Kotaku
by Brian Ashcraft
"No, not the Shin Shinbashi Building," I tell the middle-aged woman sitting behind the ticket counter. "The New Shinbashi Building. 'New' as in the English word 'new' not the Japanese 'new.'"
Tokyo's Shinbashi has two New Shinbashi Buildings — Both on opposite sides of the station. One of them uses the character "shin" (新) which translates as "new." The other uses the English word "NEW" in all caps. What's more, "Shinbashi" means "New Bridge." Confused? You should see the woman behind the counter.
The middle-aged woman behind the counter pauses, then turns to another middle-aged woman behind the counter. An Abbott and Costello routine ensues until I make it perfectly clear: The New Shinbashi Building, not the Shin Shinbashi Building.
The New Shinbashi Building, not the Shin Shinbashi Building, is a stop over. I'm writing a feature on Japanese arcades — I've already visited famous game centers like the dirt cheap, ¥50 per-play Shibuya Kaikan and Akihabara's shooter heaven Taito Hey! This, this is a diversion.
A row of taxis lines up across from the New Shinbashi Building, not the Shin Shinbashi Building. An old lady is laying in the street, and I can hear the rhythmic siren of an ambulance. Businessmen in ill-fitting suits move in transit from work to bars, and a gaggle of young girls wearing thigh-highs and mini-skirts cluster near the doorway, putting on eye liner and talking on cell phones.
The whiff of wet cigarettes and the roar of spinning metal balls and stale techno hits me as I enter the New Shinbashi Building. To my left, there is a large pachinko parlor. Signs in front advertise new pachi-slot machines. Shoe-horned in is an ad for a movie theater showing porno flicks. All of the other shops appear to be either sporting goods retailers or cosmetic counters. Nothing that I'm looking for. I'm looking for game centers, for arcades.
Somewhere between the aluminum baseball bats and the cherry lip-gloss, I see it: A drawing of a Sprinter Trueno or a Skyline — I can't tell. It's an ad for Initial D, a racing game based on a manga of the same name. An illuminated sign reads "World Game," and the Initial D is a front of sorts. The back is packed with mahjong arcade cabinets. Businessmen circle silently, smoking. Nearby, there's "Pit in Game," another arcade. Likewise, nothing remarkable and mostly mahjong. Neither game center is being staffed.
It's looking to be a bust. Two arcades on the first floor, that's it. There are four stories, so maybe, just maybe there are more. Four or "shi" in Japanese, the number itself is unlucky. The word "shinu" (to die) begins with "shi." I double back around, and that's when I find it: The escalator leading to the basement. I descend.
The basement is packed with restaurants. Salarymen with loosened neckties and red faces smoke more cigarettes and laugh. A short order cook grills egg-plant, and fat waitresses stand out front, hoping to catch passer-bys with offers of all-you-can-drink.
"No, thanks," I tell the umpteenth fat waitress. Up ahead, there's a poster. Says King of Fighters. There's an arcade called "Game Shigeru." Two banners for Konami's Mahjong Kakutou Club are out front. I don't go in.
"Doc Well" is split into two parts. Or three parts. The one game center spans several store fronts, but it's all "Doc Well." And it's all filled with mahjong machines. Staffers are no where to be seen, and it all appears to be autonomous. There are a few Virtua Fighter 5 cabinets, old cabinets. Catty corner to the "Doc Well" row is "Diana." Two women in bland business suits play darts. There's Gundam, too. And mahjong.
Mahjong in Japan is primarily a male pursuit. Pro female players in Japan are a rarity, and woman in mahjong parlors are doing one thing: Serving drinks.
Up ahead, "Game Wonda." There's a chance game out front with prizes like Cuff-in-the-Dark and Jungle Undies. Below the toy prizes, gray bags contain adult videos. Step inside, there are mahjong cabinets.
I stick my head in "Gameland." There's a UFO catcher. A crane hand tries to pick up hard-core adult videos. They're not in gray bags, but out for all to see.
Besides the New Shinbashi mahjong arcade game standard, there is a poker-type game with foreign women. An old man sits down in flannel, stuffs a coin in and begins playing. His fingernails are dirty, and I write down the game's title: Cherry. Bonus. IV.
Another Konami banner tells me that "Wing" has mahjong — Along with Virtua Fighter and Tekken. The game cabinets are deserted, and salarymen sit hunched over, lighting cigarettes, putting them out, lighting them again. They don't notice me.
There's a "Wing 2," another arcade, which I peak in.
