Touching The Game

For all the fanboy fussing on Sanwa and Seimitsu, can either earnestly be faulted?

Japan’s top two stickandbutton shops rap out their pitterpatter decade-on-decade. Any of a trillion pushes: they’re primed. Products of perfect humility: from where else on Earth but Japan?

Arcadegoers are welcomed home at any stick-and-six: balltops accommodate calmly, but with diamond-hard definition; shafts listen in silence, but heed every detail; microswitch modesty is preserved by a slipping plastic flange.

Buttons resist your touch just enough to say they’ve felt it. With fingers in the stick-and-six, you’re touching the game.

Sanwa and Seimitsu have served discreetly since last century. Their classic buttons and joysticks manifest “omotenashi” – invisible, flawless hospitality.