Unko Museum

The association of Japanese popular culture with the population’s ability to get passionate on any random topic sometimes gives birth to puzzling places, such as the Unko Museum, literally the "museum of poop". The name perfectly represents the main focus of the exhibition, handled here in a surrealistic, kawaii and funny way, and absolutely not seriously.

Adult visitors should polish their (finest) sense of humor to enjoy the place and not be afraid of embarrassment or nonsense; children on the other hand are the ideal audience for this kind of typically Japanese or "what the fudge!" museum as it appears in the social medias.

Poo is filled with cuteness by the flashy colors of the Unko Museum. One can touch it, take it for a walk and take pictures with it. The latter is, by the way, the purpose of this museum: enjoying several well-made backgrounds to stage a picture with one’s own personal feces. Visitors get it at the entrance, after sitting on a toilet 🚽 (don’t worry, you must keep your clothes on!) pretending having the pressing urge of defecating. Then, the bottom of the toilet bowl opens on a colored plastic turd to place at the end of a stick for holding it and using it at specific attractions. It can be kept as a souvenir of the visit.

An original theme but all too brief experience

The whole course encompasses several smaller rooms with each their own animation, that are overall quite static. More immersive digital interactions would have been more interesting, with a more modern and evolutive display. The museum may have made a first attempt to it in 2024. It indeed held a spring event titled "Full Bloom!! Unko Sakura 🌸 2024" between March 12 and April 14, using video mapping to recreate a huge cherry blossom volcano 🌋.

The arcade game area is also somehow disappointing, as games are few and only for children. The bright side of the visit is that you'll learn loads of "crappy" vocabulary:

• In Japanese, as the word "unko" is so ubiquitous in the museum that it becomes impossible to forget; and,
• In many other languages thanks to the neon wall decorated with the word "poop" translated for international audiences.

The Unko Museum is an indoor activity mainly recommended for families with kids or groups of young adults, even though some backgrounds are aimed at couples. The admission fee is however quite expensive as the place can be toured in less than one hour. Prefer going on a weekday over a weekend or a national holiday, for more affordable fees and less people.

Several other Unko Museums have existed in the archipelago, especially in Yokohama, Hiroshima or Shizuoka, but they all have closed down, and the only one remaining in Japan is Odaiba’s and its permanent exhibition.