Little Tokyo - Japan Arcade

Thanks to apocaknits on flickr for the photo. CC license.

Japan Arcade, now this place brings out a lot of memories and a lot of feelings. Memories of youth and friends long gone, and melancholic feelings about how things change with the passing of time... But before I continue poetry night at the country club, I have to apologize for the lack of images for this arcade. Though I came here a lot, I never took pictures or videos. Don't worry, there are many images and articles and other blogs that capture the inside. If you are all curious on how it looked, I suggest checking them out as well. Yeah, I really don't want to ripoff anyone's images that they used on their own blogs and articles, so I'll just use CC images. Anyway, back to Japan Arcade.

This arcade, despite being small, hidden, and eerily isolated from the rest of Little Tokyo, was famous back while it was still open. It was known as the arcade with Japanese imports and people from all over Los Angeles and beyond came to play quirky games that didn't exist anywhere else at the time. Taiko drumming, rhythm games, drifting racing games, and gimmicky games that used a keyboard were novelties in the west at the time, and despite how popular they are now, back in the mid to late 2000s, they were quite a new phenomenon.

I started going around 2009 as a high school student. I either made the hour long walk or took my bicycle, as the Little Tokyo Galleria was not too far from my house. I have many good memories of bringing my friends here, staying late and my parents picking me up around midnight, how I almost got hit by a car a block away, and drawing a small crowd around me when I was playing Ms. Pac-Man. Good old days.

Little Tokyo Shopping Center as it was when I used to visit. 2011.

 

More or less how it looks like now.

Location and Environment:

Circa 2022

Many Yelp reviewers and bloggers or people in general who visited Japan Arcade always note how isolated and hidden Japan Arcade was. It was located inside the Little Tokyo Galleria, formerly known as the Little Tokyo Shopping Center, on the second floor, at the very corner, directly across Max Karaoke. Most of Little Tokyo's bustle starts on 2nd Street and Central Avenue; the Little Tokyo Galleria is on 3rd Street and Alameda. Despite 2nd Street only being a block away, the Little Tokyo Galleria felt oddly isolated, especially a decade ago. 

There was nothing around it at the time; just apartments to the north, the Arts District and warehouses to the east, and the outskirts of skid-row to the west and south.

As for the galleria itself, there was not much to do from what I can remember. X-Lanes wasn't there yet and I can't recall if Max Karaoke let minors in. As a broke high school student, there was only the arcade and the grocery store downstairs. 

In 2009, nothing was better than playing some games, going downstairs to the grocery store for some cheap beef bowl, then finishing the night gaming some more. The galleria really was a great place to spend a Friday night after school.

I don't know when this place opened up, but I've heard many say it's been there since the late 90s. The first mention of this place I found was a review that has long since been taken down but is still up on the internet archive. It's from 2005, some 8 years before it closed.

The Games and the Scene:

Japan Arcade was known for its Japanese imports, the most recognizable of which were the rhythm games, the racing games (Initial D was what everyone talked about), and fighting games. Over the years, the games rotated out and new ones were put in. I wasn't there in the mid 2000s, but a lot of people said that Street Fighter III was a big draw, with many good players and pros coming in to accept challenges and to practice.

In the late 2000s and early 2010s, the fighting game scene was still big, but the game I remember everyone playing was Street Fighter 4. There were two big screens and seats in front of the joysticks. My friend and I wanted to play against each other, but we didn't know that one screen was player one, and the other screen was player two. We put a token in and to our surprise, the guy sitting on the player 2 screen was like, "oh, it's one on one, it's just two screens." And let me say that we both took him on and we got demolished so bad, my friend got up and ran out the arcade. Good memories. I don't know any of the names of the people who went there, but some were well known enough that when they would play, there would be a line, a queue of people waiting to take him on.

The other games were the rhythm games, Ms. Pac-Man, Japanese imported shoot-em-ups and other fighting games. The racing games were also a big draw. Initial D was there, and there used to be another racing game where you could save your progress in a card. When you played again, you inserted the card, and your score or car or whatever would be saved on it. I don't know if such cards were provided to players here in Los Angeles though.

This arcade was also one of the last businesses that would close for the night. It was one of the places a young teen could hang out in well into the night that wasn't a party. If I remember correctly, they closed at 11pm, but I swear that at times, they would close even later. It wouldn't be a rare sight seeing kids, 15 or 16, there at eleven o' clock at night.

Though arcades were almost dead at the time, this place stood strong and had many loyal customers until its shutdown on November, 2013.

Many people thought it was because of X-Lanes coming in and the owner didn't want to compete against such a big corporate establishment, others say that the owner simply retired. Whatever the case was, the arcade closed down, and with it, took a lot of the charm that made Little Tokyo a real slice of Japan in the west.

Japan Arcade Token.

Final Thoughts:

There isn't much to say that hasn't been said already. I really suggest checking out other people's blogs and articles on this establishment as they provide a unique perspective and insight and are much more accurate with the details. I am mostly going off memory and it's been almost ten years since it has closed. Preserving the memories over the years, there are many Yelp reviews, blogs, YouTube videos, and tweets; despite this place being closed for about a decade now, Japan Arcade is very well documented.

Since Japan Arcade's closing, Japanese arcade games have become popular in this contemporary revival of the arcade gaming scene. Rhythm games and racing games are a staple at Round 1 and Dave and Buster, and I have seen other places start up similar establishments with Japanese import cabinets, such as "Game Nest Arcade" in Las Vegas. But that's all here and now. Back then though, when arcades were seen as things of the past, Japan Arcade was there.