Japan has a lot of vending machines. It’s something that almost everyone who’s ever heard of Japan knows. Everyone who has ever been there mentions the vending machines. I’ve been to Japan twice and I’m here to tell you, vending machines are everywhere.

Apparently, there are over 5.5 MILLION vending machines (自動販売機 or Jidō hanbaiki) in Japan, with 4 million of them in Tokyo alone. These are just numbers I got online and can’t actually back them up, but I can believe it. In fact, I’m surprised there aren’t more.

Even at an isolated section of Kawaguchi Lake (near Mt. Fuji), where there was nothing except for a handful of houses, there were three vending machines lined up diligently.

Benri, Desu!

I personally love the vending machine thing. You can get anything you could possibly need from them! Mainly, I used them for on-the-go drinks when I was exploring.

But you can also get all kinds of snacks, umbrellas, booze & cigs – though you need a Japanese ID for those, fresh flowers, toys, souvenirs, canned bread/cake, milk (if you’re a milk fan, go to Platform 5 at Akihabara station – there are about 6 vending machines entirely dedicated to milk), and I could go on and on. You can even get full meals and hot drinks out of some machines!

A fun thing to do, particularly in Tokyo, is to find all the cute design on vending machines. Here’s a collage of some that I’ve found:

Japanese vending machines are cheap, convenient (便利 benri in Japanese), and ubiquitous. One of my favourite things to do in Japan is look at all the vending machines I find to see what weird and wonderful stuff they have on offer.

So when I heard rumours of a ‘haunted vending machine corner’ in Tokyo, you know I had to go and see it for myself!

To Electric Town!

Akihabara (秋葉原) is an area of Tokyo that is extremely famous among techies, nerds, gamers, and manga fans. Its nickname, Electric Town, sums up the buzzing, brightly-lit streets offering gaming arcades and bursting with shops dedicated to technology and anime. Cutely-dressed girls from the many maid cafes wave colourful flyers inviting you to come for coffee and cake.

(Editor’s Note: I definitely recommend going to a maid café if you’re a sucker for moe, or cutesy things. They’re not as ‘weird’ as people try to make out, if you approach it as a cute, fun gimmick. I had a lovely time at Akiba Zettai Ryoiki A.D. 2045! If you’re going to be a creep towards the girls, though, do us all a favour and stay away)

It’s here, but away from the neon lights of the main streets, that the ‘Haunted Vending Machine Corner’ resides. It’s also known as ‘weird vending machines’, ‘Horror Vending Machine Corner’, and ‘cursed vending machines’, and is easy to find on a map.

We emerged from the A2 exit of Akihabara station, opposite the enormous branch of Yodobashi Camera (also check that out if you like tech, it’s a wonderland). From there, I’d estimate that we walked for about 7-10 minutes, using the Mansei Bridge to cross over Kanda River.

Haunted Vending Machines

On a street corner it sat. The building is grey and nondescript, with vertical ‘planks’ of siding. Underneath, where the ground floor should be, is a niche with no walls. You can still see the rusted girders that map out the original framework of the storefront that once stood there. There are even ‘frames’ where I imagine promotional posters and information was posted.

Our horror corner is discordant with the other buildings on the street, which are simple but kept in good nick. This place looked like someone had gutted it, and it was just never rebuilt. I wondered if someone was keeping watch from the upstairs windows, made of frosted glass so we couldn’t see inside.

Stepping inside the main street-facing side, I immediately noted the bunches of wires haphazardly taped or roped together. I’m sure that’s up to code.

The vending machines all appeared to work and were stocked, despite some of them looking old and dodgy. Caroline (whom you’ve met before) and I immediately circled the small space to peer into the machines and examine their wares. Here’s a list of some of the notable things:

• Toy insects
• Coffee and other canned drinks
• Bells (the larger containers were labelled みんなの鐘 (min-na no suzu, ‘bells for everyone’)
• Toy trains and cars
• A tiiiiny can of cherries (that Caroline simply had to buy)

• A variety of small balls
• Faith canned bread (with cute panda designs!)
• Herbal drinks
• Random food like canned oden, yakitori, and milk biscuits

The ‘wall’ at the back of the space was made of thin wooden panels, broken in places. You could see bare wooden support beams throughout. The outer side walls were of corrugated plastic, and the floors appeared to be chipboard tiles – the gaps in them were filled with bits of concrete.

