Went to Umeda tonight and did purikura for the first time. Well, first time for me.
I think some people are familiar with purikura. But for those who aren't, purikura is the shortened Japanese pronunciation of print club and refers to a photo sticker booth that is extremely popular with young girls. They are fairly cheap as you can get a set of 16 to 20 stamp size photos for about 400 yen ($4-5) of which you can select frames. clipart, and doodle on. However, purikura isn't restricted to just teenagers as adults can get a kick out of it as well, especially on dates. It's a big part of Japan's popular culture because it's not so much about taking photos as it is a social event with your friends. Many young girls will stick these small pictures on their phones, notebooks, and etc., and some carry photo albums of these tiny photos and will trade and exchange with their friends. I've seen some of these photo albums and they can grow to ridiculous sizes.
I'm pretty sure you can find some older machines in America in the Asian malls, but the machines here are pretty impressive. They're huge and usually are blasting music inside while you take the photos. The machines can transfer the photos onto your phone and select themes varying from hime (princess), mori (forest), and mote (sexy, I think?). The machines will even whiten your skin and make your eyes bigger.
In the first two, I don't think you can tell that much, but I think it's really obvious in these two how the eyes are fixed. Especially in the last one on the right where I look like a fusion of a goldfish and a doll.
No comments:
Post a Comment