Here’s how you can try to win hearts and minds – use media that’s familiar to them.

In the case of the US, last year’s campaigns saw the importance of the Internet in pushing forward advocacies. Now, it seems like Japan’s politician are also making the Internet a potential political battleground.

This anime political ad is sponsored by Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). Ever since the LDP posted this video online on Friday, it has had well over 219,000 hits.

The ad features a man (who happen to look like Democratic Party of Japan’s Yukio Hatoyama) proposing to girl in a restaurant. It is an attempt to question the DPJ’s proposals.

Japan’s Prime Minister Taro Aso of the LDP has been quite unpopular with the opposition and even with fellow party members and has called for parliamentary elections. The latest polls show that the DPJ is edging the LDP.

Here are (hastily-drafted :p ) transcript of the dialog:

Man: I am the one who will make you happy. Fill your life with roses. Ill take care of you, your maternity expenses, the expenses of your children, living expenses, and retirement expenses. We’ll speed into the highway of life as fast as you like.
Woman: But the money?
Man: We dont have to worry about anything once we get married.
Woman: What?

Groundless self-confidence or foundation?
Liberal Party Group

If you’re into the first-person shooter/RPG genre involving droids and evolutionary dregs (or just a fan of the first BioShock), then you might be interested in BioShock 2. The game’s set to be released this year and what we have here is one of the first looks at the game’s gameplay.

By the looks of it, the game does take advantage of the current gen gaming rigs’ graphics capabilities. The lighting, sparks, and shadows are definitely bound to give any person liable to motion sickness (or epilepsy) a hard time but at least it shows that it utilizes rendering and shaders pretty well. The water effect does look a bit shabby though.

The game will arrive for the PlayStation 3, PC, and Xbox 360 by the end of the year.

[Datenshi's notes: As the only guy in Sugoi who has played the original, I also thought that the teaser below contains major spoilers. However, Wikipedia says otherwise. So no need for you guys to comment "Would you kindly add a spoiler warning to this post?" ^_^]

The teaser is out and you can watch it after the jump. That is, if you want to.
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KIDS, DON’T TRY THIS AT HOME! IT’S VERY DANGEROUS!

Kobe Bryant jumped on an Aston Martin. This kid went and did almost the same:

The car was neither an Aston Martin nor was it speeding, but it was still kinda impressive anyway. I like the schoolboy-look, complete with backpack Hehe, luksong baka lang yan!

Video courtesy of JapanProbe

Give me some smack for being some geek hatin’ with this one. I know a lot of people all over the world are going bonkers over Guitar Hero. I tried playing the antique GuitarFreaks with that three button controller for the first-gen PlayStation but I never really got around be good at it. I’d have to say that I’m a lot better off playing a real guitar doing licks than doing it on a wee Gibson LP-shaped controller getting my groove on. But that last season’s South Park episode featured Guitar Hero and when Stan’s dad showed them a real guitar, the kids called it gay. Oh man.

Anyway, on to the real news with this one. Activision launched an American Idol-like competition for a chance for some lucky bastard to be part of the whole buzz as part of the game – Guitar Hero III Legends of Rock: Rock Icon. All you have to do is to prove that you have the “mojo” and “gnarlyness” to give a “soul-shattering performance.”

They’ve got Motorhead’s Lemmy to be their Simon Cowell. But as usual, he’s not the attraction. As far as talent goes… Oh man. This is bound to be a viral video riot.

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