Anyone else seen this before?

Don't know who Junji Ito is, but I saw a one-off twilight zone machine a few years ago with black and white graphics + spirals

Did some googling and found this: https://www.greatamericanpinball.com/black-and-white-twilight-zone

huh, that’s news to me. then again, I haven’t been too deep into junji ito stuff besides the manga for some time now.

what I do remember is that there was a junji ito collection some years ago that included a soundtrack by the pinballs. do you think their involvement was a deliberate nod by someone who remembered the machine? maybe even an easter egg by junji ito himself?

I know about this machine! So I was a senior in high school when I had to head out to Chicago to get a passport for a trip to Mexico over the summer of 2002. My mom was really naive talking to a lot of the guys on the streets passing out pamphlets, coupons and flyers. I remember snatching the papers out of her hand, telling her that made us a mark for con artists and hucksters. One of the flyers was for an arcade promoting a brand new pinball machine from Stern. We had to wait four hours for our passport to be expedited, so we decided to check it out. The Arcade's name was "The Black Gate," and it was down a dark, poorly lit alley. Black lights framed the dilapidated door and I was sort of unnerved by it, but my mom told me it was all part of the theme of the arcade and we went in. The arcade was devoid of any arcade games with the exception of a single platform with a spotlight on it and a headset connected to a weird machine of twisted wires. Standing on the dais was an exceedingly tall man in a gray suit. He must have been around seven feet tall. He introduced himself as Mr. Franklin and ushered us onto the dais. He explained that this headset was for an immersive pinball experience that they were testing. My mom immediately volunteered to play it first and the man gave a very crooked smile before placing the headset over her head. When the machine whirred to life, it made a cacophonous sound, like a vacuum cleaner mixed with a screaming squirrel. I looked at my mom and her mouth was agape and contorted in an almost unnatural way. About 15 seconds in, the machine began to smoke and Mr. Franklin rushed to remove the headset off my mom. She sat there with a glazed look over eyes and it took a few minutes to rouse her from her stupor

Mr Franklin profusely apologized for the inconvenience and told me that the machine was out of order, so we left and got my passport. While we were walking I was talking to my mom about what she saw and she talked about playing a pinball game from the ball's perspective and that it was hypnotically dizzying. She didn't remember much, except for what happened right before the game shut down. She had shot the ball into the wide open mouth of a young girl with half of her face ripped off and sinew exposed. Instead of a neck, she had more than a dozen spider-like legs. I thought was wild and a bit disappointed I couldn't play. Never saw the game come out to retail though and forgot about it until you brought it up!

As soon as I read this I remembered this time my parents took me to the doctor about pinball but like I can’t remember any details except some kind of headwear they made me wear at night. So I text my mum and she said it was some recurring nightmare about a pinball machine that scared me. She’s like refusing to respond to questions now 😂 dramatic much?

Wasn't Mr. Gray one of the aliases that arcade scam group used to book appointments? 👀 I can't remember their name. You know what I mean; the ones who "upgraded" units in like two hundred different arcades with trick coin collectors lol. I know there's not a lot of evidence of them after the early 90s, but still... maybe OP misremembered the timing & they were experimenting with just manufacturing whole machines? Harder to get caught if you're just delivering a cabinet rather than spending a couple hours tinkering...

ETA: I might be mixing them up with Grey Horizon who did the weighted ball grift. Can you tell I've been mainlining the Bumper Bumbles podcast on my commute lol

huh this really brought up some memories I had locked away. 

While my parents were getting divorced after the 2008 economic crash in mid-Michigan, my grandpa would take us out to dinner every weekend, I guess to try to distract my siblings and I. We would usually go to some local go-kart place or an arcade before dinner. 

One time, my grandpa decided to take us to a new arcade. It was close to his work, and in a little two-shop strip mall thingy. They're very common in the sprawl that is the white flight Detroit suburbs that cover the southeast. Usually those buildings will change hands a lot, and there could be anything in there, from a sub shop to a dentist's office. The building was squat brick, with a dark angular roof. There were woods surrounding it with a few run down houses, and across the street was a lake and a half developed luxury subdivision. It was November, so the trees were leafless, and the bulldozed development was frozen, both by the bitter air and the economic disaster. 

We went into the arcade, and it wasn't really what we were used to. It was just lines of old machines, mostly pinball. Most of the places we went to usually were very child focused, and I liked games where you had to shoot with a laser gun or skee ball. I though pinball was old and boring. I didn't want to cause any trouble, so I pretended to be excited, my grandpa paid the fee to get in, and I ran off while papa watched my younger siblings. 

I tried out a few machines that I recognized the IP from, like a Jurassic Park or an old James Bond. I don't think I liked them very much, and kept wandering deeper into the arcade. 

A little while later I spotted the black and white spiral. All the other machines were flashy and lit up and ringing and making noise, but this one stood out. It was silent. Monotone. Nearly nothing on it except for the spiral decorations. I walked over and put some quarters in. 

I got lost playing the machine. It's really hard to remember any specifics, but there are a few things. The machine barely made any noises. The spiral design eventually begins to spin as your score gets higher. And it felt like someone was there with me, watching me play. I was afraid to turn around and look, as the place had been mostly empty and I never heard someone walk up. But I knew she was watching. 

Eventually I lost the game, and ran out of quarters. The game made me really dizzy from looking at the spirals, and papa had to carry me out as I kept tripping. I also got some really bad food poisoning from dinner that night, I think we had tacos. My mom took me to the dr the next day, but the sick had mostly gone away.

