This is the Otohime (音姫), literally translated into English as the Sound Princess. As a male, this is something that I’ve sometimes heard about, but rarely come across. The Sound Princess inhabits women’s bathrooms in Japan, or in the case of a cafe I went to on the weekend, the unisex bathroom.
The purpose of the Otohime is to create a sound that drowns out and hides any embarrassing toilet sounds that you might make whilst going about your business. After all, you wouldn’t want the person waiting outside or in the next cubicle to hear what you’re up to. Click on the sound button above to hear the Otohime in action. The sound is a recording of water flushing, which saves water because it saves the necessity of flushing the toilet to create the noise to hide your toilet sounds.
1 comment
Comments are closed.