GaijinPot

photo credit: slavin_fpo After my stopping in some photo booths with friends when I was working in Korea, I developed a full blown Purikura addiction after moving to Japan. Purikura are the photo booths you find almost any where in Japan. I’ve used them at shopping malls, in arcades, in bowling alleys, at special events, and special location ones for Sun Port and Tokyo Tower. The basic Purikura procedure is the same no matter where you go. One of the most important things to remember before you go though is not to wear green or light blue. Since you can choose your background, the pictures are usually taken in front of a green (sometimes light blue) screen.

So if you’re wearing one of those colors, you will look like a floating severed head which is a whole different kind of fun. When you find purikura, there is usually more than one booth and each booth offers different options. You choose the purikura booth based on the sample pictures on the outside. A lot of the purikura booths have some sort of “look” that they’re advertising. One of the current favorites is eye-enhancing purikura which does something to your pupils in the pictures to make your eyes look cuter. It works great if you have brown eyes, however, if you’re like me and have blue eyes, bad things happen.

The eye-enhancing pictures made me look like I had just escaped from an insane asylum. The eye-lash enhancing purikura does the same thing. So if you don’t want to have the eyes of a rabid dog, you might want to avoid these. Once you have the booth you like, you go inside the half of the booth that has the green screen, put in your money and select a background. Backgrounds range from simple colors to elaborate settings. I have underwater, outer space, Nintendo games, superhero and wild life backgrounds in my pictures. You can change the background after each picture. However, there is a time limit so you have to decide fast or you end up with the same standard color background all of the time. Then you pose. Luckily, you can see yourself on a little screen so that you know what your pose looks like with the background.

The computer counts down and then you choose another background. Depending on where you’re taking the pictures, you get about six to eight pictures. After you’re done taking the pictures, you go to the other half of the booth. There you choose, what size you want your pictures in. If you choose a large size, you only get to use four of the pictures. If you choose a small size, you get to use all of them. Next you get to edit your pictures. You use a magic pen to choose fonts, pictures, and date and time stamps to add. Two people at a time can work on the pictures and you get about three to four minutes for this part.

If you make a mistake there is a button that will erase the last thing you did, but depending on how good your Japanese is, it might be hard to find. I have a couple of pictures with weird unerasable things on them because I couldn’t find the right buttons on time. Once you’ve decorated your pictures, you might have the option of sending a picture to your cellphone for free.

You also might have the option of printing out a second sheet for an extra two hundred yen or so. It all depends on your booth. Since coming to Japan, I’ve become a purikura master. I have a fantastic set of purikura pictures which include pictures of me falling off a cliff, being attacked by an octopus, being attacked by a rabid raccoon, being abducted by aliens, coming out of a green pipe in a Mario game, scaling the side of Tokyo Tower, in an old coming book, in a wrestling match, in a bar full of rabbits, stuck on the moon, hiding in the woods, as various foods and animals, and of course in a superhero costume. So the next time you’re bored, drag some of your friends to purikura booth and have at it. It’s its own little world of whacky picture fun.