Masanuki wants to recapture the sci-fi excitement of capsule hotels, but he doesn’t want to spend much money doing it.

Please be advised that the following article contains images of flashing lights.

Never let it be said that our Japanese-language reporter Masanuki Sunakoma isn’t an optimist. Time and time again he’s plumbed the deepest depths of low-priced online shopping, and no matter how many times the items he orders end up being improperly sized, broken (and possibly cursed), or just straight-up shams, he never loses hope that the next time, things will work out great.

In addition to low-priced Internet shopping, Masanuki also regularly spends the night in low-priced accommodations, as a frequent user of Japan’s capsule hotels. However, recently he’s begun to feel like there’s a little something lacking to sleeping in these stacked compartments.

Back when he was newer to capsule hotels, they had a cool, sci-fi-style appeal to him, making him feel like he was tucking into a bunk on a spacecraft on an intergalactic voyage. He can’t deny that capsule hotel slots can sometimes be pretty drab, though.

So Masanuki went looking for a super-cheap online purchase to help recapture that capsule hotel sense of wonder, that sensation of sailing through the sea of stars. His search took him to e-commerce site Temu, where he found the “Aurora LED Light Interior Mood Light Holiday Party Interior Decoration Christmas Gift.”

Now, if you’ve been following Masanuki’s shopping adventures, you might have noticed that the length of a product’s name often ends up being in inverse proportion to its quality. As such, the Aurora LED Light Interior Mood Light Holiday Party Interior Decoration Christmas Gift doesn’t immediately fill us with confidence, and its 365-yen (US$2.48) price is concerningly low. Surprisingly, though, the user reviews were quite good, with an average ranking of 4.7 out of 5 from the roughly 5,000 previous buyers, but even that seems shady because that seems like a suspiciously large number of people to be leaving a legitimate review for an item such as this.

But like we said, Masanuki’s an optimist, so he smashed the buy button, and in time his order arrived.

The box bears a shorter name, calling this the Q6 LED Starry projection light. The way whoever designed the package couldn’t be bothered to keep capitalizing the name all the way through didn’t seem like a good sign, but still, Masanuki remained hopeful.

Inside the box he found the unit itself, a remote control, and a short USB cord that serves as the power source. The cord is pretty short, so if you were setting this up in the middle of your living room you might need to connect it to a mobile battery or something, but given the cozy dimensions of a capsule hotel bunk, this wasn’t an issue for Masanuki.

After setting the Aurora LED Light Interior Mood Light Holiday Party Interior Decoration Christmas Gift/Q6 LED Starry projection light down on his mattress, Masanuki grabbed the remote control, hit the start button, and…

Whoooaaahhhh!

It actually looked great!

Despite its small size, the device completely bathed his capsule in swirling colors. It was at once both soothing and exhilarating, and depending on the hues and patterns sometimes Masanuki felt like he was at the bottom of the ocean…

…and at others he felt like he was communing with the cosmos.

Mystical and magical, his simple little sleeping compartment now felt like it had been transformed into an art installation, or maybe even a stylish nightclub.

There is, however, one thing to be careful of if you’re planning to use the Aurora LED Light Interior Mood Light Holiday Party Interior Decoration Christmas Gift like Masanuki did. Obviously, in a capsule hotel you’re in very close proximity to other guests, so you’ll want to make sure that the compartment curtain is opaque and securely shut so that your light doesn’t seep out and inhibit others’ ability to relax and sleep.

But when it comes to the item itself, Masanuki couldn’t be happier with the results, and he can’t wait to find the next great super-cheap online bargain.

Related: Aurora LED Light Interior Mood Light Holiday Party Interior Decoration Christmas Gift on Temu
Photos, GIFs ©SoraNews24
● Want to hear about SoraNews24’s latest articles as soon as they’re published? Follow us on Facebook and Twitter!
[ Read in Japanese ]