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It's summer, and that means the live-action Gatchaman movie is right around the corner. To celebrate, Toho published two trailers. They're suitably epic. Not only do we get to know the members of the Science Ninja Team, we also finally see what those incredibly expensive superhero costumes look like in motion. Not very bird-like, but sleek, for sure. And then there's the obligatory J-pop song. There's always a J-pop song. Gatchaman is expected to hit theaters in Japan on August 24. Questions? Comments? Contact the author of this post at andras-AT-kotaku-DOT-com.

Ever have a bare wall that is just begging to be covered? Well then, consider using post-it notes to make your very own bit of pixel art. Lasse Laursen, a resident of Tokyo, has put together a great guide on YouTube showing you how to do just that. By taking a picture of anything at all (he uses one of a pair of headphones) and putting that picture into photo editing software (he uses Gimp), you can convert the photo into the color pallet of regularly available post-it notes. From there you just pixelate the image and get to sticking those post-it notes on your wall. The whole placement process in the video took Lasse between seven and eight hours. As the video begins with a time-lapse of the project, skip to 2:35 in the video if you want to skip to the start of the tutorial. Kotaku East is your slice of Asian internet culture, bringing you the latest talking points from Japan, Korea, China and beyond. Tune in every morning from 4am to 8am. To contact the author of this post, write to BiggestinJapan@gmail.com or find him on Twitter @BiggestinJapan.

Creepy perverts are bad news! That definitely goes for ones out on the street. Or, rather, in the streets. Recently, one man in Japan was arrested for hiding in a drainage sewer, hoping to look up women's skirts. Twenty-six year old Yasuomi Hirai was arrested in Kobe, and he admitted to his creepy peeping crime. "I've done this numerous times," Hirai said, according to Yahoo! News. Sankei News reported earlier this month that Hirai entered a narrow drainage ditch at a nearby river and crawled dozens of meters through the ditch, which measured 35 centimeters across and 50 centimeters deep. He waited in the drainage ditch underneath the metal covering on a street nearby a woman's university, where female students, obviously, walked to and from class (Japanese TV news recreation above). One female reported seeing a pair of eyes peeking through two of the holes in the drain covering—which sounds nightmare inducing. Police rushed to the scene, but the suspect had already escaped. Police, however, had stopped Hirai earlier this spring for looking suspicious at the same location, and questioned him once again. He admitted to the crime, saying he took the day off work to start his day at 8am looking up unsuspecting women's skirts. While lying in the sewer. Jeez. Online in Japan, many were bewildered by the crime, finding it unbelievable. On Twitter, some compared it to a similar incident that apparently appeared in the manga Psychometrer Eiji. "If only this guy had applied his passions to other things," wrote one commenter on 2ch, Japan's largest bulletin board. You know, instead of peeping up women's skirts. One recommended the military, while another suggested a career in espionage or becoming a ninja. "If I could be born again," Hirai is quoted as saying, "I'd like to be a street." Well, that's creepy. 側溝に潜り女性のスカートのぞき見男逮捕 [MSN Japan] To contact the author of this post, write to bashcraftATkotaku.com or find him on Twitter @Brian_Ashcraft. Kotaku East is your slice of Asian internet culture, bringing you the latest talking points from Japan, Korea, China and beyond. Tune in every morning from 4am to 8am.

Well, Marc Freilich's six year-old son just got about the coolest birthday cake on the planet. Sure, the cake itself is a near-sighted scrap pile that'll be malfunctioning within a day, but with hungry boys around, it won't need to last that long. Hope he made his wish before sticking the knife in. Also hope they got the projector out of there in time. R2D2 Birthday Cake [YouTube, via Neatorama]

There are massive protests going down in Brazil right now, mostly over corruption and - remember this - the cost of public transport. The demonstrations are causing embarrassment for the government while a major international football tournament is taking place, but one who is not causing embarassment is this chap here. Who's taken the protests as a chance for some smart Pokemon cosplay. Meanwhile, in the Brazilian riot... [Reddit]

Today we're looking at the art of Bungie's Ryan DeMita. So, yeah, time for more Destiny Art. But not just Destiny art! Some Halo: Reach stuff as well, which you'll see below along with some personal stuff. To see more of Ryan's art, check out his personal site and CGHub page. To see the larger pics in all their glory (or, if they’re big enough, so you can save them as wallpaper), click on the “expand” button in the bottom-right corner. Fine Art is a celebration of the work of video game artists, showcasing the best of both their professional and personal portfolios. If you're in the business and have some concept, environment, promotional or character art you'd like to share, drop us a line!

Sean Gibbons, Community Coordinator at Wizards of the Coast, walks us through one of the big additions in Magic 2014: Duels of the Planeswalkers: the Sealed Campaign. Essentially, players open a set number of sealed booster packs and build a deck from those cards, limiting the pool of available cards and adding an element of randomness to duels - a popular play type in the physical format.