Unknown Provenance

Apparently the ‘stock’ here does rotate, and there are always different things. For example, we were there in autumn so I assume the Halloween sweets had been added recently. They were the same ones I’d actually picked up from the lovely Niki no Kashi in Ameyoko that very day!

As far as I know, no one has ever seen the restocking happening…

Items also don’t seem to be updated in any uniform manner. Some of the stuff looked brand new, but others were sun-faded like they’d been there a while. I won’t lie, a chaotic part of me wanted to buy and eat a faded tube of Chip Star to see if I died.

There was also another Chip Star tube that appeared to have been re-sealed with packing tape. Oh, H E L L no!!

At the front and side of the buildings were small condom machines. The boxes were dubiously named ‘Passion’ (is that even a brand?), and there were stickers on the machines with an ‘ok’ symbol (interestingly, this symbol can also represent money or coins in Japan!) saying ‘stop AIDs’. It’s a good sentiment, but somehow I don’t think those prehistoric rubbers will stop anything.

Mystery Prizes

And then there were the packages. These are the main draw for people in the know who visit the haunted vending machine corner. A lot of the vending machine space is taken up by boxes of varying sizes, wrapped in paper with typed writing on them. Some were wrapped in newspaper with an intriguing folded note taped to them.

Looking closer, you can begin to parse phrases from the visible ‘wrapping’. This is where it’s useful to know how to read some Japanese, as it’s very… Interesting.

Several boxes appear to have stories or streams-of-consciousness from someone – I presume the person who ‘runs’ the vending machine corner. Others seem to contain instructions or recipes. All of them read in a strange, disjointed way, and a lot of the stories are simply bizarre.

Most of the boxes also had what appeared to be dates handwritten on them.

A Glimpse of the Proprietor

I’m kicking myself because I didn’t take clearer photos of the boxes to translate some examples. A couple of things I could read were:

• The writer appeared to have raised some money, and planned to donate it to Ukraine’s defence funds. I caught phrases like “It can build tunnels and be used for air defence and underground camps.” There was also English on this box, saying “BANKSYS POWER saving a child’s life.” which I imagine was a reference to this. This is quite a normal (and noble) one, and I did see ウクライナ (the katakana reads ‘u ku ra i na’ = Ukraine) mentioned on several of the boxes.
• In addition to the Ukraine war musings, this sentence jumped out at me: 日本にテロリストが入ってくる. Nihon ni terorisuto ga haitte kuru – ‘terrorists enter Japan’. This box was labelled 23/12 and it was October when I went. Assuming it was only from the year previously, I looked up terrorism in Japan from then. There were no terrorist attacks – however, there was increasing public concern about the potential for terrorism. Maybe the writer was afraid of that?
• Continuing on the humanitarian train of thought, the writer said that South Korea was a country of concern. “So how about setting up a temporary protection area for the Korean disaster, and running a temporary protection area for insects and disasters?”
• “If tens of thousands of people die from reckless driving on the East Coast, will the country take action against the Yellow Sea?” (that sea is between SK and Japan, so I assume he’s still going on about Korea)
• Sounding like a diary entry, I could make out that the writer had gotten a phone call saying that their son had lost “the company’s important money”. Following that someone came to the house and took ¥500,000 from them. Yikes.

I Got a Prize…?

I decided as I was on me ‘olidays, I would splurge on one of the mystery boxes. I spent around ¥1200 – about £5.99 at the current exchange rate – for a mid-sized box.

There are several sizes in the machines and the prices vary wildly. I wonder if the vendor has priced them randomly, or if some of the prizes inside are worth more than others.

