“Arcade Mania! is the definitive history for anyone who’s ever been ensnared by a UFO catcher, lost in Rhythm Heaven, or drained of time and money spent because of a great game arcade. And for those of us who don’t quite fit that description, it's a tantalizing tour of what we’ve been missing.”----------------------------
Stephen Totilo / / MTV News “A fascinating, funny, and sharp-eyed look at the place where they play-test the future.”
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Warren Ellis / / Author of Crooked Little Vein and Transmetropolitan “A delightful tour of the most innovative, unusual, and downright bizarre stuff you can find in a Japanese arcade.”
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Chris Baker / / Wired Magazine “Suitably picture-heavy and gaudy in its design, there's an impressive selection of interviewees from the heart of the arcade's golden era, making this coffee table book for the back pocket surprisingly enlightening.”
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Will Freeman / / The Observer newspaper UK “Ashcraft expertly paints a pixelated picture of the diversity, sexual openness and technological wizardry of gaming heaven. If you can think of it, Japanese arcades have tried it, and Ashcraft has recorded it into a living history that's a must-read for anyone who wants to visit the Japanese madhouse scene vicariously.”
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Phil Villarreal / / The Arizona Daily Star “An essential work for anyone curious about the technological and cultural evolution of arcade games in Japan.”
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VICTOR GODINEZ / / The Dallas Morning News “Ashcraft is an editor of Kotaku, one of the biggest blogs on the Internet, and his writing style is as fast and furious as the pixelated, fantastical landscapes he evokes.”
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The Christian Science Monitor “There's a whole new set of human experience happening inside Japan's game centers and it's just as varied and weird and surprising as you could hope it would be.
I too often have an expectation, a caricature, in mind about Japan and its culture that occludes my perception of the people living and playing there. That's natural, of course, and perhaps even welcome: it makes a reading a book that supplants many of my preconceptions so effectively even more exciting.”
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Joel Johnson / / Boing Boing “From rhythm games to popular fighters to sticker machines, Arcade Mania does an amazing job of covering it all, with fun facts, interviews, and more.”
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Nick Chester / / Destructoid “A well-written and knowledgeable take on the topic that I think anyone with a real interest in games would find fascinating.”
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Jeff / / Giantbomb “Gaming is a big part of Japanese mass culture—and was, even before the Wii—and I found this book to be a delightful peek back into that part of my history.”
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Lisa Katayama / / Tokyo Mango
