Tokyo Game Show convention floor: crowd noise and the smell of recleaned carpet tiles.
The econosystem of everspending corporate megaliths, full-reaching upstart hopefuls, free-holiday press, hard-grind Japanese media, skulking fans and scantily fancy-dressed promoter girls.
We play games everywhere anyway, but it’s fun to be a part of the murky reality.
Photographer and writer covering Tokyo arcade life – the videogames, the metropolis and the people
Sega’s maimai has dominated the music game corners of Tokyo arcades since 2012.
Japanese arcades are dripping with tar and nicotine. In fact, it’s said that the reason nineties candy cabinets keep going so long is that the plastics have transformed into a super-strengthened resin after decades of suspension in cigarette tar.
Something I love about Tokyo is the prevalence of handmade signs. It’s totally normal even for high-end department stores to stand staff-constructed cardboard beside the till with laminated announcements and explanations. But this is just silly…
Tokyo has its ways of doing things, and as much as it will welcome The New, there is no automatic supersession of The Old. Certainly, the encroachment of the digital into daily life need not usurp the basic dignities of physical presence, such as cleanliness or well-mannered comportment.
