Pa-Pa-Pa-Pa-PAPAPAPA-Pa-chin-kooooo!
One of the things I most wanted to do before I arrived in Tokyo was go to a Pachinko Parlour (‘Tokyo-GA’ – Wim Wender’s film again -has a truly beautiful sequence shot in one – watch here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rur5k3BCSI8 )
So today I braved the torrential rain with my new see-through umbrella and caught the Ginza metro line to Kanda station and walked the short distance to Akihabara – otherwise known as Electric City.
I’ve got some amazing footage which I’ll edit into something presentable and load up but in the meantime words will have to suffice…
Pachinko is a type of upright pin ball machine – lots of tiny sliver metal balls go whizzing round. Nearly 30 years on from Wender’s footage – Pachinko now features not just hundreds of metal balls clattering round and down a brightly painted surface – but also thousands of flashing LEDs surrounding a Manga style cartoon sequence. AND the speakers at head height blaring an accompanying cacaophony. AND then one of the Parlour ladies yelling something over the top on a microphone. Nothing stays still for more than a split second. It’s unbelievably loud with a room full of row upon row of machines back-to-back (and 7 floors of rooms). Walking into the Big Apple Pachinko Parlour today was a physical experience of noise, like walking into a wall. Totally deafening and with no rhyme or reason to make sense of what you hear it becomes a blanket wrapped around your head. And there’s a beautiful orchid plant in the corner soaking it all up. Japanese society seems to me to be full of contradictions.
I played a bizarrely marriage themed Pachinko game – bright pink and silver – in “wedding road maisonikboku” you have to choose an eligible male manga character – and if you’re good at it get to hold hands at the end. I wasn’t and also can’t read japanese so this is pure guesswork.
The idea is to control the flow of balls falling through the brass pins in such a way that they go into the hole at the base. These ones pop out so you can feed then back into the game, prolonging your ‘go’. It costs 1000 yen minimum to play (for 2 gos). So that’s roughly £8 spent in under 10 minutes. The machines accept 10,000 yen notes (£80) and have a mostly male clientele mostly in business suits. If you’re super-good and amazingly flukey (as they are engineered for you to fail) you can collect enough sliver balls to qualify for prizes. Possibly this is what was being shouted over the microphone. Even the poor girl mopping the floor had a uniform of bright pink miniskirt and thigh-high white socks. Practical!
The wall of noise, the flashing lights, the fixation of tiny little shiny balls spinning around, the warmth and weight of them in your hand as you feed the few hard won back into the machine. After sticking it out long enough to break through the pain barrier – it makes sense – it’s all hypnotic. And impossible to think about anything else. Possibly the most effective way of disappearing altogether. And as I wondered around after my short-lived game, rows of people slumped in their seats as if in a trance. Faces reflecting flickering lights as they gazed without blinking into oblivion.
Pure information overload. Beautiful and terrifying at the same time.
a small taster…
