Anna plays the world's coolest arcade game, electronic Taiko drumming, against an Italian tourist. You wouldn't want to play against a Japanese kid - one virtuoso showed up with his own sticks, and another champion Taiko drummer wore special gloves. Anyway, the idea here is that colored cartoon faces are scrolling across the screen in time to some pop song, and you need to play different drum rhythms in sync with them. It's the same idea as Dance Dance Revolution or Donkey Conga, and indeed the whole music games genre is a big thing over there.

To me, it seems obvious that the future of live performance of electronic music lies with DDR and its cousins. I love computer music as much as anyone in my age cohort, but in concert it's a little silly to watch someone hunched over a laptop tapping at the space bar. Watching someone triggering MIDI sounds and cool graphic explosions with their feet, or with taiko drums, or fake guitars or giant plastic buttons or whatever, on the other hand, is a hell of a lot of fun, and I could easily imagine working such a thing into a totally compelling visual concert experience on a par with Pink Floyd or whatever.

Anyway, among the Japanese kids, the emphasis is less on groove than on pure speed, and at least as far as that particular area of technique goes, they seem to have stumbled on an incredibly effective self-teaching tool. Our education system has much to learn here at the arcade. On the other hand, I want to take each kid by the shoulders and say, dude, chill, slow down a little, put down the energy drinks and the cigarettes and center yourself. The pop music there is a lot like the business culture - fast and frenetic to the point of madness.

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