There are a couple of cultural details you have to be familiar with in order for this story to make any sense — (1) Japan is a very safe country, but people tend to be paranoid. (2) Even deep in the Japanese countryside there are vending machines everywhere in Japan. You’ll see rows of them lined up on the street, near train station, or even apparently in the middle of nowhere. (3) Especially in certain areas of Tokyo, you can see people wearing some of the craziest things… and somehow it’ll see perfectly normal.

Essentially, the vending machine costume is designed to be something a woman could carry in her purse and hide in if she felt threatened (most likely in an urban environment). It is supposed to be realistic enough to fool an attacker and easy enough to unfold that a woman could do so in seconds.

This video shows what appears to be an earlier prototype of the vending machine costume — it’s just two-dimensional but has a pattern similar to that on the three-dimensional costume. It also shows the manhole cover purse (I think the best part is when the man actually trips over the edge of the purse):

Apparently the rationale behind the costume is that people in countries such as the US might fight back against an attacker, but women in Japan are more timid and don’t want to make a scene, so it’s “easier for them to hide.”

Here’s a longer story about the vending machine disguise (via Reuters). You can see a glimpse of the 3D costume at the end. It seems to be for two people. The clip plays after the commercial.

After the Clinton years when people such as Richard Armitage (US Deputy Secretary of State from 2001-05) and Michael Green (Senior Director for Asian affairs at the NSC from 2004-05) came to power in Washington the concern of “Japan passing” receded from the minds of many Japanese politicians. The nomination of Obama and the return of the Democrats to power has rekindled the idea that America may again tilt more toward China. (Random Obama fact: He likes bulgogi and kimchi).

Interestingly, the fear in Japan of being passed (or ignored) doesn’t only apply to relations with the United States. In addition to the ongoing Australia-Japan disputes over whaling, current prime minister of Australia Kevin Rudd’s “widely celebrated Sinophile credentials” have also contributed to concerns that Australia will lean more toward China at the expense of relations with Japan.

So are Japan’s concerns about being “passed” (by the United States, Australia, or other bodies such as the UNSC) unfounded or warranted? Even if many of Obama’s advisers indeed turn out to be from the Clinton era, I think it’s unrealistic that Japan will cease to be an important US ally in Asia.