Since its inception people have been building innovative mashup applications using the Google Maps API. The otaku niche has so far been unexploited, but thanks to a new mashup by Akihabara Channel this is no longer the case.

The aim of the mashup, aptly named ‘Akihabara Map‘, is to show the location of all the otaku related shops in Akiba (Doujin, Figures, etc). English-language reviews of each store are available by a simple click of the corresponding placeholder pin. Additionally, stores displayed can be filitered to reflect your personal preferences.

I will hopefully be going to Japan next summer, so this map, and my copy of ‘Cruising The Anime City: An Otaku Guide To Neo Tokyo‘, will no doubt come in handy.

Link: http://akiba-ch.com/map/

Take Dragon Ball, Naruto, Yu Yu Hakusho, and a little custom thought, throw it in a blender, put it in a printing press, and you get 666 Satan.

Indeed, reading this manga was like reading those 3 animes all over again. As a matter of fact, the author, Seishi Kishimoto has been criticized for this thousands of times over. But to kick a man down, I am not here to do. As a matter of fact, I am here to do quite the oposite.

First things first, if the name Seishi Kishimoto strikes any glaring resemblance to another author, then you would be correct. He is indeed the younger brother of Masashi Kishimoto, author of Naruto.

666 Satan bares an extreme resemblance to Naruto, both in art style, ideas, and plot. Perhaps we can attribute this to the fact that the brothers are twins. Twins tend to think alot alike. However, I’m not a psychologist, nor am I here to analyze genetic traits so to the point.

666 Satan follows the story of a boy named Jio Freed and a young girl named Ruby Crescent. Ruby meets Jio on her quest for legendary O-Parts only to discover that Jio Freed himself is an O.P.T.

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One of the activities you will probably want to carry out if you ever visit Japan is to check out at least one of the castles that the country has to offer. While surfing around a couple of days ago I noticed the site JCastle.Info which provides very comprehensive details on just about every major castle in Japan (82 in their database as of writing).

Profile Page

As might be expected, each castle is given its own page in which you can find information such as the castle’s: year founded, founder, location, website address, history, and more.

Photo Gallery

Coupled with each site is a gallery of images showing the different features and angles of the castle in question. All the images are of a good quality, and each comes with a description.

Google Maps

Using the Google Maps API, JCastle.Info has made is possible to view and select each castle via the popular Google Maps interface.

Miscellaneous

The site contains a number of miscellaneous articles including a general history of castles in Japan and structural information relating to Japanese castles.

Link: http://www.jcastle.info

Just under a week ago Microsoft released their new Zune portable meda player. Now that people have had a chance to have a play, let us have a look at what was done right, and what was done wrong.

The first thing that strikes you when you look at the Zune is the huge screen, this allows for easy navigation and has obvious benefits if one wishes to watch videos on the player. Although it may appear so, the central wheel is in fact a four way controller, this however isn’t a real hindrance. The other two buttons on the interface are a back button and a play/pause button.

That’s all well and good you say, but what extra features does the Zune have over the iPod? The main feature which differentiates the Zune from its competition is the integrated wireless connectivity; with this it is possible to transfer songs directly between Zunes, reports suggest this can be carried out from as far away as 50 ft -very impressive. At the outset this appears to be an extremely handy feature, it is however riddled with problems, including:

• Songs will be erased after three days or three playbacks, whichever comes first.
• Songs may not be shared multiple times.
• Share requests automatically display an “Accept?” dialog at the receiver, in the process halting playback of the current track. This is fine if you are expecting a song from a friend, what about when someone writes an application for their laptop to DoS (playback) all Zunes in a 50ft range though -the only option is to turn off the wireless connection.

Something which is rather useful that the Zune offers is a built in FM radio ($50 or so as an add-on to an IPod). Personally I would rather listen to a few carefully selected Podcasts than seeing if there is anything worth listening to on the radio, but I guess this is a matter of choice.

Now we move into the darker side of the Zune. Microsoft are big advocates of DRM and they didn’t hold back with their new media player. If you were thinking you could transfer songs purchased from online stores currently using Microsoft audio formats, such as the MSN music store, forget it; all songs that go onto the Zune must be either “unprotected” (not packed with DRM crap) or be tracks purchased from Microsoft’s new Zune Marker Place online music store. The Zune Market Place itself offers a meagre two million songs, and before songs may be purchased you must buy “Microsoft points” which can be spent on the songs.

All-in-all the Zune is a fairly nice piece of kit, however unless Microsoft change their stance of restricting what their customers can do with their own hardware/software, I certainly won’t be buying a Zune -poor initial sales would suggest I am not the only one.

Welcome, Welcome. If you are wondering what this site is all about, fear not, I shall reveal.

The Otaku Times is a new blog which aims to render for you the finest that geek culture has to offer. The word ‘Otaku’ is Japanese slang (Why Japanese slang? Because Japan pwnz0rz of course) which is used to refer to geeks, usually of the variety obsessed with Anime and/or Computers, our niches. ‘Times’ is used to demonstrate the fact that the site will be generating news related to important world issues (haha), as seen in for example ‘The New York Times’, ‘The Sunday Times‘, etc.

What you can expect to see:

Anime/Manga:

Everyone loves space bounty hunters, high school girls who are actually aliens, and big mechas (if you don’t you should be ashamed of yourself). Here at The Otaku Times we will do our utmost to bring you up-to-date news regarding the latest goings-on in the anime/manga world, and from time-to-time we will post reviews of series we have recently finished watching.

Computers/Tech:

Computers and technology are becoming a greater part of our lives at a rapid rate, with this growth there are naturally lots of new and exciting developments going on all the time. The Otaku Times will attempt to chronicle the developments which we believe are particularly interesting, there should also appear at some point a number of tutorials related to programming in languages such as ‘Ruby’, ‘PHP’, ‘Java’, etc.

Misc Fun:

As mentioned previously, here at The Otaku Times we love everything Japanese (well, pretty much) so expect to see some of the following:

Battle Angels (Japanese Idol battles) - ‘Who is hotter, Mihiro, or Miyabi?’
JRock/JPop related postings
Japanese Lessons

Blog posts will also often include links to external media files, these might be accessible via a .torrent file or as direct downloads on sites such as RapidShare or MegaUpload.

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If you have any interesting ideas regarding the content/direction of the site please feel free to post a comment. Also, if you share our interests, have an excellent mastery of the English (Japanese?) language (with some examples at hand), and would like to help out with posts, then please email us at applications [at] otakutimes.com .