1974 Stop Joker by 昭和遊園機械 (Showa Yuen Kikai)

Name: Stop Joker
Year: 1974
Company: 昭和遊園機械 (Showa Yuen Kikai)

Stop Joker is a medal game that was converted from a German machine. the front artwork has been redone, and the stand is all new.

TAN 91-10923

Type approval number 91-10923 was registered in 1974 to Showa Yuen Kikai. I am assuming that is when this game was released.

transcription:

STOP&JOKERの遊び方
10円玉1個を入れると数字がまわりだします。ボタンにあかりがついたらスタート。ストップを上手にして数字を合せてください。うまくできると合った数だけ PFG メタルがでてきます。
PFG メタルは右上の入口から入れてください。1個で1回ゲームができます。 メタルは金品ととりかえることはできませんので全部ゲームをしてください。
1回10円
10円玉しかつかえません

machine translation:

How to play STOP & JOKER
Insert one 10-yen coin and the numbers will start to rotate. Start when the button lights up. Use the stop function to match the numbers. If you do it right, you'll receive PFG medals equal to the number of matches.
Insert PFG medals through the opening in the upper right corner. One coin will be enough for one game. Medals cannot be exchanged for cash, so play all of them.
10 yen per play
Only 10-yen coins are accepted.

This machine appears to be a conversion of Roto Mat Joker, released 1963 by Günter Wulff

Roto Mat Joker, released 1963 by Günter Wulff

Roto Mat Joker, inside

1970s Hole In One - ホールインワン by 関西企業 (Kansai Kigyo)

 

Name: Hole In One - ホールインワン
Year: 1970s
Company:  関西企業 (Kansai Kigyo)

Hole In One is a vertical coin-flick game that awards a prize at the bottom slot when you can get a coin into the winning hole.  There are two columns that accumulate coins and if you enter into one of the associated holes the coins are dispensed from the front cup.

関西企業 (Kansai Kigyo) logo, used up until 1977

The clown logo was used up until 1977, so we know this game was before then.  I have not seen Kansai Kigyo before 1974, so probably safe to assume it was between 1974-1977.

I have never seen this game advertised in a catalogue or magazine.

 

oh and Jack Nicklaus

Laura Baugh, Tom Weiskopf, Arnold Palmer

 

 Looking inside we see there is one rotary motor that spins the 3 wheels

internals

dual prize hopper

These next photos are courtesy of _QtQ_ who found one of these still in operation at 中古タイヤ市場.

Replaying Japan 2025: eremeka presentation

Welcome to everyone arriving here after my Replaying Japan talk.

This post gives access to the database info, a summary of the links from the presentation, notes in addendum to my presentation, as well as an archive of my presentation.

Replaying Japan 2025 happened September 1-3, 2025, in Melbourne Australia. My submitted abstract was accepted into the Replaying Japan 2025 Journal. My presentation was pre-recorded, but the Q&A was live.  My 1:30pm AEST presentation translates to 11:30pm my time.

Downloading the database data:

• click here for a CSV file of all the fused database information (tab separated).  If you're having trouble maintaining the Japanese characters, try opening the CSV file in a program like Notepad++, and then just copy+paste the entire contents into your spreadsheet.
• click here for a ZIP file with all of the database images. This file will be date stamped, and this link updated as needed. 

 

Links from the presentation:

• eremeka.com redirects to my main page. (Does not work when I add HTTPS to the front of it)
• https://pinballnovice.blogspot.com/ is my pinball / arcade blog. New scans posted here.
• https://earlyarcadesjapan.blogspot.com/ is my blog with articles for the eremeka project
• My pinball ancestry presentation from Pinball Expo 2025
• Game Machine archive [ゲームマシン] 
• Sega in the 1960s article 
• Source: Arcade Explorations 
• Arcade Exploration video clips 
• exploring pachinko in Japanese cinema
• industry magazines:  research publication list - 研究出版物リスト 
• Gaming Alexandria Discord
• my pre-war pinball & arcade Discord
• my EM pinball & arcade Discord
• my email: thetastates@gmail.com

 

addendum / notes:

• Research Notes: more random notes in regards to companies, years, and other considerations I've made
• I keep a list of research materials am looking for, but I always am looking for access to magazines and catalogs from 1975 before, and especially any materials from before World War II. That includes random photos of arcades/machines, no matter how degraded the image quality. That also includes any discussions of specific machines. 
• sometimes I will use the indicator "[presumed]" for a name or company. A good example of that is 1970 Ronin - 浪人 by こまや (Komaya) [presumed]
• some machine years utilize a tilda, '~'. This is to convey that I believe the machine year is the given year +/- 1. There are a few machines that might be +/- 2, especially in the 1960s.  As I have shored up the data, I found that most often my year deductions & estimates have been correct.
• My caution around listing the years became very important when I processed a PDF of the 1969 machine directory. This is the earliest catalogue I had seen at the time, and it contained a remarkable trove of information. There are many machines that appear in this document that do not appear anywhere else. This book came out in 1969, so we know these machines existed in 69, but certainly a large number of them also existed prior to 1969.
  Now, for some of them we do have documentation that shows, or implies, their specific year of release. But for most we just have this appearance in a 1969 book. When I didn’t have further information for these machines, I chose to depict them as ~1969, utilizing the tilda symbol to convey ambiguity.  This was a special case for me, since there were so many machines being listed as 1969 from this book.
• Some machines are listed with just a decade (1970s) and some machines are placed in a decade with a lower confidence, ~1970s, where we strongly believe that is the correct decade, but are not certain. We see this often for machines that perhaps were late 1970's, but could've been early 80s.
• The earliest phases of this project consisted primarily of low resolution black and white images from Game Machine, blurry shots of the games seen in the background of movies and TV shows, and hundreds of photographs of Japanese arcades that I had saved from blog posts and forums. A large amount of entries were just text, but I would mark them as “MENTION ONLY”, keeping track of machines discussed but we hadn't yet found a picture.
  As more sources were added the information could be refined, names and companies corrected, the year of a machine zeroed in, and thousands of photographs were upgraded.

Q&A Addendum:

I would like to add to my 2nd Q&A answer that I am a collector who owns a number of antique arcade machines. My main interest is preserving eremeka machines. I work towards that goal by helping preserve eremeka culture.

1973 Jumbo - ジャンボ by 日本自動販売機 (Nihon Jidô Hanbaiki — Nihon Jihan) & 昭和遊園機械 (Showa Yuen Kikai)

Name: Jumbo - ジャンボ
Year: 1973
Company:  日本自動販売機 (Nihon Jidô Hanbaiki — Nihon Jihan) & 昭和遊園機械 (Showa Yuen Kikai) 

Jumbo is a wonderfully oversized pachinko cabinet surrounded by a western shootout theme. I like it for the nixie tube scoring in the center.

While this flyer is small because I only could get this thumbnail image, it does show us that it was distributed under the brand name Nihon Jihan, and has the type approval number 91-8108.

If we look up type approval number 91-8108 we see it was registered by 昭和遊園機械 (Showa Yuen Kikai) in 1972.

We do not know if it was actually released in 1972 though. In fact, Jumbo does not appear in any of the annual machine catalogs. but we do know it exists in 1973 because it appears in the movie 愛欲の罠 / Aiyoku no wana aka Trapped in Lust (1973).

愛欲の罠 / Aiyoku no wana aka Trapped in Lust (1973)

愛欲の罠 / Aiyoku no wana aka Trapped in Lust (1973)
[image rotated to be upright]

 

 

 

cabinet photos taken from me by _QtQ_ of the machine at 中古タイヤ市場: 

Other photographs I had saved:

nixie tube scoring

 

Jumbo appears in a number of hotel game room pictures:

 

1970 Apollo Plan - アポロプラン by 東光遊園設備 (Toko Amusement Park Equipment)

Name: Apollo Plan - アポロプラン
Year: 1970
Company: 東光遊園設備 (Toko Amusement Park Equipment)

Apollo Plan appears to be the exact same game as スキールロール (skill roll), just with the new name and a different company. We have no date information for skill roll, but we do you have an indication that Apollo plan was at Expo'70.

Expo'70 reported game list excerpt, Apollo Plan in the center

Apollo Plan also appears in the in 1972 machine directory, guaranteeing that it existed in 1971.

