Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on February 2010

Courtesy of Takara Tomy

There’s been a lot of media buzz around the Tenohilight, though you’d probably have to be Japanese to understand it. The dinky torch turns everyone into a fortune teller by projecting a palm-reading chart onto your victim’s hand; different versions let you assess whether someone is going to be lucky in business, love, or absolutely nothing at all. It was developed in collaboration with palm-reading comedian (note the redundancy) Shuhei Imada, and draws on his unorthodox terminology. Forget all that wide-eyed talk about head and heart lines: the damenzu (no-hoper) version has infidelity and stalker lines, which become ero and ni-chome on the moriagaru yoru (steamy nights) one.

Tenohilight, ¥924. Available from most toy and department stores.