Take out my note pad. Two floors, nine arcades. And all of them have mahjong games. I toggle through the pictures on my digi-cam. Just to make sure. Somewhere, I can hear salarymen laughing. An attractive woman blows by me with a middle-aged man in tow. The greasy smell of yakitori and the stench of flat beer is sickening.
Second floor. There are numbers on the wall. Crazy numbers, all out of order and mixed up. Red velvet seats and Super Mario. The arcade's name is "221." In the back, two salarymen play mahjong games.
In the breezeway, men stuffed into white nurse outfits like sausages and young boney women also wearing white nurse outfits mill about. One of the boney women stops and stares, then continues down the hall.
A barbershop is wedged between massage parlors and chiropractors offices. Male nurses sit in the doorways, and massage tables are visible under curtains. This isn't sex for sale.
Another nurse, young and pretty, stands near "Jambo." She takes a deep drag and blows out a grey cloud. Behind her, I can make out a horse racing game. In front of me, mahjong.
I pass the "Game in Rido Park Part I." Mahjong. No staffers. I search for "Game in Rido Park Part II," but don't find it.
High heels click by. A worn woman in a skimpy skirt and unfashionable shoes shuffles down the hallway. Somewhere on the second floor, an ad for an adult movie.
The closest thing to an real arcade is the "Royal Shinbashi." It's got Cave's new shooter, Muchi Muchi Pork, the new Time Crisis game, Elevator Action and Densha De Go. This is the thirteenth arcade in the New Shinbashi Building (not the Shin Shinbashi Building). I scan the game center and can't find any mahjo—
The thirteenth arcade also has mahjong. They all have mahjong games. Every single one, and not a single staffer in sight.
Doubling back to the escalator, I pass D-Cup Fashion Health. A sign welcomes customers in, and the 30 minute course rate is broken down by time. It's now evening, so it costs a bit more to have a woman dress up and finish you off. Mornings, they're cheap.
The third floor is deserted. Most of the shops and stores are shuttered shut. Yet, I can swear I hear jazz. There's the odd adult bookstore and the occasional dentist office.
My shoes squeak and squeak on the linoleum until they are drowned out by John Coltrane. The music wafts from a shop — A video game store.
The store's nothing special. But why is it on the third floor of this building? Who shops here? There's a guy behind the counter. Wearing a Yankees cap and spectacles, he clicks though a laptop.
"Excuse me," I say.
He looks up, then slowly: "Yes?"
"I have a question. Do you mind?"
Shuts the laptop.
"Sure, go ahead."
"Don't you think that it's odd they are so many arcades in this building? And that they all have mahjong games?"
He opens the laptop and replies:
"No."
Continues clicking as I linger for a moment and leave.
The fourth floor is silent, save for the high pitched hum of the fluorescent lights. No jazz and no squeaking shoes. Most stores are shuttered and a staircase leads into inky blackness. The sky outside is dull blue as the city four stories below settles in for a long night.
There's a single door open. A woman in a plain office lady-type uniform obscures the view, and I move forward. She serves drinks to four men sit at a table. She leaves, and that's when I see: They're playing mahjong. Real mahjong for real money.
A trio of salarymen appear and pass by, talking loudly and entering that mahjong parlor. Perhaps they were warming up downstairs in an arcade. Perhaps not.
I go back down to the ground floor, to the make-up counters and the pachinko parlor. Pass one of the first floor's game centers, I forget which. A sweaty man in a tacky orange shirt that screams "arcade staff." He's restocking a U.F.O. catcher with stuffed animals. I interrupt.
"I was wondering, why are there so many game centers?"
"What do you mean?" He looks surprised.
"There's something like thirteen arcades in this building. That's a lot. Too many, even. Do you know why?"
"It's always been that way."
"Are they all owned by the same company?" I counter.
"No, they're all separate."
"Why all the mahjong arcade games?"
"Because it's popular."
As I head out of the New Shinbashi Building, not the Shin Shinbashi Building, I think, he's right. It is.
Comments
I totally got the first part Shin-New.
There sure is a lot of mahjong there... Why no "mahjong" tag?
Wow, it sounds like that place depressed the hell out of you.
Oh hey i've actually been to the shibuya kaikan lol. I didn't think it was very good compared to some of the arcades in Shinjuku.
It is pretty strange to have some many mahjong places in one area though. There were usually one or two in an arcade and that's it.
