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nostalgia

We check out Shinjuku’s video game theme bar and get a neat EXP bonus, enjoy whacky plate-ups

Grab your Virtual Boy and ready your quarters, it’s time to knock back a shot of gaming nostalgia!

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Japanese netizens list their top 10 choices for ’90s anime remakes — What’s your pick?

Now that we’re two decades on from the ’90s, what shows would you like to see receive a modern day make-over?

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A blast from the Poképast! Original Pokémon figures from the ’90s get a re-release

Fans of fat Pikachu rejoice! The classic designs from the original Pokémon games star in this reprint of an old line. Gotta catch ’em all!

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Official Pokémon Red and Blue sprite goods let you relive the past in pixelated style

Celebrate 20 years of catching ’em all with Pokémon Center Japan’s new line of throwback goods.

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Tokyo jumps into the “kids’ meal for adults” game with this mouth-watering nostalgia trip

Baby King Kitchen is a restaurant that wants to make adults feel like kids again. Is it just a happy meal pipe dream, or a trip down memory lane?

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Natsukashii! Japan’s Twitter users in their 30s share items from their youth, get all nostalgic

It’s weird being in your thirties (or thereabouts) in 2015. Kids today have no idea what a struggle it was for us growing up in the days before smartphone selfies, dumb internet trends, and myriad modern technological conveniences. Wait, what are we saying, it was absolutely awesome! For ours was a more innocent childhood, full of VHS tapes, talking on phones connected to the wall by a wire, and clunky dial-up internet that still felt like the greatest thing ever invented.

Japan’s 30s club is no different; they too are nostalgic for the relics of a simpler past. And in this article, we round up 22 nostalgic items that Japanese Twitter users say sum up their idyllic childhoods. But how many of them (if any) are the same as those we in the west enjoyed?

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Transform your fridge or washing machine into a giant Nintendo Game Boy with the power of magnets!

Alright gamers, how many of you remember playing one of those brick-like Nintendo Game Boys – the one with the tiny black-and-green screen on top that was nigh-on impossible to see without a 100-watt lamp or the sun directly overhead? Mobile technology may have come an awfully long way since Nintendo first released its classic handheld into the wild, there’s nothing that beats the fondness of revisiting moments from our childhood, and that little hunk of plastic was definitely one of them.

You may not be able to get your hands on one of those old systems now, but lo, nostalgia is nigh! For now, with some simple magnetic power, you can transform one of your everyday home appliances, like your fridge or washing machine, into a blast from the past with these giant Game Boy magnets!

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Our Japanese reporter cleans his childhood room, finds all kinds of nostalgic treasures

Recently, our Japanese reporter Yoshio visited his parents’ house and decided to finally take a stab at tidying up his childhood room, which had been left untouched ever since he moved out. In the process, he was surprised to find many lost relics and treasures from his childhood, and became caught up in a wave of nostalgia for several hours. Needless to say, he didn’t get much cleaning done in the end…

If you’re the nostalgic type, perhaps you’d like to take a peek at the treasures that Yoshio dug up, some from over 20 years ago!

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Stinky train tracks, expensive imports and no weekends: netizens remember Showa-era Japan

The Showa period (1926-1989) was a time of immense change for Japan when the country went from being an imperial power to a poverty-stricken post-war nation and then becoming an economic powerhouse that dominated automotive and electronic industries around the world. Twenty-seven years since that era ended and the current Heisei era began, fond memories of “Showa Japan” still flood many Japanese minds.

But a recent online poll asked netizens to take off their rose-tinted glasses and consider the aspects of daily Showa-period life that, while seeming completely normal back then, would be unthinkable now. Join us after the jump for a look at the slightly grim feedback.

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Floppy drive orchestra performs old-school game music, gives us nostalgia overload 【Video】

We’re constantly amazed by the creative ways people come up with to reuse defunct technology, and here’s another one to blow your mind. One YouTuber has used his programming and music skills to reproduce popular tunes and game music using… floppy disk drives!

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Hiroshima, 1958: Everyday life captured on camera 【Photos】

The French actress Emmanuelle Riva is best known for her role in Alain Resnais’s Hiroshima, Mon Amour, an innovative 1959 drama that explores memory and loss against a background of the after-effects of the Hiroshima bombing. While filming on location in Hiroshima, Riva also took these striking photographs of the city and its people, which provide a fascinating peek into everyday life in Japan back then.

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These kids’ driving simulator toys still work decades later! …kind of

The names of the toys – Turnin’ Turbo Dashboard; Fun-To-Drive Dashboard – might not ring any bells. But the boxy red plastic exterior, the click of the gear stick and the repetitive roar of the engine that drove parents to distraction? Yep, you know this game.

One Redditor recently pulled his Dashboard out of storage and was delighted to discover that it “still runs like a dream”. Cue reams of nostalgic commenters flung back into their playground days, when kids could be kids and sit alone all summer playing 100-mile-an-hour driving simulator without prompting any hand-wringing or moralistic wailing. It’s time to raid your stash of enormous dry cell batteries – we’re going for the drive of your life.

