In March this year, Yokohama opened its doors to one of its most attention-grabbing attractions yet, a museum dedicated to poop.
Officially known as the Unko Museum (“unko” is poop in Japanese) this brightly colored feces-fascinated museum was meant to be a temporary attraction that would run until July. No major surprise here (in the land of magical toilets) but the museum was so poop-ular that its opening was extended until September 30.
Now given the attraction’s unprecedented success, the museum has followed through with its plans to establish an outpost in Odaiba, where it will become a permanent Tokyo attraction.
If you don’t know anything about the museum, the first thing you should learn is this new waste-wonderland is not as disgusting as it sounds.
The concept of the Unko Museum is based around “Max Unko Kawaii” which means “the maximum cuteness of poop.” Think bright pastel-colored, perfectly symmetrical poop emojis that look more like soft-serve ice cream than they do last night’s dinner.
The permanent museum — which opened August 9 – takes up real estate on the second floor of the shopping mall and tourist attraction DiverCity Tokyo Plaza. It’s bigger, cuter, brighter and poopier than its original incarnation in Yokohama, which will remain open until the end of September.
Similar to the Yokohama version, visitors can expect plenty of cute poop-centric selfie photo spots. The exhibitions are split up into zones with names that can only be described as some pretty crappy Japanese wordplay: un-teractive, un-sta-genic and un-telligence.
One of the most exciting attractions is the poop-shaped volcano installation, which true to theme promises to shoot out little poop lava. Just when you thought a poop-museum couldn’t get any more bizarre.
Guests will also be warmly welcomed by the museum’s very own mascot named Unberuto. The best way to describe Unberuto would be to say he looks like the adult love child of the Michelin man and a sexy marshmallow. But he’s actually an anthropomorphized white poop that carries a toilet around with him.
Unberuto will be getting a feature room in the museum, which makes sense because he is surprisingly a rather deep character. He’s a philosopher who likes to ponder the great questions of the universe sitting on his porcelain throne, while (of course) doing number twos.
Unberuto’s bowel movements are no regular run-of-the-mill poos, they’re also living beings who keep the museum safe (from what exactly, we’re not sure).
If you’re a gamer, then you’ll want to pay a visit to the “Kusogame Center.” With a name that translates to the “Shit-game Center,” it doesn’t sound so appealing. But there is the promise of diving into piles of toy poops. Where else can you say you’ve done that?
Like any good Tokyo attraction, the Unko Museum also features a well-stocked gift store. Named the “Unko Factory,” here you can pick up some shiny new turd treasures to take back home.
While it’s all a bit out there, this museum seems like a logical next step for a country that produced Unko Kanji Doriru, the poop-related kanji textbooks, and Oshiri Tantei, the world’s cutest butt-faced detective.
If you want to get down to business, the Odaiba museum is now open from 10 a.m – 9 p.m. daily but everyone knows the best time to go is poo-thirty… Ok, not really, anytime is good.
Alternatively, the Yokohama museum will remain open until September 30.
So what are you waiting for? Don’t hold in the urge too long, if you gotta’ go you gotta’ go.
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