My box was wrapped very neatly in a newspaper ad for tools. It didn’t have any exterior story, only a folded up piece of paper taped to the front. I simply had to know what it said.

This is the bit when we saw the only other people who perused the vending machine corner while we were there. When I’d retrieved my mystery box from the machine, an Australian couple approached us. They said they were so curious about the boxes, but a bit too apprehensive to buy one.

I imagine they were disappointed when I said I wouldn’t be opening it there, but I did decide to try to translate the note taped to the box.

It appeared to be some kind of tonkatsu recipe, but it was written in a really odd way. Almost like a story, with added asides about the writer’s life and family.

Now, something weird. I wanted to translate it properly on writing this post. But – and I shit you not – that piece of paper is nowhere to be found. I tore my room apart looking for it, and it’s just… gone.

All in all, my box’s ‘story’ was less scary and weird than some of the ones I’ve read about online but still… Why? The couple thanked me for sharing the note with them, and they left shortly after. Caroline and I were also about to leave, when we realised this place was bigger than we initially thought.

But Wait, There’s More!

I’d stopped to take a photo from further away, and we both saw that there was more of the haunted vending machine corner behind the thin wood panel wall. From the side street, we could see it more obviously.

The rest of the place consisted of a very narrow ‘path’ between two lines of machines, and – at the back – a small area through a tight squeeze. Machines were scattered more haphazardly, but it was surprising how many they’ve managed to put in.

It was the middle of the day, but it was quite dim under there. The only real light was the eerie glow of an old-school popcorn machine, daring me to buy some. SUSPICIOUS.

One standalone machine at the back, with more of a carousel style than the standard Japanese vending machine, appeared to have nothing in it until I got closer and peered inside. There were small, rolled-up papers on each shelf. It took me a second to realise that they were Omikuji (御御籤), which are fortunes, or ‘sacred lots’. These fortunes can either be very good, very bad, or anything in between.

NO THANKS. I had a feeling that this vending machine would only dispense cursed fortunes and there was no tree nearby to tie them to, to leave the bad luck behind.

Examining the other vending machines, I spotted random things decorating them. A My Melody plush hung from a hook in on, a pop of cute juxtaposing the otherwise weird surroundings. Some machines had canned food sitting in the corners, where they couldn’t be selected.

WARNINGS… AND DIRE THREATS

On most of the vending machines in the haunted corner, there are bits of yellow tape with messages printed on them in Japanese. Most of them were the standard warnings about CCTV and alarm bells, with others declaring that the surveillance is manned and that neighbourhood volunteers also keep an eye on the place.

But other bits of tape were more… Unusual. Some were what I could only describe as doomsday messages. Things like ‘Every day, every day, it’s an earthquake. Canned, long-term storage food.’ and ‘Can you protect your family?’ Another tape read: There is JT coffee in the health centre, too. HEALTH CENTRE!?

Other messages appeared to be advertisements, or complete nonsense. Some of them:

• “Eat horse meat and run through life.”
• “2 hits on the soft-shelled turtle, 3^rd and 4^th hits on the red viper.”
• “Let’s blow bubbles, 60yen. Let’s place with someone you like. Don’t throw it on Jizo.” (the tape used 地蔵 for ‘Jizo’, so I assume it’s saying not to drench the small Buddha statues!)

Ultimately, my favourite yellow tapes were the unhinged threats to people vandalising or misbehaving in the haunted vending machine corner.

Earlier, I’d seen a lot of stickers and graffiti on the wall in the front ‘room’ – these apparently pissed off the owner, as one of the tapes read: Stop graffiti and stickers, or I’ll cut off your balls!

As well as threatening tape, there was also a wooden sign on which someone had daubed in paint, “If you’re caught pissing and shitting in here, I will release the CCTV footage online”, or words to that effect. I couldn’t help but laugh.

I want to reiterate that I’m not fluent in Japanese, and I’m still learning how to read kanji. I’ve double-checked them all, but they may still be imperfect or a little off. But I think the general gist is there.

