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Is this like when you never notice how many green cars there are until you have a green car. They are always there but now you notice them more. Or we are all having a shared hallucinatory experience. Either way it's cool.

Same!!!!!

It seems as if multiple persons were making games revolving around the influence of Ito's work with or without them mowing.

It is a quite common name. I can't say for certain as I didn't ask for pictures from his daughter therefore never seen Hideki. I can try and contact her again to see if she would send some over. She did say her family received his pension from the company even though he went missing. She seemed to think they didn't terminate his contract.

That's an interesting theory as Ito was an established manga artist already. He might have no involvement with the creation of such a machine. Someone at Sega/Stern might have taken Ito's work and payed homage to it.

I'm glad I can add something to this mystery. Although I fear it just deepens it.

This is an interesting feed. I have some corroborating evidence that might help. 

I have been researching and writing for a documentary film about Junji Ito's work, influence and the culture surrounding it and tangentially came across this anecdote that might alleviate some myths being touted.

Although not directly influenced or even known to Ito, the story fascinated me enough to pursue. It helps with some of the misunderstandings around Stern's and Ito's involvement and might clarify some aspects of others' input.

There were three Junji Ito pinball machines made. Well four but we will get to that.

There was a senior development manager working for Sega in the early nineties by the name of Hideki Watanabe. He was an up and coming star and was tipped to be a VP at some point in his career. Due to this, Watanabe was appointed to the Data East development team after Sega's acquisition of the company in 1994. He relocated his family to the states to start work. 

Being a big Ito fan Watanabe started developing an idea with his team for a Junji Ito pinball machine becoming obsessed with the idea. He then pitched the project to the executives wanting to make it for the 10th anniversary of the start of Ito's career. A release for 1997. 

The pitch was based around trying to turn around the financial state of the company with invigorated ideas and a push deeper into the Asian markets. Data East was in financial difficulties at that time due to the rising popularity of video gaming and the decline of pinball. 

They passed on the idea. Citing that it wasn't financially viable to take a gamble on a little known IP and the Asian market alone wasn't going to change the fortunes of the company. 

Watanabe had made a mock up of the machine; it was a re-skinned cabinet from another game with Ito style graphics to show the executives his vision.

I feel that the machines played in the mid West might be false memories of other games as stated. Although the re-skinned machine or the concept  may have been acquired after Stern took over the business and assets from Sega. Leading to an "actual" machine being seen and played somewhere in the states.

Shortly after something changed in Watanabe according to his daughter, Ayumi, whom I managed to track down, she lives in Seattle now and tried to help fill me in on what happened with the idea of the machines and her father. This is where it gets really strange. 

Being only 12 at the time she didn't know the full extent of her father's obsession and only found out later. Hideki was becoming increasingly dissatisfied at Data East and Sega as a whole. During this time the family saw a marked change in their father. He was disheveled, stressed, staying out late, his mental health was deteriorating. His vision seemed to be haunting him so Hideki Watanabe decided to make the machines himself and sell them on the Japanese market to start his own company. He got in touch with some Chinese manufacturers that could produce the machines. He was going back and forth between the states Japan and China frequently all while still being an employee of Data east/Sega. 

He could only afford to make three machines.

Then her father never came back. 

He was supposed to return from a trip from Japan, to take receipt of the machines from the Chinese manufacturers, and never returned to the states.

The family tried searching. Getting in touch with family, embassies, and authorities, to no avail as they chalked it up to just a man leaving his family due to financial strain. Sega sent what seemed to be representatives, possibly human resources, but Ayumi was unsure as they were men in dark glasses and dark suits. They wanted any schematics, documentation or notes regarding Hideki's work. The family handed the files over diligently. Not wanting any more trouble to befall their situation.

Two years later a letter arrives at the family home postmarked five days before Hideko was supposed to return home.

The letter is as follows

Yuami doesn't know what happened to her father in the end nor the machines he created. Although relieved to relate her story she carries a deep trauma about the whole thing and I didn't want to press any further into her sorrow.