Photo/Illutration Ichiro Kawakita, president of Kawakita, with his Masukucchi fan at his company in Higashi-Osaka, Osaka Prefecture (Takashi Nakajima)

HIGASHI-OSAKA, Osaka Prefecture--Could creating more user-friendly COVID-19 protection than masks that must be endlessly doffed and donned be as simple as sticking a mask on a Japanese handheld summer fan?

Local plastics processing firm Kawakita here thinks so.

The company is selling a mashup of a nonwoven fabric face mask and a fan it calls the Masukucchi, putting a pandemic twist on the fans that are ubiquitous during summer in Japan.

The mask slips into a plastic pocket on the warped fan. That way, the mask won't come into contact with surfaces so people who use the fans can put them down on tables when eating without worrying about picking up the virus, Kawakita said.

Users can also hang the fans around their necks, it added. 

By holding the fans over their mouths, users can block potentially infectious droplets of saliva from escaping and spreading the virus, the company said.

You can quickly stick a fan in front of your mouth, Kawakita said, helping reduce the risk of novel coronavirus infection through droplets of stray saliva.

The company also touts the fan over see-through plastic face shields, saying that they can steam up, but that's not an issue with the Masukucchi.

Though the surgical mask on the fan must sometimes be replaced, the fan can be washed and used repeatedly.

Kawakita started selling them online for 550 yen ($5.05) after tax on April 15. 

IDEA CAME FROM VISITOR

The company got the idea to make the fans from a visitor to their office in December last year.

The man in his 60s, who said he was an adviser for an insurance company, showed them a trial product, said Ichiro Kawakita, 54, Kawakita's third-generation president.

The man from Tsu in Mie Prefecture said he wanted to “help restaurants struggling with plummeting sales due to the coronavirus crisis” and asked Kawakita to help him put them in production.

Kawakita's president, who had heard his favorite eatery was in the same boat, readily accepted.

Though the man's prototype was far from ready to go, Kawakita felt he had to hurry with development given the urgent situation for restaurants and contacted other business operators around Higashi-Osaka for help.

The handle of a normal handheld fan was adopted and transparent plastic was selected to make the fan's body. Development finished in February this year.

“The experience made me reconfirm that manufacturing is a great job to bring ideas into shape,” Kawakita said.

The man then started selling the Masukucchi to corporations and applied for a patent. Kawakita initially planned to simply produce the item “behind the scenes,” but later decided to sell it online to eateries and individual customers.

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