Originally marketed for medical students, a life-sized skeleton paper doll has proved a hit in Japan among people who have time on their hands and want to piece together the human body.
Like a human, “Bony” has about 200 bones and it takes a grown-up three days to finish reconstructing the doll by assembling paper parts that link together without scissors or paste.
Bony, which when reconstructed stands 1,6m tall and weights 250g, was designed by a medical professor, a dentistry professor and a papercraft artist
.
“In the past, Bony was used in classrooms at medical and nursing schools, but we want to expand our customer base,” said Masaaki Fukuda, head of the sales department at Bony’s maker, Nishimura, a medical book publisher.
“We hope people are enjoying our skeleton doll. We have created a real skeleton and it is very easy to make it,” Fukada said.
Priced at 4 410 yen (about R250), the skeleton doll is on sale at bookstores and Nishimura said more than 20 000 have so far been sold.
“Bony can be hung from the top and some people decorate their rooms with Bony or place him at their home entrances to scare visitors. Besides studying human bones, Bony can serve many interesting purposes,” Fukuda said. — AFP