The rice paddies in Gyoda, Saitama Some rice paddies in Gyoda, Saitama have been decorated with Minecraft art! Bees, pigs, dogs, baby chicks and the iconic creeper are represented in the art. The pattern is created using varieties of rice that grow in 4 different colours. I can't imagine how difficult that was to coordinate... There is a 50m tall tower you can view the art from. 1000 volunteers helped plant the rice in June. What an effort! The art can be viewed until Oct

PlayStation 1, 2, 3 and 4 games Sony have announced that they will stop selling physical games. Physical games will still be released until January 2028. But after that, you will only be able to buy games on the online PlayStation store. The reaction around the world has been extremely negative. Physical games allow people to share or sell them. They help preservation as many games are unavailable to buy online now. Also, digital games can be lost when the hardware fails an

Nintendo announced yesterday that they will release a remake of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time this year. It's exciting news! The original game came out for the Nintendo 64 in 1998. It was a huge game and it is considered by many to be the best game ever. The top-rated games on Metacritic.com In the game, you play as Link as a child, but you must travel through time, solve puzzles and beat bad guys to save Hyrule from Gannondorf. It is an epic game but if you play it

A message written about Quagsire (ヌオー) Every Pokémon is loved. And now there is a website to prove it! The website Favorite Pokémon lets people choose their favorite Pokémon and write a short message about them. All the Pokémon have been chosen as a favourite! That means every Pokémon is loved by someone! Which is your favorite Pokémon? Check out the website: https://favoritepokemon.vercel.app/#/ every Pokémon: すべてのポケモン to prove it: それを証明するために the website lets people choos

Freedom Gundam ZGMF-X10A Justice Gundam ZGMF-X09A Shirakawa Daruma Sohonpo in Fukushima have just announced Gundam Daruma! Daruma are small carved wooden doll heads. Traditionally when you buy one, you paint a pupil on one of the eyes and make a wish. When your wish comes true, you paint in the other pupil. There are two types: Justice and Freedom. They also come in two sizes, a small at 15cm and a larger one at 18cm. The large ones are 4,950yen and the smaller ones are 3,3

Switch 2 will is getting expensive! Nintendo Switch and Switch 2 are going to have a price rise. Nintendo announced the price rise last week. In Japan, both the Switch and Switch 2 will be ￥10,000 more expensive from 25th May. In the USA, Switch 2 will rise by $50; In Europe, €30 and Canada $50. It is getting more expensive... I want to buy a Switch 2 but now I will wait and maybe buy a secondhand one later... What do you think of the price change? price rise: 価格上昇 to ann

The sign explaining the Pokémon test Scalpers are the worst. Scalpers buy popular things just to resell them for more money. They are the worst... Bic Camera had a great idea to prevent scalpers from buying boxes of Pokémon cards. Make the customer take a test! Customers have to take a 15-question test on Pokémon. If they fail, they are not allowed to buy the cards! I love this idea! Scalpers make things more expensive... to test ～ : テストする ～ customer(s): 顧客 the worst: 最悪の

Pragmata's main characters The reviews for Pragmata are in. Pragmata is Capcom's latest video game. It is a rare treat: a new big-budget IP! Capcom are known for Resident Evil (Biohazard in Japan), Monster Hunter, Street Fighter, Devil May Cry as well as older titles such as Megaman (Rockman in Japan), Final Fight and Ghosts'n Goblins. But this game is totally new. The story is Hugh (a space traveller) and Diane (a small robot girl) must escape a research station. Video G

Nintendo Switch is the second most popular brand in Japan. That is with people under 20 years old. It ranks higher than Nintendo itself, Daiso, Disney and Pokemon. The survey asked about 1000 brands to 37,000 people. What do you think? What are your favourite brands? Read more here: https://automaton-media.com/en/news/nintendo-switch-is-the-second-most-popular-brand-name-among-japanese-teenagers-beating-pokemon-disney-and-nintendo-itself-according-to-large-scale-survey/ Ori

Project Helix - the codename for the next Xbox Microsoft announced their codename for the next Xbox. Xbox is the videogame console made by Microsoft. It is a competitor to PlayStation. The next Xbox is expected to arrive next year or in 2028. It is expected to be a Windows-based machine that will play all (or at least most) current and previous Xbox games. The last Xbox didn't go so well. They only sold around 28 million consoles. Not as many as PlayStation's 92 million (a

