okay technically... i didn't play this, and i also don't think is:
a) very fun
b) much of a game in the first place

but im still going to rank it, count it as played, and use it as an excuse to talk about a very special thing that is close to my heart; gambling <3

just joking, kind of. i'm going to use this to talk about pachinko as a whole, but mostly because i have some COMPLICATED feelings on it. i mean really, this game was oddly enough one of the things i was most excited to play for like the past year? some context: i went to japan this summer! wow, crazy, i know. it really was a special trip for me, and i was looking forward to going for literal years (thanks, pandemic, for letting this booked trip sit in the void for 3+ years), and before going, i found out this existed. however, thanks to the fact that this game is from the early 2000s and all the information circulating comes from ONE article that is in japanese, i thought it was a REAL pachinko machine. i knew that my chances were slim since osomatsu is not at all very mainstream in japan, but i was really hoping i'd get to go to a pachinko parlor and play it. not to mention, i am super fucking cringe and i really wanted to play pachinko cause the matsuno sextuplets do it a lot in the anime, lol.

so, after like 2 days of being in japan, we get to kyoto and i spent the evening alone with this guy who would eventually become my boyfriend a week after i go back to the USA, and we decide that we're going to go play pachinko. me, because i wanted to see what all the fuss it was about, and him, because gambling seemed fun and he brought a shit ton of spending money lmao. once we entered the pachinko parlor, i realized a couple things.

1) i could not fucking hear myself think
2) wow, that is a lot of older men. i am so out of my element here
3) while there is anime, osomatsu is DEFINITELY not going to be here

we walked around before picking a random cheap 1 yen a spin machine and it was. ridiculous. the lights were so bright and the noise was overwhelming and giving me insane sensory overload. we sat next to each other, literally less than a foot apart, and still i had trouble hearing his voice when he raised it to talk to me. not to mention there is... no instructions. well, scratch that, there ARE, but they were entirely in japanese. i knew vaguely how this worked (spin slots with metal balls and trade those in for cash) but actually seeing all the dials and the screens and just everything was different entirely. you basically pull a lever that reminds me of pinball and send one of your metal balls zooming across a pachinko board where it'll fall into various holes, and depending on the hole might activate the screen where you will do a slot spin & potentially win money. if you get the screen to light up, the machine does a FUCKING RAVE and blares music loudly. combine this with the hundreds of machines in a tiny, tiny room, it's maddening.

i didn't really win for a while, but i didn't really care. it was a cool experience. my friend did (and a lot) and eventually after a little bit one of the older men who i guess was working the floor realized we were foreigners and entirely lost, so he walked over, hung around, and tried to instruct us on how the machines worked, how to win, etc. with gestures and pointing. it was a cool moment, i don't really know how to describe it. we ended up getting the hang of it, and i tapped out at 1000 yen (something like 7 dollars), but i ended up leaving with 5000 total (like 40ish dollars). it was... honestly kinda boring LOL. it was cool having all the lights going and just experiencing everything go for a bit, but sitting at the machine, holding a single lever down and just spacing out while the metal balls clinked around and played on their own was mind-numbing.

a few days later when we went to another part of japan (i want to say it was in yokohama, but i honestly can't remember), 2 of my other friends who hadn't gone to play pachinko wanted to join my boyfriend and i since we had already done it, so we said sure and went again. i only spent 1000 yen again (and i lost it all), but this pachinko parlor was HUGE. there was like 7 floors, two connected buildings, and probably like a thousand machines on one floor alone. there was re:zero, evangelion, fate/grand order, and loads more anime but... no osomatsu. it was cool to try and play some of the more gimmicky ones, but we got bored and left early. i don't think i even spent all of the 1000 yen i set to gamble with, which all brings me to my point of:

pachinko isn't fun. you only play it if you want to gamble, and even then, i can think of so many more fun ways to do it. so imagine taking away all the lights and the atmosphere of a bustling pachinko parlor with friends, and putting a fake machine that you play alone in your living room in poor quality on a ps2.

yes, you don't lose any money, but it's so pointless. the animations were cute, i admit, and i would have loved playing this machine in person, but playing it at home is just. lame. its somehow more soulless than gambling already is. i guess that isn't the fault of osomatsu-san (well, osomatsu-KUN and not -san), but it still just feels so uninspired. i think the tie-in makes sense considering every other episode has some reference to pachinko, but it's just. sad to sit and watch gameplay of this. i can't imagine spending 40 usd to play pachinko alone at home. i just, don't get it, i guess.

anyways, if you read this, thanks i guess. i hope you enjoyed a look into my japan experience for a few minutes of your life.