I’m hearing bad things about the independents. Even Sega is shutting shops. Akiba 2-kan – iconic! – is gone. Photos of staff bowing outside in thanks for years of patronage from also-bowing, clapping crowds.

Teeth bared; talons out. But look at the posture of their right hands. Claws, but relaxed claws, ready to swoop at the attack buttons with quite a travel. Wouldn’t your response be quicker if you started nearer the buttons? It’s not that kind of reflexes. You play with rhythm, where the travel helps. Reflexes are to quickly change rhythm. If fighters were music games they’d be jazz duo jam sessions.

Good old rail shooters up for a one-coin-stand. Maybe these are for gaijin rolling off the escalator, spluttering into port from the alien seas of UFO catchers and Nesica Live.

Mortal Kombat was supposed to be a Jean-Claude Van Damme game. No JC in the end, so they went for guys in pointy hats and balaclavas pulling each other’s spines out. And lo, born was a multimedia franchise up there with Care Bears and My Little Pony.

Your glasses spike the screenlight at your face like a kid burning ants. HUD branded on your cheekbones.

Bubble Bobble became an icon. Cutie dragons burping poppers at trippy edible baddies.

1985. Beds under desks for months. Ravaged eyes, forgotten families. Sega-AM1 are ready: World, meet Fantasy Zone.

Flying Power Disc (or, stupidly, Windjammers outside Japan) shows you a future of total sports perfection. This ultimate sport combines the pseudofunctional fetishwear of beach volleyball with the hardpolished maple of the NBA with the candyised plastic bodyarmour of the NFL with the circle going back and forth of Pong.

#SpaceHarrier at #TaitoHey. #Taito ashtray, #BubbleBobble strip and #100yen coin.

There are rules about how you can modernise a candy cab.

As a child I played Space Harrier on my friend’s Atari ST. It was beyond me. There was always another stage I believed in with unseen colours. Some magic just out of sight.

Sit in the dark and match threes on your own. Screen so bright you’re blinded to everything else.

Taito Hey: the blue-lit legend arcade on Akiba‘s tower strip.