Pachinko über Alles
by Yukihiro Hatano

Pachinko's going to be on the cutting edge of multimedia. It's going to take a seat among Japan's key industries, and we're going to build a whole new society around it," Kohji Tohnai tells me, point blank.

Punctuated by the clipped rhythmic accent of the hearty city of Nagoya, Tohnai's gravelly voice crescendos: "A new urban village with a pachinko hall at its center. The whole community will look to the pachinko hall as a place of leisure and self-realization. There'd be room for housewives' groups to meet and pursue sundry interests and hobbies, say, or an old geezer will drop in knowing it's where the grannies hang out."

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