Photo: Pakutaso
lifestyle

There’s a Tokyo vending machine that sells love in a can (or a shot at it)

8 Comments
By Casey Baseel, SoraNews24

Japan has so many vending machines that they hardly register in the minds of most people walking down the street. However, an array of vending machines in Tokyo’s Kamata neighborhood has been catching eyes recently.

Occupying the curb and otherwise empty interior of a small bank of coin-operated lockers, the first thing you notice might be the machines outside offering canned drinks for as little as 50 yen, less than half the price of most vending machines in Japan, but the really unusual machine is the one found inside. The product display case is stocked with cans, but these they don’t contain beverages. Instead, you’re purchasing the path to a potential romantic partner.

▼ Photos of the vending machine that sells love

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The pink cans represents women seeking companionship, and the beige ones men, each with the individual’s age written on it. The vending machine isn’t anything so vulgar as an anonymous hook-up provider, though, as its inventory is stocked and managed by Matching Advisor Press (which also goes by the acronym MAP), a matchmaking service for singles actively seeking a serious relationship that will hopefully lead to marriage, or konkatsu, as it’s called in Japanese.

Each can costs 3,000 yen but it doesn’t necessarily guarantee you a date, let alone a spouse. Instead, what you’re purchasing is a voucher for a one-hour interview and advice session with a MAP advisor, whose name is also written on the can, ostensibly to see if you’re an amicable match for the single whose can you bought. If you are, then MAP will arrange a three-hour dinner date for the two of you, with an additional 9,000-yen service fee plus any associated food and drink costs to be paid by you.

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Several of the details are on the hazy side, however. For example, the message on the can’s exterior is phrased as though the MAP advisor is the one speaking to you, such as “I am advisor Ishikawa. There is a 27-year-old woman who wants to get married. Won’t you meet with her? I will advise you.” However, the placard at the bottom of the machine shows a photo of a woman with her given name listed (all of the advisors’ names on the cans are family names), along with “My mobile phone number is on the back of my photo. Please call me.”

As such, it’s unclear if the 3,000-yen “interview” is a counseling session with the MAP advisor alone, a direct phone conversation between the can’s purchaser and the other single, or some kind of a three-person meeting between the purchaser, advisor, and the person represented by the can. It’s also unclear as to whether or not MAP, if you don’t hit it off with the person from the can, will help you find another of its clients you might be more compatible with, or whether that would require an additional fee.

Speaking of additional fees, the matchmaking vending machine’s signage also says that in the happy event that you and the person from the can do end up falling in love and getting married, you’ll be asked to pay an additional 300,000 yen to MAP as a “successful marriage award payment,” though how the company confirms the marriage or enforces this is unknown. As a final head-scratcher, the machine is powered on and every can is marked as having been sold, but a sign inside the cans’ display case says that MAP won’t be starting operation until March 1. Whether the “sod-out” status of the cans is because people have already begun buying them three months in advance, or because MAP’s machine just isn’t actually allowing anyone to buy them yet, as well as how the company can be sure that the people represented by the cans will still be single at the start of spring, are just a few more of the mysteries surrounding the situation.

Source: Togetter

Read more stories from SoraNews24.

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© SoraNews24

©2024 GPlusMedia Inc.

8 Comments
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Desperate makes separate.

True love in a can? Cheers!

0 ( +0 / -0 )

-you’ll be asked to pay an additional 300,000 yen to MAP as a “successful marriage award payment,”

If you get divorced do you get a refund?

4 ( +5 / -1 )

Despicably manipulative.

-2 ( +0 / -2 )

I went to Shinjuku last week around Christmas, and I as was going through the station tunnel heading to the East Exit. There was a vending machine in the station near the fancy women's store before the stairs. The vending machine carried single roses and something else, but I was not sure. I guess so men could buy these quick gifts before they meet their date for the night. It could also be for hosts to quickly impress a potential customer.

4 ( +4 / -0 )

What a pathetic rort.

What you are most probably buying is a 3,000 yen consultation with a match maker to be put on their books. You are then paying 9,000 yen to be matched up with any potential partners for dinner, at which you will bear the costs.

Rumours swirl that many of these match making business just keep girls on the books just so they can cream off the 9,000 yen fee. The girl gets an all expenses paid dinner at a fancy restaurant, movie etc and never has to see the guy again.

No real attempt is made at matching couples. It all about fleecing the bloke.

0 ( +3 / -3 )

I guess everyone is fine for the agency to cash in and for the used luring person pictured, to get a free restaurant visit in return for the allowance of data usage. Quite a grey zone fraud, the whole thing.

-2 ( +0 / -2 )

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