Video Series “Only in Japan”: Part 3 – Orange Ball
Blue on Nov 05 2006 at 12:00 am | Filed under: Japan: Video, TV, Movies
UPDATE: Video no. 4 in this series is now available HERE.
How the weeks fly by! Here we are on our third of our weekly series of “Only in Japan” videos. Once again Simon Adams takes us on a mission to unravel the mystery of the “Orange Ball”.
They are round, colourful and embedded deep in the Japanese retail culture. Every bank and post office has two at each teller’s booth. They are hard to miss at convenience stores, and you wont enter another Japanese “gasoline stand” without seeing one. What are they? I am talking about Orange Balls of course. If you have lived in Japan for any amount of time, you must have seen them (you certainly will after watching this video anyway!).
In last week’s video we discovered the “Magic Hand”, the all-purpose tool for handling any I’ve-dropped-my-*insert item here*-on-the-tracks situations at Japanese train stations. This week, we learn that Orange balls are the ubiquitous anti-crime tool in Japan used for stopping all sorts of criminals in their tracks, well almost… They are, orange balls, filled with a thick florescent ink that glows in the dark, and has a strong smell. Police dogs in Japan are actually trained to be able to track this particular odour (said to be similar to rotting pineapples), and are taught that it is the smell of a criminal.
Orange balls are available for about 1500 yen each, and actually come in lots of colours. However, Orange – for some reason – is the only one that is in wide use (I have never seen another colour in use anyway). These spheres of ink are called 防犯ボール (bohan ball) in Japanese, and a simple Google search for the term shows that they are widely available on the internet, here, here and here for starters! You can even buy clear water filled orange balls for practice! (Don’t ask me why you cant just use a normal tennis ball or something.. it’s just good marketing I suppose)
How are they used? Well, I couldn’t be bothered writing a thousand words, so you can watch the cool short video below, and check out this demonstration picture. (The video is much more enjoyable – trust me!)
Once again, thanks to Simon Adams and Andrew Johnson for kindly letting us present you these videos for the first time on the internet.
QuickTime is required for this video, in order to view in full H.264 Quality.
Enjoy “Orange Ball” in Quicktime (click image above) for best quality, or there is a (bad quality) 
version here.
Other stippy.com articles possibly of interest:
29 Responses to “Video Series “Only in Japan”: Part 3 – Orange Ball”
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Great vid, can’t belive they caught that slip on camera! I’m almost embarrassed to say… I’ve never noticed these balls! Will keep my eyes peeled though!
My three year old loves these videos! Watches them over and over again!
I am Japanese, but I never had realised that those balls had a smell that the police dogs can follow! 勉強になった！ Thanks
Brilliant. I can’t believe they got that on camera. How come they didn’t stay to clean it up?
Yes, it is really amazing how the guys caught it on video.. But, Andrew does operate steadicams so I guess he is not new at catching the scene.
what is a steadicam?
Marvelous! Certainly didn’t expect that. Ive never spotted these ball either. Will certainly be looking now…
Sotei-guy, a steadicam is basically a mount for cinema cameras that you “wear”. When you are all decked out, it looks like you are wearing a spacesuit!
See here for details:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steadicam
Didn’t they have something similar to this in Lost in Translation? But it was more of a paintball gun.
[...] So the everyone knows how the Japanese are always coming up with unusual new inventions, right? Well this one is actually quite amazing. It’s a non-violent crime-deterrent ball, and they now have these orange balls in banks and stores everywhere. Check out the site here, and a Quicktime clip of it here. [...]
[...] I’ve never noticed this, but apparently convience stores and bank tellers keep plastic orange balls at their counter to hit robbers with. They are instructed to “throw the ball” at the bad guys. The ball has a strange smelling paint that glows in the dark. Its part of Stippy’s only in Japan video series. But what I’ve always found interesting is Japan’s bicycle valet. [...]
Cool idea,
Wouldn´t work here in Brazil though. If you even looked at the balls the robber will blow your brains up.
[...] Link: Stippy via Boing Boing [...]
Surely the first thing a robber would do in a robbery then would be
to grab the orange balls, perhaps even throw them at the shop staff to confuse things?
Nah… I bet they have attached a fingerprint scanner.
That poor lady in the 7-11, that guy should have helped her clean all that mess up
[...] stippy.com [...]
Stinky Tracker Balls…
These Orange balls are the ubiquitous anti-crime tool in Japan used for stopping all sorts of criminals in their tracks.
The balls are filled with a thick florescent ink that glows in the dark, and has a strong smell. Police dogs in Japan are act…
[...] Source [Stippy] Share and Enjoy:These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages. [...]
i dont get why people wouldnt buy them and just throw them at others they dont like.
even if it was made a crime to do that, i bet people would still do it (stupid ned gangs etc)
[...] Link [...]
[...] I came across these little thief taggers while surfing through the pages over at Stippy and couldn’t resist the post. [...]
[...] unglaublich diese japaner! anscheinend sind diese anti kriminalitäts bälle überall in japan zu finden. aber was sind eigentlich anti kriminalitäts bälle? diese bälle sind mit einem geruchsintensiven farbstoff gefüllt und können zum beispiel bankräuber oder einbrecher hinterhergeworfen werden. sobald sie auf dem täter aufprallen explodieren sie und die kleidung wird eingefärbt. speziell abgerichtet hunde können den geruch dieses farbstoffes schon von weiten riechen und die verfolgung aufnehmen. also wenn ihr das nächste mal in japan seit, wisst ihr wofür diese bälle zu verwenden sind. quelle und mehr informationen dazu: http://www.stippy.com [...]
It wouldn’t necessarily hurt to spell “fluorescent” correctly instead of writing “florescent”.
I have been looking a bit, but I finally saw one of these yesterday! What a crazy way to “tag” criminals… I didnt think this was for real… but I guess I was wrong! Gonna keep an eye out for flouro coloured robbers from now on.
Personally, it seems like this is a good way to just piss off the criminals more. I mean…if you were gonna rob a bank and you had a gun, probably you’d go in there thinking, “Well, I’ll wave it around at ppl so they’ll take me seriously and gimme money, but I don’t wanna KILL anyone.”
BAM!
Smacked with a giant paint balloon. Wouldn’t that just make you want to shoot the person who threw it?
Just goes to show what a safe country Japan is.
I remember reading an article about a thief who contacted the police because he was worried his drunken salaryman victim might have been ill.
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/member/nn20050903a7.html
all the people commenting such as “throwing a marking paint would make the crook shoot you” don’t realize that guns are not common in Japan. the Yakuza have them, but they dont really have an interest in robbing a small time store…
just because they sell them all over the usa doesn’t mean everywhere else in the world is the same. wake up.
[...] (春), Tokyo (東京県) — tutousan @ 12:30 am 22 months in Tokyo and I have yet to see the orange ball. They are round, colourful and embedded deep in the Japanese retail culture. Every bank and post [...]