JAPAN GAME MUSEUM |
Location: Inuyama City, Japan. The latest report from our roving reporter, John, takes him back to Japan where he reports on the country's game museum which contains an impressive collection of pinballs as well as many other curiosities. Japan Game Museum (日本ゲーム博物館) located in the Inuyama City. It is part of the One-More-Time Museum & Live House, and opened in April 2011.
The museum owns 150+ pinball machines and is the biggest pinball museum in Asia. In addition, there are other valuable collections such as electro-mechanical games, video games, jukeboxes, music boxes, and antique clocks.
In April 2012, I visited the JGM as part of my first trip to Inuyama City. After I entered the museum, I instantly had a feeling of having turned back the clock when I saw 50+ playable pinball machines.
During the day, I tried many pinballs including; The Addams Family, Big Hit (E-M), Doctor Who, Fish Tales, The Flintstones, Funhouse, Guns N’ Roses, Monster Bush, Quick Draw (E-M), Sapporo (E-M), Star Wars, Star Wars Episode 1,Tales of the Arabian Nights, Theatre of Magic, Twilight Zone, etc.
These domestic E-M pinball machines shown above were made by Sega Japan from 1971-1973 and are now very rare. A collection such as this one would not be found anywhere else in the world apart from the Japan Game Museum.
All of them were kept in very good working condition and therefore I could completely enjoy playing pinball.
Apart from pinball machines and mechanical games on the ground floor, there were a number of music boxes (circa 1900), jukeboxes (1950-1980) and antique clocks on the upper floor. Surprisingly, most of them were still functional.
After playing pinball for a few hours, I moved to the Music Café (a coffee shop inside the museum) to have my late lunch. I found that the Music Café was also a small library of pinball books and a centre for cocktail video games.
It was very enjoyable for me to have my meal and coffee there.
The director of the JGM, Mr Bruce Tsuji, proactively approached me to share the pinball experience and knowledge with me in a friendly manner. Surprisingly, he could speak English well. According to him, his family has taken over 50 years to accumulate all of the collections of the JGM. He wanted to make friends with pinball lovers from different parts of the world. I was touched beyond words by his passion for pinball. Apart from Bruce, I also made friends with the museum manager (Mr. Yokoi) and some local volunteers (Mr. Nakamura, Takeda, and Yamanaka) who came from different regions of Japan.
In addition, we competed in some mini-tournaments among ourselves. Although the museum was supposed to close at 5pm, I was exceptionally allowed to stay there until 8pm. Finally, I left the museum with pleasant memories and a warm heart, even though it was very cold outside. Collections on the ground floor:
Collections on upper floor:
Transportation:
The whole journey will take around 60 minutes.
© Pinball News 2012 |