Jean Mallard's signature technique involves applying watercolors almost like oil glazes, layering colors from light to dark in a slow, meticulous process to achieve incredibly vivid colors and smooth gradients.
Square Enix is partnering with Google to integrate its AI large language model Gemini into Dragon Quest X, creating a Slime character that players can chat with. This character will respond with AI-generated text, offering tips, tricks, and advice as players navigate the game.
I don't feel out of place like this. It's like a family reunion. I love the creativity that's always been here, said Tameka Hendon, who has been attending since 2019. She said her friend handmade her customized cosplay, which features a motorized rotating ballerina in the wig, and was inspired by Queen Charlotte's Swan wig in Bridgerton.
This was no accidental clash of shoulders in a crowded place, but one of the most visible examples of a spate of butsukari otoko bumping man shoving incidents in Japan that experts attribute to a combination of gender dynamics and the stresses of modern life.
Katsucon, which describes itself as 'for multicultural enthusiasts,' takes place each year in the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center in National Harbor, Maryland, just outside of DC, and has been running in some form since 1995. It's one of the smaller, more intimate events on the cosplay calendar, but still pulls in guests like My Hero Academia's Justin Briner and Date a Live's Michelle Rojas.
It influenced my idea of what animals and natural history were, almost before I knew what real animals in the real world were like. For some researchers, themes in the Pokémon games mirror their everyday work. Spencer Monckton, a research scientist at the University of Guelph in Canada, who grew up playing the games and watching the TV series, says that collecting Pokémon is very much the same thing as what an entomologist does.
Virtual Cram School Wish High is a new online school by Tokyo-based company Luminaris. According to the publication, all teachers are "active VTubers," meaning streamers who use digital avatars to represent themselves instead of showing their real faces. Tuition at the online academy is the equivalent of around $63 per course per month, on subjects including mathematics, English, physics, chemistry, world history, Japanese history, and geography.
I don't remember when was the last day I did not think about Pokémon at all. In the 30 years since Pokémon debuted in Japan with the 1996 release of Pokémon Red and Pokémon Green for Nintendo Game Boy, the franchise has taken over the globe with its animated shows, mobile games and highly coveted trading cards.
You've got your obvious bangers, such as Frieren: Beyond Journey's End and Jujutsu Kaisen, but there are at least twenty weekly releases currently airing that are worth watching. Hell's Paradise, Fate/Strange Fake, Sentenced to Be a Hero, My Hero Academia: Vigilantes, Trigun Stargaze, Golden Kamuy - I could go on, and that's without including the stuff that just finished airing, such as Spy x Family and To Your Eternity.
Justin Bieber for Calvin Klein Spring 2015 Ad Campaign In A Parallel Universe: Artist Exposes Sexism By Switching Up Gender Roles In Old-School Ads Russian Blogger Makes Parodies Out Of Celebrity Photos, And More Than 20,000 Followers On Instagram Approve 10 Famous Movie Titles Written Using Negative Space The World of Modern Graphic Design & Typography by Kyle Kemink Chinese Tech Companies Hiring 'Pretty' Girls to Motivate Male Employees by Chatting, Playing Ping Pong and Buying them Breakfast
Finally, we are one step closer to a full-on Pokémon land coming to a theme park in the United States. Universal Studios Japan just made the first move in making our Poké friends into an amusement park staple. Pokémon International and USJ are expanding their collaboration by creating "an unprecedented, innovative experience" that will first debut at Universal Studios Japan before expanding to other theme parks globally.
Netflix has been getting cozy with more traditional (and financially concrete) release models. Its KPop Demon Hunters made a small fortune after just one weekend in theaters, while the Stranger Things finale earned around $20 million by premiering in 600 theaters.
One Piece's Monkey D. Luffy joined the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade floats, the latest Demon Slayer film earned $780 million at the worldwide box office in 2025, and the animated musical KPop Demon Hunters (though not technically anime) became the most-watched original Netflix movie of all time. As someone who had no one to talk to growing up during the days of Naruto and Dragon Ball Z, it's tough to even process that the genre has reached mainstream status around the globe.
We can now look back on November 28, 2025, as the start of a mass-psychosis event. In an era of neo-puritanical television slop, a fresh, horny breeze swept in from Canada: Heated Rivalry, a six-episode series about two professional hockey rivals turned lovers, Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov, stirred something deep in the American psyche. Ordinary taxpaying adult women, many of them my friends, suddenly lost control of their faculties over "the gay hockey show."
For the uninitiated, or those outside of the "Swarm"--the name for Neuro's fanbase--Neuro is an AI VTuber created by Vedal who utilizes a large language model and a VTuber model to communicate with her Twitch chat, play games, and even go on adventures in VR thanks to the 3D version of her model. Neuro was originally created to play the rhythm game OSU on Twitch, but rapidly evolved to become
but thanks to the opening of Pokemon's first ever amusement park on 5 February, this year, they are likely to come earlier. Unlike the rollercoaster-filled thrills of Tokyo Disney Sea or Universal Studios Japan in Osaka, PokePark Kanto is essentially a forest populated by models of the creatures from the perennially popular games. Nestled in the quiet Tokyo suburb of Inagi, half an hour from the city centre, the park is a walkable forest with more than 600 Pokemonin it.
It's been six long years since the release of , and while the vampiric anime Soulslike had some fresh ideas, the genre has changed significantly since then thanks to FromSoftware's . We've also seen games like, Final Fantasy Origin, and Remnant 2 bring something innovative to Soulslikes, but at the same time, the genre has experienced a flood of derivative titles, and fatigue is starting to set in.