Can the Laughing Sensor Orangutang bring a comforting motherly presence to our office?

In the office, certain members of the SoraNews24 office have a sort of familial role. Mr. Sato’s experience and wisdom often make him a sort of big brother in our interpersonal dynamics. Seiji Nakazawa, meanwhile, is a bit more like our younger brother, who we can’t help but root for as he pursues his passions. Big sister? That’d be Ikuna Kamezawa, who breezes in and out of the office on her way to or from her latest travel adventure. And playing the part of father, of course, is our boss Yoshio, even if he’s more likely to give out hugs to chocolate eggs than to the staff.

What we don’t have, though, is any sort of team mom at SoraNews24 HQ. In that sense, we’re kind of like Punch, the monkey at Japan’s Ichikawa Zoo who was abandoned by his mother shortly after birth. Punch has now become world famous for coping with his emotional trauma by bonding with a stuffed animal orangutang from Ikea, and so our reporter Masanuki Sunakoma got the idea that maybe the same plushie could boost out office morale by providing a soothing, comforting presence.

Unfortunately, as a result of the Punch-produced publicity, Ikea’s orangutang plushie is now frequently sold out. Luckily, Masanuki is an experienced online shopper who’s always ready to search the depths of Amazon Japan’s product listings, which is where he found the Laughing Sensor Orangutang from Emma, a subdivision of Osaka-based toy and novelty item maker Tabata.

If you’ve been following Masanuki’s shopping history, you might remember that he specializes in finding and testing Amazon Japan’s lowest-rated items. The Laughing Sensor Orangutang has an average customer review score of 1.0 out of 5, but with no written explanations of just why people have been so disappointed with it.

Taking it out of its packaging, Masanuki did feel right away that it might be a little overpriced. The Laughing Sensor Orangutang had cost us 3,067 yen (US$19.80), but the softness of the materials and the quality of the stitching felt like something you should be able to get for half that price. That said, it isn’t shoddily made, so maybe the reason this thing has such bad reviews is because it doesn’t work as advertised? As you might have guessed from its name, the Laughing Sensor Orangutang is equipped with a sensor (situated in its belly button). Once the sensor detects that someone in standing near it, the plushie will laugh for 10 seconds.

Batteries are included and come pre-installed, so all you have to do is open up the cover and remove the protective tape. Using the Velcro strips on The Laughing Sensor Orangutang’s hands, Masanuki hung it on handle of one of our office cabinets and tested it out.

The sensor noticed Masanuki right away, and the orangutang orangutang started shaking with laughter.

Really…really…really loud laughter.

This isn’t human laughter, either, but the energetic screeching of am excited primate, so it didn’t exactly get Masanuki in the mood to laugh along with it.

The noise was definitely distracting, at best annoying and at worst startlingly frightening. So, naturally, Masanuki decided to leave the Laughing Sensor Orangutang in place and see how his coworkers would react.

After a few minutes of Masanuki lying in wait with camera ready, fellow reporter Takamichi Furusawa came through the door.

▼ “GWAHHHH WHAT IS THAT?!?!?”

OK, so placed in this position the Laughing Sensor Orangutang wasn’t going to provide the soothing maternal presence Masanuki had set out to create. Being located in a spot where people might not even notice it until it began screeching at them from behind obviously wasn’t helping things, so he decided to reposition it somewhere where you couldn’t miss the plushie, someplace where it would be in your direct line of sight as you entered the room…like, say, on top of the toilet in the office bathroom.

Since the office bathroom is a one-stall setup, it was only a mater of time until someone would need to use it. So once again, Masanuki waited, and this time it was writer Takashi Harada who, in heeding the call of nature, unwittingly became Masanuki’s guinea pig.

▼ “GWAHHHH!!!”

Once again, the Laughing Sensor Orangutang failed to produce the comforting, emotionally reassuring aura that Masanuki had hoped for. So far, all it was doing was scaring the crap out of people, and to an almost literal degree, as Takashi had been so startled that Masanuki began to worry about the possibility of people accidentally soiling themselves when the Laughing Sensor Orangutang surprised them in the bathroom. Maybe he should take the plushie down from its spot on the toilet, he thought, but then the Laughing Sensor Orangutang, as though it could read his mind, shook itself so strongly with its laughter that it slid off the commode all on its own.

▼ At least it didn’t fall into the bowl.

In the end, Masanuki is of a mixed opinion as to whether or not the Laughing Sensor Orangutang deserves its abysmal Amazon customer review score. On the one hand, it’s reasonably well-made, and it’s advertised function of making noise when someone draws near works very well. However, with how loud and startling it is, the sound it makes isn’t exactly fun or cute, though it is excellent for terrorizing your office/housemates, so depending on your goals, its true value could be anywhere from a 1-star ranking to a full 5.

Related: Laughing Sensor Orangutang on Amazon Japan
Photos ©SoraNews24
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