Report by John

During the Chinese New Year holidays in February 2013, I visited Tokyo with my wife on our leisure trip.

On day three, after leaving the Taito Inn in Kanda, we went to Shibuya (渋谷) for sightseeing and shopping. Shibuya is one of the must-go places for us in Tokyo.

The Shibuya shopping and fashion district

Statue of Hachikō, a dog who waited on his late master at Shibuya Station
every day from 1923 to 1935

We also had our lunch at a restaurant in Shibuya.

The restaurant for lunch

While my wife was still busy with her shopping in Shibuya, I departed alone for the Mikado Game Centre (ミカド・ゲーセン) at Takadanobaba (高田馬場). I arrived there around 6pm. The Mikado Game Centre is close to both Takadanobaba JR train and metro stations.

Takadanobaba JR (Japan Rail) station

The Mikado Game Centre

It is a big amusement centre with three pinballs - Medieval Madness (Williams, 1997), Monster Bash (Williams, 1998) and Attack From Mars (Bally, 1995).

The three pinballs at Mikado Game Centre

Other than pins, there were many new and retro video games there, so I did not feel bored while I was waiting for my Japanese friends to arrive.

Some of the video games at the Mikado Game Centre

My favourite retro video game

Street Fighter

Mr. Ito （伊藤さん） and Mr. Yasuda（伊藤さん） both arrived at Mikado together at 8pm. Of course, we immediately started our private 3-game tournament on Attack from Mars. Luckily, I won two games and Mr. Ito won the other one. It seemed that Mr. Yasuda was quite tired after work and so he could not play very well at that moment.

Then we had our late dinner from 9pm in a nearby Japanese restaurant. 

Dinner

During the dinner we were sharing our knowledge and experience about pinballs.  According to Mr. Ito, he will be attending an international pinball tournament in Germany in May this year. I hope that he can get a good result there.

Mr. Yasuda was very excited when I showed him photos of the Transformers, AC/DC and The Avengers pinballs. He said he had been intending to visit Hong Kong to play pinballs.  According to him, there were over a hundred pinballs near the Shinjiku district (新宿区) ten years ago. Unfortunately, most of these pins have gradually disappeared.

We finished our dinner around 10:30pm, but we still decided to have one more one-game tournament on the Attack from Mars.  This time, we also invited another Japanese pin lover (I did not know his name) to join our tournament (i.e. 4 players per game).  Perhaps, Mr. Yasuda had taken enough rest and so he performed very well in his game and became the final champion of the day.  

Mr. Ito, Mr. Yasuda and our new pinball friend

All of us were focusing on Mr Yasuda's performance.

 
Player 4 is Mr Yashuda's score

The fun day finally ended at 11:30pm and luckily all of us could still catch the last train home. The next day, we took an earlier flight back to Hong Kong from Haneda Airport. A good full stop had been put on my Chinese New Year pinball trip.

The flight back to Hong Kong

Here is some more information about Mikado Game Centre:

• Transportation: A two minute walk from the JR train station Takadanobaba - Waseda Exit  (高田馬場駅-早稲田出口)  
  
  
• Business hours: 10am - midnight
  
  
• Website:  mi-ka-do.net
  
  
• Comments: The three pinballs were in excellent working condition
  

UPDATE - February 2014

During the Chinese New Year holidays in February 2014, I visited Tokyo with my wife on our leisure trip.

After leaving Beer Café Zinc, we took a ten-minute taxi ride to visit the Mikado in Takatanobaba. 

There were no changes to the titles of their three pinballs (Medieval Madness, Monster Bash and Attack from Mars) since my previous visit in February last year. The MM pinball was in excellent condition, while the other two were in acceptable condition.

Medieval Madness, Monster Bash and Attack from Mars at Mikado

With three machines, our group of five could have four-player tournaments with the remaining one enjoying a single-player game at the same time.  In addition, we were totally free to cheer on each other whenever any of us got the super jackpots, whereas we needed to suppress our emotions while playing at the Beer Café Zinc.

Four-player games

Mr IK got the highest score on AFM and was the champion that night.

Attack from Mars champion, Mr. IK

Since I needed to catch up the last shuttle bus to my hotel, I left earlier at 11:30pm, while the other four guys were still busy with the pinballs. 

This was also my last pinball location visit during this trip. I look forward to seeing them again on my next visit to Tokyo. \(^o^)/.

UPDATE - 30th September 2014

An extra pinball was put into Mikado in August this year. The full list of pinballs is as follows:

• Medieval Madness (Williams, 1997)
  
  
• Monster Bash (Williams, 1998)
  
  
• Attack from Mars (Midway, 1995)
  
  
• Star Wars (Data East, 1992)

The pinballs at Mikado

As expected, all of the machines were kept in excellent condition.

This time, I had an mini-pinball tournament with three Tokyo friends (Mr. Ito, Mr. Imoto and Mr. Yasuda) in the evening. The tournament covered three games (MM, MB and AFM) and lasted for around 1.5 hours.

Finally, Mr. Ito was the eventual champion.

Mr. Ito and Mr. Yasuada

Mr Imoto in the tournament

UPDATE - September 2015

The Star Wars game added on the last visit has been removed. The full list of pinballs is as follows:

• Medieval Madness (Williams, 1997)
  
  
• Monster Bash (Williams, 1998)
  
  
• Attack from Mars (Midway, 1995)
  

The three pinballs

As usual, all of the machines were kept in excellent condition.

This time I had a mini- tournament with two Tokyo friends (Mr. Imoto and Mr. Yasuda) in the evening. Although Mr. Ysauda had problems with his right eye, he could still get the champion score of this round.

A cheerful winner

© Pinball News 2015