Pay ¥300 for ID Photos of Random Strangers

The vending machine culture in Japan is very well-known. 

Especially, “gashapon” (ガシャポン), also called gachapon (ガチャポン), a variety of vending machine that dispense toys in capsules that originated in the 1960s and became popular in Japan and elsewhere. Gachapon capsule toys are really sought-after and you can find them virtually everywhere, giving out all kinds of collectibles, from small action figures and dolls to souvenirs. 

One particular such machine went viral on social media for dispensing something very unusual – ID photos of total strangers for 300 yen ($2.30).

The machine which has attracted a surprisingly enthusiastic response from people who are willing to pay for the images, is the brainchild of a Tokyo entrepreneur by the name of Terai Hiroki, who explained that he came up with the idea after reckoning that, in a time when everyone is wearing face masks during the Covid-19 pandemic, they would have a genuine desire to “see people’s faces fully”. He thought it would be really nice to look at a random face. 

Installed in March 2022, the gachapon machine became so popular that people started coming to Kagurazaka, a neighborhood close to Shinjuku, Tokyo from as far as Osaka just to get one of the 10 possible ID photos. Some even made it their mission to complete their collection. And it has since dispensed more than 1,000 pictures.

 

As bizarre as this may seem, it’s not even the weirdest thing you can buy from a Japanese vending machine! Balls of lettuce, eggs, live rhinoceros beetles, flying fish soup, canned bread, canned T-shirts, bug snacks, and dog wigs are just some of the many items you can get from these miraculous machines of convenience: