Pachinko with Anshinchodoma

This evening's post features another new island in Second Life, this time from Japan. The island, which goes by the rather unwieldy name of Japan Anshinchodama, apparently opened to the general public on 1st February, or so I gleaned from the Anshinchodama website. I also gleaned that Anshichodama is probably a company that runs pachinko parlours - and may be part of J-Net. Trying to unravel what the companies do and how they are related is far beyond my abilities to determine. As for pachinko, this resembles a cross between a slot machine and pinball and is an amazingly popular pasttime in Japan - even though it seems to involve carrying around industrial quantities of ball bearings.

The island in Second Life is modelled as a pachinko machine. In fact, the place is full of them - of various sizes. The largest is the island itself, but perhaps the most fun is the next size down - which is more (ahem) avatar sized. In fact, you can become the ball (how Zen, huh?) and watch yourself being bounced around the machine. If you are fortunate enough to be caught in one of the hoppers, then you stand to win a prize - but you can check that out for yourselves. The smallest machines are "life sized" and allegedly you can camp at them to earn a few L$. For freebies, there were several T-shirts available. I availed myself of a Choda Man T-shirt. Choda Man seems to be the company logo - a little like the Pillsbury Doughboy or Bibendum(better known as the Michelin Man), but made of pachinko ball bearings instead. In any event, he features widely on the island - as you can see from the pictures below.

As usual, if you know more about this island, then please let me know.