A speaker made from bottle gourd grown in Tochigi Prefecture is attracting listeners with its acoustic qualities and a cute appearance resembling an animation character.
A maker of car stereos in Tochigi, the biggest producer of dried gourd strips for rolled sushi, began developing the fucucchi speaker in 2013 in collaboration with local farmers who had found a new use for the fukube plant, as it's known in Japanese.
"Gourds have been used to make musical instruments around the world," said Akira Takahashi, president of Sound Tec Takahashi Denki. The company makes the unique speaker in Oyama.