So many Majong games
That article ended kinda weird, but then again it fit with the deflated sense of depression you seemed to feel walking around that despot. You should do more investigating. It's a den for illegal prostitution and gambling and all the mahjong was there to subconsciously welcome the creepy lonely male types and shun women and arcade gamers who might get suspicious. This definitely warrants some more sleuthing! Maybe the Yakuza are even involved! Take 'em down Encyclopedia Bash!
Should we attribute this to a decline of the modern arcade, the mass popularity of mahjong in Japan, the economic qualities of the area the building is in, the economic qualities of the people who visit the building, or (my preference) a combination of all those things and more?
There's one quality that I did notice about this 'arcade', and that's that there weren't a lot of children/teenagers around. No matter the popularity of arcade games or mahjong, I would think that the older the population that uses the building, the more mahjong would be played, generally.
Thank you so much for writing these types of articles, Ashcraft...you're awesome. =) I LOVE the Taito Hey! arcade in Akiba. Their fighting game floor is like a dream come true...split into SNK and Capcom sections. They basically have any game you can think of from those two companies.
I plan on going to Tokyo again this summer, and I'd like to visit the Shibuya kaikan. Could anyone give me directions to that place?
I got the impression it was like wandering into one of those dank caves in an RPG, except without any mobs around to attack you...
weird, I guess thats why they call it lost in translation...
japan/neverland never ceases to amaze me. too bad you "peaked" in wing 2. i guess it's all downhill from there. ;)
Man, this building has such a Megami Tensei feeling. But insteado of having demons it has mahjong parlos and nurses. :P
Btw, great feature. I hope you can make features about more arcades around Japan. As fan of arcades it always gives a good feeling seeing an arcade packed with people... it's a shame that they're become scarce around the world... :(
"He continues clicking as I linger."
I read that the first time as
"He continues licking my finger"
Great article again Ashcraft. You're lucky there wasn't any staff otherwise you might not have gotten the photos you did.
Interesting article. Good sense of the depressing nature of the place.
Very interesting story Ashcraft, I was once told to leave a specific floor of one of those arcade halls. I still dont have the slightest idea why really, apparently foreigners werent allowed, they told me to leave I said I understand and they laughed back on that... ???
Strange experience.
The first rule of Mahjong Fight Club is: you do not talk about Mahjong Fight Club. The second rule of Mahjong Fight Club is: you do NOT talk about Mahjong Fight Club.
Arcades to me are now nothing more than sad graveyards of what once was, and will be no more. That and Dance Dance Revolution and its ilk, within a ten-foot radius of which I'm not going.
Mahjong Fight Club is pretty damn popular (more popular and less fun to plan than Sega's MJ series), so it doesn't relly shock me to see so many machines.
Yeah, that place seemed pretty damn depressing despite all of the arcade machines. As popular as Mahjong is though, you'd think stuff like Star Horse or Pachinko would outnumber the Mahjong games considering the demographic.
Appropriate title.
@Ashcraft: Dude that had a very silent hill feel to it. Or one of those psychological horror flicks. ;D
Hooray for Ashacrafto features. giving us the iside scoop on the seedy underbelly of japanese gaming. more please!
I was expecting to see at least something along the lines of Beatmania or Guitar Freak or some DDR at least. And people say the American Arcade business is in trouble? Oy.
These articles are really interesting Ash, thanks. It's crazy how a body of water separates 2 cultures that are so incredibly different.
The best way to understand it is to say that Mah-jong is to the Japanese what Poker is to "westerners". The difference is that mah-jong is much older and that arcades are more popular in Japan than anywhere else, so it makes perfect sense that it be this way.
Anyway, a great article to read. Not much to learn about, but still a fun timewaster on my Friday night.
I have never been to Japan. Its great to see these kind of stories, thanks!
i take it you didnt try the "finishing off" service. I guess if you lose at mahjong at least you can get some sort of relief albeit at a cost ^-^
To better clarify it, as was evidenced by one of the photos, is that Mah-jong is to the Japanese what Strip Poker is to 'westerners'
Adult Mah-Jong games have been in existence for a dozen? 2 dozen? more? years now. Pick up MAME and you'll see an incredible number of Mah-Jong games.
They even have adult video pachinko games. Why is it mostly men that play Mah-jong? Because men love titties.
hell, I learned how to play mah-jong specifically so I could see the titties in the MAME emulated Mah-Jong games. Some of them even have simulated contact mini-games.
