In the world of capsule toys, there’s always room for newcomers. Part of the reason so many people buy gashapon is the tiny thrill of excitement they get as they hear the capsule drop down into the dispenser and excitedly grab it to see whether they were lucky enough to get the toy they really wanted.
The toys themselves are often quickly forgotten about, doomed to a life of rolling around in the bottom of a bag or lining a windowsill turning a weird shade of yellow in the sun. But these new “desktop accessories” from toy maker Bandai, if their accompanying commercial video is to be believed, are designed to make their presence felt at every possible occasion, to the point of making your emails indecipherable.
The Japanese love a good pun, so Bandai has christened its latest plastic trinket キーの芽 Kii no Me, borrowing the first syllable of kiiboodo (keyboard) to make a name that sounds just like 木の芽 ki no me, which means leaf bud or sprout.
The tiny capsule toys retail for 200 yen (US$1.94) each from capsule machines all over the country, and there are six types of sprout to collect.
Once you have your full set (and likely a few dozen spares as you try to collect one of each), the idea seems to be that you stick them to hard surfaces around the house, giving the idea that plants are sprouting up everywhere.
And that’s about it.
It’s the weird, pun-tastic commercial video with its catchy theme song that really sells the product, though. In it, we see a couple starting their respective days and sitting down to email each other. In his email, the guy tells his girl that he struggled to make sense of her last message, to which she replies “It’s most likely (kitto) because of my ki no me” which as we can see she has stuck all over her keyboard. Geddit!?
… No? OK well just watch the cute video then.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znk8Tb3f35E
Kind of expensive AND annoying to have around? Now that’s a product worth buying!
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