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A look inside Amazon Japan’s lowest-rated lucky bag

Master Blaster Jan 23, 2024
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If you buy one, don’t forget to adjust the knob.

New Year’s is the season for fukubukuro lucky bags in Japan. These are collections of goods often sold at a large discount and occasionally with the contents unknown. Of course, it isn’t New Year’s anymore so our writer Masanuki Sunakoma was surprised to find a lucky bag delivered to his door. This wasn’t just any lucky bag, however, it was the worst lucky bag Amazon Japan had to offer according to customer reviews.

The New Year Lucky Bag, Gift Box, Good Luck Gift, Amazon Returns Appliances, etc – wherein “etc” is part of the name and not me being lazy – normally sells for 4,450 yen ($30) and while its contents are unknown the promise of “appliances” and pictures of game consoles, cameras, laptops, VR sets, and more high-end goods on the Amazon page are very enticing.

However, this product also has a unanimous rock-bottom one-star rating with reviews such as “This is the worst product,” “too cruel,” and “I learned a lesson in unscrupulous business.” While those are very concerning, Masanuki wondered if these weren’t just sour grapes from the ones who lost the gamble of this potentially lucrative bag of luck.

The only way to find out was to buy one, and as luck would have it, it was on sale for only 2,200 yen (US$15). In general, even the contents of a “bad” fukubukuro are at least worth the price paid for it, which means this would have to be a truly abysmal bag to not even be worth that much.

So, Masanuki opened his delivery with a cautious optimism…

First, he pulled out a “high quality” USB cable, though the package’s use of Comic Sans didn’t exactly scream “quality.” Still, USB cables tend to be handy things to have around.

Next, is a wireless headset that also boasts voice controls. At first, this looked relatively impressive, but a quick internet search found that this particular earphone sells for between 200 and 500 yen (US$1.30 – $3.40).

Then there was a USB-powered light, which will definitely come in handy the next time Masanuki has to light up something within three inches of a USB port.

There was also a USB MicroSD memory card reader in a sassy hot mauve.

A cigarette lighter USB charger was also included in this haul.

Fukubukuro usually have a centerpiece item and perhaps the one for this lucky bag was the Christmas-themed Projection Flashlight, which displays festive scenes on the surface of your choice.

Masanuki decided to try this item out with the hope it would help his visual development and logical thinking.

First, he slid one of the image cartridges into the slot.

Then he turned on the light.

He took it into a dark room and…

He could kind of make out old St. Nick.

The next image was… Charlie Brown and a cat?

Try as he might, Masanuki just couldn’t get any of the images to project clearly.

It wasn’t until he moved the flashlight right up to the wall that an image appeared.

▼ Masanuki: “Oh!”

Holding the light within an inch of the wall revealed a parade of adorable animals.

▼ Masanuki: “Now, I get it…”

▼ Masanuki: “I don’t need this at all!”

Our writer also looked up this product to learn more about this product and found that it sells for about 100 yen on the ultra-cheap e-commerce site Temu.

In this product’s defense, Masanuki understandably overlooked the English instructions on the box to “adjust the knob” to focus the image. This seems to be a common problem too as even the promotional image above shows little curvy arrows to help people figure out how to get it to work.

Nevertheless, when all was said and done, he had received about 1,000 yen ($6.75) worth of items in this lucky box. This means that even at 50 percent off, this purchase was still a huge rip-off and this is probably deserving its horrible reviews.

That’s not to say it’s impossible to get lucky and win a nice piece of electronics, but you’re probably better off trying your luck with something more trustworthy, like those sketchy capsule machines.

Related: Amazon Japan/New Year Lucky Bag, Gift Box, Good Luck Gift, Amazon Returns Appliances, etc
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