After years of campaigning, Mt Fuji, Japan’s highest peak and an ingenious piece of natural symmetry, was recently finally elevated to that status that perhaps of all people the Japanese seem to be obsessed with — UNESCO World Heritage.
This has led to a flurry of media excitement as well as lots of tie-in merchandise, plus some beard-stroking from pundits about how to preserve what is essentially a sacred mountain but is “climbed” (more like strolled up) by hundreds of thousands of tourists annually.
Well, you could also just put that all aside and get your hands on some Mt Fuji Smart Pants.
Unless you are a micro person you might have some serious trouble fitting into these, but nonetheless your mobile wardrobe is now complete with Bandai’s summer line-up of Gashapon toy capsules, which includes this remarkable — profane? — mini upside-down Mt Fuji.
You clip it onto the top of your smartphone (hence the “smart” in “smart pants”) and then you have Japan’s most famous mountain as a kind of phone bandana-cum-underwear.
There are eight versions, all in the Mt Fuji — sorry, pants shape, but with colors varying from stripes to dots to even rather menacing pink “spikes”.
The series — actually Bandai’s second like this — go on sale at Gashapon capsule vending machines in late July.
