Purikura Photoland – Part I: The End of (One of Many) Eras

On a quiet Saturday night at CityHeroes sitting at the back in a dim spot next to an array of unoccupied snooker tables, I was previously on an errand in the city and had time to spare. So, I used the opportunity to do some back end maintenance work on the blog.

…Until a new message showed up in one of our gaming chat groups.

The link goes to this post in r/sydney. (It’s the Reddit short URL; you’re good.)

You may know Capitol Theatre, a five minute walk from Central Station, as the place that hosts musicals like Wicked, Moulin Rouge, Cats, Les Misérables, The Book of Mormon (as at the time of writing), and the like.

You may also know that behind there is Capitol Square, a building home to a variety of technology stores, food places, Palace Hotel on the corner, and even a karaoke bar.

But I presume you’re reading this knowing that on the first floor of that building there’s a place called Purikura Photoland. If not… in essence, one could experience a slice of arcade Japan right in the heart of Sydney. It was a store host to a variety of Print Club-style photo booths (aka “purikura” for short), claw machines, and, in its more recent years, rhythm games.

In short, the Reddit article claims that Purikura Photoland was to permanently shut its doors – and, well, roller gates – in four days. Naturally, we were sceptical.

From where I was, it was a ten minute walk tops; I was in the right place at the right time to promptly confirm whether an announcement like this was the real deal or not. Packing up my laptop, I headed south down the light rail tracks on George Street.

Shit, first it was the rhythm games section to go at the end of June, and now the whole place is closing?

It was a short, quick question to the cashier at the time. Taking no more than three minutes from when I walked up the escalators (the non-functional side) to back down the other, I let his answer sink in on my walk towards the station back home:

yes, we’re closing on the 30th. for good.

Contents

Now, one might ask, “So what? Most of the place consists of claw machines, and you know that shit’s a rigged scam. Hard to think of it as a big deal.” Oh, I totally getcha. Parting with money for a less than optimal deal is a sentiment I can absolutely relate to, and I’ve got credentials.^[1]

But here’s the thing. Purikura Photoland has stuck around long enough that it’s firmly established itself as a part of the greater sum. Looking at it in isolation would be kind of a disservice – which is fair, if one has only visited the place once or a few times.

In this three-part series (which I had no choice but to split!) I’ll talk about:

1. The past: Moments I, and surely many others of similar age, experienced during that “era” that made Purikura Photoland and its surrounds special (you’re reading that now),
2. The recent: How the place helped kickstart the arcade rhythm game market in Sydney, and
3. The future: A few suggestions and thoughts on new places that I’ve discovered through friends, conventions, and being around town, for those wondering where to go now to relive the experience.

“The End of an Era”

It’s a comment I’ve seen and heard repeated a few times: in the very Reddit post in question. The group chat minutes after I confirmed it. Friends, who I broke the news to.

But for people of our age, this certainly wasn’t an overstatement. Purikura was a key part of the Sydney CBD experience that appealed to the school student – especially to those who were into the gaming, anime, and/or hardstyle/shuffling cultures at the time.

It was when titles like Death Note, Shakugan no Shana, and perhaps ef: A Tale of Memories. were popular such that knockoff DVDs with hardcoded English and/or Chinese subs were available to purchase at one of the bookstores nearby.^[2]

Or when you’d see guys donning straightened bangs styled with the contents of an unmistakeable, brightly coloured round container labelled with a capital G. This quintessential item in one’s Nike drawstring (or Country Road duffle) bag was the budget option their hairdresser, who may or may not be from Shinka, recommended because they couldn’t afford the stuff the salon actually uses.

Or when froyo was the vogue dessert of the time and bubble tea from EasyWay was in its overrated phase, yet Chatime was still a nobody.^[3] Ahh, how that would change in the 2020s…

And so, at that time, Caps (“Puri”? What kinda name was that?) was the standard place to take your high school sweetheart for, well…

Purikura

At $12 a go (as far as all the ones I’ve ever tried went for), split between the both of you, all you needed to have ready was a $5 note and a $1 coin. The note changed at the cashier or coin exchange machine, of course. Just don’t forget to cover your ears if you have to, ’cause when those coins fall, they fall LOUD.