1972 machine directory

 

Address information from the Apollo plan flyer: 

 

Transcription:

東光遊園設備株式会社
■本社■東京都杉並区堀ノ内3-52-3:佐藤ビル〒166
電:03:313-8661-2(代)

■西日本支社■岡山市西大寺町109 東光ビル 〒700 0862 24-0601

■営業所■東只,「葉松戸,西伊豆、名古屋、伊勢
烏羽二見。大阪汐江,岡山,金山,看水瓶。十地広島・杉山圖工場圖東京、名古屋、岡山

Machine translation:

Toko Amusement Equipment Co., Ltd.
■Head Office■ Sato Building, 3-52-3 Horinouchi, Suginami-ku, Tokyo 166
Tel: 03-313-8661-2 (Main)

■West Japan Branch■ Toko Building, 109 Saidaiji-cho, Okayama City 700-0862-24-0601

■Sales Offices■ Higashi-Tada, Hamatsudo, Nishi-Izu, Nagoya, Ise
Uwa Futami, Osaka Shioe, Okayama, Kanayama, Kansuibing, Hiroshima, Sugiyama Factory Locations Tokyo, Nagoya, Okayama

Compare this with the locations on the skill roll flyer, and there is no overlap. It is just my assumption that the skill role model was built before the Apollo Plan model. perhaps one is the manufacturer, and the other is a distributor? Perhaps one company is copping the other? perhaps one company purchased the other. I have no other clues to go on now.

スキールロール (skill roll) by 日本娯楽機械 (Japanese entertainment machine)

Name: スキールロール (skill roll)
Year: ~1960s
Company: 日本娯楽機械 (Japanese entertainment machine) 

This this machine appears on a flyer that has the title "SKIRU ROLL", the phonetic pronunciation, but that title does not appear on the machine.

Skill Roll is a game released by Bally in 1956. you flick your nickel through each stage of the course, collecting 10, 20, 30, or 50 points from each flick. 

1956 Skill Roll by Bally [from my collection]

The design of the cabinet matches quite well. The Japanese version has six knobs, the original has eight. The Japanese version also does not score at each level, only at the end. So instead of accumulating a score, and perhaps getting to the end of the course in lighting the "star" in the American version, the Japanese version has a single prize it dispenses at the winning slot. This would make construction far more cheaper, as it would require many less microswitches, and far less logic circuits.

There are two microswitches visible at the non-winning holes at the bottom, so perhaps there is a smaller prize dispensed with them.

The following images are from _QtQ_. Thank you for sharing these. Photos taken at 中古タイヤ市場.

 

I do not have much information about the company, but 日本娯楽機械 (Nihon Gorakukiai) is just one additional character away from 日本娯楽機 (Nihon Gorakuki) and I can assure you they are not the same company.

Company info from the flyer:

Transcription:

日本娯楽機械株式会社
本社 名古屋市東区七小町79番地 電話(052>962-0982
工場 春日井市松河戸町段下1489番地
東北営業所 仙台市沖野字砂押46の3 電話<0222>86-5322

Machine translation:

Japan Amusement Machine Co., Ltd.
Head Office: 79 Nanakomachi, Higashi-ku, Nagoya, Tel: 052-962-0982
Factory: 1489 Danshita, Matsukawado-cho, Kasugai, Tel: 052-962-0982
Tohoku Office: 46-3 Sunaoshi, Okino, Sendai, Tel: 052-86-5322 

The only other game I have by this company is Shovel Dozer, which I have a flyer of, but the on the other side of life of that game is in a game room photo that I estimate is from 1971.

By the looks of the advertisement in the cabinet, I am guessing 1960s, and the only real year anchor I have is that the renamed version of this game, Apollo Plan, which apparently was at Expo 70.

I am assuming that Apollo Plan came out after スキールロール (skill roll).

This game would go on to set the template through a flurry of coin flick games in the 1970s, including the always popular Shinkansen games.

While not exact, Shinkansen Game II does have a version that uses a very similar outerspace background.

1977 新幹線ゲームⅡ・宇宙 (Shinkansen Game II; Space) by 九娯貿易 (Kyugo Trading) & ニシキ製作所 (Nishiki Seisakusho)