💖 PuriKura = Purinto Kurabu [プリント倶楽部] 💖

💑 Love is in the air indeed and so as my picture here which is taken in Akihabara with my Japanese partner.

I'm not sure if you have heard about this so-called Purikura in Japan. But I have seen these photos because I have a lot of Japanese friends in my social media accounts. Purikura is short for purinto kurabu [print club] , well not photo booths like we have outside of Japan but literally photoshop booths 😅 . This is popular for young couples or young people in Japan.

There are different kinds of photo booths with different features but this depends on which arcade you go. Larger game centers often have an entire floor dedicated entirely to purikura, featuring various machines offering their own unique styles.There's always a new machine to try. We went to some arcades in Akihabara [the anime capital of the world] and luckily there is a vacant one and went inside this Katy 3 photobooth.

Different kinds of photo booths in Japan

I only took 1 picture of the photobooth because we were so excited to go inside,lol.. So this is a sample picture of some photobooths around Japan. Like in any photo shoot you need to look your best and there are some which have a dressing and a makeup room, prepped like a pro.

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Time to enter the photobooth! (中に行こう！)

There's a big lens camera with a monitor to help position yourself. The conditions are perfect with a soft lighting and flashes around the room. It cost ¥400 [around $3/₱190]. When we entered our coins it suddenly started and I'm rattled because I didn't know that there is a time limit (3 seconds in each pose) The shots are consecutive with only a few seconds in between and he didn't warn me in advance! 😑 .There are dozens of established poses that you can imitate on the monitor [it's okay to have your own pose though]. I suggest that you prepare in advance 5 different poses that you like so that you will be satisfied with the results 🎬 .

After the photobooth, we headed to the editing side of the machine. Once again, we were faced with a ticking clock, counting down the time so we have to move fast [wow Japan always have a time, lol] but it's really needed so that the next group can smoothly move. You can turn in some music while editing the photo. This really is more than just taking and editing a photo! 😁. I didn't took a picture of it so I'm using google's image.

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Time to edit and print the pictures! (お絵描きコーナーへうつってね!)

^{Warning: please turn down your volume because the place is noisy}

The editing booth allows you to customize the photo and In this video, we are almost finished so I can't show you the step by step process. By the way, it is written in Japanese so I wonder how foreigners understand some words 😥 but it's still understandable though.

- choose your preferred eye size and skin tone
^{(actually your face is already automatically edited)}
- enter your name/names
- pick a background
- you can now customize each individual photo
- you can put some cute stickers, write something using different colors & sizes
- there are also pre-made messages in both Japanese and English
- take note that you only have 180 seconds [The remaining time will be shown on the screen.]
- be creative or just go wild with the touch pen whatever works for you!


Tadaaaahhh! 終わりました！These are some of our finished products, lol 😎 Mine is in the left side with the word だいすき(daisuki) meaning "I love you" in Japanese (I wrote it in hiragana because the kanji of love (愛) is difficult) and his edit is with the katakana デート meaning "date".

Finally, the last step is to go to the back side and it's the final screen where you will enter your e-mail address if you'd like to receive the digital copy. Lastly, wait for your picture to be printed until it comes out in a little opening at the bottom of the machine. You can find a pair of scissors on the table and cut the photos.

And the results? . . .cute! You will end up looking like a shoujo manga version of yourself and in some ways, freakishly alien with a super smooth brightened skin, and a big alien eyes. This isn't what we saw in the mirror before 🙈

Don't miss this if you'll visit Japan Steemians! 😎