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Video: Japan's 'Purikura' Photo Booths Offer Snapchat-Like Filters

Elise Tries purikura, the original snapchat.

Japanese purikura photo booths, which produce selfies that you can decorate and print out, pre-date Snapchat filters by at least a decade. At about $3.50 a pop, they are still attracting hordes of Tokyo teenagers.NPR Code Switch reporter Kat Chow and I gave purikura — the word is a mashup of the Japanese purinto kurabu or "print club" — a try. A couple of teenage girls in Tokyo's Harajuku district advised us on how to optimize our experience.But it was a good thing a reporter on race and culture was on hand: We ended up discovering that the instant modifications happening to images in these photo booths raise some questions about what's considered beautiful in the eyes of the Japanese. Copyright 2017 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

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