There is weird shit out there for everyone, and students from Japan have just added to the world’s long list of odd objects. Created for lonely students, the “girlfriend replacement coat” intends to mimic the satisfaction a wearer can get from receiving a hug from behind by a girlfriend. The lifelike hugging action is accompanied by a female voice that whispers into the wearer’s ear through connected headphones.
According to online gaming mag Kotaku, the “Riajyuu Coat” (meaning “someone who is pleased with their life outside the Internet”) was thought up by Japanese engineering students at the University of Tsukuba. The concept itself is pretty bizarre to me, but then again, I’m not a big fan of hugs, so I don’t get the appeal. The students who produced the coat are shown in this video demonstrating the soothing effects, but they don’t seem to be taking the concept all that seriously either.
For now, there are no plans for the coat to be made and sold to all the lonely people out there, but we can only hope for a future full of robotic replacements who will always want to be the big spoon to our little.
Speaking of weird stuff, remember “cuddle cafés” and those dispensers full of worn schoolgirl panties? Yeah, we wish we didn’t, either.