It is surprising that there are so many arcades in the one building. The fact that they all offer mah-jong is simple though. Mah-Jong makes a lot of money, why would you not add that cash cow to your floor plan. Eventually economics will drop every non-mahjong from the arcades. As that happens, the arcades will gain the reputation that they are not children's arcades, so less kids will come, more adults will come, more mah-jong ad infinitum.
Maybe there were arcades there that were 'upstanding' non-mah-jong arcades. If they survived, they moved to some other building though. It's like saying why don't people play Go at the cafe on the corner anymore, when the other buildings on that corner are all pachinko parlors, and the cafe added a couple of pachinko machines too.
I love these stories.
Generally a creepy experience. I kept waiting for the dark hallway to appear and have a grue jump out. I suppose its better that arcades in the West fade away or are only associated with theme parks and mini-golf rather that have them morph into that creepy form. But then again, its a societial thing. Glad the more non-mah-jong arcades are still alive and well in other parts of Japan though.
Wow! You got trapped in a kafkanian nightmare.
"There's something like thirteen arcades in this building. That's a lot. Too many, even. Do you know why?"
"It's always been that way."
...
"Why all the mahjong arcade games?"
"Because it's popular."
That is so totally Franz Kafka! I need to go there real soon.
wow... that was a pretty depressing article.
So many mahjong...
@Carcinoma Angel: the feature really does give a post-modern feel, doesn't it?
Thank you for the one uncensored booby.
Great article, it definitely took me by surprise at first, but it does resemble a few other seedy adult havens I've seen. Still, there's something especially odd this particular building.
Maybe it's a front for a very large brothel or the Yakuza or Tom Cruise. Seems very eerie nonetheless, and I was getting a rather depressed vibe from your writing so I'm not sure what to think.
8-10,000 yen seems like a lot for that type of place, especially for a half hour. I've seen soaplands offering lower prices at all times of the day, and I'm pretty sure those last longer than 30 minutes.
Point being, how do they get off (no pun intended) thinking they can charge that in such an empty place? How does anything there, for that matter, turn a profit? Was it just an incredibly slow day or does it really operate that way all the time? I'd really like to hear some about this. Please follow up sometime, it's really interesting!
I don't think I could've left the building without shouting, "what the hell is this place?"
@Carcinoma Angel: It's freaky and it's going to bug the hell out of me until I check it out. I'm going to have to take a peek if I'm near Ginza again in August. I just hope I don't get snatched by some creature and sold into nurse-bondange. D:
GREAT GREAT article!
Jazz Floor scares me most. All those closed shops and... dentist offices??
@Elly: In japan theres a lot of old buildings that are kinda empty, that you wonder what the people there do.
Over here, since it costs a stupid amount of money to go blowing the thing up, and doing all the paperwork and such to do such a thing. People just tend to leave them standing there, unless another "medium" steps in buys the property then does all the work with either renewing the place or building a new one.
That might explain why that building looks like that.
Ive seen a few places like that also in my wandering travels here in Japan.
As with any big city, there will always be places like this.
Im sure it might be a front for the Yakuza too. Since where there is gambling and women, the Yaks are usually involved in some way or another. If they arent, they are sure to arrive to take a cut once they find out about it.
From how our brave adventurer Ashcraft describes it, it doesnt sound like thats a place the cops or normal people would visit all that much either.
---
Elly I do agree with the part about wanting to find out more of the building itself.
Reading the story makes me want to wander down there and see whats up with the place.
I could imagine more odd things happen at the later hours and such.
One could imagine, this isnt exactly the type of building you would go sight seeing at though.
Ashcraft you have some serious kahones my friend, and I salute you.
you perfectly captured the stale anxiety that I had a few times when I was in japan. I love this type of stuff do more!
Those pictures looks like a building that was lost in time. Just look at the outside of it, then on the inside, dear god.
Reminds me of some parts of the underground Tokyo station. Although Im not sure if it still looks like that, since I recall they had a huge renovation fixing up a lot of stuff to look nicer.
I decided to Google this and came up with a few interesting articles. This one sheds some light the place:
http://mfeed.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY20070421005...
Also, a short blurb from Wikipedia:
The New Shinbashi Building, the triangular (and certainly not new-looking) building on the west side of JR Shinbashi station, has a multitude of dark, smoky, cramped izakayas in its basement levels. Not recommended if you don't like the smell of broiled fish.
Finally, from http://blog.q-taro.com/Snapshots.php:
On a side note, that building to the left is called the New Shinbashi Building and it's worth visiting if you have nothing better to do. There's some weird shops in here including, I kid you not, a ¥100 soapland. For ¥100 they probably just wash your hands for you...