We try to set the night on FI-RE-AH!

Chinese online retail site Temu has been taking the world by storm with its rock-bottom prices. But our Japanese reporter Masanuki Sunakoma, who shops almost exclusively at the rock bottom, has frequented it for quite some time in search of the ultimate deal.

Just the other day, he found a sweet deal on a light for just 2 yen (US$0.01). However, Temu has a minimum purchase limit of 2,100 yen so he needed to fill up his cart with some other random items. Among them was a birthday candle for 345 yen. This item caught Masanuki’s eye because when you light it, it opens like a blossoming flower and spins while playing “Happy Birthday.”

▼ I guess the official product name is FLOWEr CaNd LEs.

That’s a lot of features for the price, so our reporter had high hopes for it and wasted no time opening the box. It didn’t come with instructions but that was OK since all he needed to do was light it on fire.

The design was very bright and festive and got Masanuki into the birthday spirit. It wasn’t his birthday though, so if you happen to be reading this on your own special day, this one’s for you, babe.

The top-down angle was hard to reach with a conventional lighter, so he decided to bring out his turbo lighter to get this party rolling.

It lit up well and all the candles worked in unison to create an impressive blaze.

Moments later the flower opened automatically with a mighty snap. It sent the tiny candles hurtling in every direction like some kind of candle tosser – or “flame thrower” if you will.

All the while, the soothing sounds of “Happy Birthday” played with all the fidelity of a pager ringtone.

Masanuki was so engrossed in getting a good shot of this thing in action that he failed to notice the fireball plop onto his tabletop.

The song was also somewhat distracting him from the hazardous situation developing before his eyes.

It wasn’t until a flaming flower petal spun in front of him that he noticed something was terribly wrong.

The fire from the candles was spreading to the plastic of the flower itself which started to deteriorate rapidly.

Masanuki tried to control the blaze with a disposable chopstick because it was the only thing within reach. However, he accomplished little with his piece of kindling.

Fearing he was losing control of the situation, he had to put the camera down to deal with the fire in his living room. It’s a good thing he’s also our fireworks correspondent and has experience handling such matters.

He eventually managed to subdue the flames and took a photo of the smoldering wreckage which miraculously still played a defiant “Happy Birthday“.

While this is the worst thing that could happen with such a product, Masanuki does have a share of the blame for what happened. When reviewing the photographs, we can see that in using the powerful turbo lighter, he accidentally lit up one of the petals from the start.

That being said, had there been some instructions telling him not to use such a lighter, he could have tried something different. Also, the maker of this product really should use a less flammable material, considering its sole purpose is to be lit on fire.

In the end, we can’t in good conscience recommend this candle holder to anyone anywhere anytime, but on the bright side, his two-yen light worked really well.

Buying things at absurd discounts is always a game of chance with the odds stacked against you. So, it’s a good thing Masanuki is out there working tirelessly to separate the useless junk from the kind of neat junk.

Photos ©SoraNews24
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[ Read in Japanese ]