Beat’em-ups
![Beat’em-ups](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/500beccfe4b016a023c2f314/1586872903051-ICNK4QHFZLMTAS0DNDO5/20200414+-+Arcade+Exterior..Arcade+Artefact+-+Club+Sega+Battle+Arena+game+centre+sign+in+Japan+-+Sega+-+2016+-+Club+Sega+Shinjuku+Nishiguchi+-+Shinjuku+-+Resized.jpeg)
Easter eggshaped image from the loserdrop stairwell that squeezes you between the prize machines and a Chinese into a Fight Club-style fighting-game fight club.
The classic Club Sega signage is gorgeous but so is what’s written on it: a Battle Arena™ just for fighters. Here’s a place that’s all about your niche hobby. Enough people are enough into it to punch each other’s lights out before going back the office and saying nothing about it.
Meanwhile: storming punctuation in “beat’em-up”! I’m adopting that now.
I always called Street Fighter a beat’em-up. Then later came to believe that beat’em-ups were like Double Dragon and Final Fight; Street Fighter and Tekken were fighting games.
But if the Battle Arena says they’re beat’em-ups then discussion’s over.
Photographer and writer covering Tokyo arcade life – the videogames, the metropolis and the people