STRANGER THAN FICTION: (clockwise from facing page) Hachiya poses with OpenSky; OpenSky’s second 98-meter run; the AirBoard, a jet-powered skateboard; a demonstration of Inter DisCommunication; a model in a stylish space suit perfectly finishes off the fantasy of OpenSky.

component to them; none of my pieces have that.”

In 1993, Hachiya made the Inter DisCommunication Machine, a simulation game in which two people interact with images of themselves as seen by the other, using two head-mounted video cameras and winged backpacks geared with transmitters.

“You switch perspectives with your partner,” Hachiya explains. “Sometimes I tell players to kiss or shake hands; they freak out because they feel like they’re kissing themselves.”

But it was PostPet, a simple desktop application that combines an endearing virtual pet with a person’s email inbox, that put him on the map in the growing niche of Japanese media artists. PostPet was commercialized in 1997 and has sold more than 1 million copies to date.

Some also know Hachiya for the Thanks Tail, a joystick-controlled robotic dog tail that attaches

to the rear of any car and wags at other drivers.

In Japan, a quick wink of the hazard lights means thank you, and flashing hazards indicate traffic ahead. The tail serves a similar function.

OpenSky isn’t the only Hachiya project that looks like it’s straight out of a fictional world. PostPet’s cute, 3D characters were inspired in part by a manga called JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, and the AirBoard — a jet-powered skateboard that hovers a few centimeters above the ground — is a lot like the Hoverboard from Back to the Future II. “I really get a kick out of turning fantasy into reality,” Hachiya says.

» Kazuhiko Hachiya: www.petworks.co.jp/~hachiya

Lisa Katayama is a Tokyo-born journalist living in San Francisco. She is the author of Urawaza: Secret Everyday Tips and Tricks from Japan and has guest blogged for Boing Boing.

Make: 39