspectives

We here at RocketNews24 had a blast at last month’s E3 video game conference. Without a doubt, one of the most eagerly anticipated events of the whole conference was the Super Smash Bros. Wii U Invitational Tournament. Hundreds of fans showed up to cheer on the competitors in person, while thousands more tuned in to watch the live stream of the event via Twitch.

Our reporter recently caught up with Lilian Chen, aka Milktea, one of only 16 players from around the world who were specially invited to compete in the event. In addition to her history of playing competitive Smash, Milktea has remained an active part of the gaming community for the past eight years, most recently sharing her personal reflections as a female gamer in a series of online posts.

Join us as we take a deeper look at the world of gaming from a female perspective, including some of Milktea’s thoughts on the issue and the ongoing work of another advocate, the creative team of She Got Game.

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Internet survey sheds light on how Japanese women deal with the hair ‘down there’

Different cultures have different norms regarding the acceptability of body hair. For example, in many countries of the world, women are largely expected to shave their legs and underarm hair when going out in public. But what about that other, far less public patch of hair?

The latest edition of Shogakukan’s News Post Seven teamed up with an online research agency to check up on the status quo of what Japanese women nowadays do with the ‘hair down there,’ especially now that attitudes in Japan are becoming increasingly similar to those in the West. Do they shave it? Tidy it up every so often? Leave it as is? The internet survey disclosed some revealing results.

If you’re a woman and visited a Japanese hot spring before, you may be able to guess that things are about to get a little hairy…

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Why was Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 flying over Ukraine? NHK explains

The recent tragedy of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 has capture the attention and sympathy of people across the world, leaving many wondering how such a horrible accident could have occurred. While fingers are being pointed and world leaders are looking for someone to blame, many in Japan are also wondering why a flight from Amsterdam to Malaysia was going through Ukrainian airspace in the first place.

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Don’t mistakenly eat these sushi characters, they might just save the world!【Video】

When you think of Japan, what is the first thing that comes to mind? Perhaps, it’s “sushi”, the delicious combination of rice and various aquatic delicacies. Or maybe you think of “ninja”, those fierce warriors of the past that devastated more than a few rulers in their prime. Of course, it might be “anime”. After all, many people become interested in Japan because they want to see and know more about these big-eyed animated characters. If you thought of any of those words, you have to check out the newest anime from Daisuki TV, titled Sushi Ninja!

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  • Jul 16, 2014

Disney meets manga — never before seen crossover announced for new Big Hero 6 movie!

Back in May, we reported to you about how we would be getting our first Japanese Disney hero in the upcoming film Big Hero 6 based on the Marvel comic of the same title. Since then, we’ve found out that the film will be titled Baymax in Japan, after the protagonist Hiro Hamada’s white fluffy companion robot. We’ve also learned from a recent announcement that Disney will be getting involved in a highly unique crossover for Big Hero 6 that’s never been done one with any of their other movies before — in advance of the movie release, Big Hero 6 will be serialized as a manga here in Japan starting in the beginning of next month, and there will even be a prequel manga published as well!  Now, that’s a piece of news we’re certainly excited to hear!

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Live-action Mario webisodes take the Mushroom Kingdom by Bob-ombs【Video】

Since Mario and his younger, taller, skinnier brother, Luigi, first joined us in the mid 80s, there have been scores of games, merchandise, an awkward but awesome TV show (The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!) and a truly terrible live-action movie, amongst other things. They are, quite possibly, the most famous brothers in the world, so it’s no surprise that a number of fan-made videos featuring the world of Super Mario have been made. One such creative parody has transported Mario and his friends and enemies from Smash Bros. into a war-torn world that obviously only a pair of plumbers can save. Hold on to your mustaches people…the complete series of “Mario Warfare” has been uploaded to YouTube.

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Stunning Photos Of The Supermoon

On Saturday night, July 12, you may have noticed that the moon looked unusually large.

That’s because it was the “supermoon,” which happens when two phenomenon occur at the same time: the full moon and the “perigee moon.” The perigee moon is when the moon passes closest to earth causing it to look about 14% larger and 30% brighter than usual. It looks even larger when it hangs low over the horizon, as it does when it is rising, for reasons scientists can’t completely explain.

