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Twinbird’s MP3-loving Zabady costs ¥21,000 ($180) and can handle boring old audio CDs as well as disks burned with new-fangled MP3 and WMA files; just not the type with DRM slapped on. The most useful feature is a USB port inside the sealed case that allows the Zabady to play back tunes from a connected drive of up to 2GB.

Here in Japan, we’re slap bang in the middle of rainy season, so the newest waterproof MP3 player from Century Japan fits the bill perfectly.

Head over to the iRiver Korea site now and you'll be confronted not with the usual classy-looking audio and video products but by a bunch of artist’s sketches of what appears to be a tacky Mickey Mouse MP3 player.

Although Japan has a reputation as a pretty sophisticated high-tech wonderland, there’s no shortage of garbage products designed to appeal to the wallets of the gullible or the plain bored, so the latest bizarre gadget barely caused us to wrinkle an eyebrow.