Did our indulgence in the bathwater of beautiful women and handsome men make us very, very bad?

Oh Japan, the land of the quirky, the funny, the cute, and the silly. Some things, we have to admit, are just plain weird. Like this KFC internet escape pod. Or when a company recognizes marriage with an anime character. Sometimes, it’s really just better to not ask questions about these things and simply go about your day like everything is fine.

This is the mindset we were in when we found Village Vanguard’s long-awaited Leftover Bathwater Drink from beautiful ladies and handsome men. Ever since we heard about it back in October, we’d been dying to try it. Of course, it’s not real bathwater, because that would be weird, and probably a little gross. Village Vanguard was careful to make sure we understood that so they wrote it right on the label:

“This is just water. Just water…it’s not leftover bathwater, just tasty water. But telling you that won’t be enough to suppress all the things you’re imagining as you drink this beverage made in the image of the leftover bathwater a beautiful woman [or man] was bathing in.”

Now, you might be thinking…if it’s not really leftover bathwater, then what’s the point? The label makes some lofty claims, and at SoraNews24, we can’t let a challenge like this slip by. We wanted to see if it would really bring out our dirty side, so we bought a bottle of each.

We tried the Lovely Lady one first….simply because it’s what attracted our attention. Right away the bottle had us feeling like we were about to indulge in something naughty. After all, there was a nude woman partially submerged in bathwater on the label, blushing from the heat (or maybe something more?). In the pink captions around her, it says, “You’re going to drink the leftover bathwater? Are you crazy!? If you do that…you and I are through!!”

Uh oh, already we’ve been told not to do it. She must know what that does to us.

Unable to suppress a rising excitement, we twisted off the cap and took a sip…

Hm. It really did taste like plain water. But wait…wasn’t there…wasn’t there just a hint of a rosy scent? Perhaps…not? Hmm…

Well, that had us a bit perplexed. It’s supposed to be plain water…it’s not supposed to taste like anything…but why did we feel a titillating sense of taboo with each swallow?

Now to try the Handsome Man variety. Would it evoke similar feelings?

Showing a naked man wearing glasses, akin to your standard attractive, smart-guy anime character, the label on this one features similarly evocative commentary: “Drinking the leftover bathwater? Don’t be absurd. Just go dry yourself off.”

Ooohh, dry ourselves off? How risqué! I wonder if he will be watching…?

With our hearts throbbing we took a sip…

Hmm….no extra tints or flavors to this one…it just tasted like regular water. I suppose that’s owing to men not wearing much perfume.

Oh yeah…It’s supposed to be regular water. Just to make sure, we inspected the bottles to find out the ingredients, and written right on the label, in plain ink, is the only ingredient: “mineral water“. And if you look even more closely, you’ll see, for extra clarification, written on the very bottom of the bottle, “This is a joke product.”

Hmm, mysterious. Perhaps that floral scent was just our imagination?

Well of course it was! How could they bottle and sell someone’s leftover bathwater?

We have to admit, it worked a little, just a little, on us. We’re not sure how. Maybe we’ve just got minds in the gutter. Would a taste by a more innocent individual reveal similar results? No one knows. For now we will just enjoy the experience.

Plus, we can’t deny that we love the concept. Inducing arousing visions of a pretty lady or a handsome man naked in a bath just by drinking some water? Novel, and genius. It’s really a smart bit of marketing that makes you want to spend almost $3 on a bottle of plain mineral water. It certainly worked on our Japanese language correspondent, who thought it was real! (We’ll worry about her later.)

Images: ©SoraNews24
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