Japan's vending machines are known for their ubiquity — scattered throughout the country on city streets, in train stations and in near-desolate areas of the countryside.
Most sell beverages, but eggs, apples, hamburgers, and even fish stock are available, too. In a pinch, you can also get shirts, underwear, ties and now, surgical masks. What else could one want?
The answer, in a country concerned with its shrinking population and keen to encourage more births, appears to be babies' diapers and formula, now beginning to show up in machines in a number of locations nationwide.