Week 3 - Playing in Public

This week's readings focus on a few of the institutions that make the basic of the fabric of in urban entertainment in Japan: pachinko (and gambling in general), purikura and game centers.

Plotz’s account of the pachinko industry is vey vivid and interesting to read. Not much is known of this industry despite being so omnipresent in Japan, but Plotz informs us of the many intricacies of this business and the dissonance of the general discourse on the non-existence of gambling in Japan and how it actually is everywhere. It should be noted though that the pachinko industry and the video game industry should not always be seen as competitors. Indeed, one of the major pachinko machine manufacturer, Sammy, and the video game publisher SEGA have joined hands in the later half of the 2000s to create SEGA Sammy holdings, a major player in both the gambling industry and the game center industry.

On the other hand, the text depicting the subculture of purikura in Japan might be considered a little bit out-dated. While the importance of purikura for high school girls’ socialization remains the same and the basic principles explaining its subcultural appeal still hold, the machines have now evolved into photo-taking apparatuses that go beyond the framed-portrait photo-booth and might question our understanding of the pictures that actually come out of those machines. Considering how the machines now radically alter the subjects of the picture through the process of ‘automatic photoshopping’, can we really read purikura as simple photographs anymore? Also, following the hint of Kato Hiroyasu’s research on this subject, the arrival of the new digital photograph-enabled cellphones has drastically transformed the primary basic purpose of the purikura machines. It is now very easy to take digital pictures and exchange them with friends. Considering this, we should probably look for other reasons to explain why purikura machines are still popular today; what other needs to they fill? Maybe the ‘fun’ factor of those machines has been understudied in comparison of the social use they have.

Finally, Eickhorst’s account of the game center industry is interesting. While it does not cover the current trends in arcade game design or subculture, his description of the history of game centers is very valuable. Another good introduction of game centers is the documentary 100 Yen – The Japanese Arcade Experience, it focuses more on specific game genres that evolved in the arcades as well as on the subculture that developed within this institution.

Additional Reading

Katô, Hiroyasu. Gêmu centâ bunkaron: media shakai no comunikeshon (Treatise on the Culture of Game Centers: The Communication of Media Society). Tokyo: Shinsensha, 2011. Print.