A Japanese toymaker selling miniature buses has discovered an unexpected fan base — balding men.
The toy is a replica of a bus that used to run in the 1980s to Mashike, a northern town known for herring.
But the characters for the town’s name can also be read as “Zoumou”, which in Japanese means “increasing hair”.
“It was just a local bus. We never thought this would be a hit,” said Hiroshi Saito, part of the sales division at Engan Bus, a Hokkaido company that produced the commemorative toy with major toymaker Tomy.
“Some of the orders were from adult men who said they were worried about thinning hair,” he said.
To play on the pun, the company gave the toy vehicle the licence plate number KE-2323 — which when read in Japanese sounds like “bushy hair”.
The company produced 6Â 000 of the miniatures, of which half sold quickly.
The rest of the buses, which cost 800 yen ($6,50)), were snatched up after a newspaper article on the phenomenon this month. — AFP