Want a collective eight minute look at two of the six animated short films in the upcoming Batman: Gotham Knight DVD? Of course you do. This thing still doesn’t hit for another two weeks, unfortunately (July 7, to be precise), but it keeps looking more and more fantastic with each glimpse. It’s a little odd hearing Kevin Conroy raise his “Batman” voice up an octave or two from the way he delivered it in the original Batman: The Animated Series (I guess they wanted Bats to sound younger to keep in line with the film?), but it’s still cool having him reprise the role.

Five Minutes In Gotham (via MTV.com)

Batman: Gotham Knight Exclusive Clip (via Best Buy.com)

By Stewart Smith

On a hot summer Thursday in June, throngs of eager MGS4 fans spent hours in front of UNIQLO’s flagship SoHo store in wait for a glimpse of the creator of the famed Metal Gear Solid franchise, Hideo Kojima. As part of the MGS4 world tour, Kojima Productions and Konami made a stop at the UNIQLO store to promote limited edition MGS4 t-shirts, and to promote the highly anticipated game.

Catering to the fans, Kojima and voice actress Yumi Kikuchi dedicated 2 hours to signing over 300 pieces of fan memorabilia; including everything from the original Metal Gear cartridge for the NES to a bag of wasabi-flavored Doritos! Kojima, being very humble and gracious, penned his signature and shook each patrons hand. Yumi Kikuchi was as equally kind, smiling and thanking each fan to pass through. For those lucky enough to make it, it was a very rewarding experience.

If you missed the event, be sure to check out NYT’s own photo gallery after the jump!

Coming together like Voltron, four Japanese companies are joining to step up the competition with South Korea in the field of robotics. Try and quell your immediate fears of a Matrix or Terminator-esque takeover though, most of these robots will mainly be serving the young and elderly sans-humanoid form, at least for now. All this hoopla seems to be coming from a recent “robot legislation” law that passed just recently in South Korea, so perhaps much of our future coverage of the industry here at New York-Tokyo will be coming out of Seoul. Either way, things are about to get veeerrrrry interesting in the field of robotics.

Japan Robot Startups Join Efforts (via Yahoo)

By Jesse Mann

You may remember our posting from some time back about Kali’s veiled tribute to Mega Man 3 on Big Dada, and now another indie MC named Random has made an entire album in homage to the the blue bomber. Entitled Mega Ran, Random takes loops from some of the most beloved tunes from the original Mega Man Series, and adds some pretty beefy production underneath clever and endearing rhymes. It’s clear this guy has some major love for Capcom’s classic series, and even Capcom themselves have thrown their support behind this guy! Having given him an official license to promote his work, it’s now available for sale on iTunes and CDBaby.

Random’s “Mega Ran” is Blowing Up (via Capcom Blog)

By Jesse Mann

© Madhouse, Photo courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics. All Rights Reserved.

Director Satoshi Kon, famous for such twisted classics of Japanese animation as Perfect Blue, Millenium Actress, and Tokyo Godfathers, will be in New York for two film showcases. Along with the Beyond Imagination retrospective at the Lincoln Center, New York-Tokyo and All-Nippon Airways are presenting his most recent film, Paprika, along with a special appearance and talk by director Satoshi Kon himself. This screening is FREE with RSVP! Hit the jump for more info and to RSVP.

Check out this video of robot band The Trons performing “live.” Guitar, keys, drums, and something vaguely resembling vocals are all covered by this ragtag group of modified appliances and unfinished robotic hands. They even have their very own Myspace page! I wonder if a spam bot created it for them…

Robot Rock Group Readies for Next Gig (via MAKE Magazine)

By Jesse Mann