“World’s Smallest Othello” games on sale in Japanese capsule machines and it’s game on!

Here your greatest opponent is the board game itself.

As a hardworking SoraNews24 reporter with his finger on the pulse of the board game industry, P.K. Sanjun was already well aware that 2023 is the 50th anniversary of the hugely popular game of Othello, a widely played version of the game Reversi that was standardized by Goro Hasegawa and sold in 1973.

But what P.K. didn’t know was that in celebration of this anniversary a special Miniature Othello Collection had been released by Bandai Namco subsidiary Megahouse. He stumbled across the machine while at an electronics store and decided to take a turn of the knob for 500 yen (US$3.78).

Four types of Othello were up for grabs in this collection: Official Othello, Magnet Othello, Four-Player Othello, and 3-D Othello. P.K. was lucky enough to get the standard version on his first try. Since it was the one he wanted, he decided to quit while he was ahead.

The machine purports them to be the “World’s Smallest Othello”, which might be debatable with all the miniaturization enthusiasts in the world, but since they’re made by Megahouse, they are at least the smallest official Othello games to date.

To be exact, these are one-eighth scale models of the real things. They’re not just figurines either – anyone can play them, provided they have the steady hands to handle the 4-millimeter (0.16-inch) wide pieces.

The capsule contained the board, all 64 pieces, and even two little boxes to hold each player’s pieces neatly.

The pieces all needed to be snapped off a plastic frame like a plastic model. Considering their size and number, P.K. was expecting this part to be a real chore. However, it turned out to be quite easy. Each piece snapped off cleanly and he didn’t even need to use the nail clipper he’d prepared to cut off leftover plastic spurs. It was really well made.

That being said, the act of putting all the pieces into the box turned out to be way more frustrating than P.K. expected.

He could feel his blood pressure rise as he tried to squeeze the teeny pieces into the tiny slots. One box took about a minute to finish.

Now that everything was prepared, he just needed to find an opponent worthy enough of this historic game.

▼ Match #1: 7th Rank Galactic Legend P.K. Sanjun…

▼ …Vs. Asura Continent 8th Rank Seiji Nakazawa.

This battle has begun…

▼ P.K. and Seiji: “…It’s so small!”

Each player had brought their own pair of tweezers to hold and move the pieces, but even with those it was a nightmare. Placing a piece on the board was hard but manageable. Flipping over captured pieces, however, was a chore previously only known to those in the Fifth Circle of Hell.

Even the slightest tremor of the hand causes the tweezers to push around all the other pieces and messes up the board which then needs to be reset…every…time.

Unfortunately, this battle of Othello titans was called off due to general frustration. The Galactic Legend initiated the truce by saying, “I wanna stop,” to which Asura Continent’s greatest champion said, “this Othello makes me not want to play Othello.”

While it probably won’t be the next sensation in board games, these micro Othello games are still great collectibles for the 50th anniversary. They also might still be fun for those who like to put their fine motor skills to the test or for masochists in general.

Photos © SoraNews24
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