We have public transport otakus among many others but here's a vending machine oktaku..
Japanese man so obsessed with vending machine, he's snapped pics of it since 2005
Almost every day, for eight years, a Japanese man has been taking photos of the same vending machine to post on his blog.
Ryuichi
Ikeda said he has "no interest in the vending machine itself or its
contents," but why he started doing so was to update his blog daily and
quickly, reported Kotaku.
He started the blog on August 5, 2005,
and it is still being updated today (April 16, 2013). It also pulls out
older entries to show how the vending machine looked like on that same
day but in past years.
Interestingly, the title of his blog is 'I take a picture of the vending machine every day (or so). I’m very sorry"
There
are over 2,000 photos of the same Coca-Cola vending machine on the
blog; in a country that is famous for its ubiquitous array of ingenious
vending machines that dispense anything from piping hot bowls of ramen
to fresh vegetables and cute Hello Kitty toys.
Although most of
his posts are labelled 'no change' to save time, there are times when
the drinks display changes, the advertisements change, and the vending
machine itself also underwent technological upgrades.
In 2009, the vending machine got an e-money reader to accept digital payments.
Changes
like these warrant the blogger from Sapporo to title his posts 'slight
change' and catalogue the various change or changes that took place. He
will painstakingly indicate which stickers have been placed and what
drinks are new or how they have been rearranged.
It becomes more
like a spot the difference game for the avid reader of Ikeda's daily
obsession which he would prefer to take him less than five minutes a
day.
On his Flickr account, he also has photos of other vending machines around Japan.
Perhaps
Ikeda's daily obsession also reflects on how we take for granted things
we encounter every day -- that we never take note of them until there
is a change, and how things do change daily, just not perceived to have
changed.