“Treat your opponent with dignity!!”

There’s a paradox that many otaku hobbies face. On the one hand, enthusiasts would say that the most fun you can have is at in-person events where you can interact with fellow fans, creating an environment of shared excitement. Unfortunately, such gatherings all too often also create a far less enjoyable communal smell.

▼ A photo taken at a regional Cardfight!! Vanguard tournament held earlier this year. The blurring is for privacy purposes, but it also effectively simulates the disorientating miasma of body odors that can combine like a foul-smelling Voltron at events of this kind.

This is an especially pronounced problem in the collectible card game community, where tournaments and in-shop competitions often involve large numbers of players in close proximity to each other for extended periods of time. It’s an unfortunate aspect of the hobby that’s long troubled the staff of Off-Kai, Tokyo’s otaku hair salon chain, and so they’ve decided to do something about it, developing a cleaning liquid with the specific goal of making card gamers smell better.

Called Okitesugu no Okite (we’ll unpack the meaning of the name a little later on), it’s a combination shampoo, facial soap, and body wash. The solution is formulated to thoroughly cleanse and balanced to sufficiently hydrate without leaving oily or sticky residues, and includes essential oils extracted from peppermint and Japanese cypress for a clean, refreshing scent that’s not flowery, fruity, or intrusively aromatic.

And “Okitesugu no Okite?” It’s a play on words involving okite, which can mean either “awaken” or “rule/law,” with the shampoo/soap’s whole name translating to something along the lines of “The Code of What to Do Right After Waking Up.” Off-Kai and creative partner Lushtree are billing Okitesugu no Okite as “the ultimate morning shower and shampoo product for card gamers.”

That might seem kind of strange if you’re familiar with Japanese bathing norms, since the vast majority of Japanese people prefer to shower at night just before going to bed, out of a desire to keep their bedding as clean as possible (Japanese homes generally don’t have large clothing dryers, so washing sheets can be a pain). So why is Okitesugu no Okite recommended for morning use? Because its creators hope to establish taking a shower and shampooing as part of card gamers’ gameday routine, so that proper grooming becomes as much a part of their pre-competition checklist as making sure they’ve got their deck sorted. The three-in-one nature of Okitesugu no Okite should help with that by making the process as quick and convenient as possible.

“Treat your opponent with dignity!!” Okitesugu no Okite’s product description implores card gamers, and its creators assert that doing so is critical to the survival of the hobby itself. While seasoned veterans may be able to focus so intently on the cards that they can block out any olfactory offensiveness, newcomers who are still deciding just how deep they want to go into the hobby, and budding female card gamers in particular, Off-Kai and Lushtree believe, aren’t going to keep showing up at tournaments and other events if the venues literally stink. If new players aren’t brought into the fold, though, the hobby will eventually fade away as the existing fan base grows older.

So really, nicer-smelling card gaming spaces will benefit everyone. The shampoo/soap is currently being offered through a campaign on Japanese crowdfunding site Campfire here, with reward tiers including the product starting at 3,460 yen (US$24) and discounted bulk-quantity packages aimed at card shop managers who can either sell or give them to customers. Some tiers also include discount vouchers for hair cuts at Off-Kai, and as we know from experience, they do a fine job cutting otaku hair.

Source: Campfire/株式会社lushtree via Hachima Kiko
Top image: Campfire/株式会社lushtree
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