Don’t worry if you missed it though. You can catch another supermoon on August 10 and September 9.

Until then, check out our favorite pictures from this past weekend below:

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Why do Japanese cleaning crews bow at trains? Foreigners and Japanese sound off

The cleaning crews who maintain Japan’s high-speed bullet trains have a mere seven minutes to make the interior of the train spotlessly clean for its next journey. Those seven minutes are carefully divided into different tasks to make sure everything gets done in the allotted time.

Another curious detail people often notice about these cleaners is the way they bow as trains are entering and exiting the station. While this act is generally thought to be a respectful gesture, the intended recipient of the bowing seems to be a matter of great debate, with plenty of conflicting opinions out there, even among the Japanese!

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Is there a correlation between sex and World Cup success?

Another World Cup has come and gone, and diehard soccer fans will have to wait another four years until their national teams will have another chance for glory. While many of the successful teams in the tournament depended heavily on star players such as Argentina’s Messi or Portugal’s Ronaldo, it’s undeniable that the all-around teamwork of Germany was instrumental in their first-place finish. Another possible contributing factor to their victory was…sex?!

As both English and Japanese-language news agencies have reported, all the teams participating in the Cup had different policies regarding their players and sexual intercourse during the tournament. Furthermore, all of the teams that advanced to the quarterfinals had policies that allowed sex, while all of the teams which specifically forbade sex during the tournament were eliminated in the group stage or the round of 16.

Funnily enough, the German team was one of the groups that allowed its players to engage in some adult fun during down time…

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World Cup humiliation for Brazil inspires Internet memes

Brazil’s loss to Germany in the World Cup was, without a doubt, some of the biggest news of the week. Even non-soccer fans have heard about–and thrived on the Schadenfreude of–the massive blow out. It’s probably fair to say that, while not the biggest loss in World Cup history, it will likely be the most memorable of this tournament, and after losing to the Netherlands earlier today there’s even less for the country to celebrate.

And here to make sure that no one will ever forget about the horrible beating that Brazil faced is the Internet and tons of memes to make you laugh and cry simultaneously!

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Open source robot is waiting for you to make it even more amazing

It is not uncommon to hear that many people don’t like bugs. Those tiny, many-legged creatures are the source of our worst nightmares. Robots, on the other hand, are fantastic. Whether they come to us as Furby-sized companions or giant robot protector of the Earth Gundams, they amuse and entertain us to no end. So when we heard of the open source project combining insect-like parts and robotics, we timidly decided to check it out.

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Disney’s Frozen gets its own limited-edition PlayStation 4

After topping the Japanese box office for 16 weekends in a row, Disney’s Frozen can add one more feat — its very own PlayStation 4. The PlayStation 4 Frozen Limited Edition takes the standard jet black console with a 500GB hard drive and adds a Frozen laser-etched hard drive bay cover with the sisters Elsa and Anna.

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Smooth McGroove continues to show us how he makes music with his mouth!

Every gamer knows that good video game music can make or break a game. This is especially the case in RPGs where players spend a lot of time walking across the world; those light-hearted melodies accompany you as you perform the often tedious task of moving from town to town. Background music is also immensely important to platformers like Super Mario and Sonic. That music better be catchy because you are going to be hearing it again and again when you keep missing that third jump off the floating platform!

RocketNews24 has brought you the video game a-cappella styles of Smooth McGroove before. Well it’s been almost a year since then, what has he and his super chill cat been up to?! Among other things, turns out he’s been traveling through Kanto and the world of Pokémon!

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I love Tokyo’s awesome, full-scale statue of Gundam as much as anybody. I try to at least stop by and say hello to Japan’s most famous giant robot whenever I’m in Odaiba, and when time permits, I’m happy to sip a beer or munch on a pretzel from the adjacent shopping center as I stare up at the 18-meter (59-foot) tall mecha.

As I mentioned before, though, it has always seemed a little ironic that the monument is stationary. After all, the series is called Mobile Suit Gundam. Shouldn’t he be moving?

Actually, in a few years, he just might.

