Thursday, July 1, 2021

new book: Cultural History of Things and Humans: PACHINKO (ものと人間の文化史 186: パチンコ by 杉山 一夫)

I am very excited to announce that Mr. Kazuo Sugiyama's latest book is now available!  Mr. Sugiyama (杉山 一夫) turned his residence in to the Birth Of Pachinko Museum, which we featured here last year.



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 Legend
Chapter 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 Shokai
Chapter 9 Pachinko machine production begins in Kanazawa after Osaka in 1931
Chapter 10 The oldest existing "pinball machine" made in Japan around 1935
Chapter 11 "Metal pachinko" advance to the continent around 1935
Chapter 12 The oldest surviving "smart ball"
Chapter 13 Pachinko, the second birth
Chapter 14 The 7/7 Ban and the Corporate Development, pachinko was hidden
Chapter 15 Resumption of pachinko, the beginning of the forgery of Masamura gauge
Chapter 16 The feud between Kunishige Takeuchi and Kazuo Nagasaki
Chapter 17  "Masamura Gauge" was not devised by Masamura Takeichi
Chapter 18 Junnosuke Yoshiyuki wins the 1st Pachinko Culture Award
Chapter 19 Automation of Pachinko Hall
Chapter 20 Manual type pachinko demise
Supplementary 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!

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.
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2 comments:

  1. Freddy BaileyJuly 2, 2021 at 6:08 AM

    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

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    1. Caitlyn / CPINovember 20, 2023 at 7:06 AM

      hi Freddy, I just discovered that I had years of comments that were awaiting moderation. Thank you for your comment here. :)
      Do you have any documentation about machines in Japan in the 1960s?

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