THE ARSON

On the left wall, right at the front of the vending machine corner, there was a piece of A4 paper in a plastic cover pinned to the beam. Typed on it was a combination of story, warning, and stream of consciousness. Here’s a rough translation:

Warning: Please do not leave cardboard boxes in this vending machine corner. Any combustible or non-combustible material may have triggered an arson fire, and there was also a baby sleeping in the neighbour’s apartment. It continues despite my previous warnings.

He has left cardboard boxes 50 times. Age: around 30 years old, medium build, medium height, brown sweater, navy pants, shoulder bag.

I have noticed when I looked up the corner on Google Maps that the building does resemble a shop front or similar that has been gutted by fire. Is there a kernel (or even a bucket of popcorn) of truth in the story?

But Why??

On doing further research on the haunted vending machine corner, I found… Well, not much. Other posts about people’s experiences there, but nothing really about who owns it, or why it exists in the first place.

I mean, it definitely doesn’t help that my Japanese isn’t advanced enough to deep-dive on the JP internet, so maybe locals would know more. If you know something, or learn something about it – please let me know in the comments! It’s really intriguing.

Naturally, Caroline and I mused about this and came up with our own pet theories. I’m wondering if it’s some super committed art project. Caroline theorised that it’s just one super rich, bored dude who’s doing it just because he can. What do you think?

What’s in the Box!?

I know you want to find out what was in my mystery box from the haunted vending machine corner. It was actually 5 days later – we were sitting on the veranda of the cute little traditional-style house we’d booked in Kyoto.

As the evening drew in, I suddenly remembered my ‘prize’ – crammed into my suitcase for the Shinkansen journey. We decided we couldn’t wait till we went home and had to see what I had. First, I gave the box a good shake. It made a loud rattling sound (UNSETTLING). Then, I ripped off the newspaper ad wrapping my gift up.

It was a box of Tabekko Doubutsu (たべっ子どうぶつ – the first word appears to be a portmanteau of ‘eat’ and ‘child’, and ‘doubutsu’ means animal). They’re like animal crackers. We’d never tried them before, though we had seen them in lots of shops.

The box said they were ‘butter flavoured’, which sounds a bit gross but stay with me. These things are addictive. They’re sooo tasty – definitely buttery, but a bit sweet too? It’s hard to describe, but whatever. I’m now obsessed with them.

Heads up here! My Tabekko Doubutsu was in date (and AMAZING), but I have read stories from other people that say that snacks they bought at the haunted vending machine corner were stale or out of date. It seems everything’s a lottery in that place.

I don’t know if all of the mystery boxes contain snacks, of course, so definitely give it a whirl when you visit the vending machines!

Visiting the Vendor

Visiting the haunted vending machine corner was definitely worth our time. It was surprising how spooky it actually was, as it’s just a run-down little corner in a capital city. Once you’re inside, it’s suddenly very, very quiet. The dire warnings pasted around add to the creepy effect.

Generally, the corner seems to attract tourists more. I have read accounts from Japanese people, but generally it’s become more of a gimmick for foreigners. We only saw the Australian couple while we were there, and I’m glad as it made the experience more liminal and weird.

…I wonder if it’d be creepier in the evening?

A couple more warnings/notes for you guys:

• The pricing is incredibly random and arbitrary, especially on the mystery boxes.
• As I mentioned previously, check expiry dates on any food you happen to get.
• Make sure you have a lot of shrapnel on you, as the vending machines don’t give change – you’ll need an exact amount if you don’t want to lose cash.
• Further to that, some machines apparently just eat your money (again, I was lucky, but just beware).

My biggest thing with the haunted vending machine corner is the mystery of it. Who and why?? Is it a quirky artist? An edgelord? Someone genuinely unwell, or even unhinged? I DON’T KNOW, and it drives me crazy.

Have you been to the haunted vending machine corner? If so, did you get a mystery box? Tell me about your own experience! What are your theories about where the corner came from?

Do any of you know any weird places similar to this? I want to hear about them – this is exactly the sort of stuff I love exploring!