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These repainted dolls look so good they’ll knock your miniature socks off! 【Photos】

In Japan it is not uncommon to be standing outside a restaurant, drooling over what you think are actual dishes made in the kitchen, when you remember that they’re just pieces of plastic. At times these plastic dishes look so real that you wonder whether the restaurant really did put plates of its food in the window, but more often than not it’s simply that the person who made them is genuinely skilled.

if you’ve never see this fake plastic food with your own eyes, it may be hard to imagine the uncanny feeling it can create. But you might get an idea of what it’s like when I tell you that the photo of Angelina Jolie as Maleficent up there is in fact a painted doll.

We tracked down the creator of this incredible work online and have a bunch of photos after the jump that you really have to see.

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Why did we blow into NES cartridges? 【Video】

It’s 1987. You’re looking awesome in your oversized Michael Jackson “Bad” t-shirt as you slot a chunky, grey game cartridge into your NES console. But instead of the Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt title screen, all you see is a jumbled-up mess of an image that looks like an 8-bit Picasso. What do you do? The same thing everyone did – you take the game cartridge out, blow into it, and put it back in. Lo, and behold: this time the game loads perfectly and you can squish goombas or shoot ducks to your heart’s content.

But in the pre-internet age, how did we all “know” to blow into cartridges? And like rubbing the magnetic strip on a credit card or shaking a Polaroid photo, why did we keep doing it even when product manufacturers and scientists insisted that it didn’t work and could actually cause damage? Joe Hanson, biologist and author of the popular science blog It’s Okay To Be Smart, offers up some answers in a neat YouTube video asking just that.

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Sailor Moon cover is sentimental by moonlight, winning fans by daylight【Video】

Do you know what we love at RocketNews24? Our favorite Saturday morning cartoon themes re-imagined in different musical styles! There’s nothing like kicking back and hitting the ol’ nostalgia button and listening to a song in a way you never imagined possible. Well, just in time for the new Sailor Moon reboot, Sailor Moon Crystal, we’ve got a version of the ever popular “Moonlight Legend” that is going to Marty McFly you back to the 90s!

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Feel lame and old by watching kids react to a Nintendo Game Boy for the first time

In the latest episode of their popular “React” series, YouTubers The Fine Bros decided to give their group of tech-savvy kids none other than an original Nintendo Game Boy to see what they’d make of it. As you might expect, what with the portable console now being roughly 25 years old, many of the kids had absolutely no idea what it was, nor even how to turn the thing on.

So join us after the jump to see little kids fumbling to insert game cartridges, failing to find the power switch and saying things like “You have to actually press buttons” and “I kinda feel sad for the people in the past.”

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Google’s Street View cameras are taking spooky selfies in museums around the world

It turns out that there are a surprising number of mirrors in museums, so when Google unleashed its Street View cameras to catalog the insides of museums around the world, more than a few of them ended up accidentally taking pictures of themselves, we learn via Quartz.

Spanish artist Mario Santamaría noticed this happening quite a bit and did exactly what one should do upon noticing a trend: build a Tumblr around it.

Titled “The Camera In The Mirror,” Santamaría’s site catalogs the eerie moments in which Google’s cameras photograph their own reflections. You get a peek at them wrapped up in silver cloth or exposed to reveal a surprisingly robot-like body.

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What’s that emoji? Let’s take a look at Japanese culture with these texting emoticons!【Part 1】

LINE is a free instant-messaging and voice-call application that’s almost a necessity in Asia; for many, it’s cheaper than texting through their mobile plan, and the app’s astounding collection of oversized emoticons called stickers and sticons (short for sticker emoticons) makes chatting with your friends that much more fun and cute! However, Japanese users recently noticed a puzzling sticon that had found its way into the pool. The image, which we’ll be looking at later, is based on a worldwide fad that didn’t seem to catch on in Japan, so it’s no wonder that people were confused.

This prompted me to wonder, “Which emoji are gathering dust because some people don’t quite know what they are or what they mean?” Since emoji (literally meaning “pictographs”) originated in Japan and later became incorporated into Unicode, it makes sense that many are emblematic of that country’s culture. After asking a few friends, choices were narrowed down to the above six emoticons, available on most smartphones. In Part 1 we’ll be examining the three food-based emoticons, so if you’re not familiar with that geometry lesson on a stick or the origins of that brown circle, read on after the jump!

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