So, I am obsessed with everything Japan. When I travelled to Tokyo last year, I realized that Japanese technology and lifestyle is way into the fulive well in the future already. While I was in awe most of the time, I even fell in love with the Japanese toilets. Especially after watching the Japanese movie “Perfect Days”. Since my toilet at home needs repair, I am considering purchasing one of these babies because once you have a Japanese toilet, it will take going to the toilet to a different level. This is probably how it will all go down, though (no pun intended):
Congratulations, we’ve successfully installed your new Japanese toilet. I’m Haruki, your toilet technician, and—I hear you loud and clear: you desperately need to go number two. Let’s get you logged into your new toilet.
No, I’m afraid you can’t “just go fast and then log into the toilet”—you need to activate your Murakami subscription to enable flushing. Don’t think of it as a recurring monthly fee for standard toilet functionality; consider it the premium you pay for our constantly evolving suite of features.
All right, your toilet is ready for Bluetooth pairing. I promise, after this quick initial setup, you’ll think: “I can’t believe I used to poop the old-fashioned way.” Yes, you do need to enable two-factor authentication, or else your toilet lid won’t unlock.
Let me repeat back what you just said to me. You said: “Please, please, please, for the love of God, hurry up.” Did I understand your concern correctly? Great—I see the problem: you downloaded version 2.1.1 of the Murakami app, the version currently available in the App Store. We just need to manually override you to the unreleased nightly beta build, or the toilet will spit poop out backwards. I assume you’ve broken your phone? Not a problem; I’m happy to void your iPhone’s warranty for you.
I understand you’re currently about to explode. Almost done: we just need to establish your butt fingerprint. I’m afraid it is necessary—that is, if you want to receive your sixteen-dimensional Gut Intelligence Report, including microbiome, inflammation, and other exciting metrics. I’m afraid it’s completely impossible to enable this feature at any time other than the initial setup—and it’s sort of the entire point of a Smart Toilet.
Perfect—you’re now 100 percent set up! And we just need you to pick your “package”, which is technically not part of the setup phase. I recommend the Premium Plus Package, although the Gold Plus Premium Package does let you flush toilet paper. No, you cannot flush regular paper—only Smart Paper, which is currently impossible to find due to supply-chain issues.
I understand your poop situation is now at DEFCON-2, and yes, I am aware that lower DEFCONs are, for some reason, worse. I just need you to accept the terms and conditions—no, of course, we’re not sending your feces to the cloud. We only send your fecal data to the cloud. But don’t worry: it’s 98 percent encrypted.
No, we’re not a poop data-collection company. We’re a poop data-collection and monetization platform, but again, have no fear: we don’t sell your poop data to the highest bidder. We sell your poop data indiscriminately. Just imagine: by scanning your poop, we could detect you have Crohn’s disease up to two years before your primary care physician—and we’ll even tell you about it if you upgrade to the Certified Gold Members Tier.
Congratulations, you’re now ready to poop!
Oh… hmm… it looks like your toilet doesn’t recognize your butt fingerprint. Don’t worry, it’s not a big deal, but you should know your toilet is currently calling the police.
The “Tokyo Toilet” refers to a public art project and has inspired a photo book and the Oscar-nominated movie Perfect Days directed by Wim Wenders. The project involved renowned architects designing 17 unique public restrooms in Shibuya, Tokyo, which serve as the setting for the film.
Happy reading, happy pooping and go watch that movie, it’s amazing.