The Japanese have invented lots of great things: emoji, PlayStation, bullet trains, digital cameras, karaoke, instant ramen. With over 2000 years of history, it’s had a lot of time to think up gadgets to make everyone’s lives better. Who can argue that smartphones haven’t made all our lives more accessible? And how would we ever survive the world of texting without emoji?
Alas, some ideas failed to make the cut to the popularization such products enjoy today. Just as some are brilliant, there are also plenty that are not as obviously great.
These kinds of products are called chindogu (珍道具), literally meaning rare or unusual gadget. These sorts of gadgets are usually silly and kind of useless, but every so often there’ll find a stroke of genius. You can decide for yourself: would you feel embarrassed using these in public?
It seems the 80s in particular enjoyed a radical movement in the way of strange and useless inventions, as you can tell from the many these dated photos.
Hand-y chopper
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| Watch the fingers! |