Quoted from Yukendoit:Hello all you wonderful people! I'll admit that I'm not a collector or an expert on pinball but I do really enjoy some tables. I moved out to Japan about seven months ago to become a teacher and boy it's been a lot of fun so far. I was lucky enough to get placed near a major city, that being Osaka, Japan which if Tokyo is New York then Osaka would be like Japan's L.A. So after a while of exploring and slowly trying to learn the language I came across something near the Osaka tower called Smart Ball or スマートー・バールー for those of you that can read Katakana. Imagine a mix of pachinko mixed with a simple pinball machine.
You put in your money that you want to play with. Balls come out over the board, you pull the plunger, if your balls go into the right holes you get more balls that come across the board. When you are finished you inform the person working there you are done, they count the balls and then you can pick out what prizes you want. I.e. candy/chips/pocky. So to beat a dead horse I felt "balls" out of luck because this was pinball but I missed the actual experience of playing a good board.
Then my friend showed me a place inside of an area called Americamura, literally America village. Where you can find not only burger king and mcdonalds competing side by side but also a hidden gem. An awesome pinball arcade called "The silver ball planet" with some amazing games, you do have the classics like twilight zone and addam's family but they also have some good obscure ones like Elton John's pinball machine, three different star wars boards, and my personal favorite two great Indiana Jones boards. When it comes to technicals I know nothing but I did shoot a video if you are interested in seeing my favorite hang out place in Osaka, Japan.
» YouTube video
In typical Japanese fashion the machines at the Silver Ball Museum look supremely well looked after and clean.
Whilst you're over there, perhaps you could tell the Pachinko, Smart Ball and other amusement machine manufacturers in Japan about the insane retail prices and margins currently in the pinball industry. We could do with the Japanese re-entering ....
