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Osaka’s new Ferris wheel is the tallest in Japan, but will the view include your underwear?

When people heard that Japan’s tallest Ferris wheel was being built in Osaka, and that the compartments were going to have glass walls, floors, and ceilings, many of them immediately started looking forward to the amazing views the design would afford. With so much multi-angled visibility, taking a ride on the 123-meter (403.5-foot) Redhorse Osaka Wheel promises to give you a great view of the city below, the mountains in the distance…and maybe the panties of the person in the gondola above you?

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Okay, so maybe the designers and mass media weren’t buzzing about that last possibility, but it was one of the first things our minds turned to. Since the Redhorse opened on July 1, we promptly dispatched a team to test whether or not passengers below can get a peek of your panties if you’re wearing a skirt.

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Masami, one of our Japanese-language correspondents, made up one half of our experimenting expedition. After arriving at Osaka’s Expo City entertainment complex, she paid her 1,000 yen (US$9.70) for a ticket and headed to the boarding area.

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As you can see, the view is truly impressive, and the transparent frame makes you feel like you’re floating through the air, a sensation that’s a little unsettling but undeniably thrilling. Since the seats are made of opaque plastic, there’s no chance of people getting an eyeball of the contents of your skirt as long as you’re sitting down, but what if you stand up?

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While Masami was decked out in a fashionable skirt, in the interest of preserving her maidenly dignity we decided against using her undies as the target of our test. Instead, that honor went to a male assistant who slipped on a skirt for the experiment and hopped into the gondola after Masami’s. As their cars passed over the wheel’s zenith, Mr. Skirt rose from his seat and Masami turned her lens skyward…

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…whereupon she discovered that yes, you can indeed see up someone’s skirt if he or she is standing up.

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▼ Sitting on the floor results in even more exposure.

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With these results, we decided to ask one of the Redhorse PR representatives if there was any debate during the planning stage over the clear design’s panty-peeping possibilities, to which he responded:

“We didn’t really discuss that possibility. All we wanted to do was to make a Ferris wheel in which passengers could get a thrilling sense of how high up they are, and I think we’ve done that.”

Naive or not, it was such a straightforward, pure-hearted answer that we actually felt a little dirty for having asked our question.

Once again, though, as long as you remain seated during the ride, no one will be able to see up your skirt, and unless you’re extremely comfortable with heights, you’ll probably feel more secure sitting down anyway.

Ferris wheel information
Redhorse Osaka Wheel / レッドホースオオサカ ホイール
Address: Osaka-fu, Suitashi-shi, Senribanpaku Koen 2-1
大阪府吹田市千里万博公園２−１
Open: 10 a.m.-11 p.m.
Tickets: 1,000 yen
Website

Images ©RocketNews24
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Follow Casey on Twitter, where’s he’s feeling just a little jealous of Osaka stealing some of Yokohama’s Ferris wheel thunder.

[ Read in Japanese ]