There are a growing number of crowdsourcing sites here in Japan. Kibidango is one of them. Its name is inspired by a famous story that most Japanese people have read at least once growing. The main character Momotaro discovers and befriends different animals on his way to fighting a demon. On the Kibidango platform, project owners can find supporters to pursue their goals.

One popular project on the platform recently is Inro, an unusual product that is perhaps best described as a reversible mobile stamp. The owner of the project, Tatsuhiro Onoe, runs an online stamp shop. His product was born to solve a problem that he often encoutered when staying at hotels.

Many hotels in Japan still require guests to fill in their names and home addresses on printed forms. This is a time-consuming process especially if you’re a frequent traveler. Onoe was also not so confident about his hand-writing. He initially came up with this idea three years ago and now the product is finally ready to be mass produced to make people’s lives a little easier.

Inro can be carried around in your shirt pocket, and in contrast to typical stamps, it is very fashionable like a business card case. The product was designed by Tent, which we have written about in a previous article. The resulting product looks slick with much attention to detail. The grip of the stamp is smooth, and the round-corners are created by advanced precision mechanical equipment typically used in auto design.

With an accompanying leather case, the portable two-sided stamp is available for 7,000 yen (or about $71). The total sum that the project is looking for is 700,000 yen (about $7,100), and so far it has gathered 577,760 yen with five days still to go.

You can learn more about the project in the video below.