So with six 14-card booster packs, players construct a custom 40-card deck. During the campaign, three additional booster packs will be unlocked. This custom deck, which you can name, is also available in online play.

Past the break, we've embedded a general overview video of Magic 2014, also narrated by Gibbons.

17 million pounds. Of weed. As reported by the Center for Investigative Reporting, that's the amount of weed seized on the U.S.-Mexico border from 2005-2011. So, a lot of weed. The video above was made by the CIR, who in a more detailed report their site get fantastically nerdy about just how much weed we're talking about here. (Hint: A lot.) For some reason, they've based the whole video on the "All Your Base Are Belong To Us" video-game meme. Because of course they have. (Thanks, Leonard.)

Yes, yes, there's a lot of Pokemon. At last count, we have 649 of them—with 19 more announced and probably even more to come as we come closer to Pokemon X & Y's release. You know what that means, right? One lucky Pokemon gets to be number 666 in the national Pokedex. It's inevitable. But which one? It could be one of the ones they've announced already. Looking at the options, and assuming they're gonna play up 666 as THE DEVIL'S NUMBER it could be Noivern: Scatterbug also kind of looks "dark," but I doubt they'd go with something that turns into a moth-like thing. Some over at Reddit are speculating it's probably Litleo, a fire-type that's described as a "hot-blooded Pokemon that is quick to start fight." "But Patricia," you may be thinking, "that lil tyke doesn't look evil at all! How could he be DREADED POKEMON 666?" Well, the theory is that this pup will evolve into a Manticore—which is significantly more devilish. According to Wikipedia, a Manticore "devours its prey whole and leaves no clothes, bones, or possessions of the prey behind." That, and—notice the tail? Manticores, in some renditions at least, have the tail of a scorpion. Just like Litleo. It wouldn't be the first time that something cute turned evil-looking by the end of its evolution chain, either. Game Freak could always do the complete opposite and give us a peppy, happy-go-lucky lookin' Pokemon just to screw with people. Out of the new ones announced so far, it seems like Flabébé could fit the bill: I'd be down with that sort of thing, it would be funny. Hell, it could be a Pokemon that's not announced yet. I'm hoping they'll do something cool with it, whatever number 666 ends up being...but then again, this is Pokemon 420:

Gamasutra has posted Dragon Age head writer David Gaider's terrific GDC talk about sexism and sexuality in video games. It was a really interesting talk, and part of the overarching trend toward inclusivity at this year's Game Developers Conference.

We group up for the Last of Us, break out an Ouya, and then take it home with some Teräs Käsi.

You can decorate your house however you'd like in Animal Crossing...which means that some people have made rooms in New Leaf that are rather creepy judging from these images compiled by Tiny Cartridge. Sure, it could just be overzealous devotion to Isabelle, Wii Fit trainer, Reggie, and Iwata. But notice the tissue box in every single image? Yeeeeeah. One of these rooms is riffing off this image, FYI: Images via Parfait, BGBW, Vinesauce, and Zeer0id. Totally creeper Animal Crossing: New Leaf homes [Tiny Cartridge]

Look at the little mobile first-person modern warfare shooter. It's got map packs, just like it's PC and console inspiration. It names them all fancy — Modern Combat: Meltdown — dramatic! It even releases them on one platform first — it's now live on iOS, with Android coming soon. Of course Meltdown is free to everyone who has purchased Modern Combat 4, so it's got that on Call of Duty. Also, you can't hear other players talking while you play. And the winner is...

Infinity Blade 2 is kicking off the summer by slashing, and cutting, and chopping its price down to $1... sorry, it's cut another penny off to make it $0.99.

The sequel in the infinitely successful iOS franchise is regularly priced at $6.99, and has gone on sale for $2.99, but this is the first time it's dropped to that App Store sweet spot of a buck.

Gaming, even with the help of a well-designed controller, can be a physically demanding task. It requires coordination, skill, and hand-strength, even for the simplest first-person games. Not everyone has that strength. Video games can be particularly difficult for those with physical disabilities. Thankfully, industrious makers are always coming up with new ways to help disabled gamers play with ease. We've seen plenty of cool solutions over the years, from duct tape to wheelchair mods. In the video above, Caleb Kraft has put together a custom controller for Thomas, a kid with muscular dystrophy. Thomas (not really his name) will gradually lose strength in his hands, but he loves playing Minecraft. While a controller (or the Xbox 360 version of the game) will be fine in the short-term, over the long term Thomas is going to need a custom controller to be able to keep playing. So, that's what Kraft is making. Kraft goes into great detail about his process over at Hackaday, and points to The Controller Project, a site he's created to collect designs for custom controllers for the disabled. If you'd like to support this kind of thing, Kraft says you can also head over to Able Gamers, who are championing similar work. Amazingly enough, the controller in the video above can be made with a 3D printer, and Kraft has posted the designs on the hackaday site. Kraft is quick to point out that there's likely no one-size-fits-all fix for gamers of every disability, and that individual hacks and solutions will likely always be required. It's great to see another person out there tackling this kind of work.