Ah, no coin? Surely there was one lying around somewhere within the depths of your school bag’s side pockets? Somewhere, mixed among packets of KFC refresher towels, crumpled supermarket receipts faded beyond readability, and, depending on the season, some combination of a semi-crushed packet of 5 Gum, individually wrapped Vicks VapoDrops, or – may God have mercy upon your soul – Kopiko?^[4]

Well, how about if the visit could instead be a double date or simply fourth wheeling along with her two other girl friends? Then that made things even easier: just replace that $5 note with a $2 coin, and you’re all set.

You were given five minutes to take turns adding stickers, airbrushing blushes on cheeks, and putting animal ears on everyone to your heart’s content – “five minutes” somewhat misleading, given the booth would allow you to freely continue editing once the timer hit zero, awkwardly staying that way until you hit done.

A far cry from the ten or so real seconds it allowed you to collectively shout out to everyone else about what pose to strike next before the flash went off.

Prize Machines

Once you (or whoever had the steadiest hand as the others judged their cutting skills), satisfied with the results, split up the postage stamp-sized sheets as they were tucked between clear phone cases or wallets, it was time to go attempt a few, several, tens of tries on the claw catchers.

You’d mention the specific timing windows, taking into account the sneaky skips, required to land on the super strength lamp. Either of you would call the other over, once the previous person had left, to say the claw strength on that one looks like it’s about to pay out soon. Did you pass by a nice Nendoroid or prize figure of a character you recognise…? Oh wait, hold on. It’s fake – never mind, moving on.

If you nevertheless left empty-handed despite that all that talk about apparent “strategy”, you could always walk over to Morning Glory in Chinatown to forget about today’s terrible luck^[5] and buy something to leave the evening on a W – whilst not official merchandise, but nonetheless cute and affordable.

“Actual” Games

Outside of old versions of both Taiko no Tatsujin and Maxi Tune (probably then current at that time), Puri didn’t have much going for arcade games.

In fact, given arcade gaming, a subset of games in general, brought polarising perceptions amongst the general public, I’ve kept my involvement in this hobby to myself during the more… standard hangouts. Places like Galaxy World, situated across the street at Market City, are off bounds unless others really want to go there. And, they’ll need to drag me onto the DanceDanceRevolution pads if they want to see me play.

As many anecdotes from those in the arcade scene have shared, there’s no end to these regular arcade-goers being pestered by certain individuals. By that measure, it follows that by default it’s best nobody know – in the same manner one might keep their interests in anime culture, creative endeavours (singing, artwork, VTubing, etc), or other hobbies to themselves for one reason or another.

The visits to Puri and its surrounds with friends and classmates, especially with how we culturally presented ourselves, were one of the many experiences that formed a part of my teenage/young adult years of that time. And even if none of this was relatable because maybe school life was not the right time for crushes, or the age difference meant those phases and trends weren’t your thing, the idea is that they were moments iconic and memorable enough to recall.

Maybe one of these other places that established their own so-called “era” may resonate closer with you:

Cultural Mentions

At a time when trending things were less about mass public virality and more about references you “got” – you either knew if you knew or you didn’t^[6] – apart from Kinokuniya being the de facto library of anime culture, Puri was a more accessible alternative.^[7]

Back then, the mid 2000’s “Big Three” – One Piece, Naruto and Bleach – had anime adaptations that we watched and followed live whilst they were airing in Japan. It was the hot topic at the basketball court benches during lunchtime.

Likewise, merchandise for these series would naturally show up at Puri, and going there was sometimes even dangerous unless you were relatively up to date with the series. One glance in the wrong direction and you would land your eyes on a certain character that you’ve never seen before, labelled with its series name nearby – ahh shit, ggwp.

Get ‘spoiler alerted’, noob.

