More uniqueness
Closer inspection of Japan’s wide range of canned and bottled beers reveals a couple of other unique attributes relating to packaging. Firstly, the country’s helpful attitude towards visually-impaired people(1) is evident on the top of all beer cans in the form of a Braille character next to the ring pull. This is to warn them that the can contains alcohol, so you can’t trick visually-impaired people into getting drunk (spoilsport breweries!).
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Too lazy or too wasted to pour yourself another beer? Never fear, the Asahi beer robot* is here!

*Batteries not included. And by the looks of this video, decent beer not included either.

1) What is the picture on the right?

a) A fish egg-sac
b) A dancing kidney
c) A character from a kids’ toilet training video

Answer

2) Milk + Beer = what?

a) Meer
b) Bilk
c) A foul, undrinkable liquid

Answer (more…)

More Toilet Innovation

I thought there’d be no more toilets on Big On Japan after the 4th installment of the Toilets In Japan series, but I was wrong. Here’s yet another innovative addition to Japan’s toilet technology range:

Marketing
In the absence of price-related special offers to use as a marketing tool (see Beer In Japan - Part 2), Japanese beer companies have to resort to other methods to boost sales. One of the most interesting ways to do this is to cash in on the national obsession with the four seasons, and the breweries do this with gift sets and limited edition seasonal beer brands.

Beer gift sets are popular during the gift-giving seasons of summer (ochūgen) and winter (oseibo), and consist of several cans of beer nicely presented in a cardboard box with a see-through plastic lid. These gift sets are sold at a rip-off price – higher than the cost of buying the beer cans individually – reflecting both the emphasis placed on aesthetic appeal in Japan (seen in everything from food presentation to Zen gardens) and the importance of gift giving in forging and maintaining social relationships.
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Here are the photos from the Photo of the Month series, in case you missed any of them. Other photos that’ve been getting a lot of hits this year include samurai Colonel Sanders, the claw machine with live lobster prizes, the ‘ultra big’ condoms, the vomit bar, Tsuruhashi (Osaka’s Korea Town) and Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building (my favourite skyscraper). Just click on the thumbnails below to check out the original photos.