Purikura: The Japanese Grandmother of the Selfie
34 comments
·September 4, 2025mikewarot
franciscop
When I came to Japan in 2015 and was dating here, I was taken to purikuras in multiple occasions and let me tell you it's totally different experience from the Western photo booths. Both the machines, abilities and creativity of pros managing them made me very surprised in many ways.
Whoppertime
I remember Sonny Onoo, Eric Bischoff's friend at WCW was taking credit for inventing the Selfie
yayitswei
Gen Z takes selfies with the higher quality back-facing camera using 0.5x zoom. You can't see yourself while taking the photo, but that's part of the appeal.
chuckadams
I'm from the generation where that was the only option (and I still wasn't a kid then). I kind of liked the mystery, but overall I still prefer the front camera for selfies nowadays.
ZenoArrow
I'm pretty sure the success of Purikura in Japan was the inspiration behind the Game Boy Camera / Game Boy Printer.
Rendello
I used to love the basic photo booths in the malls in Canada as a kid.
East Asian selfie culture and photo booths are notorious for extremely heavy filters, which reminds me of the early Myspace/Photoshop days:
bananaflag
This is a bit false. After phones started adding cameras in 2002, only 3G phones started adding front facing cameras, because it looked like we would use videotelephony over the 3G-324M standard. The first 3G phones available in the UK in 2003 were also the first phones with front facing cameras, NEC e606 and Siemens U10.
mitthrowaway2
As far as I'm aware the first phone with a front-facing camera was the Kyocera VP-210, released in Japan in 1999.
voidhorse
They still have modern versions of these machines at arcades in tokyo today, I just used some recently. The photo booth is gamified in the sense that you are timed throughout the process and are given some poses to try and replicate, and you only get two photos (which you choose) digitally, plus a selection of a few for the printed stickers. You can still get digital copies of the rest of the photos online for a fee.
It's pretty fun! The small amount of gamification adds an additional layer of excitement to the photo booth.
feverzsj
It's booming again in East Asia.
eloisius
Indeed. In the hip parts of Taipei entire storefronts have sprung up that are dedicated to photo booths. Inside, they have extravagant props like laundromat, elevator, etc. It’s weird but also fun I guess?
socalgal2
SF, NYC, and else where
Behind the Curtain: Inside the Revival of New York’s Vintage Photo Booths: https://web.archive.org/web/20250822165247/https://www.nytim...
From vintage to viral: Photo booths are making a comeback in the Bay Area: https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/from-vintage-to-vi...
Vintage Photo Booths Are Back, and Baffling Newbies. ‘It’s Not an iPad.’: https://www.wsj.com/articles/vintage-photo-booths-are-back-a...
Biganon
Way too many ads, won't read (uBlock doesn't work in the browser that's integrated in my HN reader app)
amadeoeoeo
It seems after making it several times to the front page in HN the author has decided to give this (apart from the ads) really interesting blog a new try... I hope they find a less intrusive way to monetize it.
nmstoker
Yes, annoying. The article feels like it's building to a point and then they end with effectively: lots of people tried them, they're not so popular now. The End.
Mistletoe
I didn't see a single ad but I was on a desktop with UBO lite.
bcraven
I can only suggest switching to Firefox then, or finding an 'open external links in browser' setting perhaps?
Biganon
Oh such a setting obviously exists, but it's annoying having dozens of HN related tabs clutter Firefox, there are convenient gestures that allow to quickly switch between article and comments, etc.
kalleboo
Octal uses the OS Safari view for its in-app browser which uses whatever ad blocker you have installed
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danielrrr3r
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danielrrr3r
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danielz5eot
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We had photo booths back when I was a kid, 50 years ago. There's plenty of evidence in my mom's family photos that selfies/group selfies aren't new.
There's a photo booth as part of the plot in one of my favorite movies, Amélie.