Bandai Toy Ultraman Pachinko/Pachislot (video)
This is a fascinating motorized plastic toy pachinko/pachislot machine, made by Bandai in 1992. Ultraman is a very popular superhero in Japan. The action figures in the center jackpot area are Ultraman battling the alien Baltan (Baltan on the left with his claw hands and Ultraman on the right casting a Spacium Ray beam at Baltan). The figures tip back and forth as the game motor runs. Additionally two Baltan claws on the playfield open and close to catch balls into pockets.
The machine uses two "D" cells to power the shooter, the claw pockets, the wings, and the two timing wheels—as well as to light up the jackpot light in the center (which is timed with the ring). The only sounds are the motor (and gears), the pachinko balls hitting the plastic, and an electric bell (like an old telephone ring—briinng) for each jackpot.
The automatic shooter knob is shaped like Ultraman's mask. The steel pachinko balls (8mm) are smaller than regular pachinko balls (11mm) and the orange plastic energy balls are larger (13mm). The balls stay in the machine—which has no openings (like ArePachis); you win by keeping as many energy pellets in the front window as you can. Each time you are able to stop the spinning pachislot wheel so it shows the row of all Ultraman images (see photo) you get 4 pellets back. The pellets disappear at a steady rate as long as the motor is turning.
You push in the auto shooter knob to reset the game. In the down position it is off (see photo). Once you turn it to the right the motor starts launching pachinko balls up into the playfield. The game timer (bottom center) moves for every jackpot by about 30 points. When you have a total of 1000 points the games ends and the motor turns off.
A ball in any pocket will ring the bell and flash the light, but only the center pocket below the battling figures will spin the pachislot wheel. So the goal is to get the highest percentage of jackpot balls into that center pocket as quickly possible so as not to lose many energy pellets, which steadily disappear as the motor runs. Getting the winning row on a pachislot spin stop keeps your energy level up.
The motor has a return stop that prevents it from stopping when you take your hand off it, so you will run out of energy pellets before the jackpot timer ends if you don't keep shooting balls onto the playfield. You can pause it if you push the shooter knob in slightly and rotate in to the down position, but it's awkward, so it's not as useful as the regular pachinko pause switch.
There are ten jackpot pockets: one at the top center between two drop-through holes the funnel balls into the center; one at the top of each spinner (that's why they have notches); one in each Baltan claw; three at the bottom above the exit hole (with two drop-through holes between them); and three in the center winged area—the middle one being the slot spin pocket. The three at the bottom have pictures of some of the Ultraman series' alien badguys and are marked for more points (Arolas–100, Redking–200, and Dada–100), but they don't actually give any more points than the other pockets, the timer wheel always advances the same for each jackpot.
The wings open and close in time with the jackpot bell ringing and the center light flashing, so it seems that the balls caught in pockets are carried around inside on wheels, and trigger the bell and lights at regular intervals; and the wings are on the same cycle. They don't always open; sometimes they stay closed and can accumulate as many as four balls in the hold "pocket" formed when they are closed. When they open they usually dump most of the balls straight down into the slot jackpot. Those balls are stored so the slot spins are banked.
When the slot wheel spins, the shooter knob and all the other mechanisms are disabled, so you don't lose energy pellets or have to pay attention to aiming for pockets. The wheel is all one piece with a printer paper wrapped around it, so the odds of getting the one winning row are probably about 1 in 10. All the losing rows have two Ultraman images and a mix of three of the other bad aliens featured in the game: Baltan, Arola, Redking, and Dada.
It's a very cleverly made machine and an interesting combination of pachinko and pachislot. I've made a video of it in action so you can see how the various parts move:
YouTube - Toy Ultraman Pachinko/Pachislot in action
More about Ultraman:
Ultraman seems to be as popular in Japan as Superman is in America. There some parallels between the two superheros: both are good humanoid aliens and both have a fatal weakness. However, Ultraman is more the archtypical Japanese everyman-transformed-to-hero. Ultraman is merged with the human, Hayata, but is weakened by solar radiation so he stays unactivated until he is needed. A device triggers the transformation of Hayata back into the super-strong giant Ultraman, but Ultraman then only has three minutes before his power starts to fade. He is very huge, very heavy, very old, very fast, very strong, and has many special powers. (Ultraman - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)
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