Circus (サーカス)

The Circus pinball machine, manufactured by Sankyo Precision Equipment Company, Ltd. of Tokyo, Japan, is a rare and little-documented example of Japanese electro-mechanical (EM) pinball design. The only known image of this game comes from a March 1976 issue of the industry magazine 'The Amusement Sangyo,' and its exact release date is unknown.

One notable feature is its wedge-head cabinet design. It's unclear from the surviving photo whether the game has flippers, and it may include mechanical backbox animation -- possibly balls rolling down an angled viewing window, similar to Gottlieb's 1964 'Bowling Queen.'

Little else is known about Circus's design, art, or gameplay beyond its circus/carnival theme. For collectors and historians interested in the early history of Japanese pinball manufacturing, this enigmatic machine represents a largely uncharted chapter, with much of its story still waiting to be uncovered.