A decade later as the series for these were starting to wrap up, Puri began to focus its prizes on other trending series. By then, I was less up to date with anime and more so switching over to light novels. Titular characters from series like KonoSuba, Rokujouma, and Sword Art Online (which would start the immense wave of isekai/reincarnation titles in the years coming) were some of the first I recognised.^[8]

Of course, there were plenty of characters from other titles too, like Type-Moon’s Fate series, popular amongst my friends, which I had cursory knowledge of from reading stay night.

But outside of that, the display pieces and rest of the prizes one could win from Puri often appealed to nostalgia. Puri, I believe, was the only place to stock such a variety of classics, where most others would just stick to things like Pokémon or SpongeBob SquarePants, or forgo throwbacks entirely.

Puri nevertheless also covered recent and “safe” options. As one got up from the escalators on the Hay Street side into the store, on the right there’s a figurine stand – I’ve got photos in Part 2 – that had characters from as classic as Dragon Ball Z to as modern as Kanokari.

And note, this was still not yet at a time when gacha game titles were mainstream. When I said my friends were interested in the Fate series, that’s because they knew of them from the more recent series of anime and eventually Grand Order.

Puri, being the go-to place for all things exclusively or inherently Japanese, almost made it feel like one was “doing it wrong” wanting to go there for prizes that fell outside of that category. That’s because we had places for that already, such as visiting Galaxy World etc, or doing a lazy browse through novelty shops like Typo, IKEA, or any other gift store that sells cute things.^[9]

For me, Puri wasn’t just a place to go and win some prizes. It also provided an environment (and possibly the only opportunity within our busy lives) to catch up with other like-minded friends to discuss what we’ve been watching recently, browsing stuff, and asking who this character from which series was – which, if we’ve never heard of it, we would consider checking out.

Not Only Here For Puri

Now we bring ourselves a bit closer to the present day in 2020, in a time when Puri introduced their rhythm games section.

The ground floor walkway of Capitol Square has two entrance/exits on each side: Hay Street, with the light rail and escalators – the arcade gamer’s main entrance that would bring them right outside the rhythm game cabs; and Campbell Street, situated right in front of Korean fusion restaurant Milliore.

Turn your head to the left exiting onto Campbell Street, and you’ll spot a dead end as the road turns into a pedestrian footpath that runs parallel to George Street. Here, where the road ends, marks the centre of Thai Town.

And if there’s one thing Thai (and Korean) places know how to do incredibly well in this area… it’s closing reeeal late.

Post-Gaming Hangouts

One Friday night, our rhythm games crew were out late gaming until 1:00 the next morning. Prepared to close, the shop’s lights were already switched off, the only source of illumination left coming from the monitors and array of LEDs lined on the edges of the arcade cabinets. Not only could this spectacle give Vivid Sydney a run for its money, but it also meant zero screen glare – a boon I trust that those who use screens (read: practically everyone) can appreciate. The staff were happy to stay back and chat with us, waiting for us to wrap up our last games.

Once done, shuffling out the Hay Street side as the escalators carried us down, one of us browsed TripView on his phone and remarked the trains were also running late tonight until 4 AM. I don’t recall the occasion for these extended services (maybe post-COVID incentives of reviving and promoting nightlife?) But I do remember it was a thing that ran for a while. So another one goes,

fuck it. who’s up for some late night dinner?

I didn’t know what black magic slash voodoo was unleashed upon us whereupon simply hearing that casual incantation of a question immediately and effectively triggered our collective hunger. But everyone unanimously agreed.

We went back in through the sliding doors and lined up at a restaurant named @Bangkok, its name in hollow big letters affixed to the back of the wall, lit up with light globes bringing a warm ambience to the dining area. The place was near full, translating to a 15 minute wait to seat all of us. At the back, a stage was set up with a live band playing a set list, commenting in Thai throughout instrumental breaks of, or in between, songs.

