A Look Into Japan’s Retro Arcade Games
Maritza De La Peña (Nara)
After school, allowance in hand, children run to the nearby shop to indulge in an array of cheap candies and snacks, all lined on shelves, displayed on tables, and ready to be grabbed. Some of these shops might even have games, affordable and easy to play. These shops are called dagashiya and these games are ‘metal coin’ or ‘10 yen’ games.
Popularized during the Showa Era, they provided a refuge for children to indulge in their favorite treats while out and about with their friends. These shops are harder to find today, especially those that still have these retro games.
Tucked away on the second floor of an open courtyard in Kobe, Hyogo, a small shop sets out to preserve this kind of nostalgia for 10 yen games, metal games, and dagashiya as a whole. The shop is filled with many different kinds of machines, each emitting flashing flights and sounds meant to draw people near. By the entrance, there is a small table filled with candy– new and traditional– to be bought or sometimes exchanged with coins won in the games.
The customers of this shop are both adults and children. It sits next to a juku, a private school for small children, and serves as a perfect place for the neighborhood kids to come and play. Some parents bring their children to introduce them to games they might have grown up with themselves. Some customers are just enthusiastic fans of specific games or retro games as a whole.
Greeting you from the back corner is Chikira Kazuya, the shop owner, who can sell you the coins needed to play. He describes a family who drove 18 hours to come play one of the retro 10 yen games in the store, and someone who came by ferry from Fukuoka to play a popular rock, paper, scissors game.
There are fewer 10 yen games in the shop–but all of them are labeled as vintage 1970s. As the name indicates, these games only cost ten yen. However, they will spit out metal coins as prizes if you win. They have levers which control a ball and through skill, you can try to shoot the ball into the correct slots.
Meanwhile, the metal games on display require you to insert special metal coins, which can be bought at the counter. After acquiring your bucket of metal coins, you insert them into the machines and acquire even more coins as you win the games. The machines can be more analog, such as one game where you try to get a coin to land onto a small plate. Others have simple betting mechanics, like rock paper scissors. Or, they can be digital, like the Konami game in the center of the store. Sometimes you can insert more than one metal coin into the game which may increase your odds of winning.
Maintaining these games has its challenges. The parts are difficult to source, so when a machine is broken, Chikira has to fix the machine himself with his father, who has more experience. A couple of the machines display “Out of Order” signs–one of the games in particular is the only one of its kind, making it impossible to fix until he can source replacement parts.
“This is for fixing the screen [for one of the broken games] but because the plug outlet is not the right type, I can’t use it.” Chikira shows one of the mechanisms stashed away behind his counter.
In 2023, the Imperial Data Bank reported that about 8,000 games centers have closed within the last ten years. Plus, with inflation, the rising cost of electricity, and the lowered value of the yen, some game centers have had to increase their pricing over the years.
Metal and 10 yen coin games may be rare now, but are still deeply appreciated by many people. Some are parents who feel a certain nostalgia towards passing down their own memories of visiting dagashiya, 100 yen coins jingling in their pockets. And some are children who visit on their own and enjoy having a space for affordable play.
“I want a place for children to learn about things they didn’t know about before. To group together, meet up, and have fun.” Chikira says. He shows this by helping his customers with the games, explaining the rules and giving strategies on how to win. In the morning, a family visits for the first time. Many more families come throughout the day–returning and new customers alike. When the juku next door releases a crowd of children in the afternoon, the place will get even more crowded.
If you’re able to visit a dagashiya with retro games, each of the games are easy enough to figure out. You can just pop in your coin and jump right into playing.
“For the full experience, you should definitely try some candy while you play,” Chikira recommends.
Here are four of the games you can find at his shop and the gameplay mechanics:
Janken is a simple game where you press three buttons to determine rock, paper, or scissors. If you beat the game, a roulette will spin and you win the number of medals that it lands on. You can win between one and fifty metals.
Circus is a game from 1978. It is a 10 yen, skill-based, game where you pull a level to propel a small ball into the winning slot. Some of the slots will help the ball move lower, towards the bottom where the winning hole is. You have to carefully get the ball down each level without landing in a hole that will cause a game over.
Pin Pon Pan can either accept ten yen or special, larger, metal coins specific to this game. If you receive winning metal coins, you can also exchange them for some candy. This is another skill based game where you pull a level in order to move the ball into the correct slot. There are several levels that you pull levers for and propel the ball into the goal. It should land into the tulips in the center. If the ball passes through three tulips, the light will go off. You can win up to 45 coins.
Shuriken Boy is an electronic game from 1993 where you insert metal coins (up to three). There is only one button that you press while a character runs across the screen in side-scroller fashion. The goal of the game is to hit the targets using the red button, which causes the boy to throw shuriken sideways. The number of shuriken is dependent on the number of coins you insert. Throwing more shuriken will increase the number of coins won if you hit a target.
If you’re interested in visiting Chikira’s shop, you can check out the website here.
Author Bio:
Maritza De La Peña currently lives in Nara Prefecture, where she often goes on walks to admire the archeological sites and rice fields near her home. You might also find her with a book in hand or excitedly staring out train windows.