Wednesday Oct 24 06:32 AEST
A plucky Japanese inventor is encouraging her fellow citizens to disguise themselves as vending machines to avoid being mugged.
The latest craze out of Tokyo has people dressing up in a full-sized Coke machine made of cloth.
The faux machine purports to offer the full gamut of carbonated beverages, including cola, lemonade and orange flavours: it even sports an advertisement.
The wacky masquerade — which transforms from a skirt — is only given away by a conspicuous pair of feet sticking out the bottom.
Inventor Aya Tsukioka, 29, designed the contraption in the spirit of ancient Japanese ninjas, who donned black robes to disappear into the night.
"It is just easier for Japanese to hide," Tsukioka told The Sun.
"Making a scene would be too embarrassing."
Tsukioka is known as the brains behind other canny creations, notably a shoulder bag made to look like a manhole cover and a fire hydrant backpack.
The vending machine follows a series of inventions out of Japan which have variously been described as novel, wacky and useless.
Earlier this year an air-conditioned shirt burst onto the scene, as well as a t-shirt with a numbered grid on the back to pinpoint precisely any pesky itch the wearer may encounter.
But those inventions paled in comparison to the commuter helmet specifically designed to hold sleeping travellers in place.
It allows snoozy commuters to both stay upright and be confident of staying secure.
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I have this wonderfull visual in my head of someone presenting a knife or tazer and demanding money and the girl quickly zipping up to save herself like retarded turtle from the future.
Inventor Aya Tsukioka, 29, designed the contraption in the spirit of ancient Japanese ninjas, who donned black robes to disappear into the night.
Yeah... it's exactly like that