Yep. All of this at 1:30 in the morning. If you didn’t peek at the opening hours in the Google Maps link there, I’ll say now the place closes at 4:00 on these days.

Many doors had long shut for the night on George Street as the (drunken) bustle of the city began to quietly spread back out into the open skies. Yet, on the contrary, the ground floor of Capitol Square was merely only getting started as we chatted about our lives outside of rhythm gaming, leaving such matters upstairs above us.

Food First, Puri Later

But more often than not it was the other way around, where dinner nearby was the priority (such places being like Chat Thai, @Bangkok, dumplings, or perhaps Nakano Darling), and walking around Puri for a few laps or photos was the side thing.

This was especially the case when we had visitors come over from interstate or overseas: yakiniku at Kobe for our special guests, dessert maybe, then off to Puri for the photo booth – a mandatory matter, really.

Usually this would consist of making our way south from the Town Hall station area, where the main arcades we go to and the cheap eats on the ground floor of Meriton Tower were located.

Regardless of who was around, sometimes, before or after, we would finish up dinner or photos at any one of the dessert places, always coincidentally at a spot somewhere on Pitt Street:

• Way before COVID, around 2015, this would be Caffe Tiamo (374). The honeydew snow ball, half of a melon emptied out and stacked with its contents and ice cream, was one of the dishes we had here.
• Then, a few years later when that closed, just a few shops down would be Old School Kafey at its old spot (382) prior to the rebranding. They do a variety of bingsu – Thai milk tea, matcha and chocolate being the main picks. I’ve yet to go to the new one just around the corner of Hay Street (459), where Gloria Jean’s Coffees used to be before.
• Then, the same 382 place, but rebranded under new management, Old Garden Kaffee. Same menu items – none of us have once tried the original patbingsu, which speaks to our rudimentary experience in this dessert such that we honestly couldn’t tell if there was any difference in quality.
• Until today, where Mango Coco (421) would be our preferred choice.

When it just didn’t cut it in terms of elegance where dessert consisted of you and two mates going into Coles to buy a tub of Connoisseur ice cream, coming back to the Event Cinemas complex to grab each of yourselves a plastic spoon from the hotpot place upstairs, making your way down into CityHeroes at the waiting tables, and then realising these flimsy utensils were so shit that the handles keep snapping inches at a time when one tried to take a scoop – any of the Pitt Street spots would cover our flavoured ice and butter toast desires (and with Mango Coco, all things pandan) in ways more presentable and dignified.

A Narrow Reach

Now that I think of it, I could say at least 95% of my visits to the city landed within this one specific area stretching from Town Hall station down to UTS. Anything outside of this area I rapidly lost street knowledge of:

• 100+ metres West of Harris Street (except UTS)
• 50+ metres North of Bathurst Street (except Westfield, The Galeries)
• 200+ metres East of Elizabeth Street
• South of Cleveland Street

Apart from workplaces, very rarely did I nor my friends have business outside of that zone, let alone even a subset of it. More of the infrequent events were things like checking out Darling Harbour for the Saturday fireworks, going to Barangaroo for fancier catch up dinners or events, or doing shopping at Westfield and MidCity Mall.

It does make me think: if Puri just so happened to not have been within this area, I could’ve entirely missed it all. But then again, we could look at the opposite and inverse of that: I couldn’t have missed it because most of the key attractions and centres within the Sydney CBD – Asian towns, Darling Harbour, Market City, World Square, Regent Place – all existed within this said zone.

If the next Puri was to reopen in, say, Barangaroo, I doubt many would go the extra mile to make their way there. And I mean that literally, if we measure from Town Hall Station to the metro. It follows, then, that that probably isn’t the smartest place to open shop.

Maybe it was about time I broadened my horizons and stepped foot past this very well-defined border. Some several years ago, I’d go to The Star to scout out if one of my friends were at the tables and watch him deal.^[10] I could also actually venture further north and see what’s around at The Rocks. Or Wynyard, if there’s something else other than nightclubs. Or Kings Cross, if I had a time machine to go back a decade or so… yeah, see how difficult it is?

