Working on a sex farm Hosing down your barn door Bothering you livestock Payin’ your pigs to watch em’ hump
Unlike the Space Invaders arcade cabinets of our youth, this tabletop version actually helps you save money. It even features an LCD screen that lights up when a 100 yen coin is entered.
What better place to save your yen than this adorable bank in the shape of Japan’s iconic Yamanote subway train? Each deposit triggers the bank to play a melody from a randomly chosen Yamanote station.
Let’s face it – the economy if pretty shithouse at the moment. The stock market is falling apart, banks are dropping interest rates – it kind of makes you long for the days when all you had was a ceramic pig with a slot in its back that you could drop your coins into.
Well, Australian company Moose Enterprise has gone one step better by creating the Fish Bank, a digital piggy bank that lets your kids (or you) interact with a digital fish named Gil, who counts your money as you deposit it and lets you set savings goals. It’s also part Tamagotchi, as you need to feed and clean Gil’s tank as well.
With every coin deposited, new animations and features are unlocked. And while they’re hardly exciting for an adult, they’re pretty fun for the kiddies – so much so that the product won the 2008 Australian Development Award from the Australian Toy Association.
The Fish Bank hits shelves in November (just in time for Xmas, of course) for $60. Sure, it might not earn you (or your kid) a heap of interest on your investment, but at least its not going to go bankrupt with the current credit crunch…
Japanese kids and otaku need slightly more motivation than the rest of us to save money, and to that end, Takara Tomy has made a piggy bank with an RPG game built right on there. It’s called Bank Quest (was Final Bank Fantasy taken?) and you can buy weapons and armour for your dude from the savings you place inside. That reminds us of the RPG Toilet we saw in Japan one time that rewarded us for the size, weight and consistency of he deuce we dropped. Wait, that might not have happened. [Akihabara News via Boing Boing Gadgets]
Things’d have to be pretty desperate in your love life if you needed one of these Ikemenbank, or “handsome men banks” from Bandai. For each 500 yen coin you drop in the heart-shaped gadget, you’re rewarded with the next step of a virtual love affair with a Tamagotchi-like digital chap inside. He speaks to you with emotionally supportive phrases, but needs constant attention. Not dropping a coin in for five days results in him leaving you, with nothing but a digital love letter to remind you of his pixels. Fill it up with 100 coins, however, and you get the romantic conclusion—it can be happy or sad—but I’m not clear exactly how pornographic it would be… Anyhow, if you’re lovelorn, and in Japan it will be out for around US$46 in September. [Reuters]
Way less insane than the Robotic Piggy Bank we showed you before, this Bankabank piggy bank is made out of soft PVC and holds your coins in a nice, round, eye-pleasing container. No longer do you have to fill up sandwich bags, socks, and duct-taped bra halves in order to make the trek down to your local Coinstar—just throw a Bankabank into your bag and you’re done. Remove coins by removing the plug in the front. Forty-eight quarters will get you one. [ILoveUma via Yanko] More »