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Relive 16 childhood video games with “NES Remix” on Wii U

In the wake of the exciting new video game systems hitting stores this season, our reliable Japanese friend Nintendo is taking us onboard the nostalgia express train with a Wii U game that puts a new spin on 16 well-known NES (or Famicom in Japan) games, like Super Mario Bros. and Excitebike. Besides turning these popular games into mini-game levels where players challenge their own high score, NES Remix changes these games up a bit with new challenges, like playing Donkey Kong in the dark or playing tennis against an invisible opponent.

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Nintendo to release album of 8-bit theme songs to celebrate 30 years of NES

For those of us that find it hard to believe that the NES (called “Famicom” in Japan) turned 30 this year, Nintendo is putting out an album of 26 of the best theme songs from classic games like Super Mario Brothers, The Legend of Zelda and Metroid. The two-disc album comes out December 4, making it the perfect holiday gift for that person in your life that loves the simple 8-bit tunes of yesteryear.

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Before Dragon Ball: See the 1984 advertisements announcing the creation of this now classic manga

Anyone remotely familiar with Japan’s comic culture has likely seen or at least heard of the world-renowned adventure manga, Dragon Ball. Honestly, thanks to the anime, the TV specials, the films, and the Hollywood movie adaption, it’s hard to find anyone without at least some awareness of this awesome title. The impact that Dragon Ball has had on Japan’s comic industry is so great that a world without Super Saiyans is hard to even imagine. But, every series has to have begun somewhere, and before the 51st issue of Weekly Shonen Jump Magazine for the year 1984, there was no such thing as Dragon Ball!

…Actually, that’s a lie. Issue number 51 certainly contained the first chapter of the Dragon Ball manga, but the hype began a short time before that. After all, it’s hard to sell an all-new series without some form of advertising. We found this to be true when the Japanese side of our RocketNews24 staff managed to dig up a copy of 1984’s Weekly Shonen Jump volume 50, one issue prior to the release of Dragon Ball. Inside, we found some awesome illustrated spreads announcing the creation of this comic wonder. It’s fascinating to see just how highly the series was anticipated, though the comic’s branding might have been a little off the mark at first.

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A comprehensive gallery of transformation toys from Sailor Moon! 【Photos】

Since the announcement of a new Sailor Moon anime, fans of the franchise have grown super hyped for some awesome new adventures with the magical moon princess and her sailor scouts. Speculations about the next installment of the anime are soaring, and merchandise marking the 20th anniversary is similarly flying off the shelves. Playing to the growing age of their former audience, product marketers are eager to put an adult spin on all of the imagery that we fans of the series were so enthralled with while growing up.

But, let’s not forget the excitement we also held for the Sailor Moon toys they sold back in the day. Ten to twenty years ago, every transformation brooch and attack wand could be yours in real-life plastic, complete with light-up gemstones and tinkling chimes. Many of the items produced in Japan never actually made it overseas, and the majority of those are now considered collectors’ items, worth hundreds of US dollars! Look here for a comprehensive gallery of all the Sailor Moon toys taken straight from the anime! Read More

RocketNews24 Original Scatch and Sniff: Aaah, That New Game Console Smell!!!

At 00:00 a.m. on March 1, 1997, a 14-year-old version of this writer- extremely lanky and awkwardly dressed- was standing outside a videogame store alongside his mother and a few slightly bedraggled-looking young men, clutching the pocket-money he’d saved for nearly 18 months, absolutely desperate to give it away.

This was undoubtedly the nerdiest moment of my life, and I’ve never since gone to a midnight launch of a videogame console, despite owning about a dozen since. But when I’d waited more than a year for the UK launch of the Nintendo 64, and, having convinced my infinitely-patient mother to drive me into town in the middle of the night, I was excited. Incredibly excited. Perhaps more excited than a night before Christmas with Santa, Willy Wonka and a dozen sugar-rushing puppies, even.

Back at home, opening my new console on my bedroom floor (it’s called “unboxing” now, and people post painfully long videos of it online…), I was hit by that curious smell of new electronics. But not just any old electronics smell; this was the smell of a new Nintendo 64. Clean, new, professional, yet somehow extremely welcoming…

Up until now, I had thought I was the only one who noticed these things- that videogame consoles, new mobile phones, whatever- had a distinct smell of their own, not just ‘electronics’.

But over at our Japanese site, Mamiya-san has written a great little article about his own experiences with much-loved games console the PC Engine (perhaps known to some as TurboGrafix-16), and, in particular, its own very special smell. Since the machine remains relatively unknown outside of its native Japan, I can’t help but share his experiences with our English-speaking readers. Read More

The Return To Cassette Tapes (Or Did We Ever Truly Leave Them Behind?)

Sony is releasing a new product, their HF Series cassette tapes. There will be 10, 60, and 90-minute versions and prices are expected to range from around 100 to 230 yen for individual tapes, though they’ll also be available in 10-packs. Possibly in consideration for its target clientele (hint: not the young), Sony has made the printed font big, as well as made the labels and index sheets easy to write in big letters. As could be expected, the netizen response to this unveiling has been colorful … Read More