100 Yen: A Documentary About Japanese Arcades

The trailer for 100 Yen: The Japanese Arcade Experience, a documentary about gaming in Japan:

This project began in Summer 2010, I (Brad Crawford) flew out to Japan and spent the entire month of July chasing leads and filming all over the country. I went from Tokyo to Osaka, all the way to Fukuoka on my own dime. However, I was unable to complete all the necessary interviews and capture the entire story. This trip allowed me to make certain contacts and discover the overall arc that this film will follow.

What I want to do is go back with a small crew and proper equipment to round-out the documentary with interviews from key subjects such as Daigo Umehara, Satoshi Numata and communicate with the Japanese public about gaming and arcades in general. EVO 2011, the worlds biggest fighting game tournament, is taking place for the first time in Japan in the spring of 2011. Our goal is to attend and film this event as part of the documentary.

We are also looking forward to interviewing more corporate figures including spokes-people from major game companies such as Capcom, Konami and Taito etc…

This coming November 13th, 2010 we will be attending the Canada Cup, Canada’s Newest and most exciting fighting game tournament. Attendees include Justin Wong, Mike Ross, Ryan “Gootecks” Guitierrez and Daigo Umehara making his fist Canadian appearance. Covering this event will create a great compare/contrast point on gaming and its culture differs from one country to the next. We hope to see some additional Japanese players attend this event to get their perspective on the gaming scene in North America.

The filmmakers are independently creating this documentary using financial contributions from internet users. As of the time of this post, they had raised about $2,000 of their $9,000 goal.

Source: japanprobe.com