Retro game review: Dynamite Cop is a friendly beat-em-up that definitely isn’t Die Hard Arcade 2: for one thing, it’s on a boat

You will fight a kraken bare-handed in the depths of a cruise ship.

I read manga biographies of pro mahjong players, so basically Idol Manga

If your otaku culture feels like idol stuff, but you’re not sure it’s idol stuff, look again, because it’s probably idol stuff.

Bonus: Spoiler Space - Goodbye, Lara

"And it is of course ironic that fans of a show about a main character learning to embrace her free will and reject social expectations are furious that said character did not do exactly what they wanted her to do."

Super Real Mahjong: Venus Returns delivers the quaint nudity of another age

So throughout, Venus Returns is kind of shocking. Not at all in terms of its sexual content— which is again quite tame— but in terms of the level of detail, the pains taken, the way you can actually hear buttons unfastening. Turns out video games are art, after all.

Otakon 2026 report: fake food, dolls, an orchestra, ramen, and The Most Impregnatable Man In Fiction

Otakon’s my home convention; I rarely miss a year. Despite its very large size, a raw spirit of grassroots fan enthusiasm seems to fuel the event, even after its decades of operation. Today anime/manga has completely settled into the culture, and we get events here in New York

Bonus: How to win at Super Real Mahjong: Venus Returns

As mentioned before, we want to win any hand possible, as fast as possible. There is no reason to score high, nor to play defense as you would in the standard four-player game. This will be a brute force method.

Ginger Root, Vtubers, Akiko Higashimura: I did Anime NYC weekend without actually doing Anime NYC

(I have an Otakon 2026 writeup coming, but I did a lot that weekend and it got kind of massive. However, on Anime NYC weekend I only did a couple of things because I wasn’t actually at the con. So I’m going to write up those things relatively

I watched all of the 2026 Fist of The North Star remake, and actually? It was pretty good

I’m passionate about the classic battle manga/anime Fist of the North Star (Hokuto no Ken). I’ve been mesmerized by its perfect blend of post-apocalyptic grime, absurd violence, and sweeping kung-fu melodrama since I discovered it as a kid, and my love for it has never

You probably aren't good at riichi yet; these pro books offer a glimpse of a tall mountain

As promised way back at the pro meet– where I played a round with one of these authors and was complimented by the other, by the way, ohoho– I’m going to review the strategy books I picked up. (Both of these books (Uchikawa, Matsumoto) have been made available on

Bonus: Retro Game Review - Battle Mania Daiginjo (Trouble Shooter 2)

There’s a lot of talk about the rising cost of mainstream video games right now, led of course by Grand Theft Auto 6 being priced at, effectively, $100. But taking inflation into account, video games used to be a lot more expensive than they are now: going by some

I got my play and my otaku keychains complimented by mahjong pros at the M.League x WRC meet in New York

At the risk of setting off any local rivalries, I am pretty certain that the center of the riichi (Japanese rule) mahjong boom in America is right here in New York City. To bring up just one point, I don’t think you’d see a large, dedicated riichi parlor

The trailer for Masters Of The Universe was really bad, but the movie won me over

This week I decided to go see the Masters of The Universe (He-Man) movie on a cheap matinee before it drops out of theaters, which might already have happened by the time you read this. The trailer for this movie was a constant presence before nearly every film I

video games

AYN Thor impressions - you can play everything, but you've gotta do it yourself

An emulator setup is kind of a project— a project of finding files, dragging and dropping them at great volume, and fiddling with settings— so I want to make an early impressions post on my new AYN Thor handheld before I make a final review. Why did I need a

I figured out how much Shadowverse: Worlds Beyond actually costs to play: it’s $50 per season

I previously mentioned taking up Shadowverse: Worlds Beyond and having a pretty fun time returning to trading card games after frauding my way up to the top ranks of MTG: Arena way back during the pandemic. I had played the original Shadowverse— which is modeled after Hearthstone, with more Magic-

the trembling right hand

Even the hardest veterans of Shonen Jump agree: The Trembling Right Hand is one of the worst manga we've ever read

I say this despite the last feature on this newsletter being a slam review of a promising but ultimately disappointing anime: I don’t really like to write negative reviews, not anymore. I would rather not be let down in the first place. And I don’t really like to

anime

Bonus: The Shiboyugi anime’s beautiful, stylized direction doesn’t elevate hollow material

This anime is shallow pulp, utterly confident that it’s an art film. By the time this season ends— by copying the “congratulations” scene from Evangelion, infuriatingly satisfied with itself— I was yelling at the screen. “This isn’t profound!”

arcade games

The Weekly April 23,2026 - Yoko Kanno, Guilty Gear reboots, CASTLE OF DRAGON

I saw Yoko Kanno in Brooklyn One thing about getting into middle age is that the culture starts targeting you. The pop music of your childhood starts playing at the pharmacy and in car commercials. The old-guy references on TV shows start to be about stuff your old ass

The Weekly, April 8th 2026 - rakugo, defeat, coin pushers, surf guitar

Akanebanashi anime premiere came with Actual Rakugo I was pretty busy this past week; all my plans turned out to be for this particular week in April. Any other week this would have been the highlight: I got to see a pre-broadcast premiere of the new anime adaptation of

I Guess It's The Weekly, March 30th 2026

I found I actually did have room for some shorts this week; here they are. Rave Racer I don’t think I’ll get as obsessive about grinding out Rave Racer (the first true Ridge Racer sequel, out for consoles for the first time in the Arcade Archives series) as

You know what's even worse than fighting game ranked ladder? Mahjong ranked ladder

The whole fighting game community has been talking about online ranked match lately, because the more you grind ranked match, the more you come to hate it. We’ll all eagerly tell you so; probably too eagerly for our own good. After the dopamine rush of rising through the ranks

anime

Hypnosis Mic: The Movie is a multi-path anime rap battle concert movie driven by audience voting, so how could I miss that?

YOU NEED HEART TO PLAY THIS GAME 気持ちがレイムじゃモノホンプレイヤーになれねえ

manga

The Annotated Cipher: The Video (2/2)

I’m not sure I can really call it a criticism that these guys don’t act like any guys I’ve ever met, gay or straight. But I also suspect that this is one of those things you can file under “feature, not flaw” for the actual target reader.

manga

The annotated Cipher: The Video (1/2)

It’s pure mood and style, with no interest whatsoever in explaining to the viewer what the hell is supposed to be happening as the characters dance and mope and play football.

Games of the Year? No, just Games I played this Year in the Year Of 2025

I've been a niche guy since the Playstation 2; I hardly play anything Relevant anymore, so I'm not the dude to ask for Game of the Year. Which is why I know what the game of the year was. The Gamesoft Robo Fun Club is a