Cheap joke item could lead to gruesome disfigurement thanks to terrifying packaging snafu.

100 yen store chain Daiso offers an amazing variety of products. Sure, life essentials such as dishes and toilet paper are the biggest sellers, but Daiso also sells novelty gag items, like the Dokkiri Cutter (“Prank Cutter Knife”) pictured above.

While it looks like a legitimate utility knife, the Dokkiri Cutter actually has a dulled edge, and its semicircular indention is sized to make it look like you’ve accidentally sliced deep into your finger, a bit of comic deception that the packaging promises will be “an absolute hit at parties.”

Sure, you could say it’s a cheap joke, but hey, what do you expect for 100 yen (US$0.90)? And actually, the Dokkiri Cutter is a surprisingly high-quality comedy contraption, made out of real metal and startlingly convincing, as shown by this video of it in use.

But while Daiso has achieved success by giving its customers value beyond its humble prices, things got a little too real at one of its branches in Tokyo’s Chuo Ward, where a customer who’d purchased a Dokkiri Cutter brought it back to the store after noticing that it didn’t have the semicircular indention it was supposed to. Even more troubling: instead of being blunt, it had a razor-sharp edge.

It seems that somewhere in the distribution process, actual utility knives were packaged as Dokkiri Cutters, and managed to make their way to the store without anyone noticing the mix-up. The customer’s report wasn’t a hoax, either, as a subsequent check of the store’s stock turned up a number of other Dokkiri Cutter packages that contained actual knives.

While Daiso does sell knives, it obviously wants them to be labeled as such. Given that the simplistic nature of the Dokkiri Cutter’s comedy naturally appeals to children and intoxicated adults, two demographics with a penchant for self-inflicted injuries, Daiso has suspended sales of Dokkiri Cutters at all of its roughly 3,000 stores across Japan, and is carrying out a voluntary recall to find and remove any actual blades. In the meantime, those of us trying to be a hit at parties will instead have to rely on our witty wordplay, disarmingly attractive physical appearance, or worldly knowledge of breast milk-related desserts.

Source: Yahoo! Japan News/Asahi Shimbun Digital via Hachima Kiko

Images: Amazon Japan

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