100 Yen: The Japanese Arcade Experience Page #5

My real name is Tomoyuki Mori,

my gaming alias is Akudaikan.

The game I'm playing most now is DDR

That and more recently

a game called Horse Riders.

That's what I'm enjoying

currently in the arcade.

At the time... I didn't know anything

about DDR, but had seen

a game called Beatmania

which was really taking off.

When I tried it for the

first time I was like...

Ahh this is pretty interesting!

But my friend was like, just wait

until you see this other game

and that other game

turned out to be DDR.

Rather than using your fingers,

this game is all about feet,

and I thought... Oh this is great!

That's when I decided

that this was the game for me.

The first time that I got

to try music games was

when I went to the

Tokyo Game Show in 1999.

The console version of DDR

has just been released,

so I got a chance to try that out,

and when I did

I realized how fun and

new this experience was.

That's how this all began.

By now there have been

tons of versions of DDR released

on Xbox and Playstation, however,

when you think about

the situation in Japan...

It's really difficult to invite

people over to your residence

and replicate this kind of experience.

It's just completely different

playing these games

at home versus in the arcade.

If you want to play in front of a crowd

you head to the arcades.

If you keep going to

the same arcade to play these games

and continually play with

the same group of people,

you can't help but become

close friends with everyone there.

It was this way that I made a ton of friends

and got heavily involved with the community.

It was a great experience.

The same can be said for almost anything.

In Japanese we say "koriyakuho" which means,

for example, if you're attempting

to get a marvelous [the best score]

there is no instruction manual

which tells you exactly

how to hit each note at the

exact "marvelous" timing.

Depending on the song,

the timing for a marvelous

will usually be slightly different.

Actually, there will usually

be at least one "feint"

where the marvelous timing

will be just slightly off

in an attempt to confuse

even the best players.

Having said all that, there is

no way to learn these things

except for trying it out yourself.

After that, it's all repetition and practice,

until it becomes second nature

or muscle memory.

I'm not sure about others,

but I think that DDR

is similar to sports,

such as Skiing or Badminton,

in the sense that you

can continue doing them

even as you get older.

Even in America

we saw DDR appear

in schools to help combat child obesity.

While I am fourty-four years old

I know people who are

over fifty who are playing DDR.

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