K-1′s Not Immune to the Touhou Invasion

Ohhh yeeeeah! Let the flamboyant K-1 entrances begin!

Home to flashy, choreographed, and ultimately entertaining entrances, K-1 has been touched by Touhou. That’s right, and it’s brought to us in the form of none other than the “Cosplay Fighter,” Yuichiro “Jienotsu” Nagashima.

Now, clearly this is not his first foray in to cosplay as he often enjoys dressing up as his favorite female anime characters for fights, interviews, and other events. Yes, I said female. Be it genuine otakudom, gimmick, or psychological warfare, this display gains Nagashima much attention as well as some curious looks (o.O). But you have to ask yourself: how baddass do you have to be to walk out to a kickboxing match dressed up like Miku Hatsune?

Any way you look at it, the answer is: pretty badass.

Just to prove he isn’t all show, Nagashima wound up taking the belt March 27th at the K-1 World Max 2010 Japan Tournament. He won his first two fights of the night via TKO, and the last of the tourney by KO, which brings his professional kickboxing record to 12-3-0.

For each of his bouts, he had a different Touhou cosplay prepared, starting with Reimu, then Eirin, and lastly Marisa.

Do have a look at the entrances after the jump.

[via Japanator and K-1]

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MGS: Peace Walker Gets J-Popped

Last week, amongst the recent rash of Peace Walker gameplay trailer releases, Kojima Productions let loose with a peppy promotional video featuring Paz (voiced by Nana Mizuki) singing “Love Deterence.”

The choice of music and style of the video caught many fans off guard, and some even flamed up about it, complaining about its inconsistency with the game and series. I for one can’t see why anyone would a) take it so seriously or b) get up in arms about it. If you’re a fan of MGS and Kojima, you should be able to lighten up and understand the humor involved.

While watching the PV, I could not help but wonder when Snake and his CQC-ing soldiers would join in and get their dance on. It’s totally something I could see them doing, and apparently that was part of the original concept: having Snake and his crew dance, squat, and do pushups to the music. Alas, they wimped out and decided to forgo taking it that far. Even so, I found the PV oh so amusing.

Although the video was produced by the Kojima Productions demo staff, Kojima himself did admit to being behind the “peek-a-boo” aspect of Paz’ wardrobe (see above pic). He also took it upon himself to reiterate via twitter that the PV was a playful exercise to explore Paz as a character and not a detriment to the seriousness of the actual game.

Check out the PV after the jump, and look out for the HEAVENS DIVIDE maxi single due out April 7th.

[via Andriasang] Read more »

Sugiyama Defeated Again: Back to the Drawing Board

This pancake spent too much time on the pan, but here are the results of Shizuka Sugiyama’s most recent fight at the March 19th Jewels 7th Ring event. Sadly, due to our unfortunate inability to watch the fight on TV or find video of it, we turn to MMARising.com with this analysis:

Miki Morifuji vs Shizuka Sugiyama

In other featured action, Miki Morifuji defeated Shizuka Sugiyama by Unanimous Decision after two 5:00 rounds. Morifuji improves to 9-6-0 with the win.

Sugiyama had little interest in standing with Morifuji and pulled guard early in the opening round. She attempted submissions from her back, but Morifuji remained calm and scored with punches to the body. Morifuji nearly passed to mount, but Sugiyama scrambled and regained guard. The close first round came to an end with neither fighter holding a significant advantage.

Once again, Sugiyama tried to take the fight to the mat in round two, but Morifuji reversed her takedowns. The fight returned to the feet and Morifuji picked Sugiyama apart with crisp punches. Sugiyama secured a clinch and landed knees to the body, but it was not enough to steal back the fight. Sugiyama, touted as the future of Jewels, has dropped two of her last three fights, but is still young and has time to continue her improvement.

Sugiyama seems to have been beaten again as a result of getting picked apart standing up. What would be interesting to see is if her stand up, and especially her head movement, improved since her loss against  Alexandra Sanchez.

Sugiyama continues to try and take the fight to the ground due to her seeming disadvantage standing, which perplexes me considering she’s supposed to be a karate fighter. Then again, it’s Zendokai Karate which is a type of Karate/Judo/Shooto hybrid.

Sugi needs to improve her stand up and not rely on her guard game to try and get a submission off her back, especially when she’s going against stronger opponents. If you can’t finish people off your back without ground and pound to the face, what do you do when punches or elbows are allowed with gloves smaller then the large puffy Jewels ones?

Also, she  might think about spending time being more of a boxer than kickboxer when it comes to her stand up. I don’t think we’ve seen her slip punches, just block them. It is defiantly easier said than done, but it’s an amazing skill to have.  I also think spending more time working on a good high guard and getting some more traditional wrestling to help get those difficult take downs would also go a long way.

That’s my rational opinion. My irrational one states that Sugiyama lost again because she had corn rows, and we all know its all about the hair. Miki’s hair was out of control in the later part of the fight, and as you can see it changed everything.

See more pics from the fight courtesy Sherdog after the jump. Read more »

Sonic 4 Leaked Gameplay Video Breakdown

Back on February 16th, 1UP received an anonymous leak of Sonic the Hedgehog 4 gameplay.  While the video was taken down at Sega’s request,  there are still some sites that have been able to keep the video accessible.  Predictably, it has also appeared on (Edit: and been continually removed from) Youtube.

I’m actually quite excited by the content of the video.  The game looks better than I’d expected, with plenty of retro throwbacks shown in a short time. I’ll go ahead and list some highlights from the footage after the jump.  Keep in mind, however, that this is an alpha build, so the gameplay of the final product might work somewhat differently. Read more »

Miku Matsumoto Retires!

Never to fight again?

Horribly sad news that one of the best and most exciting female fighters is retiring. Now we may never see her fight the queen of women’s MMA, Megumi Fujii.

[via Kakutoh and Bloody Elbow]