And So, Thank You

Anyhow, moving back into more familiar territory – Puri firmly held a place in some way or another in many of our lives, especially for those living around the time when Pokémon on any flavour of Game Boy was the coolest shit in the schoolyard.^[11]

As a venue of its nature, Puri was home to many first games, first figurines, first dates – which sparked people’s foray into the genres of games they enjoy and the communities they’re in; it defined the culture that shaped who they are (and the look of their rooms) today; and, for some, it even determined their life-long partnerships and marriages.

What would it have been if Puri wasn’t around? For me, as someone who’s been here for a bit of everything:

• The games I played at arcades would’ve been restricted to what was available at Galaxy World and Timezone (mostly dance-based games except for DJMax Technika – I’ll cover this in Part 2). Without Puri providing other button-based games, I’d have missed the opportunity to meet some of the people I’d come to have known otherwise.
• Not seeing the prizes from the claw machines and figurine shelves could’ve led to a significant change in my social circle. Though, to be fair, I was consuming anime and related media well before my visits to Puri.
• Without the photo booths, it was just another missed opportunity to interact with people who weren’t into male-targeted hobbies like FPS or RTS video games, and doing stupid stuff guys do at that age.^[12] What I’m getting at here is that any form of socialisation with girls was always better than none,^[13] and I’ll take any excuse.

For a certain other individual, who had some influence in improving the selection of rhythm games at Puri, without the proof of viability that the store established in regards to player interest, this person may not have been as convinced starting a business catering to rhythm gamers. And without that business, my projects and involvement with rhythm games may have also turned out differently. It all chains on.

But yeah, look. It’s always easy to reminisce, recall the good ol’ days, and humour our minds imagining what else could’ve unfolded. It’s just that thinking “ahh, if only…” is sort of missing the point because, well, it didn’t happen. Instead, the idea is that we appreciate the things that have, plus all of its consequential results – the good, the bad – from how time has unfolded every event up until today.

We’ve been told firsthand how difficult it is to keep a thing like this going, and the business of two generations deserves a well-earned break.

…but most of all, thank you for letting us play.

Until then, we shan’t keep our breaths held in anticipation, but rather be delighted having had it taken away.

May 2026 bring lasting peace, memorable adventures, and met aspirations. Happy new year!

^[1] I’m in part responsible for the creation of the discount-sharing channel to a few Discord servers I’m in. If that’s not enough credentials to show how much of an OzBargain-tier miser I am, you’d be a tough nut to crack.

^[2] For sure these spots were low-key dodgy that they would find themselves in a fair bit of trouble if caught by authorities.

Piracy aside, it was likely that these places also had an R18+ shelf just out on display, unmarked, unwarned. A glance across the wrong shelf, bam – da gurls on full display, be it 2D or 3D. I can’t vouch for the video stores on this in the CBD, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there was, given there was one such anime DVD store in my local area.

And, just to be clear, I’m not talking about adult bookstores; after all, most school students can’t enter these places. Though, my point still stands that there was such a section.

^[3] At some point in time, Galaxy World George Street had a froyo place next to the cashier facing the street. The name of the franchise escapes me, but we often went there for overpriced dessert.

^[4] Do not underestimate the sheer addictive pulling power those coffee candies can have on you. The cappuccino ones (“potent Werther’s Original” due to its similarity in shape) struck a good balance, but those rectangular fuckers were on a whole new level. Clearly, young teenage me was not ready for the caffeine. I dunno how the ones who bought a can of Red Bull or Mother (pre-recipe change) at 7-Eleven before school every day did it.

^[5] It goes without saying: as a knowledged arcade-going guy, thou shalt not directly complain the machines are rigged, even if thou knowst she knew. After all, you’re here for the experience... right? (And neither would she retort to your face, “Hah, yeah, the experience of losing money, more like.” Or maybe she will.)

Also, admittedly, at the time, entering Morning Glory solo to buy a gift was just about as equally embarrassing as it was to go in with someone.

