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The story
On August 15, Gunma Denki gave the first public showing of its in-development new “Yobikomi-kun” model at Comic Market 108. The new version lets users load their own audio onto a microSD card to play custom background music, and photos from the event went viral on social media.
On 5ch, comments like “who needs custom BGM, the original tune is all you need” piled up one after another, and the thread even spun off into a debate over whether playing BGM and voice announcements in stores at all is a uniquely Japanese business custom.
August 15, 2026, 7:48 PM
On August 15, Gunma Denki unveiled its in-development new “Yobikomi-kun” model at Comic Market 108, held at Tokyo Big Sight. The new unit shown at the venue has become a hot topic on social media.
Yobikomi-kun is a promotional audio POP device known for the “Popo- popopopo♪” background tune played in supermarkets and elsewhere. It can play a combination of BGM and recorded voice announcements, and also supports a motion sensor.
Source: x.com / Original article here
What people said
is it really that great?
Popopopopopopopopopopopo Po~Po! Po~♫
it forces the usual tune on you anyway.
Popopopopo-
Popopopopo-po-po-po-po-po-
isn't that different from this?
Hmm…
but there shouldn't be a melody like the one in the thread title, though…
>The continuation of >10 is
"popo- popopopo"
What does the rest of >10 sound like in your head?
Is that Noripi!? (nickname of celebrity Noriko Sakai)
Somebody give Yui Ogura some work too — she's the tourism ambassador for Midori City, where Gunma Denki's headquarters are.
Let's eat meat♪ Let's eat meat♪ Meat meat meat meat, I wanna eat meat♪
Fish, fish, fish~~~♪ When you eat the fi~sh♪
(riffing on Japan's famous "Fish Fish Fish" grocery jingle) Japan's probably the only country blasting music like crazy in every single store nationwide.
Maybe Japanese people just hate silence?
Dunno though
Honestly that stuff is unbearably noisy.
Am I in the minority in Japan for wanting to shop somewhere quiet?
I'd love to know how much it actually affects sales and foot traffic.
Body, body, body— all that's left is the body—
https://youtu.be/GFP4aH4dmMU?t=561
Ski resorts play music nonstop too, for some reason
Banana! Banana! Ba-na-na!!
It's good exactly because it was written by a professional composer who specializes in unassuming background tunes meant to evoke a bright supermarket interior.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qNWTMqjquIc
Playing the Yobikomi-kun actually boosts sales.
Same goes for clothing-store staff calling out to customers.
Even if some customers hate it, stores keep doing it because playing music and calling out ends up being more profitable in the end.
Background and Key Points
Yobikomi-kun is a real commercial product line from Gunma Denki, a hardware maker based in Midori City, Gunma Prefecture, that has supplied Japanese supermarkets and discount chains for years with the audio “POP” boxes that loop a chime plus a recorded voice pitching the day’s sale items. The “Popo- popopopo♪” tune is instantly recognizable to Japanese shoppers the way a store jingle or PA chime might be elsewhere, and it’s closely associated with discount retailers like Don Quijote, which several posters reference by nickname (“Donki sound”). That the newest prototype was shown at Comic Market — Japan’s giant biannual fan-convention for self-published manga and doujin goods, not a retail trade show — is itself notable: it signals Gunma Denki leaning into the device’s unexpected internet-meme status among younger, otaku-adjacent audiences rather than just pitching it to store owners.
The thread’s real fault line isn’t over the hardware upgrade (microSD-loaded custom BGM) itself, which nobody objects to as a feature — it’s over whether replacing the iconic stock tune with custom audio ruins the point of the product, versus the minority view questioning whether loud in-store announcements and background music are a peculiarly Japanese retail habit at all, with posters wondering if it actually helps sales or just adds noise.
What the thread never settles, despite raising it, is any real evidence either way: one poster asserts the announcements demonstrably boost sales, but no data, source, or study is cited by anyone — it’s presented as received retail wisdom, not fact, so readers shouldn’t take that claim as verified.
*This article is composed as an excerpt and summary of the 5ch (Business News+) thread “New “Yobikomi-kun” model (in development), known for its “Popo- popopopo♪” tune, becomes a hot topic at Comiket — can play custom BGM from a microSD card”.
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