PURIKURA: the grandmother of the selfie

In the mid-90s, 30 year old Sasaki Miho was working at Atlus, a video game company that had primarily been developing titles for the Game Boy and Super NES. Atlus had been trying to break into the arcade market for some time to no avail. However, that all changed when Miho, inspired by the popularity of kawaii stickers amongst high school girls, hit upon the idea for Purikura and presented it to her bosses.

Initially, the idea was rejected but in 1995 Atlus partnered with Sega and pursued Miho’s concept. In February 1995, the two companies produced Print Club (プリント倶楽部) - shortened to Purikura. The first machines were placed in arcades across Japan and saw immediate success with Print Club becoming the highest grossing arcade game of 1996.

1997 saw the machine featured on the hugely popular variety show ‘I LOVE SMAP’. At the peak of their career, SMAP precipitated an unprecedented level of demand for Purikura and Atlus/Sega had to race to keep up with demand. Suddenly, the booths were no longer limited to arcades as they popped up in fast food outlets, train stations and karaoke joints. Competitors also rode the wave with SNK releasing Neo-Print in 1996 and Konami rolling out Puri Puri Canvas in 1997.

The initial Purikura machines had very basic features, simply offering the option to add a frame and quickly print out photos as stickers. As the technology developed, the options to add text, stickers and more rapidly grew. Purikura also provided the inspiration for Japanese cell phone manufacturers to add front facing cameras in the early 2000s. It’s likely that without the original Atlus booths, we would’ve had to wait longer to start taking selfies on our iPhones.

Unfortunately, as smart phone technology progressed and Japan’s demographic shifted to an elderly population, Purikura’s popularity waned. Between 2007 and 2017, annual sales fell about 30.7 billion yen.

While they may have seen their golden age come and go, the booths remain popular all over Japan - and with one survey suggesting that over 90% of Japanese people have tried Purikura at least once, they don’t look like they’re going away any time soon.