Published by Hosei University, this book is the latest in their scholarly "Cultural History" series.
ISBN 978-4-588-21861-3 [Published June 2021]
This book is in Japanese, but I browse it with the Google Translate app (apple, android) on my phone. Translation apps are getting better by the week, and for most English speakers you'll be able to easily find the manufacturers, regions, and years of the machines. I collect a lot of coin-op books from around the world and those are always the keys bits of data I want.
It packs in 372 pages of pachinko research going back to early 20th century. It covers the earliest developments, from bagatelle and allwins, to the earliest pre-WW2 machines, and into the 1950+ juggernaut that we recognize today.
It features lots of photos, illustrations, diagrams, patents, and even a few colour pages.
Japanese stores selling the book:
International customers can get it via shipping services:
My friend nazox2016 also has a review on his site. Here is the table of contents, which I copied from his site and translated using machine translation.
Table of Contents (Excerpt from the official website of the Hosei University Publishing Bureau)Chapter 1 Pachinko God "Masamura Gauge"Chapter 2 Forgery of Masamura Gauge LegendChapter 3 Introducing Bagatelle (to Japan)Chapter 4 Birth of "Wall Machine"Chapter 5 Birth of "Issen Pachinko"Chapter 6 Birth of "Pachinko Type Confectionery Vending Machine"Chapter 7 1933 years, the craze "Corinthians game"Chapter 8 Founding and Nationwide Expansion of Suzutomi ShokaiChapter 9 Pachinko machine production begins in Kanazawa after Osaka in 1931Chapter 10 The oldest existing "pinball machine" made in Japan around 1935Chapter 11 "Metal pachinko" advance to the continent around 1935Chapter 12 The oldest surviving "smart ball"Chapter 13 Pachinko, the second birthChapter 14 The 7/7 Ban and the Corporate Development, pachinko was hiddenChapter 15 Resumption of pachinko, the beginning of the forgery of Masamura gaugeChapter 16 The feud between Kunishige Takeuchi and Kazuo NagasakiChapter 17 "Masamura Gauge" was not devised by Masamura TakeichiChapter 18 Junnosuke Yoshiyuki wins the 1st Pachinko Culture AwardChapter 19 Automation of Pachinko HallChapter 20 Manual type pachinko demiseSupplementary chapter Min Jin Lee's "PACHINKO" era
One cool note, remember how I was able to help with a bit of research? I never expected my name to appear in a book published by a Japanese University press, but my name appears in this book twice!
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| hey, it's me! |
I can't wait to one day visit the Birth of Pachinko Museum in Japan! Now that the pandemic is slowly ending, I highly recommend everyone who can visit Japan to check it out in the coming years.
Reminder that I have been having some of the signs from the Birth of Pachinko museum translated. It is an ongoing project to help share this valuable research with English-speaking arcade & game historians.
Great history, Pachinko was devised from the European wall machines from the U.K and Germany, I have the largest collection of paperwork on coin operated machines in the World,I have been in the coin machine industry for more than 60 years, I am writing a book based on the life of the SEGA company founder Marty Bromley, who was the Guru of the coin machine industry World Wide. Freddy Bailey
ReplyDeletehi Freddy, I just discovered that I had years of comments that were awaiting moderation. Thank you for your comment here. :)
DeleteDo you have any documentation about machines in Japan in the 1960s?