Miniature Japanese bathing culture right in your home.

Onsen (hot springs) tend to get most of the glory in Japan’s bathing culture, but you shouldn’t sell sento, neighborhood public baths, short. A community necessity back in the days when private in-home shower facilities were an unaffordable luxury, Japan’s remaining sento are now a source of retro relaxation where you can stop in for a soak with a warm bath always drawn and waiting for you.

Obviously, for-humans sento don’t allow pets, but if you’ve got a petite animal companion who’d like to experience this part of the traditional Japanese lifestyle, there is a way.

Pet lifestyle brand Felissimo You+More focuses most of its efforts on cat-related creativity, but its latest offering adapts the idea of a birdbath into the Bird Sento. Of course, you don’t have to have a bird in order to use it. The company says it will also work fine with other small-size pets like hamsters, or even with stuffed animals you want a cute photo backdrop for. And with bath scenes being a long-running staple of Japanese animation, it’d also work great as a display area for anime figures.

The diorama-style setup not only follows authentic sento aesthetics, but is also made of some surprisingly high-quality materials.

For starters, the tub isn’t cheap plastic, but genuine porcelain. The replica stools and buckets are plastic, but so are the ones human sento customers use when scrubbing themselves before entering the tub.

An extended soak is an essential part of the Japanese bathing ritual, and so it’s customary for sento to decorate their walls with mosaics or murals (which also helps avoid the awkwardness of eye contact with other people who’re using the tub). The most common muse for sento artwork is Mt. Fuji, and so its majestic slopes are present in the bird sento.

The floor and wall panels made of water-resistant polypropylene, so you won’t have to worry about stains or damage from any splashing the tub’s occupant might feel like doing.

▼ Other details include advertisements fictional products and local businesses such as Little Bird-brand coffee and the Little Bird Cafe.

▼ “Great bath” says this satisfied sento customer.

The Bird Sento can be purchased here from the You+More online store, priced at 2,980 yen (US$28), a portion of which will be donated to animal welfare groups focused on birds’ wellbeing.

Source, images: PR Times
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