What comes to mind when you think of a machine that's been around forever in the corners of souvenir shops in tourist spots like Hakone and Izu? To add a little more detail, that machine makes a loud "bang! bang! bang!" sound. That's right, it's a local souvenir medal machine. I always make one whenever I find one. To be precise, the loud noise comes from the machine that prints the date and name on the medal. For about 10 yen, it feels like it adds depth to the memories, so I always make sure to click and bang it every time.
I was born in 1991, and these souvenirs have been around since I was a child. Even 20 years ago, they seemed quite old, like souvenirs from a tourist spot dating back to the Showa era, so I never thought they'd still be around in the Reiwa era. A certain IT consultant once said, "Now that information and content have become such commoditized things, what truly has value are analog assets."
Actually, these local commemorative medals are manufactured by an Osaka-based company called "Chahira Kogyo," and they are installed in so many locations that it seems they cover almost every tourist spot in Japan.
When I looked into it out of curiosity, it seems like it's been around since the early Heisei period.A corporate website made entirely of HTML.There was.Hiroshi Abe's websiteIt was something like this too. You can check the locations of medal vending machines all over the country on this website.
They even sell books for beautifully collecting the medals you make. I want one of those.
The sheer number of followers on social media is incredible, proving that website appearance isn't everything, and it really reinforces the idea that analog assets are incredibly valuable.
I've come across a truly admirable person who shares the same hobbies and tastes as me: Jun Miura, the god of subculture.
Many people around me are fans of Jun Miura, but what really got me hooked was watching YouTuber Teru-san TV, whom I deeply respect. I saw Teru-san reading Jun Miura's books while car camping in a remote mountain area (which is amazing because he cooks proper meals as if he were at home), and it felt like he was truly enjoying his solitude. It went beyond mere admiration and filled me with respect.
What I found most entertaining about Jun Miura's YouTube channel was his segment where he arbitrarily awards his "personal obsessions" of the year."Jun Miura Award"That's right. They even made a shield and a trophy and presented them to him, and he even sent back a comment, which is fantastic. I later found out that Jun Miura was also the one who popularized the phrase "my current obsession." That's just amazing.
WAITER-U SHOP is a media outlet that proposes an urban lifestyle centered around camping. I think it would be fun to collect commemorative medals from tourist spots near campsites and use them as a record of wonderful adventures, so I'm going to make it my life's work.
