Tokyo Thrift is a new column on The Verge where Sam Byford, news editor for Asia, trawls the second-hand market to explore the history, design, and culture of Japanese gadgets. It runs on the last Sunday of each month.

As a reaction against this homogeniety, Fukasawa created a candybar-style phone unlike any other. The Infobar featured an extraordinary angular design where the multicolored buttons ran edge-to-edge and interlocked like a jigsaw puzzle. And although it was available in a range of colorways, the red, white, and blue "Nishikigoi" scheme (named after a type of Japanese carp) you see here became an instant classic and one closely associated with the brand from then on out.

The Nishikigoi colorway became an instant classic

The product’s design and naming speaks to the way that Japanese featurephones of the time pioneered much of the functionality of what we now know as smartphones. "Since, down the road, the phone function would become just one of the functions of this portable information device, and email, internet access, music downloads, and digital moving images would be added, it was decided that a suitable name would be Infobar — a bar for information — rather than simply a ‘phone,’" Fukasawa says.

Although it didn’t do much to stop the explosive proliferation of flip phones throughout Japan in the 2000s, the first Infobar was nonetheless a big hit for carrier KDDI, which to this day is known for promoting design-forward products like Marc Newson’s Talby phone and Tokujin Yoshioka’s Fx0 Firefox handset. Three years after the first Infobar, KDDI and Fukasawa continued their collaboration with my personal favorite phone from the range.

The Infobar 2’s design is just astonishing. It extends the display right against the edge-to-edge keys of its processor, then smooths both halves out to sit flush with the phone’s gorgeous curved edges. Fukasawa describes the design as "shaped like a square candy that has melted in your mouth and has just started to take on a roundness." It’s comfortable in the hand and makes efficient use of space, but just as importantly it’s flat-out stunning to look at. It’s the first phone that really made me turn my head when I first came to Japan.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t track down a Nishikigoi model in time for this column. (It has to be Nishikigoi.) I’ll keep looking and follow up with some bonus pictures when I can, because it’s really worth it.