Purikura

Today I thought I'd have a little culture post and introduce Japanese purikura. Purikura, usually written as プリクラ is an abbreviation from the word 'print corner'. Purikura is very popular within junior high school and high school students, especially girls. However, many older (and younger) people also enjoy taking purikura. It's typical to take pictures with a small group of people after for example going to karaoke, shopping or movies. The pictures are then edited, printed and shared within the members of the group.

This picture is taken from the city where I used to live in, called Fukuoka. The place is actually a game center, but the uppermost floor has more than 10 purikura machines, and is very crowded especially during weekends and after school hours. Different machines have different backgrounds, different editing options, fonts and so on. Some of the machines make you appear in a certain type of way and usually you can at least choose eye size, as the machine generally makes one's eyes appear larger than they are. It's also possible to change your hair colour on the picture etc. 

Just another machine from the same place. After taking and editing the picture, there's typically a small game (usually a memory game) that can be played on the screen (seen on right of the picture). It's possible to get a little extra present, if you do well on the game. I usually got false eyelashes (and thus have a nice collection of them). 

An example of false lashes I got from a purikura machine. The design varies, most of them are quite nice I think. 

This is how the purikura machine looks from the inside. As there's only a limited time I was in such a hurry taking this picture, sorry for the quality! You can leave your bags etc. on the sides, the camera is the black spot seen on upper part of the picture. Backgrounds/ themes are often selected from the screen, in some very rare cases they're selected afterwards. Here are the steps how the pictures are taken (in most cases, there's some variation).

1. Put in the coins (usually 400yen)
2. The screen might ask you to choose between themes/ brightness and/or eye size.
3. Choose backgrounds, be careful, as you cannot change them afterwards! There's a time limit, so choose fast. The number of backgrounds chosen varies, you can see empty boxes which fill as you click a background on the touch screen.

4. The pictures are taken, there's a timer. It's typical to also take 変顔 (hengao)　'funny face' pictures (at least one), where everyone tries to look funny/ stupid. 

5. You might be asked to choose more backgrounds, after which more pictures are taken. There might also be a 'photo of the day' where you can take a picture with that day's theme background.

You might be asked to choose the photos you want to keep (and edit) before leaving. This is a good opportunity to get rid of the worst ones.

6. You are asked to leave machine to either right or left. There you will find a small corner, usually covered with a curtain, where you edit the pictures. There's a time limit. 

7. After time limit, go to the printing machine (outside the editing corner) and wait for the pictures to be printed. There might be a mini-game while waiting.

Useful Japanese symbols to recognize for purikura:

消す　= delete (during editing, if you want to undo something you just did)

終わり　or おわり　= end (when you've finished editing and want to print)

決定　= decision (you might need to choose something during the process)

右= right (leave the machine to the right)

左 = left

Here's my 'purikura wallet', for purikura pictures I took during high school time. I have two purikura wallets full of pictures, I think I have way over 100 sheets of pictures. I'd post some, but as there's always someone with me, I cannot do it without the person's consent, so unfortunately only Facebook friends can see them at the moment. 

This is all for today. I hope this was somewhat interesting or helpful. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask!