Hi everyone, my name is Ryan and I’m a member of Closed Caption Comics and I live in Japan, so I guess today I’ll share with you some pictures of things I saw in a store that are part of a theme of the internet called “Weird Japan.” I think maybe you’ve never seen something quite like these before. It all starts with…

The Face Up Roller

You see, here people say that if you’re cute you have a “small face.” I don’t really get it, I’ve measured my head against various students (cute and not-so-cute) and I don’t get a consistent ratio, but I guess that’s fine. What’s funny is that there are instruments marketed to the public that will shrink their face down to a better size, and even though they’re obviously face massagers, no one seems to let on to that. They insist they are fascinated by their face-shrinking effects. I’m like, “what? that’s like for a massage, for your face,” and they say, “no! no! face small! make face small!” (these are my dopey girl students with so-so English ability)

In the face rollers above, notice the first picture has no Japanese on the box, and the second one has some Japanese but also includes French. The girls I talk to (again, these are 15-year-old dopes, I mean that affectionately but seriously, they’re kind of dopes) are under the impression that these products are really big in America. Facepalm.

Speaking of facepalm, here is something more advanced. They are special masks that you can use for cosmetic purposes. Exhibit A will take the droop out of your chin, Exhibit B will also stretch the wrinkles off of your temples. Do you think this feels like a massage? Actually, hm, I kind of doubt it.

This next product will turn a (Caucasian?) girl with a gross smile into a girl with a gorgeous smile! This might or might not feel like an inner facial massage.

There was a very big display rack at Tokyu Hands with lots more, here are the best, without more comments, except to assure you that three or four of my students use them and say that they work (the ones for faces that is, we didn’t ever talk about the rest of these). If you are interested in purchasing these products, you can find them at Tokyu Hands, a pretty common big store in any city in Japan, I guess. Or you could use a Japan-product-buying service like this one and he will find it and ship it to you.

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