Sunday, December 21, 2008

Girl, Photo, Catch 'Em

This week I include one for a famous genre and two for amusements that pop up again and again in anime and manga.

mahō shōjo (magical girl) 魔法少女

Purinto kurabu (Print Club) プリント倶楽部

UFO Catcher (crane game) UFOキャッチャー

The last two I could not have done without the information in an excellent little book that is just hitting bookstores in the US:

Ashcraft, Brian and Jean Snow
Arcade Mania: The Turbo-Charged World of Japan's Game Centers
Tokyo: Kodansha International, 2008

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yo!

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't there a ref to Print Club in Episodes 1 of Love Hina and Paranoia Agent?

Also, the first place many of us were exposed to UFO Catchers is Episode 3 of Video Girl Ai. More recently, in the Evangelion manga, Shinji first meets Asuka not at sea but at a UFO Catcher labeled as such (Vol. 4, p. 20). Look carefully, and you'll see that the dolls are all from Nadia!

DSWBT

Gilles Poitras said...

Dan:

Good ones. There were so many references in my lists I only choose a few.

I may revisit the entry in a week or so.