On my first day in Tokyo I spent a lot of time walking around the little side streets in Harajuku and randomly discovered Photo Sticker Booth Mecca Madness, down a little alley way just off Takeshita St (I’m saying nothing – that was the name). Imagine walking into a place chock full of giggling adolescent girls, in all manner of outfits, encompassed by a din that can only be described as arcade game mania to the 50th power. Welcome to Purikura.
Wikipedia says the following:
In Japanese popular culture, Purikura (プリクラ ,Purikura?) is either a photo sticker booth or the product of such a photo booth. The name is a shortened form of the a registered trademark purinto kurabu (プリント倶楽部 ,Purinto Karabu?). The term derives from the English print club. Jointly developed by Atlus and Sega, the first purikura were sold in July 1995.
I stood at the entrance in awe and vowed to come back…which I did with Jenna about 4 hours later. To say we had fun is an absolute understatement, not being able to understand anything that the booth said, we just hysterically giggled along and pressed any button that flashed.
The process isn’t a simple one. After taking several pictures, you move to an adjacent booth to “decorate” the photos, each user is given a “side” and you proceed to go through many many many options – color, font, brush size, phrase…it was a full on arcade version of Photoshop. Unbeknown to us we’d also automatically been manga’d. I know I’ve said it before but look at our eyes…and skin! I’d definitely have to drink the blood of a thousand virgins who’d been raised on Beluga and swathed in Chinchilla to achieve that kind of complexion.
While fun it also made me wonder about the body image issues that young girls may have in Tokyo where appearance is clearly a big deal. Taking fun pictures with friends is one thing…but automatically airbrushing and photoshopping is definitely another. Maybe I’m sensitive to excessive airbrushing due to US + UK media hype on the topic. Maybe it’s part of youth culture that’s seen as innocent “pretty” fun? After all the new robotic model premiering at JP Fashion week was deliberately modeled to look Manga. Or does it go deeper than that…Anyone care to weigh in?
