This toy may be both the greatest and worst thing ever made.

As we’ve been seeing in recent days, novelty goods store Village Vanguard gifted us with seven fukubukuro lucky bags this year. Normally, these bags, traditionally sold around New Year’s Day, are full of a store or brand’s merchandise worth more than the price paid for it.

Hearing that, you might think we’re a lucky bunch of devils for getting seven whole bags from one store. Unfortunately, that’s not the case, because Village Vanguard has a nasty habit of putting the most useless stuff imaginable in their bags, and we don’t know what to do with most of it.

Granted they have shown some improvement this year with a really nice coffee bean grinder in their Gold Lucky Bag and other decent household goods in their Pink Lucky Bag. But our writers P.K. Sanjun and Ahiruneko, who are tasked with opening these bags each year, are hardly about to let their guard down.

Now, P.K. is poised to open the Blue Lucky Bag, which Village Vanguard sold for 3,850 yen (US$24), making it among the cheapest bags. Let’s see what we got!

As we saw both in past years and the Pink Lucky Bag, Village Vanguard loves to put stuffed animals in their bags. However, this stuffed… thing was truly unlike any P.K. has ever seen in his life. It was a stuffed kendama!

A kendama is a traditional Japanese toy that’s similar to a cup and ball game, only rather than trying to get the ball into a cup, the player must either precariously rest it on a shallow divet or manage to get the pointy end of the handle to spear the ball through its hole. Needless to say, it takes a fair bit of practice to use.

▼ This plush ball also has the same hole in it.

However, a normal kendama is made of wood, whereas this is made of cotton and fabric. As a result, one would have to ignore all laws of physics to assume for one moment that this could actually be played like a real kendama.

▼ Our editor Go is always trash-talking the laws of physics, so he decided to give it a go.

All P.K. could do was stand in awe of this thing. Who would ever think to create a stuffed kendama? And even if there are people who think of such a thing, who among them would go through with making one? And even then, who among this very rare breed of human would consider commercializing such a thing?

It’s a terrible kendama, and not a great stuffed toy either, what with the string and multiple parts that can get tangled and caught up on other things around the house. And yet it exists…

Our writer struggled to take his eyes off this beautiful monstrosity to see the other things in the bag. There was a Penguin Pirates game which seemed to involve balancing the little flightless birds on a wobbly pirate… I mean, maybe if the stuffed kendama was smaller, it might be firmer, lighter, and more effective. But they even made it ridiculously large!

There was also a chair stacking game that looked pretty fun. Hopefully, no one will ever make a plush toy out of this one.

Then there’s a little LCD block game that commands you to “IMPROVE BABY’S CONCENTRATION.” That must be one of the 26 game modes, because I can’t imagine giving one of these to a baby in real life. If there was a big stuffed version of one, that might work.

And finally, there was a puzzle cube for speed cubing. Come to think of it, a working stuffed Rubik’s Cube would be kind of cool…

P.K. couldn’t in good conscience recommend a lucky bag with a stuffed kendama in it. There’s simply no justifying it. On the other hand, the fact that it shouldn’t exist but does is kind of impressive in its own right, and our writer had to tip his hat to Village Vanguard for coming up with new and shocking breakthroughs in the field of junk.

▼ Lucky Bag Verdict: Inspiringly Bad

Whether it’s good, bad, or so bad it’s kind of good, it seems like we never know what Village Vanguard has in store for us with their literal bags of tricks.

Photos ©SoraNews24
Bag design ©Chocolate
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