The Akihabara Shukaijo (shukaijo means assembly hall in Japanese) is certainly not much to look at as you can see from the photos above. All the walls are white, and it pretty much looks like the classic fresh-out-of-college-gamer’s apartment. Only with more seats and tables. The couches are cheap, the wooden chairs are old, and the tatami mats are stuffed into the corner where they belong. While this may look like your gamer friend Steve’s basement, this is in fact an actual arcade and a legitimate establishment. This is the Portable Game Cafe. Welcome.

Much like Steve’s basement, this is a place you can enter at any time of day or night and get your game and or drink on. The only catch here is that you have to bring your own games and your own booze, but that’s pretty much standard fare for Steve’s basement too. It’s perfectly fine to lug a TV or a desktop PC along with you, but the cafe is definitely more geared towards handheld gaming devices like PSP and NDS. Hence the moniker, Portable Game Cafe.

Video games are not the only games being played at the Shukaijo, however. Tabletop games (Warhammer, etc) and trading card games (Magic, Pokemon, etc) are welcomed here as well. Pretty much anything that doesn’t kill anyone else’s buzz is a-okay. The cafe’s website does state that both musical performances and fighting are strictly prohibited, however. I know, right? Bummer.

Portable gaming is huge in Japan. Long train commutes aside, Japanese people really seem to enjoy just meeting up with their friends and playing some PSP. Especially now when they can take it to the Shukaijo and hook it up to a projector for a crazy cool Monster Hunter Tournament! Wow!

So why go to a place like this that charges you by the hour when Steve’s basement is free and right around the corner? Well maybe Steve got kicked out of his basement by his parents. Maybe Steve cleaned himself up and got a job. Maybe Steve died, I don’t know. So where do you go to now? Someplace with Wi-Fi, of course. But coffeshops and the like don’t always enjoy large groups of gamers sucking up their free Wi-Fi and electrical outlets without ordering anything. And you can’t even get drunk and cantankerous in a coffeeshop without being shown the door. Now where’s the fun in that?

At Shukaijo, gamers can bask in the cafe’s free WiFi and many electrical outlets guilt free. Shukaijo also doesn’t mind if you bring alcohol in from the outside and knock a few back while you’re at it. Assuming you don’t get too cantankerous, of course.

Wii beer’d. Now Wii drunk.

When people miss the last train home, they can swing by this cafe, game a little bit, and if they’re tired, crash on one of the many sofas or tatami mats (just like Steve’s!) At the moment there are only two locations, one in Akihabara and one in Ikebukuro, but that’s still one more than Steve’s got going for him.

The cafe also provides various manga and magazines in the event you get tired of all that gaming and just want to read for a bit. Shukaijo also hosts special events where famous voice actresses and the like show up and play games with everyone. There’s even competitions and contests. When’s the last time Steve did that for you?

Shukaijo offers a dedicated space for gamers where the experience is what the gamers make of it. This place is wide open with no dividers or gaming booths like those found in manga cafes. Anyone can freely play with or against anyone else in the room. Everyone is there for the same reason: to relax, have a few brews, and game. The only difference between Shukaijo and a traditional arcade is that there’s no gaming equipment provided. You must bring your own. BYOB and BYOG is the motto here.

Kickin’ it old school.

Arcades have always been havens for gamers. The traditional game centers of yore were born out of Japanese coffee shops and the tradition continues with Shukaijo. Just remember to bring your own game equipment. It’s certainly a departure from the traditional arcade, but it’s an interesting development nonetheless.

So tell us, would this be a place you would go to on a regular basis, or just as a last resort if you happened to miss that last train home? Let us know in the comments below.

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Aight maggots. It’s time to edumacate you in the fine art of UFO catching. I’m about to present to you tips on how to net yourself a cute stuff j-character without spending a lot of moolah. Koichi spent ¥5,000 figuring out the tricks of the trade so the lot of us wouldn’t have to. But before I indulge you with such delicious tips, I’ll bore you with some background information on these arcade machines (sorry, nothing is free!).

In the US (and maybe Canada?), you may be familiar with its cousin generically named the claw vending machines. Typically the claws are three to four prongs and have ridiculous low gripping power. Prizes are positioned in the prize area in such a way that the only way of succeeding is to grab onto the object and hope that the prong latches onto something or its sad gripping power is just barely enough to carry it to the outlet.

So what makes the US version different from the Japanese? Not much. There is still the weak gripping power. However, the first thing you’ll probably notice is the two-prong claw. TWO-PRONG?!?!?! How the hell are you suppose to grip around an object with just two prongs? Well, you don’t for the most part. Here is where the main difference lies: Majority of the time when looking at the sea of prizes in the casing you’ll find the “winnable” prize sitting almost right next to the exit hole at a higher elevated position. This is done on purpose. The Japanese arcade peons like to give you a chance of winning. They WANT you to win. All that is required is to understand the mechanics of the two-prong claw.

The trick is the utilization of the force from the prongs when it open/closes/descends and the use of gravity.The claw typically opens up midway descension and closes before it ascends back on. You’ll also notice that the claw has a wide range in the open position. The use of the claw depends on the positioning of the object.Sometimes you’ll need to pull the prize towards the hole by either latching a prong to some opening on the object or position it over the object by some offset amount so that when the claw closes it’ll push the object towards the exit . Or you’ll have the descending prong push straight down on the objects side so the weight gets shifted, letting gravity do its job.

Check out this video for more information:

Games typically run at ¥100-¥500 for one to three plays, depending what is at stake.

Oh, one more thing. Don’t bother with the UFO catchers with AV DVDs (READ: Mystery person pictured above). You are better off saving the yen and purchasing them at a “DVD/CD/本屋” (you’ll know what I mean if you ever attempt to visit one).