Sorry for the super long post, but i have a lot to say about this...
When I was stuck in Tokyo for a few months 2016-2017, I was able to participate in a couple events, and played pinball at a few isolated venues among the putrid swamps of pachinko parlors.
Neverland, unfortunately, is no more. Game Over was just about one year ago now. I attended their very last monthly tournament, expecting it to be my first of many during my Tokyo stint, and was quite sad about it. It was very well attended though, and the owner of most of the machines did say that he was going to find another place to open up "someday."
There are a few places that do have pins in Tokyo, but it's probably better use of your time to just hop on a bullet train for a couple hours (and about $150 each way) and head to Osaka for the hundreds of pins at The Silver Ball Planet. They are in WAYYY better shape than any i was able to find in Tokyo.
That being said, I have just found an updated google maps for Pinball in Japan (again, in Jp only, but probably still useful for Eng speakers): https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/viewer?mid=1hXeW1DaHkH2igsXui4w0p2SAFj0&hl=en_US&ll=35.14523526120523%2C134.70656369999995&z=5
It appears to have been updated a few months ago, so should be a good tool for anyone looking for places to play. Usefully, it has a section for "closed" so you can see if one you were looking for is no more, and they are organized by "latest update less than 5 years ago" and "latest update older than 5 years ago."
While i was living in Ueno, the Mikado retro arcade in Takadanobaba (http://mi-ka-do.net/ - Jp only, sorry!) was not far, and i went there often, even was interviewed in Japanese by Fuji TV about it one afternoon (filmed me playing #monster-bash). They kept wanting me to tell them that foreigners in Japan liked to gather at retro arcades, and i was all "no, i'm usually the only foreigner in here..." and i think they were disappointed when i wanted to focus on the revival of PINBALL and where else to play and not "how to meet exotic foreigners in Tokyo." Current games list there is : Indianapolis 500, Medieval Madness, Monster Bash, Get Away (actually it was High Speed when i was there...perhaps language error) They were not in the best shape when i was there, the usual GIANT GAPING HOLE around the scoop in MB, having to bruise my hand trying to punch the ball out of the trough in The Getaway: High Speed II where it kept getting stuck,
Medieval Madness castle issues... but still better than staying pinball-celibate for months. They had a Data East
Star Wars when i was there, that i never once saw turned on, so perhaps they gave up on that and brought in the
Indianapolis 500
I attended a small meet at Zools in Nishi-ogikubo (maybe 30min west on the train from Tokyo central loop). It is one of those ubiquitous pocket-sized Japanese bars with a theme of Americana and darts and jukeboxen and games. The owner is a pinball lover, and always has one or two in the bar, i think another collector brought one in so we had three for the meet that time. It was very fun, BUT with one big problem: Japan still allows (nigh encourages!) smoking in bars and restaurants, so i was in a thick cloud the whole time, and developed a killer secondhand smoke headache by round two.
If anyone is interested in those Japanese links or playing pinball in Japan and wants Language help beyond what google translate can do, feel free to message me!
