Purikura

Have you ever taken Purikura in Japan? Purikura became popular from the 1990s between Japanese teenagers and it is known as one of Japanese pop culture now.


I often watch the situation that international student take a Purikura when they come Japan. There are some interesting products of Purikura to attract foreigners. These are examples. It is in Narita air port and made to attract foreigners.

And also, in Ryogoku Kokugikan, known as Sumo hall in Tokyo, there are unique Purikura machines that we can take Purikura with Sumo wrestlers.

When I was elementary school student, Purikura started coming in Japan. At that time, it had only a few functions such as making flame and putting on stamp in the picture. However it gradually improved its function such as painting, changing background color, setting the light and so on. Therefore it became popular year by year. Now it is also still improving its functions. Recently, in some Purikura machine, we can make our appearance better than real to use the functions such as changing our hair color, making big round eyes, long and curly eye lush, long legs and slim body. And also there are some Purikura website that tells us some technique of taking Purikura and some information about it. Using these things we can change our appearance easily. I saw some of my friends Purikura but it was loaded too much. Her eyes were too big and she had slender body which was looked like foreigner model. To tell the truth, she was so cute and lovely however it was difficult to know who she is and it seems a little strange and go too far. I supposed that Japanese tend to care about their appearance too much and we can see Japanese is trying to be like foreigner even from Purikura culture.

Recently I had opportunity to take a Purikura. Then I was really surprised. When it was printed and came out, false eyelashes also came out as a free gift!

I’m interested in how Purikura culture go on now more…



second and third photos are taken by here.