You can now dine in the high-tech glow of gaming light.

There’s long been a subset of the gamer population in Japan that believes that if you’re snacking while you’re playing video games, you should use a pair of chopsticks. Sure, ordinarily chips, crackers, candies, and all sorts of other salty or sweet snacks are fine as finger foods, but if you’re in the middle of a gaming session, you don’t want to transfer grease and crumbs from your fingertips to your controller.

So perhaps it was inevitable that we would see the development of gaming chopsticks.

Developed by Shanghai Donya and being sold through Japanese PC specialty shop Dospara, these chopsticks have a stylish look to them, what with their angular shape and clear construction. Those understated aesthetics, though, are only when the utensils are in their rest mode, because these chopsticks are “gaming” in the same way that the finest, flashiest gaming PCs are: with vibrant colored light!

Holding the chopsticks, you’ll notice that they’ve got pretty chunky dimensions, sort of half-way between ordinary and cooking chopsticks.

That seems to be at least partly because the upper ends need to be big enough to hold their power source of three LR41 batteries per stick.

Pull out the tab, press the button at the top of the sticks, and…

▼ GAMING MODE ACTIVATED!

Don’t worry, you’re not forced into a two-tone look if you don’t want it. You actually have your choice of nine different colors, which you can cycle through by hitting the button, allowing you to mix or match whichever you want.

Because of their size, the gaming chopsticks can feel a little unwieldy at first. They’re not gigantic, though, and we figure you’ll get used to their size long before you become desensitized to how cool they look. We especially like how they illuminate your food, like how they turned our simple bowl of white rice with bonito flakes sprinkled on top into a neon cyber meal.

When you’re all done eating/gaming and ready to do the dishes, there’s one important thing to remember. Because the upper ends of the chopsticks have batteries in them, you shouldn’t get them wet. Instead, you detach the upper and lower sections and just wash the lower ones, which are clear plastic without any electrical parts to damage.

▼ This also explains why the gaming chopsticks are longer than normal ones, so that the bottom sections are big enough for you to pick up a piece of food without using the upper, non-washable part.

Dospara is selling the gaming chopsticks for the reasonable price of 580 yen (US$4.30). They’re currently sold out on their online shop, so the best bet is to check at the chain’s physical branches in Tokyo’s Akihabara, Hachioji, and Machida neighborhoods.

Related: Dospara location list
Photos © SoraNews24
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