Rich dad Kanye West is no secret admirer of comically large body parts, and also expensive art. So the reason behind his past collaboration with Japanese artist Takashi Murakami is no surprise: humungous fake breasts.

While America waited for a grand jury to decide whether to indict a police officer in the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., a Utah County Attorney ruled the police shooting of another young black man "justified."

A state autopsy confirmed that police shot Darrien Hunt, a 22-year-old black man who was carrying a replica samurai sword as part of an anime costume, six times. Four of those shots hit him from behind.

After retiring from professional election-losing, conservative ex-senator Rick Santorum has reinvented himself as a film mogul. And he's primed for success, seeing as how his "faith-based film studio" is backed and managed by an expert in T&A anime, National Memo's Ben Feuerhard reported this morning.

Ten years before 29-year-old Booz Allen contractor Edward Snowden undertook the most "significant or helpful leak... in American history" he was "Edowaado," a goofy anime fan working at a small anime art company.

Pebbles and Bam Bam look much older and are way more mature in this Japanese ad from 1986.

Japan isn't exactly known for being normal, we know this. But did you ever think you'd see a concert—attended by thousands of screaming fans—that starred an anime-like hologram? Whether you did or not, here it is. Watch inside.

"Anime is a prime example that two nukes just wasn't enough," NH State Rep. Nick Levasseur said on Facebook. Now he is apologizing for the statement, which "could be deemed as insensitive to Japanese culture," according to the local news.

"Then last summer, priests started noticing a new kind of visitor. Young men, some clad in miniskirts, stockings and pastel-colored wigs, were lining up for photos at the shrine's vermilion gate." Don't worry, they're just perfectly normal cosplaying fans of the anime show Lucky Star. [WSJ]

Christina Ricci is on the cover of this month's BlackBook magazine, talking about her role in the upcoming weirdo futuristic kind-of-cartoony live action Wachowski brothers-directed action zoom zoom anime car movie jam Speed Racer. And look at her! In the car! With the little bob haircut and purple bathing costume! She's come a long way from Casper. Click through for larger image and a Speed Racer trailer. [Image via Splash]

In America, nerdiness went mainstream a few years ago, with everyone reading Harry Potter and playing video games and using social networks and wearing polyester shirts until "nerd," formerly a stigmatized subculture, was just another dimension of normal personality. (This has already been covered to death in a million magazine pieces, right? 'Cause if not I need to e-mail the New Yorker.) Anyway the same thing happened in Japan, says writer John Lichman in his obituary for "otaku". The term "was the equivalent of saying 'nerd,'" he says, "but with even darker intent." Otaku were outcasts. But in Japan too, their obsessions (anime, video games, quietly nursed unrequited crushes) became mainstream. And it's partly our fault!