My memories of arcades are always dark with flashing lights and blaring sound. There’s always fog too, though I think my imagination added that at some point, I can’t imagine Aladdin’s Castle in Springfield Missouri pumping out fog constantly. Sadly, this old aesthetic has been lost on newer arcades, at least here. The only place that tries to call itself something modern is brightly lit and boring. Luckily we have a retro arcade that brings the looks.
This isn’t about my local arcade though, this is about an insane arcade in Japan that looks like a set designer was let loose with an incredible budget, and it was. This was designed by Taishiro Hoshino, an art designer for kabuki theater.
This section of the Kawasaki warehouse is patterned loosely after the Kowloon walled city that used to be near Hong Kong (the most densely populated slum in the world at that point). Now, it looks like an incredible place to hang out and shoot some aliens.
I had always been under the impression that things were much smaller and tightly packed in Japan. This is the most expansive arcades I’ve ever seen.
–thanks for the tip Moheeb!
