The Pachinko + Speed Racer Connection

Japan's Pachinko industry continues to innovate in interesting ways as it tries to appeal to new kinds of customers, and the current trend of tying new machines to famous anime series seems to be going strong. The latest offering is a Speed Racer Pachinko game no doubt designed to capitalize on the upcoming film by the Wachowski Brothers. The game goes beyond traditional Pachinko by adding video game elements on an LCD screen, urging the customer to keep playing so he can finish the current race and displaying new screens of art as the player shoots the metal balls into the machine. There are several game types, including a special "Battle Reach" mode that lets the Mach 5 do some of its signature tricks when you play well. Personally, I love the marriage of anime with pachinko, even though I'm not exactly a fan of the game itself, as it gives popular manga-ka a chance to update their characters, like the gorgeous redesign of the Galaxy Express 999 universe by Leiji Matsumoto. Other pachinko machines with interesting themes you can find in Japan include the 70s anime classic A Dog of Flanders (watch poor Nello and Patrasche ascend to heaven with angels all around them as you play), the Korean drama Winter Sonata, and that campy classic Knight Rider, which was such a hit in Japan back in the 80s.