Pachinco parlors and Arcades

There are tons and tons of Arcades and Pachinco parlors. Several sponsored by well known brands like Sega and Taito.

The pachinco seems to be an obsession by lots of Japanese. It doesn't make any sense to us at all. I put in a 100 yen ($1) and Kim tried to play. She turned a knob and there were lots of silver balls bouncing around and eventually, after like 200 balls, we were out of balls and the game was over. I think you can make money playing this, but we didn't.

There are also slot machines and betting machines. There is a table top betting machine about the size of a large pool table where horses on magnets run around the table and people will bet on the races. I would have tried it but I did not understand the writing. Again, I presume you can make money on this.

Video game wise, what is interesting is that the arcades are on multi-levels. With girl games on the lower levels and more 'boy' games on higher levels. By girl games, I mean little photo booths where you can take pictures and paste icons (Kim and I tried this). And there are crane fishing games where you can try and grab teddy bears and drop them into a chute using the crane. By boy games, I mean shooting games, fighting games. Also on these levels are some real-time strategy games and also some 'group soccer games'. By group soccer I mean that there was a whole room dedicated to a single game and about 6 stations where each player had a set of consoles to manage their part.

I keep checking out game places as well as "manga kissa" places. I forget if I mentioned magna kissa already - but they are awesome internet cafes where you can have private massage chairs or a couch, or a flat area, or a regular area, and then have free access to movies, comics and games, drinks and ice cream to play for an hourly rate. Actually I'm sure I have written about this before, but I still like them, even if they aren't 'that far in the future'. By that I mean there aren't moving sidewalks or robots or hover cars. But there are more advanced video games, internet cafes and vending machines.