It’s not how this origami looks that’s important, but why it looks that way.
We’re currently living in the golden age of Japanese capsule toys. There’s an unprecedented number of gacha machines and trinkets on sale in the country, largely thanks to designers shifting the focus of their efforts away from crafting children’s’ playthings and towards quirky collectibles that adults are happy to impulse-buy.
Take, for example, the latest offerings from Tokyo design company Bright Link’s Gachatto division: oritsuru, or folded paper origami cranes. Oritsuru are considered good luck charms, so 300 yen (US$2.60) doesn’t seem like such a bad price for a skillfully folded one, except…
…these ones aren’t skillfully folded. Honestly, out of the five possible designs, only the one on the left resembles a proper oritsuru, with the others looking more like a dinosaur, fish, or coil of poo, if they look like anything at all. So why does Bright Link think that people will be willing to pay for sub-par origami?
Because the cranes are folded by gyaru.
For those not familiar with the term, gyaru, from the English “gal,” is a Japanese slang term used to describe young women with flashy fashion sense and uninhibited personalities. According to the preview for Origami Cranes Folded by Gyaru (or “Gyaru ga Otta Oritsuru” in Japanese), each crane was folded by a different girl, with the designs from left to right being the handiwork of gyaru nicknamed Kanappe, Sa-tan, Rina-chosu, Okkina, and Mocchi.
As for the questionable quality of the folding, the joke seems to be that the extra-long fingernails favored by gyaru aren’t exactly the most conducive to making precise origami creases. There’s also likely an intended added appeal of the imperfect shapes giving them a more personal feel. Each paper crane capsule toy is hand-folded by Bright Link, following the designs created by Kanappe and her cohorts, and as an additional bonus the cranes come with a video of the respective gyaru folding the original, likely in the form of a QR code paper included in the capsule.
The Origami Cranes Folded by Gyaru are slated to go on sale in late March, but if you want to take steps to secure our right now, online retailer Stale is taking preorders here. Note that the preorders are only for boxes 40, though at 7,999 yen it’s about 33 percent cheaper than buying that many cranes individually out of gacha machines, making it a money-saving option for people who really, really like origami and gyaru.
Sources: Twitter/@kunio9209 via Otakomu, Asology, Stale
Top image: Pakutaso
Insert images: Stale
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