Will Crispy hit 500 wins on this day? Only the inflatable donkey knows.

Days after unveiling its Galaxy S4 Zoom point-and-shoot, Samsung announces a 4G LTE camera with interchangeable lenses.

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Playing Katamari Damacy is always delightful, but I've always wanted a controller that actually emulated the game. Well, now one exists! With a little bit of elbow grease, a yoga ball, a few optical mice and some other parts, a bunch of crafty Katmari fans made that dream a reality. Sure, things like this have been done before, but it's still amazing. Also, you can't argue with the adorable smiles of the kids in the video. Those kids are justifiably psyched. [über cool stuff via Boing Boing] To contact the author of this post, write to chrisperson@kotaku.com or find him on Twitter @papapishu

It's been five years since a new Ace Attorney game hit U.S. shores—other than the Edgeworth-helmed spinoff—and if you've played any of them, you're probably counting down the days until the next one. Capcom's lawyer adventure series is consistently charming and delightful, and it's always fun to help the bumbling (yet badass) defense attorney Phoenix Wright get innocent people off the hook. At E3 last week I got a chance to play the next entry in the series—Phoenix Wright: Dual Destinies, which will be out as a digital release for 3DS this fall—and from what I saw, it looks just like a Phoenix Wright game, which is just about the highest compliment I can give it. I stopped playing after 10 or 15 minutes, because I knew that if I stayed at the booth, I wouldn't be able to leave. But I did get a chance to check out the newest mechanic, which involves, as it often does, reading peoples' inner thoughts. I also spoke to longtime Ace Attorney producer Motohide Eshiro, who had some interesting things to say about how the next game will be structured. (Warning: Spoilers for the last Ace Attorney game, Apollo Justice, follow.) "So after the ending of Apollo Justice, Phoenix says he's gonna become a lawyer again," Eshiro told me through a translator. "He becomes a lawyer once again. He has his attorney's badge back. He actually has a very important promise to keep this time around, so he's gonna go keep his promise." Phoenix teams up with the last game's protagonist, Apollo Justice—who is still working at Phoenix's makeshift law firm. Then there's an explosion. Apollo is injured. Apparently the court is wrecked, as you can see in the above concept art provided by Capcom. "The story revolves around both Phoenix Wright and Apollo Justice and this whole situation that they have entered," Eshiro said. "And it has all the plot twists you have come to expect from an Ace Attorney game." At the beginning of the first case, Phoenix is taking the defense attorney's podium for the first time in quite a few years. He talks about how rusty he is. When he catches a contradiction in a witness's testimony, the Judge is impressed: "I see the great Turnabout Terror is back!" Most Ace Attorney games have a special gimmick to change up gameplay. In the second and third games, you could break into peoples' hearts and use pieces of evidence to unlock "Psyche-Locks" and pry out their secrets. In this game, you can read peoples' emotions. Here's how the system works: during a testimony, Phoenix's new partner Athena Cykes can crack into someone's heart and see what emotions they're feeling at any given moment: happiness, anger, sadness, or surprise. Sometimes, a witness's emotions will contradict the words coming out of their mouth. In one case I saw, a woman named Juniper was describing the moment that a bomb went off in the courthouse, and for some reason she was feeling happy. We pressed for more information and she suddenly remembered that she was stoked that Apollo came to rescue her. Bam, more useful information for the testimony. Other than that, the game should feel rather familiar if you've played any previous Phoenix Wright games. (And if you haven't, I mean, come on.) "So the actual flow of the game, going from investigation to court and investigation, that hasn’t changed," Eshiro told me. "What has changed is, during the investigation part, you’re not looking at just a 2D scene anymore. You’re actually looking at full 3D. When you get to an investigation scene, you can actually look at it in full 3D, move the camera angle, find new evidence, new story bits. That actually enhances the gameplay a lot. It makes everything more interesting being able to look at things from a different perspective." Let's pause for a second. At one point during our interview, I told Eshiro I had a random question for him. A brief transcript: Kotaku: As you know, the new Smash Bros. was introduced yesterday. What are the chances of Phoenix Wright getting in? Eshiro: (laughter) I haven't heard anything about the new Smash Bros. yet, but I don't really think that there's a chance that Phoenix could get into Smash Bros. Kotaku: Well Mega Man did... Eshiro: I actually didn't know that. I was very, very surprised about that. Back to the game. Lots of familiar characters are coming back, in addition to Phoenix and Apollo. Pearl Fey is back. Trucy Wright. Klavier Gavin. Longtime Phoenix Wright Rival Miles Edgeworth will be there, this time as head of the prosecutors' department. "I always like it when Edgeworth and Phoenix team up," I told Eshiro. He laughed. "Well then you're definitely gonna look forward to Ace Attorney: Dual Destinies." This time around, they handled localization—the process of bringing the game from Japan to the U.S.—a little bit differently. Instead of making the game in Japanese and then handing it off to a team for translation and localization programming, Capcom's Phoenix Wright team worked side-by-side with localization staff from the getgo. When the Japanese writers finished the first chapter, they gave it to the translators, and if they needed to make changes, they told the translation team right away. "It was a very new process for this series, but we’ve wanted to do it for the longest time," Eshiro said. "By doing it this way, we’re actually able to get a real high quality translation that’s pretty much to the quality of the Japanese version, and also get that out a lot quicker than usual." And what's next? I asked Eshiro about the future of the Ace Attorney franchise: will Phoenix keep coming back for more insane legal battles? "There's lot of playable content in Ace Attorney: Dual Destinies," he said. "Once users start to play that, once they finish the game and they feel like, 'I need to play the next one right now, I need to know what happens next,' we want to get those impressions first, and then decide, 'OK, this is what we’re gonna do with the series.' We’re asking fans to go get the game, try it out, give us your impressions, give us your thoughts and then we can start thinking about the future of the Ace Attorney series." "So does it end on a cliffhanger?" I asked. "Will you leave us hanging?" Eshiro wouldn't answer. He just laughed.

