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World’s first Takoyaki Guitar created in Japan, features a gas grill and octopus balls

Oona McGee Aug 12, 2022
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The best-sounding takoyaki you’ll ever hear.

Takoyaki is a Japanese specialty that’s got a lot of things going for it — it’s delicious, easy to eat, widely loved, and fun to make, as the octopus-filled balls are cooked up in special grills with hollowed-out spheres.

As it turns out, takoyaki is also fun to play and listen to, as two Japanese companies recently came together to create…the Takoyaki Guitar.

While it might look like a gimmick, this is an actual instrument that can be played, and it was born out of an idea from Yamano Music. In recent years, they’ve been creating special local guitars that sing the pride of different regions, and when they decided to make a guitar in honour of Osaka, the image that came to mind was takoyaki, the region’s famous specialty.

Yamano decided to reach out to Osaka-based gas grill maker Iwatani to see if they would like to join forces to create a “Takoyaki Guitar“, and after two years of fine-tuning, the fruits, or should we say octopus balls, of the collaboration were finally revealed.

▼ The Takoyaki Guitar is the third local guitar created by Yamano, and it boasts a number of unique features.

The first feature is the main body of the guitar, which is made with the body of an actual takoyaki grill, namely Iwatani’s Entako II, which is a nice plug for the product. The grill itself is filled with plastic takoyaki samples that look just like the real thing, and in honour of the star ingredient, a red octopus leg runs along the neck of the instrument.

The tuning pegs are topped with half a dozen plastic takoyaki, and the grill lights up with LEDs to mimic the blue light of the gas burners. It’s a very clever design, and while it’s fantastic to look at, it’s an actual electric guitar so it sounds pretty good too.

▼ The guitar was played by singer/songwriter Sae Banjoya at a grand unveiling in Osaka held on Takoyaki Day on 8 August.

The clip above ends with the reminder, “Of course, it doesn’t grill takoyaki“, so the guitar can’t be unstrung in between sets to grill a few octopus balls. Unlike the grill itself, which is on the market for 7,981 yen (US$60.07), the guitar, which cost a cool half a million yen (US$3,764.92) to make, won’t be going into production. There are two in the world, though, and they’re available to view at Iwatani Outdoor Shop Base and Yamano Music’s Rock Inn Namba, both of which are located in Osaka.

【#ロックイン難波】
本日メディアで話題の『 #たこ焼きギター』
当店に入荷いたしました。
正面入り口に大々的に展示しております。
写真撮影OK！
難波お越しの際はぜひ一度ご覧ください。#炎たこ #イワタニ #IWATANI　※非売品

♪本商品の製作秘話等、詳しくはこちら⇒https://t.co/Y8WXciF1El pic.twitter.com/ZD7bR7L6KJ

— 山野楽器ロックイン難波 (@ROCKINN_namba) August 8, 2022

So next time you’re in the hometown of the humble octopus ball, you might want to stop by and take some photos of the instrument, which is being billed as the world’s first Takoyaki Guitar.

And if you’re looking for a good recommendation for takoyaki that you can actually eat in the area, you can always ask a cab driver to take you to this local institution, which is what we did when we were last there!

Related: Iwatani Outdoor Shop Base, Rock Inn Namba
Source: Iwatani via Net Lab
Images: Iwatani
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