What is purikura?
Japanese sticker pictures.
What is purikura really?
A hobby
Art
Creativity
A photo-diary
Self-portraiture
A slice-of-life
Pop culture
Seeing yourself at your best
A record of the day
A celebration of anniversaries
Something to do on a date
Girls bonding time
School girls version of trading cards
Something to look at during class
Fun!!
Purikura or プリクラ is the shortened form of the trademarked name プリント倶楽部 (purintokurabu) or Print Club. It's like 'hoover' or 'biro' in that the trademark has come to mean all incarnations of the product.
Purikura is a popular activity among Japanese school children and young adults, mainly girls, young women and young couples.
Purikura booths let you take digital pictures with your friends which you can then decorate with the touch-screen and stylus. You can add frames, stamps, sparkles (in some machines these print as real glitter) and you can write and draw freehand with a variety of pen colours and styles.
Your finished pictures are then printed off on sticker paper in multiple copies so you can cut them up and share them out. Purikura pictures are often used to decorate stationery in school but you can use them anywhere! Young girls sometimes trade their cutest purikura with each other.
New machines are very popular and those that have been featured in a magazine often have queues of girls waiting to use them.
There are machines in many countries all over the world so if you get the chance, try it out!