Nintendo may not have given an "official" E3 press conference, but that doesn't mean they skipped the show entirely. If you didn't get up early enough to watch their Nintendo Direct and its accompanying announcements (or if the lousy feed crapped out), you may be wondering just what they showed. Maybe you'd like to watch a shorter version, with more jokes? First, Microsoft got theirs, then Sony did. Now Mr. Matt Lees of Videogamer has made an "abridged version" video for Nintendo. I particularly enjoy his take on the new JRPG X, which is basically the how I reacted, as well.

Some devs like to keep it simple: no in-app purchases or microtransactions—hell, no app at all; no forcing you to rope your friends to play. Just, you know: player gives dev money, player gets entire game. That game is probably priced at more than 99 cents to boot. It's an approach that may seem strange in the age of mobile and social games. For Tim Keenan, selling A Virus Named TOM in a simple, traditional approach sounds like it resulted in some majorly annoying conversations with other people judging from this funny puppet theater reenactment. "I guess it's more the frustration of all the random advice you get, telling you to do whatever is hot at the moment. Though I recognize it's usually with the best intentions ;)," Keenan explained in a Reddit thread. "It's almost therapeutic making these. I may make one on the joy of dealing with publishers next." Indie Life #1: "PC Game" [MisfitsAttic]

Patrick was given just a few minutes to learn a little bit more about Microsoft's huge moves in the last 24 hours.

Popular browser-based massively multiplayer persistant-world puzzle game Puzzle Pirates is now available for the iPad. That could be dangerous.

Don't worry, this one doesn't crash halfway through.

Taken from a video by the folks at Digital Trends, this GIF is kind of unreal and I can't stop watching it. Just another example of what it can be like for women at a convention like E3.

Man of Steel: The Story of Jesus gets broken down in the latest edition of the UGBMPthing, and Alex and Rorie also talk This Is The End, Frances Ha, the prospects of World War Z, and a bunch of other stuff!

Thief is infiltrating current-generation consoles alongside its launch on PS4, Xbox One and PC, Senior Producer Stéphane Roy announced in an Eidos Montreal video. It will launch on Xbox 360, PS3, PS4, Xbox One and PC simultaneously, and all versions are under development from the same team.

The core gameplay of Thief on current-gen and next-gen consoles will be the same, but the two versions will have slight differences.

"No doubt we have to change it a little bit - the next-gen is just so powerful - so we have to adapt our strategy of how to make it happen on current-gen," Roy said.

Thief is due out across all platforms in 2014.

Beamdog abruptly removed Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition from sale on both the App Store and the company's own portal yesterday, as the studio works to "resolve a number of contractual issues." The removal, made at the request of an unnamed publishing partner, apparently doesn't extend to Steam, where the remake of BioWare's RPG remains on sale.

"We are unable to discuss details of the complex legal matters surrounding this issue at this time," Beamdog said in an FAQ section related to the announcement. "Please be aware that we are extremely unhappy with the situation and are doing our best to work past it. We have put a lot of hard work into this series, and are eager for fans to see it."

Until those contractual issues are ironed out, the situation means the launch of Baldur's Gate 2: Enhanced Edition is on hold. Hopefully things will be resolved with as little delay as possible, lest whatever's getting in the way should desire the holy wrath of Boo.

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