100 Yen: The Japanese Arcade Experience

It's all about the arcade... the Japanese Arcade! This was kickstartered and such, but not from me, so I waited for the normal version like a pleb.

We get a pottered history of Japanese Arcade, starting with Taito and running through shooter games, fighting games and dance games. We get some time with each, and the core of all points is that these people spend a lot of money to become good at games. The opening point is that Japan ran out of 100 yen coins as so many were pumped into arcade machines. They touch on American arcades, and how they fell over, and Japanese mom and pop stores are doing the same... but the big names are still going hard. Consoles are a big more of a problem, but that's gonna happen.

Japan's culture is one of being quiet in homes, so to socialise they go to arcades and the like, so that has a definite leg up in the being popular stakes. I am reminded most of gambling joints, with the large flashy machines drawing people in and taking their money. This just offers no chance of getting money back and less movies are made about them.

Decent documentary, but I'm not sad I didn't back it.

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