He wasn't sure. So he spent two years in Japan teaching English to high school students, who introduced him to purikura - the art of making photos, which are often turned into photo stickers - in a fancy, high-tech photo booth.
Now Kimura, 27, seems to be the king of purikura in the Bay Area. He and his parents own PikaPika in San Francisco's Japantown, which has become a magnet for young Asian Americans.
"It's kind of crazy. I've come full circle," said Kimura, who spent his youth in Japantown.
The recession hasn't affected business, said Kimura, who is bracing for Valentine's Day, the busiest day of the year.
His shop reflects a trend that began in Japan in 1995 and has spread to much of Asia, especially Taiwan.
Purikura, a contracted form of purinto kurabu (print club in Japanese), takes the black-and-white photo booth concept to manic and varied extremes.
Each of the seven color photo booths in PikaPika does different things. Patrons can customize their virtual backgrounds so that they can, for example, sit on an elephant, leap out of a washing machine, turn into a bobblehead or become a sumo wrestler. Then they do a series of poses and move to a digital decorating station to add dozens of individual touches.
Finally, they retrieve the prints, which are the size of a 4-by-6 postcard and can be cut up and peeled off. People slap them on cell phones, wallets, lockers, refrigerators or journals, and use the scanned-in version on their Facebook or MySpace pages.
'The opposite of serious'
"Purikura is the opposite of serious," said Kimiko Ryokai, a UC Berkeley assistant professor in the School of Information. "It is just for fun."
Ryokai, who grew up in Tokyo, said, "It is always a social activity. Nobody really takes purikura by him- or herself."
Much like karaoke, she said, it allows people to be silly in groups.
Duncan Williams, chair of the Center for Japanese Studies at UC Berkeley, said interest in purikura has waned somewhat in Japan in the past two years.
Before that, he said, it was very popular, especially among teenage girls, who would adorn their cell phones and notebooks with group photos of their pals - a quick way to signal to oneself and others who was most important among friends, he added.
It also served as a thing to do for groups and families to document an occasion and have the ability to "sticker" it easily, he said.
Although individual purikura booths started popping up in the Bay Area and elsewhere in the country in 1997, large shops such as PikaPika are generally found in Asia rather than the United States.
The store, on the second floor of the Kinokuniya mall, got its start on the first floor, when Joanne Sato bought a purikura machine 12 years ago and put it outside her photo shop.
"The first day I got it, there was a line going around the corner," she recalled. "We were the first in the Bay Area. I didn't know how to run the thing."
In August 2006, she sold the business to Japantown accountant Lowell Kimura, wife Donna, a computer programmer, and their son Ryan. It opened two weeks later, and now has a mailing list of 3,500 and 80 percent repeat customers, including many Cal students.
Roseville waitress Nikki Barber, 22, has been driving about 100 miles to PikaPika every weekend for three or four years.
"They're super unique," Barber said on a recent Saturday visit. "I just love taking pictures with my friends and always having that memory. It's so enticing."
A Japan buff
Like many purikura fans, Barber is a Japan buff interested in manga, anime and all things Japanese. And, like many others, she keeps her photos in a book.
Her boyfriend, Alameda High senior Simon Li, 18, said, "It's more a girls' thing. If it were all guys, it would look weird."
He was almost drowned out by pounding Japanese music and frenetic shrieks and squeals.
"Once you start you can't stop," said Nancy Dang, 20, who attends City College of San Francisco.
Daly City resident Lisa Situ, 17, said, "It gets addicting."
"I probably have $500 worth of these things," said Jenny Yip, 17, who goes to Lowell High in San Francisco.
The photos machines are imported from Japan and produce prints that cost from $5 to $9 apiece. The oldest machine, with Hello Kitty characters, was the mall original, which Kimura visited in high school. Now there's graffiti on it.
"It's an old warrior," he said.
Connie Ng, 22, bought a photo machine from Kimura for a corner of her new mall, 31 Plaza in Oakland, for one simple reason.
"It's something the Asian market enjoys doing," said Ng, who uses purikura prints on coffee coasters and as thank-you cards.
Kimura said 27 is the record for the number of people in a booth. Besides Valentine's Day, spring break and Christmastime - when families make their holiday cards - are especially busy. Bachelorette parties and high school graduations also bring in customers, along with the Cherry Blossom Festival in Japantown.
"A big thing in Japan now is to do purikura naked," Kimura sighed. "I hope it doesn't happen here."
When he started, he didn't know how to get a business license, fill out tax forms or do much of anything. His parents told him it was time to learn.
"I had no idea what a business plan was," Kimura recalled.
A fifth-generation American, he said he's a 50/50 descendant - Japanese on his father's side, Chinese on his mother's - and the only one in his family who speaks Japanese. From time to time, one of his former students in Japan will drop by his purikura palace.
"They think it's kind of funny that I was their teacher but now I run this shop," Kimura said.
E-mail Patricia Yollin at pyollin@sfchronicle.com.
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