One Saturday morning, I got an email from my father, who is really into space stuff. He asks: "Do the Japanese have a mega robot like the ones in anime?" with a picture of a rocket attached.

Love, Freedom and, TENGA" reads the inscription on this cosmos-conquering rocket

I didn’t quite catch the connection between the rocket and the robots, but I guess my father assumed that everything in Japan is somehow related to the Japanese passion for anime and mega robots. I used to be into anime and Japanese language and I understand the words written on the rocket. However, you don't have to know Japanese to understand TENGA. But if you really don't know (well, or you’re pretending you don't, I won't judge), TENGA is a major Japanese manufacturer of adult toys. Which is what I told my father. And then I began to wonder how such a manufacturer of sexual accessories suddenly had something to do with rockets.

The following story took place in 2021, a record year for rocket launches.

Who is Koichi Matsumoto

You can't talk about TENGA without talking about its creator. Matsumoto studied to be an automobile technician. After college, he started working in his specialty – he became a mechanic focusing on sports cars and vintage cars. That’s a dream job for all those guys who collected model cars in their childhood, but for Matsumoto, it wasn’t enough. After working for a used car dea, his passio for technology and mechanics deepened. After getting some start-up capital together, he quit his job and decided to get into manufacturing.

Koichi Matsumoto with a flag saying "There's TENGA"

But if you set out on your own and your start-up capital is only 10 million yen (which is about 83 thousand US dollars in 2002), you can't afford to start your own car company. However, after going through all possible industries and coming up with a thousand ideas for each one, Matsumoto found a market in which he could start a revolution – adult products.

In 2005, after three years of trial and error in product development, just when his initial funds were about to run out, he founded TENGA. In July of that year, the first five products were launched, imbued with a spirit of mechanics and cutting-edge technology. Within a year, TENGA had sold more than one million products: it had become a resounding success.

All TENGA products have a distinct futuristic design inspired by mechanisms and contours from the automotive industry

A boy's big dream

As already mentioned, Matsumoto reached his childhood dream of working with cars. But rare is the boy who does not also have dreams of flying into space. Now that the founder of TENGA had money and support, the realization of his next dream lay before him – to fly into space. Clearly, building a rocket and launching yourself into space on it isn’t cheap, it is more realistic to collaborate with others on a launch. In early 2021, TENGA started raising funds for a spaceflight. 90% of the cost was covered by the company itself, the remaining 5 million yen (46 thousand US dollars at the 2021 exchange rate) was to be collected by donation.

As a reward, donors were invited to leave a message on a commemorative plaque that would be released into space. It was also possible to get T-shirts, stickers, a robot figurine, a real areospace engineer's suit or a visit to the launchpad! They brought in 1.8 million yen.

Even that was a lot; at least a thousand more people, employees and fundraisers, who had messages they wanted left in space, were eager to be part of the dream.

NASA and SpaceX are not the only ones flying into space these days. TENGA got help from Interstellar Technologies, a private company that specializes in launching nanosatellites. So far, the only rocket that they have launched into space is MOMO. It was only 10 meters tall, that is, a little higher than a three-story house, and 50 centimeters in diameter. That’s right, just about anyone could reach their arms around it and giv it a hug 😀 Interstellar also helped Matsumoto make another one of his dreams come true.

A robot and his toy dog boarded this small rocket, and a sex toy was placed there, firmly strapped in. The latter was to be the world's first payload sent into space and returned to Earth. It was also the first sex toy payload!

The robot astronaut and his canine assistan, who went into space on July 31, 2021. The robot’s design philosophy of the flagship line of TENGA products with the company's signature colors – red and metallic. The dog is a repurposed representative from the EGG product line

A failed flight, but a dream come true

Upon launch, and unfortunately, the rocket came just 8 meters shy of the Karman Line that marks the official boundary of outer space. But it was still a dream come true. Even though a launch apex of 92 kilometers doesn’t officially count as reaching outer space, it is a commendable achievement, giving a glimpse of a black star-filled sky and a round Earth. The launch itself was a success; it went off without any problems. There was even an on-board broadcast of the whole flight: you could tune in to see how the robot and his dog were getting by.

A frame from the live broadcast of the flight. One camera was inside the rocket, the other outside

The payload was not clear: it was released, and according to the news it fell back to Earth, but there were no photos, so we can’t say what happened to it. Most likely, even the special alloy of the hull did not allow such a small payload to fall back through the atmosphere without burning up, or it simply could not be retrieved after landing in the sea.

As for Matsumoto, all is well. TENGA has released a lot of flight merchandise, including robots, T-shirts, special edition sex toys, and even innocent kid’s toys.

The official store sold related merchandise and had an entire exhibit on how Interstellar Technologies flights are conducted. There were also models and parts of rockets on display

In the end, we would like to quote TENGA's motto: "Be positive, be smart and be free". A childhood dream can eventually become an adult flight into space, if you don’t hold back your desires.