In a lot of neighborhoods in Tokyo, you can find multi-floor arcades. Usually, one of those floors is dedicated to purikura machines.
Purikura is short for purintokurabu or "print clubs" and they're essentially photo booths.
First, you and a couple friends pile into one of them.
And follow the signs. This one said, "step into the place if you want to be taken more beautifully," and like, I figure I can always look more beautiful.
So the machine takes your photo a few times, but the real fun starts afterwards.
That's when you can start decking your photos out in all kinds of crazy stuff.
Here's how our first photo came out.
A lot of the machines have different themes.
This one had a green screen inside.
Before it starts it also makes you pick a bunch of poses that you're going to do in the photos.
And then afterwards, it lets you brighten your eyes.
Or even completely change the shape of your eyes.
You can add background patterns.
And then you end up with something like this!
Purikura is a big deal in Tokyo and it's super easy to spend an afternoon running around taken crazy photos of yourself. A lot of places have a costume rack.
Hop in the booth, customize, and...
Voila!
The machines send big photos to your email or phone and they also print out these huge collages.
The machines made all of us look super cute, but we all agreed that BuzzFeed Japan's deputy editor, Daichi, definitely came out looking the cutest.
