3 nights at the Marufukuro, aka ‘The Nintendo Hotel’

On a drizzly February afternoon, I arrive at a modest, three-story constructing a stone’s throw from Kyoto’s Kamo River. A plaque reads “PLAYING CARDS” in gold letters in opposition to a staid shade of darkish inexperienced, subsequent to a classy double door flanked by a pair of bright-red flags. Around the entrance, the pale brick facade has a particular mixture of Nineteen Thirties-style artwork deco curves and linear graphic stonework; it’s clear that on this quiet, largely residential space, this institution isn’t like its neighbors. A pair of vacationers and their Japanese information coast alongside on bicycles. “This is the original headquarters of the video game company Nintendo,” the information says in English as they decelerate subsequent to me. His shoppers categorical delight — they’d by no means have identified if he hadn’t pointed it out.

I’ve come to go to the Marufukuro, an 18-room luxurious resort housed in the former Nintendo places of work that when included the condominium dwelling of the firm’s founding Yamauchi household. It opened in April 2022 after a cautious renovation by Plan Do See, a well-established Japanese hospitality agency that focuses on marriage ceremony venues and traditionally vital tasks; after profitable the bid for the challenge, Plan Do See bought iconic architect Tadao Ando to design the resort, and the top-tier Marufukuro suite — the place friends can observe Ando’s hand-signed autograph in pencil on a part of a wall — can go for over $1,300 an evening.

The Marufukuro, regardless of being the birthplace of Nintendo, has no present relationship with the firm — I’m repeatedly reminded about the significance of this distinction, which is humorous, as a result of Nintendo historical past is the important cause I used to be drawn right here in the first place. The Yamauchi household bought its Nintendo shares again in 2014. The resort is now owned by the No. 10 Family Office — an organization created by Banjo Yamauchi in 2020 to reportedly “preserve the ‘unique creativity and pioneering mindset’ of [Nintendo’s third president] Hiroshi Yamauchi, who died in 2013, [and] to help Japan innovate.” Banjo is the organic grandson (and adopted son) of Hiroshi Yamauchi; the latter was liable for Nintendo’s shift to video video games, together with its early work with experimental toys. After Hiroshi’s loss of life, then-21-year-old Banjo obtained an “enormous inheritance.” By all appearances, No. 10 doesn’t have something to do with recreation improvement — it’s an funding agency that oversaw a fortune of over 100 billion yen in 2021; household places of work are usually set as much as deal with investments and wealth administration for ultra-rich “high net worth” households, usually with a deal with dynastic duties. The resort identify comes from one other Yamauchi card firm, Marufuku, with the -ro added to indicate a luxurious constructing, and Plan Do See runs the resort operations.

Photo: Alexis Ong

“Since 1889, [Nintendo] have been keeping the same attitude of pushing boundaries, even though they had faced management crisis and the threat of bankruptcy several times in their history,” says Banjo Yamauchi by way of electronic mail. “This building represents [the] tough history of Nintendo.” According to Yamauchi, the thought to transform the constructing was primarily for historic preservation, and plenty of of its authentic architectural options, like its Showa-era-style roof, have been saved. To the north is the oldest constructing, the place I’ll be staying for the subsequent three nights. It started 100 years in the past as a warehouse earlier than three extra additions have been made, together with the new Ando annex. My part of the resort is a three-floor walkup with an old-school non-functional cage-style elevator; my red-carpeted room is giant and ethereal with a excessive, partly vaulted ceiling and a checkerboard-tile balcony overlooking the river. I’m delighted for the first time in years to obtain a big outdated brass key, reasonably than an digital room card. On my second morning there, I wake to a lightweight dusting of snow.

In 1959, the firm moved to a much bigger location, and the complete compound sat unused and empty. Iku Hasegawa, who works at the resort and represents Plan Do See, explains that the majority of the buildings have been already effectively preserved. “There was one worker from Nintendo who would come every month to open the windows and the doors to air everything out, and make sure everything was OK,” she explains. Patrick Okada, managing director of No. 10’s enterprise incubation workplace, occurs to be visiting the resort together with his household throughout my keep, and tells me later, by way of electronic mail, that Nintendo “fans” visited the constructing throughout its lengthy vacant interval, taking images and leaving signatures.

Today, its friends are a mixture of Japanese regional guests and, extra lately, since Japan lifted journey restrictions round November 2022, worldwide arrivals like myself (and in keeping with workers, a couple of from the American navy base in Okinawa). Some are structure buffs who come to see Ando’s work; others are foodies eager to go to the resort restaurant, Carta, helmed by Japanese chef Ai Hosokawa. It is round Hosokawa’s very photogenic meals (all three are offered in the room charge per day) that I get to look at fellow friends in the communal eating room: a number of mother-and-daughter combos, younger households, quiet {couples}, and a small, excited pal group. During my keep, I appear to be the solely international visitor.