Nintendo's Pokopia Nintendo's share price jumped 15% because of Pokopia. Pokopia sold out in many countries around the world. It is also the highest rated Pokemon game on Metacritic (March 2026). Nintendo's share price over the last 5 days (12th March, 2026) Pokopia is a Pokemon game with different gameplay elements. The game lets players grow vegetables, build homes AND catch Pokemon. Reviewers and players love it and it has been a surprise success for Nintendo. share pric

Ghost of Tsushima I finally finished Ghost of Tsushima. What a great game, but with some parts that took me out of the action. The story is cool. I personally wish it were a little more interesting. The story was good, but the game was too long to keep me interested. Also, the story had the main character as a super badass samurai but... I am not a good enough player to maintain that badassness. All the characters I spoke to told me I was a superhero fighting the bad guy

Shinjuku maybe? Forza Horizon 6 is coming to Japan! Forza is an open-world racing game. This is the first time that it will be set in Japan. Previous games have been in Mexico, the UK, Australia, Italy and Colorado in the USA. The game looks absolutely stunning! I look forward to trying it out! Check the gameplay trailer here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dj2PkwfrRP0 open-world racing game: オープンワールドレースゲーム to be set in ～: ～を舞台にする previous games: 過去の作品 to look absolutely

Eiichiro Oda writes the secret Eiichiro Oda has written the secret of what the "ONE PIECE" is. However, he has dumped it in the sea... cheeky chap! The ONE PIECE is the treasure that starts Monkey D. Luffy and his crew on their quest. Nobody knows what the treasure is, but many set out to try and find it. Eiichiro Oda has never shared exactly what the treasure is. In a spectacular publicity stunt he threw the secret in the sea. The secret is out there, if you really reall

One Punch Man's introduction One Punch Man is a manga written by ONE. ONE is a manga artist from Niigata. One Punch Man started as a comic shared on the website Shinchosha in 2009. It was printed as a manga with new drawings in June 2012 and an anime version was shown in October 2015. One Punch Man is a super-strong hero. He looks quite young and skinny but has no hair. After losing a fight with a crab-like monster, Saitama (One Punch Man's real name) started training. He d

Satsuki and Mei's home in No Man's Sky A user has made a wonderful version of Totoro in the game No Man's Sky . No Man's Sky is a massive sandbox game. In the game, you travel across a universe to explore stars, planets and space stations. It is a science fiction game, so to see this kind of house is wonderfully quaint. You can visit the house. There are instructions on how to get there in the video below, I think. I don't fully understand, so I think it is difficult to get

Just a small part of the computer to create CraftGPT A very dedicated user has built a Large Language Model in Minecraft. Large Language Models are what we commonly call AI. The user, sammyuri, used many many different blocks and lots of redstone. Redstone is the game’s mineral which works like electric wiring. The construction includes a giant screen and keyboard to talk with the AI. The user said it is probably just a Small Language Model because it is quite limited. It

Shy Guy! (ヘイホー in Japanese) Who is your favourite character? I like Shy Guy from the Super Mario games. Why do you like him? Because I love his face! Anything else? I love his voice. His clothes are like Mario's. They are blue and red. Shy Guys are super cool! I always play as Shy Guy in Mario Kart! That's why I love them very much! Shy Guy: ヘイホー face: 顔 voice: 声 clothes are like ～: 複は～のように super cool: とってもかっこいい always: いつも

Here is a picture of many of the Super Mario characters. You probably know many of them. But do you know the English names? The man wearing a red hat is Mario. The man standing next to Mario is Luigi. The dinosaur jumping is Yoshi. The princess smiling next to Mario is Princess Peach. The big dinosaur standing behind Mario and Luigi is Bowser. The fish flying over Wario is a Cheep Cheep. The little mushroom thing standing by Yoshi is a Goomba. The tortoise flying next the Goo

Ghost Of Tsushima - a PlayStation 4 game I started playing Ghost of Tsushima this weekend. I got it for my birthday a few weeks ago. I didn't have time until Saturday night, so I grabbed a drink and started playing. I love playing video games. Me and my son play Minecraft every week. But when I have time, after the children go to bed, I enjoy playing fighting games. My son doesn't play games made for adults. He is too young. So, I play them alone at night. Ghost of Tsushim