The Secrets of Purikura... プリクラの秘密！！

Purikura is big business in Japan as you might already know. Pretty much all young Japanese people loves it and nowadays they're making new kind of machines with all kind of funny effects every month. Here is some Purikura photos together with Leon and Jenni.

Purikura = Japanese photo machines
The word Purikura is an abbreviation of the words "Print Club" which with Japanese spelling becomes "Purinto Kurabu". Japanese people loves making words short, so they put those words together with the result "PuriKura".

So why is it called "Print Club"!? I guess it's because the main thing used to be that you get the photos printed out as stickers when you're done with the photo session.

I once asked Leon how many times he have been taking Purikura photos, and he thought it was more than 700 times. So he has some experience, as well as Jenni. No wonder why they look so great at the pictures!! =)

This was at the time when Leon had just learned the expression "LOL" so he finished almost every sentence he wrote with it as you can see in the right bottom corner. XD

Japanese people use the Kanji for the word "Warau" which means "Laugh", inside of brackets to express somthing similar to "LOL". It looks like this:
(笑)

One time me and Leon had a discussion about the point of Purikura machines:

Leon: -"How come you always take pictures of everything?"

Me: -"Because everything in Japan is so interesting and different for me,
since we don't have it in Sweden. 

Doesn't Japanese people take photos when they go out? Overseas Japanese tourists are known for always taking a lot of photos, you know."

Leon: -"Japanese people usually don't bring cameras with them when going out here. I guess that's why there is Purikura-machines. Whenever you go out with your friends here, you take Purikura photos together with them to remember that time."

Leon is right about that taking Purikura photos together with friends is nice as memories. This Purikura makes me remember when Jakob and Jonathan from school, Penny that used to live in my guest house, the journalist Thomas and me ate at a nice Izakaya and then went to club Atom for example! =)

One of the fun things with purikura is that you can edit the photos and choose backgrounds. This is made possible by having the same kind of green background in the photo booth as they use when they have special effects in movies.

So what happens if you use green clothes when you take purikura!!??
I accidently used this green striped cardigan when I took purikura together with Yukino and here is
the result:

 




































What!? The stripes on my cardigan that used to be really green are now colorless! The color are so similar to the one of the Purikura booth's background so the machines thinks it should not be visible.

So if you weared clothes with exactly the same green color as the background I guess you would become invisible! Gotta try that some time! :D

I finally realize why green clothes aren't popular in Japan! ;)

Since that Purikura session was ruined we had to take new photos.
Useless green cardigan!! ;D Luckily it's cheap, just 400 yen.

I love Yukino's hat! It's a bit similar to the black one I have, but bigger.

Wearing that hat is almost like a whole outfit! Imagine how comfortable to wake up in the morning and only need to put on a hat before going to work or school! XD

  






































You might have noticed that people often look really good at Purikura photos like Mathilda and Shun in this photo. But it is actually possible to fail... Just look at me on this photo with dry lips and blemishes all over my face... :(

That was before I learned the secrets of Purikura! ;D

So what are the secrets!!?? :O

 

Well, if you're the whitest, most pale guy alive like me and not born with perfect skin
there is solutions in Japan... ;)

Many Gyaru-O use foundation and make-up made for men. The Men's EGG-model Ayumu doesn't only have his own clothing and fragrance brand, he also has a make-up brand.

Since "Make-up" sounds a bit girly, they call it "Men's Maintenance" instead.

There is sometimes detailed tutorials in the Men's EGG magazines for putting on facial masks and
doing make-up.

I've heard from people that for girls in Japan it's even an unwritten rule to always have make-up on when they leave the house which sounds crazy, so I guess it's no wonder that people like to wear those "hospital-masks" instead as a reader mentioned in a comment.

And then there's the eye enlargement effect...
Japan might be the most techinacally advanced country in the world. Some of Japan's professors works with rocket science or trying to cure cancer, but there's no doubt about that they put their best men on the task to make people's eyes look bigger! ;D

One of the most popular Purikura machines ever is the "Honey Heart Haafu Kao".
"Haafu Kao" = "Half Face" which means that your face will look half foreign if you
take photos with this machine.

According to the machine, this is the natural eye-size. Level 1.

But this machine will give you the perfect eye-size. Level 3!! So sick...

But that's not all, it will also change the volume of your lips, your noseline and your cheaks...
I don't know if this eliminates the demand for plastic surgery or only promotes it!?

"Half-Purikura" with Kenichi and Lloyd.

Afterwards you can put on all kinds of eye shadow, color contact lenses and lipstick. So you can go
into the Purikura booth looking like crap and still look like a super model on the photos! Almost... ;D

In this machine you can also put special stamps from Russia, UK, France, Netherlands and even Sweden! :D

I put one of the most common Swedish souvenirs the "Dalahäst" in the left corner. ^_^

  



























When I did this with Yulia that's partly Russian and partly Japanese she put one of those Russian wooden dolls at her side and I stick with the Swedish "Dalahäst"...

The first time we took Purikura together we didn't really know how to act when the photos were taken. So this time we looked at all the example pictures on the machines and practiced different poses for half an hour before starting. That actually made it even more fun!

After taking the Purikura photos Yulia said that she thought there should be cameras with the same functions as Purikura machines.

I guess it's hard for a personal digital camera to achieve as great light as it is in the Purikura booths. The Purikura booths are almost like small modeling studios when you think about it, with light reflectors all over the place.

But recently I heard that many upcoming cameras in Japan will have something called "Purikura functions". So maybe Yulia's wish will come true after all! =)

One of the funniest Purikura-memories gotta be when Erik to the right in this picture, who's a member of the band Wild Flowers, was here for a while to visit his Japanese girlfriend.

Erik thought that everybody always looks so happy and cool on the Purikura pictures
so he wanted to see if it's even possible to look bored and angry in Purikura! ^^

Erik proved that it's possible to look very bored and angry on Purikura haha!! :D

As you can see in this video he was really happy when the results came!! He has been living in Hollywood for too long now so he has really catched up that American movie star accent! ;)



However, if you really wanna become good at something you better study how the professionals do it!!

The EGG Youth-models Masshu and Akkiina sure know how to take a cool Purikura photo!

Their model colleagues Shouya and Naokyun are no beginners either!

It's pretty nice to take Purikura together with friends but after all it's much more fun to do it alone! ;D

I guess I'm just one of many poor souls that has become a Purikura addict. If I don't get my daily doze of Purikura it will start to itch, and I won't be able to think about anything but that! ;)

My friends has even started to call me FurePuri. "FurePuri" is an abbreviation of my name Fredrik which becomes Furederikku in Japanese, and then Purikura. XD