In studying extra about the neighborhood, I start to suspect that the Marufukuro’s presence could be the starting of a long-term plan. “They were able to beautify the area by cleaning the river around here,” Hasegawa says. “[Gojo] is a historical area, so they wanted to make it more beautiful and for more people, especially artists, to come here.” I’m advised that the (excellent) espresso store round the nook, murmur espresso, occupies a constructing owned by considered one of the Yamauchi daughters (it additionally supplies the resort with its personal Marufuku roast, stocked in every visitor room). According to Hasegawa, the Marufukuro’s revitalization went hand in hand with encouraging artistic curiosity in the neighborhood; wandering round the space yields no actual signal of this meant final result, at least not but, on condition that half of the resort’s existence has taken place below pandemic restrictions. If the Marufukuro is supposed to operate as a form of historic and cultural beacon, it’s doing so in a sphere the place it already has actual property affect; moreover the storied previous of the bodily buildings, it’s a enterprise that leans towards the historical past and affect of the Yamauchi household extra so than the fashionable online game firm we all know as we speak.

Photo: Marufukuro

The most visibly game-related house in the resort is its small library, curated by Banjo Yamauchi with assist from Japanese e-book firm Bach; there’s additionally an interactive “toy library” by artist Daito Manabe and an set up by Rhizomatiks, a artistic collective that has labored on game-like tasks with ex-Sega legend Tetsuya Mizuguchi. This is the solely a part of the resort straight operated by the No. 10 workplace, and solely resort friends are allowed to make use of it. I used to be half hoping for a particular archive, however this isn’t that form of library. It’s extra of a chic studying lounge with a reflective “infinity” ceiling, impressed by Yamauchi’s love of the movie Interstellar; there’s a bar the place friends are welcome to make their very own drinks, reinforcing the sense that we’re all in a really good home reasonably than a resort.

Unlike most libraries, the Marufukuro permits you to convey that costly glass of whiskey into the library correct, to take a seat, learn, and drink. It homes high-end design books that run the gamut from modernist artwork philosophy to Damien Hirst, interspersed with Nintendo-themed artwork objects commissioned by Yamauchi (assume: a frosted glass Game Boy, or a Switch designed to appear to be an underwater relic coated in algae). There are a couple of historic Nintendo treats on show, like an authentic red-trimmed Famicom console and, to my pleasure, a Light Telephone from 1971. The latter was a novelty gadget designed by Gunpei Yokoi to let folks talk by way of gentle sensors, and resembles an enormously clunky mega flashlight. I ask if we’re allowed to make use of the consoles on show, or if the resort has an arsenal of Nintendo merchandise that may be loaned to friends. Hasegawa explains that the resort’s gaming consoles aren’t allowed in rooms, in order to not encourage playing.

A handful of books are Nintendo-specific, together with Osamu Inoue’s The Philosophy of Nintendo, and Erik Voskuil’s Before Mario, which paperwork obscure Nintendo toys. My favourite, although, was the companion e-book to the 2003 “Family Computer’’ exhibition at the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, filled with short essays, Famicom games, and interviews with Shigeru Miyamoto and copywriter Shigesato Itoi, who coined the phrase “no crying until the end” in Mother. (There’s additionally an interview with a younger Hideo Kojima.)

Photo: Alexis Ong

My time at the Marufukuro — a pleasing luxuriation in wonderful Japanese hospitality — was not the expertise I’d envisioned after I’d first discovered of its existence. As a trip, it’s a distinct segment historic landmark exuding heat and luxurious, and makes for a memorable splurge. It is best to explain it offhandedly as “the Nintendo hotel,” although there’s nothing outwardly Nintendo about it — extra of a low-key look at the legacy of the Yamauchi household and its endeavors to make use of its sources to “return the inherited material and spiritual wealth to the public.” I take into consideration the murmur espresso store and marvel how a lot of the land and buildings round this neighborhood are owned by the Yamauchis. If the Marufukuro’s long-term purpose is to breathe new life into the space with out disrupting the residents, then overtly invoking the Nintendo identify would in all probability domesticate a louder, brasher form of tourism that doesn’t actually jibe with Plan Do See’s understated model of hoteliering or No. 10’s purported targets of philanthropy and giving again to Japanese society.

The separation between No. 10 (and the Marufukuro) and Nintendo is comprehensible, since the Yamauchis bought off most of their shares in the latter practically 10 years in the past. But if there’s a social accountability angle to the former’s mission, it feels sadly in battle with the latter’s longtime crackdowns on piracy and ROM emulation which have develop into bastions of recreation preservation in a precarious digital-only world. If No. 10 needs to undertake the Nintendo strategy to innovation and pleasure in its personal tasks, it’ll hopefully accomplish that with the consciousness that bringing new types of socially minded creativity into the world also needs to embody long-term plans to take care of these tasks; in a contemporary context, it’s unimaginable to debate the affect and legacy of Nintendo — considered one of the most beloved leisure manufacturers in the world — with out recognizing its failure to protect its personal work for present and future generations. Even whereas I’m consistently reminded that the Marufukuro and Nintendo are operationally disconnected entities, it’s onerous to think about one with out the different in a broader historic context — I depart questioning who will protect Nintendo’s work in the identical cautious means.