There’s only one place to keep a dog like this.

When shopping for something on Amazon, the two most common ways to organize your search results are by price or review rating. Our Japanese-language reporter Masanuki Sunakoma is in the latter camp, since he’s more concerned with a product’s reputation than its price. That isn’t such an unusual shopping philosophy, but what makes Masanuki kind of weird, though, is that once he’s got the results lined up by review rating, he then buys the lowest-rated one.

That’s how he ended up as the owner of both Amazon Japan’s lowest-rated sexy pillow and lowest-rated beckoning cat good luck charm (the pillow was merely emotionally scarring, but the cat charm might actually be cursed). Now Masanuki is delving into the depths of the low-rating abyss to emerge with Amazon Japan’s lowest-rated tissue case cover.

Officially, it’s listed on Amazon Japan as the Ruikey Cute Shiba Inu Car Seatback-hanging Tissue Box Car Tissue Box Car-use Paper Towel Cover Easy to Use. Rebel that he is, Masanuki purchased it with the full intent to ignore the in-triplicate instructions that it’s meant to be used in the car. Masanuki lives in a no-pets allowed apartment, but with the Japanese Internet constantly reminding us of the Shiba’s silly cuteness, he’d like to feel like he has one of the loveable goofballs as a pet by using the tissue cover in his living room.

Shipping from the manufacturer in China took about three weeks, during which Masanuki had plenty of time to second-guess his 1,100-yen (US$8.15 purchase). Like we said, this was the lowest-rated tissue cover he could find…but then again, its 1-star average ranking is the result of it having only one review, from someone who said that once they got theirs, it didn’t look as cute in real life as they’d expected, being so unappealing visually that they couldn’t believe they’d decided to order it in the first place.

So Masanuki was just a little apprehensive as he opened up the package…

…but we’ve got to say…

…it’s hard to imagine a Shiba Inu tissue case that looks more Shiba Inu-ish than this!

Even the way it looked in the package reminded us of pictures we’ve seen on social media of Shiba that have gotten themselves stuck in bushes or narrow cracks and have to wait patiently for their owners to get them out.

▼ Hang on, little buddy!

▼ You’re free!

We guess maybe you might be disappointed if you were hoping for a Shiba Inu that looks more like, say, a mascot character from Sanrio or some other character goods maker. If the pseudo companionship you crave, though, is that of an actual Shiba Inu dog, this definitely seems like it should do the trick.

Instead of a belly rub receiving area, the underside has a zipper, which you open up in order to put the tissues inside.

Perhaps because it’s made in China, standard Japanese-size tissue boxes won’t quite fit inside. A soft pack, though, was no problem.

Really, Masanuki only had one problem: The tissue cover has so much presence, and immediately attracts so much of your attention, that it sort of started to dominate the entire interior aesthetic of his living room.

After a few days and a lot of thought, Masanuki realized that he can’t share his apartment with a real dog nor a tissue-cover one, and so he needed to find a new home for his Shiba.

▼ Come on, boy, let’s go for a ride.

Clearly, this pooch needs a place where it can be as unabashedly goofy as it wants, with no fear of being ostracized or intimidating those around it. Masanuki knew of only one such place, and no, it wasn’t “a big farm in the countryside.” It was…

…SoraNews24 headquarters.

For now, the Shiba is perched on Masanuki’s armrest, since, like we said, it isn’t compatible with cardboard tissue boxes, and that’s the only kind we have in the office right now. We’ve got “pick up soft pack of tissues” on our to-do list, though, and we should probably decide on a name for him that’s just a little shorter than Ruikey Cute Shiba Inu Car Seatback-hanging Tissue Box Car Tissue Box Car-use Paper Towel Cover Easy to Use.

Related: Ruikey Cute Shiba Inu Car Seatback-hanging Tissue Box Car Tissue Box Car-use Paper Towel Cover Easy to Use on Amazon Japan
Photos ©SoraNews24
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