We never went back to that arcade again. My parents finished splitting up and we moved away from papa so we no longer saw him as much. 

So that's my memory of the game. I'd say it was probably somewhere close to Howell, MI. I could probably find the place if I went home and drove around for a bit, but I live far away now so that's kind of out of the picture. Maybe someone who lives close could find it and let me know if it's still there?

Damn, I've only recently started actually getting into Junji Ito stuff, but I've always loved pinball. There's a lot of interesting details in that initial post that I'd love to know more about.

Sega had a long history in pinball, but this would have been about 2 years after they sold everything off to George Stern. I assume there could have been some crossover/goodwill between the two groups though and possibly Stern just sent the machine along as a prototype or as an internal promotional piece. Still, Stern is HQed out of the United States so I assume if there was one of these at Tokyo Joypolis, it's likely not the only one and there's at least one more rattling somewhere around the States (which seems to be the case from some of the comments here). I'd kill to know where one is today - anyone have any experiences newer than 2008?

It's mostly intriguing since I don't think I know of Ito having much video game (much less pinball) involvement at all.

I figured I'd try and see if I could find any info on Mr. Gray, as he seemed to be a behind-closed-doors player in all this. There's a chance it could be Chris Gray (of Boulder Dash fame). He would certianly have been a bit of a power player in the space at the time (though this was past his designer hayday so it's maybe a long shot. Here's an interview with him from 1990 - no explicit pinball/Sega connections though: https://archive.gamehistory.org/item/e09bc562-f5bb-405b-a43a-2c8e6c6b1024/pdf?to...

BogusMeat's memory of a sort of VR headset in which you played a virtual pinball machine sounds like something else entirely. Maybe an evolution of the original analog concept? Either way, I'm dying to know more. Can't wait for the eventual post in a year or so of someone tracking one of these down in some half-forgotten warehouse in the Midwest or something.

This contest stuff reminds me of those like Nickelodeon set tours if anyone remembers those. I have no clue if anyone actually won those things.

Did Sega do similar stuff for their arcades?Not that I don't believe this is real, I'm just interested if maybe other kids won similar things.

Look, I hate to be "that guy," but this game doesn't exist.

I'm not saying that this person didn't see a weird pinball machine (I bet they did!), but that it's not a Junji Ito pinball machine. It's unfortunate that a lot of people see any horror/weird manga and assume that it's by Junji Ito. I can't count the number of times someone has described some art as by Junji Ito but it actually turns out to be Shintaro Kago or Suehiro Maruo. This person saw a pinball machine that made them feel weird over twenty years ago and later on read Uzumaki and thought it was the same thing.

If anything, I'd guess that he saw the pinball machine that Katsuhiro Otomo and Satoshi Kon made to promote the World Apartment Horror film in 1991. Otomo was pinball crazy and customized pinball machines whenever he could. Look what he made for Akira.

Translation: ""This is an original pinball machine created for the back cover of the fourth volume of the manga. Taito Corporation provided the machine, and Otomo completed it by cutting and pasting animation cells on it. The photo above shows Otomo's left arm, which he himself drew as a tattoo."

I'm not going to include it here because it's kinda NSFW, but look up the cover of the World Apartment Horror manga and tell me that couldn't be misremembered as "a face clearly visible with a spiral hole in it" to an 11-year-old kid who probably didn't actually look at the machine that much because he was excited to see the Playboy pinball machine and then sees one with that art on it instead.

 I’m afraid to post my experience on here, but you all have given me courage to talk about the Junji Ito Pinball Machine.

I told the owner of that place I’d never talk about it again after that afternoon…the sun sliding across the carpet, reminding us we shoulda been outside doing something wholesome. We kept telling ourselves we’d only play one more game. Slip in one more quarter. Funny thing is, I don’t even like pinball…I…I…really shouldn’t go on. 

I can still recall the awful laughter. The awful laughter from the machine itself. That’s a Polaroid I took of it. Just to remind myself. To remind myself I wasn’t the only one who slipped away in that afternoon, the smell the baking dough of Theo’s Pizza next door.

I’m from a small town in Connecticut. The arcade left almost as soon as it opened. I told my father I just wanted to check it out while we waited for the pizza. He nodded and made for a quick beer run but told me to look after my brother, but after my experience the three of us would never see each other again.

The Polaroid above is surprisingly pristine after all these years. I had it tucked away in a Nike shoebox  
for all these years. 

Never knew a butcher knife could fly that fast, or that there exist cities under cities…but I’m getting ahead of myself again. 

There’s just some people and some games you should never look too long at…like when they make your skin crawl, take it as sign. You can bury yourself, pretend things aren’t real, but in the end? You’re only fooling yourself. And deep down, you know, that’s impossible to do. 

Kids at school, even when they tried to comfort me afterwards, never would corroborate my story that this place, this arcade, this lone pinball machine went up and down like a traveling circus. I may have able to lie myself about certain details, or I guess, willfully forget. But it WAS there. And we did, unfortunately, play it. Some people seem to be laughing it off or trying to do some internet searches for proof. And you know what? I envy you. I envy all of you. Prolly gonna delete this. I know it’s…I just can’t. 

Any pinball enthusiast could tell that's a doctored image of the Tales From The Crypt playfield. It's fine to tell each other ghost stories, but real collectors like me are trying to hunt this thing down and the misinformation is starting to get silly.

We'll never hunt down this rare machine if we don't stick to the facts

It could be the other way around, Hounskull!