Whenever I went to an arcade in Japan the only thing I did was take purikura. I always walked by – you know, in arcades it’s usually when you walk through the – the gaming portion, you eventually end up in, uh, at some purikura booths. The gaming things, they always look fun but I never really, um, take time to use them because the reason why I’m usually in there is because me and my friend usually want to take purikura. Whoever I’m with, usually a girl, we usually want to take purikuras to commemorate it.
“What is it?” It’s like a photo booth, but like, a cute one where, um, the machine will kind of, like, “cutify” you by making your eyes much bigger and your skin much shinier, and um, your legs much longer and it’s really cute, and then you – after you take the photos – it’s perfect lighting, by the way – you move over to the other side and you start decorating and there’s a limited time, and then, and then, after decorating with, like, stickers and shiny letters and all that, you, eh, and choosing layouts, there’s, like, a lot of fancy cute layouts, really cute graphic design, and you go to the other side of the booth, and then you wait a little bit and it gets printed out while you’re typing in your email address and it will, like, then send it to your email address and you also get the – get it, like, on a strip, like in a proper photo booth, and then you cut it, then usually after it’s printed out, you would both go to the table, and there’s usually, like, one or two table close to the purikura booth with a scissor, but the scissor is, like, um, on a chain to the, to the, um, table, and then y-you’re like “Okay who – do you wanna cut it, or should I cut it?” and then you usually go “Ah, I’ll cut it, it’s okay” then you cut it really nicely through the middle, and then you say “Uh, I think this one is yours” and then “I’ll take the one that’s mine and I’ll put into my, into my, into my purse” and then we’re both happy, and then you’re like “Yay! Look how we’re looking really cute! Only on those purikuras because they make us a million times cuter”.
Actually, you know what? As a, as a foreigner, it makes you look really crazy cause those purikura booths, they’re usually, like, um, um, programmed in a way that they look really good on – on - on Asian features, face - facial features, um, but as a foreigner going in there, it always makes me look really really fucking crazy, like a fucking alien. Me and my foreigner friends would always laugh about how ridiculous we look. And then sometimes you can, like, choose, like how – how much it’s gonna “alienate” you, like, there’s, like, options like “natural” and even natural is fucking ridiculous but it’s so cute I still like it, yeah. Anyway, I have a lot of purikura, I have, like, a box of all of my purikura that I took, uh, over the course of the past many, many years and it’s nice – a nice memory to look back upon and there’s so many different purikura machines, like, there’s actually a huge fucking, um, business behind that. I once worked with a purikura company in Japan before though, um, and – and – and I – I know how the process is of creating one, and they have so many - they put out so many different every month, so if you go, ehh, to – to the arcades no so often, then – then - then, ehh, then you will see every time you go there there’s new ones.
Oh, also the interesting thing is, maybe you didn’t notice, but, um, you know, the arcade part you can go no matter what gender you are, but sometimes some places that you’re not allowed to go to purikura part if you’re not a girl, yeah, because I guess a lot of guys go there to pick up girls, or they used to, so they made it so that only girls are allowed for some. But then, you know, who wanna take purikura with, um, with their boyfriends, so, uh, there other – there – there *are* other places that allow boys as well, and then you go in there with your boyfriend I guess, but then, the thing is, like, it really – it really doesn’t look good with men, like, it looks ridiculous with men. It – it works with girls, but some – there’s some purikuras that are made, uh, to be used with – with your boyfriend, if you have a boyfriend, um, so then you can choose, like, on which side th – the, um, of the, um, camera the boy is standing, so that guy will be photoshopped, like, a little bit more in a, in a nnnn, not so feminine way, ehh, but it was still creepy but it’s funny, it’s cute, it’s a cute memory.
