Dirty dishes? Just grab that shaft and work it until sticky liquid comes squirting out.

When it came time for the staff at Japan’s Lion Corporation to design a new package for their Awa no Chikara Tehada Premium (“Power of Bubbles Hand Skin Premium”) brand of dish soap, I imagine the team raised a number of prescient points.

“A long, cylinder-like shape will be convenient for people without a lot of space around their sinks,” one person probably said. “Putting a hole directly on the top of the bottle will prevent drips,” another must have chimed in. “Oh,” an artistic type no doubt said, “the version that smells like roses should be pink, to help communicate the floral aroma to shoppers when they see it on the shelf at the store.”

And individually, those are all fine design targets. The problem, though, as voiced by Japanese Twitter user @asuuuuuna, is that those traits, collectively…

https://twitter.com/asuuuuuna/status/917714794689437697

…make the rose-scented Awa no Chikara look like an excited penis.

An especially suggestive element is the cap, a dome-shaped piece that extends slightly from the shaft, making its circular ridge appear more prominent and further evoking images of a bright pink cock, especially in the last photo, in which some viscous dish soap is shown running down the tip of the shaft.

“How did this design ever make it past the approval process?” wondered @asuuuuuna, who wasn’t alone in penile perplexity.

“I guess everyone at Lion was too embarrassed to speak up and explain what was wrong with the design during the meeting.”
“So it really splooges out of the tip like that, huh?”
“What a beautiful salmon pink color, and such alluring shape and girth…wait, this is a dish soap container we’re talking about, right?”
“It was really considerate of them to design it so that you can use it as a masturbatory aid after you use all the soap.”

Now it’s worth noting that due to certain cultural traditions, Japan is a little more accepting of phallic imagery than some other societies. So perhaps the supposedly inadvertent resemblance to a rigid penis will help drum up publicity for the dish soap. Or maybe consumers won’t be able to overcome the image of jerking off a big pink cock every time they need to wash a plate or chopstick, and the bottles of Awa no Chikara Tehada Premium will gather dust on the shelves as shoppers shun it like they did the penis peach.

Source: Jin, Twitter/@asuuuuuna

Follow Casey on Twitter, where he really should take care of those dirty dishes in his sink.