Japan has brought us so many ridiculous products–like a headless robot cat pillow to corn soup flavored-rice sticks featuring Nic Cage’s face on the packaging–it’s hard to be surprised by anything that comes out of that wonderful country. Yet somehow they’ve done it, with one of the most incomprehensible products we’ve ever seen anywhere, a $130 noise-cancelling fork designed to cancel out noodle-slurping sounds. And if that’s not enough, it also has maybe the worst commercial of all time.
We learned about this absurd product at RocketNews24, and this (we swear completely real) utensil comes from the Nissin noodle company. They are apparently so worried about upsetting visitors to Japan with their country’s noodle-eating ways, they came up with the Otohiko, a noise-cancelling fork that sends a message to a nearby smartphone when it registers slurping sounds. When that happens, the phone plays a “fun” noise that is supposed to be less distracting than the slurping.
Because nothing sounds less distracting during dinner than a toilet flush in the middle of the table.
If this all sounds totally absurd that’s because it is, but a pricey fork with fancy technology used to solve basically a non-existent problem (be good guests when you travel abroad) isn’t the silliest part. The commercial for it is. Make sure you watch the whole thing because we have some thoughts.
Do…do Japanese citizens really think this poorly of us? Are we such monsters when we visit we’re ruining perfectly nice dinners because of some noodle slurping? And even if the entire scenario here is completely accurate (and those people are the worst humans alive), what’s with the hugging at the end? Why are they that happy? They didn’t end a war, they replaced one slightly annoying sound with another slightly annoying sound. For 130 dollars.
The good news is they are only making 5,000 of these (pre-order yours before December 15th, weirdo), so your chances of ever running into one is slim. But if you think this is honestly a great invention, because you can’t stand the sound of someone slurping their noodles, we have some advice to help you, and it won’t cost a thing.
Suck it up.
Would you want one of these? Fork over your thoughts on why in our comments section below.
Images: Nissin