^[6] I’m talking about hyperspecifically titled Facebook group pages that your friends might join if the title, usually a statement, resonates with them. Think a low-effort version of Subtle Asian Traits. Each join or liked comment from your friends would then show up on your feed.

And so when your friend list counts into the hundreds, you can see how quickly your feed can go out of control. Liking or resharing a statement was so much easier to do than creating actual, authored content. That was one of the several reasons why I dropped Facebook.

^[7] I originally had “el cheapo” instead of “accessible” here. However, unless you were selective and smart about how you spend at Puri, realistically, both places weren’t cheap.

^[8] I was well beyond the hype train for Sword Art Online when the anime was released. Some time around 2011, I decided to give the first volume a go a few years after my friend, responsible for getting me into anime full stop, recommended it to me whilst he was reading it from independent fan translated sites and Baka-Tsuki. IRL happened, and just like Mass Effect, as of the time of writing, I haven’t made it past the end of volume 2. I should probably revisit it some time – though I say that for practically everything.

^[9] Today’s examples of stores that would fit the bill might include MINISO or Pop Mart. Whilst there is one in Lidcombe inside KMALL09, if you remember Artbox, the “other Morning Glory”, back when it was in Burwood, high five! 🙌🏻 You knew where it was at.

It was here where I bought pencil cases and jacks, of the Korean kind, to participate in one of the most demanding tests of schoolyard dexterity a kid could be proud of possessing, only comparable with silent speedrunning slime yuck yuck – if you’re not comfortably finishing round 10 by the end of the two minute mark without error, sorry, but you were skill issued.

Also, what in the world are those Squid Game replicas? Whilst I should’ve seen it coming, I didn’t even know that series was responsible for skyrocketing gonggi’s popularity such that knockoffs like these would become prominent on the market. Real ones are smaller, have Latin letters (and numbers?) embossed on them – not shapes – and weighed down with scraps of metal.

^[10] Since then, he’s moved over to Crown, and I sure ain’t gonna bother signing up to become another $0 income entry in their database just to do the same thing. Besides, I’m not even sure if he’s dealing in the VIP high roller area, so that’s even less of a chance.

You go to a casino to gamble with money. I go to a casino to – well, you know the rest of the saying.

^[11] Whether that was primary or high school. I binged Yellow in 2002 and Emerald in 2005 (both borrowed; and Emerald was within a month of its release – forever thankful to my surname-sharing classmate bro in my heart), and replayed Sapphire in VisualBoyAdvance on the school commissioned laptops.

^[12] Looking back, even at a young age, I was one of those people where girl or boy “germs” (as we called it; “cooties” is apparently the proper word) was at most worth a chuckle, but ultimately silly when a huge fuss was made out of it. So, whilst the drama of the gender supremacy wars was unfolding on the primary school battlefield, the other part of us were interacting in more healthy (?) ways, as you’d evidently notice when I refer to hand clapping games and jacks. Here’s more proof from one of my other articles.

Or perhaps our school was just lucky. With handball, we had a good even split between guys and girls of equal skill levels. So much so, that we had a king and queen of slogs: if a rally was called between them, it was a match not to be missed.

^[13] So there’s this one high school crush that I had in my earlier years who was an all-rounder at sports, and she’d put up a real challenge with the boys in our class. I’d consistently see her at Zone, and sometimes Regional, athletics carnivals.

Like most dense guys of my age, I fumbled every chance I was provided. Despite knowing girls from being around them, I learnt pretty quickly that obviously didn’t translate romantically, and it was only then that I had to respond and immunise myself to this completely new and evolved strain of cooties. Though, in my defence, how would any kid have known?

But the scary thing is that if on the off chance I didn’t fumble, something tells me I sure as hell wouldn’t be as weeb-cultured as I am today (all this was just a bit before I got into anime). I probably would’ve ended up being a cardio stamina gym junkie instead. Not that that’s a bad thing at all – it’s just now I have a chance to be both.