As the Zeon forces gather, Momo arranges a handful of trading cards (specially purchased for the game) on the flat, magnetic surface of his machine. He physically manipulates the cards to control his robot and weapons on the screen. Firing a few missiles, he deftly defeats the Zeon threat, and adds another win to a remarkable history of 585 victories. At about $2 a game, Momo estimates he’s spent $2,000 in the last six months. But it’s worth it. “The more you win, the more experience and credibility you gain among other Gundam fans for being an old hand,” he says.
Welcome to the arcades of Tokyo. In Asia, and particularly Japan, videogame rooms are thriving. There are 9,500 arcades in Japan with more than 445,000 game machines made by Japanese companies like Namco and Capcom, says Masumi Akagi, publisher of Japan’s Game Publisher magazine. In the United States and Europe, arcades are a rapidly dying breed. Although the popularity of home video systems like the PlayStation contributed to the decline, execs at companies like Midway and Atari simply couldn’t see the future in arcades and “abandoned the coin-operated business,” says Akagi. Yet Japan seems ambivalent about its arcades. As the country faces a looming demographic nightmare, young people who pass the time at arcades are seen as shirking their responsibility to find steady jobs–and pay the taxes that will support a rapidly aging population.
The modern arcade provides a compelling escape. It is exotic sensory overload, nearly impenetrable to neophytes. It is not just a palace of entertainment, but a collection of obsessive subcultures. In the neon-lit Shibuya district, old games like Pac-Man, Donkey-Kong and Centipede are nowhere to be seen. Rows of puri-kura, or print-club machines, are hugely popular with Japanese schoolgirls, who rush into color photo booths to take their pictures with friends, then digitally color or inscribe messages on their images. Players can then send the photos to their mobile phones, print them out and trade them with friends, or in some cases, submit them to modeling or reality-TV contests.
Upstairs the light becomes dimmer, the cacophony louder. The air stinks of cigarettes and concentration. There are fighting games, quiz games and music games where you play drums or guitar or DJ turntables to a rapid-fire beat. Players compete against each other on networked terminals in virtual baseball, soccer, tennis, mah-jongg and horse racing, each with their own fanatical followings. Player rankings are stored online. You buy the playing cards at any toy store–they resemble old baseball trading cards–and success in the game improves their value. In each arcade, there are also bulletin boards for players seeking to trade cards. “I want an extra Kawasaki [a player]. I will give up an extra Nioka. Let’s exchange,” read a note that “Oyabi” had taped in one Shibuya arcade.
Arcade baseball can’t hold a bat to Sega’s The Great Battle of Three Countries, or Sangokushi Trisen, based on the wars of medieval China. At one Shibuya arcade, players manipulated their virtual armies and weapons with playing cards on a magnetic surface. One college-age player, Maseki, said he plays about twice a month at about $3 a game, though the stack of character cards in his hand betrays a deeper addiction. “I can learn all the background and histories of the characters,” he said, adding he also reads manga related to the Sangokushi saga. The point: Japan’s “quarter kids” have grown up and are still having fun.
Job-listing pamphlets, however, litter the entrances of many Tokyo arcades. In one Shibuya game room, two students smiled from a public-service poster from the National Police Agency, which regulates arcades as well as Pachinko (a gambling game played with steel marbles) and slot-machine parlors, with which they are often paired. many adults care for you, the poster read. now our future is in your hands. you do not belong only to yourself. you have a responsibility for all of us. Adults want Japanese kids to leave the arcades, go to work and save the country. But they’re too busy saving the world, one Gundam battle at a time.
