A few posts ago I mentioned Shinjuku Sportsland’s 32-cabinet Gundam setup. Well, here it is.
The lights in Hey are famously blue. First foot off the IN escalator is *that* row of a dozen or so Egrets on either side. They actually have a Kodak PhotoPoint(TM) standee there now, yellow greyed by the blue light, with a cutout for where experts say to point your camera. That’s actually true!
Game Spot 21 is a real-deal arcade. Finger-crossing that it comes back post-Covid – and dirtier than ever.
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.
Fate: Grand Order – who *isn’t* playing it?
Your glasses spike the screenlight at your face like a kid burning ants. HUD branded on your cheekbones.
Have a good time!! Welcome to a special place ★ We wait for you challenge !!
There are rules about how you can modernise a candy cab.
Anata No Warehouse in Kawasaki is themed to look like Kowloon’s walled city, the famous Hong Kong slum.
Check out this huge Sega logo stretched across the ceiling in Sega World Funabori. Funabori is a seriously old-school Sega: a large out-of-town premises with colourful, family-fishing Sonic signage and top-floor karaoke.
Japanese arcades are like common rooms for gamers: no entry fee, no cover charge – and… no staff?!
Arcade pilgrims to Japan expect Disneyland: a grand culmination of a ceremonial journey. But while the Magic Kingdom gates are marked by fronds of palm, the line between Arcade and notArcade is so fine it disappears.
You live in one long moment of focused killing.
I realised what makes Japanese arcades different.
Let me explain this Japanese shrine to a virtual teen idol.
Game centres all have stories to tell.
I often portray Tokyo’s arcades as grimy, miserable places, but it’s a fiction.
Which queue do you join?
