You think you play arcades by dropping a coin for a thrill-ride in a fake car. Not in Tokyo.
In Tokyo, you need your phone, which you charge at the cabinet; you need Healthy Milk Afternoon Tea; and you need a seated posture you can hold for hours.
In Tokyo, you drop years, not coins; the game gets in your pocket; your face is the colour of the screen.
Photographer and writer covering Tokyo arcade life – the videogames, the metropolis and the people
Tokyo arcades are grimy. But think about it:
Everyone likes a good chuckle at some 'Engrish' – the English language mistakes of the Japanese. But there's actually a myth behind the phenomenon: that they are indeed mistakes.
In a world where a single mobile game can impoverish the masses by a billion dollars annually, surely the sit-down points in Sega playrooms are small potatoes?
Wonderland Wars is a Multiplayer Online Battle Arena that lives in Japanese arcades. Japanese gamers recognise and dig the MOBA but the Wikipedia list of MOBAs page is totally different in Japanese and English.
Gentlemen reading this will know that sometimes there are splashguards and sometimes there aren't. In either case you just look straight ahead and mind nothing but your own business. But don't mind it too closely or you will raise questions.
