
The town of Gujo Hachiman is the centre of Japan's replica food industry - sergeant3
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/mar/03/looks-good-enough-to-eat-inside-the-home-of-japans-fake-food-industry
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dopeboy
I was in Japan a month ago and these are everywhere! Pretty much every where I
went (esp in Tokyo), they're in front of the restaurant.

After awhile, you'll notice they don't vary too much one to the other. But
it's still a fascinating UX. I'm used to looking up photos on Yelp and yet I
still found myself looking closely at...plastic!

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hkmurakami
It's basically the equivalent of clothed mannequin displays for boutiques and
shops.

People are window shopping a lot of Japan for their food options, oweing to
the very high walkability, density of shops esp inside department stores and
airports and the like, and high overall average quality of shops where very
rarely will you have a terrible experience, making people more willing to step
into ships with very little prior vetting. So when your customers are window
shopping, these serve to tempt and posture their interest to step foot in the
store. When you see the udon bowl you might think "oh I didn't realize it
until now, but I'm in the mood for udon today".

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sdrothrock
> making people more willing to step into shops with very little prior vetting

After eleven years in Japan, it works the other way around for me too; if
there are no plastic samples out front, I'll just mentally dismiss restaurant
and keep looking for somewhere else.

Even the restaurants that can't afford plastic samples for whatever reason
will often make popular/common dishes and just saran wrap them to put them
outside to show what's on the menu.

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have_faith
There is an excellent scene in Wim Wenders Tokyo Ga[0] showing wax food being
made in Tokyo in the 80's. The scene itself is incredibly therapeutic to watch
for some reason. But that could be Wim's filming style.

[0]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9y2Ej3AZ4c0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9y2Ej3AZ4c0)

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gbuk2013
Nothing to do with Japan, but there is a very fun Wonderfood museum in Penang,
Malaysia. It has lots of incredibly realistic fake food. I was looking at the
plastic things up close and still found it difficult to believe it was fake.
:)

[https://www.facebook.com/pg/Wonderfoodmuseum/photos/](https://www.facebook.com/pg/Wonderfoodmuseum/photos/)

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herbst
Ended up in there by chance when I looked for a escape on a brutally hot day.
Wonderful unique experience. And the staff is eager to explain every little
detail which was a nice add on as lost solo traveller.

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bkraz
Japanology had a great episode on this. I highly recommend the whole series.
[https://youtu.be/YULgJf_48FQ](https://youtu.be/YULgJf_48FQ)

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subpixel
I'm reminded of this scene from the Wim Wenders documentary Tokyo-Ga on the
same subject:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9y2Ej3AZ4c0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9y2Ej3AZ4c0)

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Giorgi
I always wondered if it is possible to buy some of those waxes somewhere
online, I would like to try it at home

~~~
franciscop
I am in Japan and I was wondering the opposite; whether there is a market big
enough to sell those online!

Curious, what are you interested on and how much would you pay for it
including everything? (Item+transportation+fees+labour).

