The summer 'must do' list: "shateki"

"Shateki" is a traditional shooting game you see at some festivals. The guns have a cork bullet that you aim at a prize on the gallery wall. If you knock it off the shelf, you get to keep the prize. I feel that the number of shooting game festival stalls have decreased over the years, but thankfully most of the larger festivals usually have at least one shooting game stall. In my experience though there were many more 20 years ago.

At a recent festival we walked two kilometers of a street filled with festival stalls and only found one "shateki" festival stall. We were just glad to find it. But obviously others were as happy as us to find it, because the queue to play was longer than any other festival game stall on the whole street. Unfortunately though, it was a very male orientated stall with no prizes of interest to my daughters, but thankfully at our local festival there will be a shooting stall with prizes of interest to children of all ages. And we can check "shateki" off our 'summer of 2024 must do' list!

There are actually shooting galleries, where you can do shateki all year round, in many tourist areas in Japan. There's a particularly nice one in Asakusa. And here in Saitama there are a couple of old school traditional shateki in Nagatoro. Prices vary greatly from one place to another, but as a guideline, expect to pay about 500 yen for three cork bullets. (It maybe more expensive in Tokyo). Also, if the prizes are particularly good the charge is usually more. Likewise, when the prizes are cheap, often that is reflected in the price.

Years ago, all children would get chalk like candy or ramune sweets or a tiny rubber duck for playing the game, regardless of whether they hit a target or not. In recent years, I've only seen a handful of places do that. Regardless, its still a fun game, particularly for kids, to try. Have you ever tried shateki?