One of the most exciting finds from the Tokyo Show Show is from U-Mate, a company aligned with Takara Tomy that’s been making some pretty cool products recently. We’ve covered their Aurora Lamp before, but their new Mangekyo Kaleidoscope Projector has us even more excited. Mangekyo (万華鏡) actually means “kaleidoscope” in Japanese, and this device projects a bright and evolving kaleidoscope image onto your wall or ceiling in full color. By covering it with the white lid it also becomes a room-lamp with the same effect, but contained.
Mangekyo’s design invokes the Homestar Pro planetarium from Sega, but while the Homestar uses pre-made discs, Mangekyo allows users to insert discs, beads, and other objects to create their own original patterns for projection.
Interestingly, Sega Toys is also about to release its own kaleidoscope projector in spring 2008 under the same name and strikingly similar packaging. Since U-Mate is beating them to the punch with the Mangekyo name by a good six months, it looks like Sega will have to be a little more creative, but their product is quite good as well.
The video above is actually from the Sega Toys version, but when we saw the U-Mate Mangekyo in action we weren’t able to record it, and their effects were pretty similar anyway. Unfortunately, our admittedly lame digital camera didn’t capture the brightness very well, but we can assure you that it’s considerably better. The U-Mate Mangekyo will be available at the end of the summer.
Pre-order the Mangekyo online
U-Mate homepage
Michael is the Editor of JapanTrends.com and Director of the 
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