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Real Estate|Like Fancy Japanese Toilets? You’ll Love the Sound of This.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/02/realestate/japanese-toilets-toto-sound-princess.html
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Step into any public restroom stall in Japan and you’re likely to be enveloped in a soundscape. No, not that kind. It’s the babble of running water, perhaps peppered with cheerful tweets and birdsong, and it’s meant to transform the space into an auditory simulacrum of nature, perfect for responding to its call.
In Japan, sound-generating devices that do the job of courtesy flushes are commonplace, and while they come in a variety of forms, they’re often called Otohime, or “Sound Princess,” made by the Japanese toilet maker Toto Ltd. It’s a form of bathroom etiquette where noises that can be embarrassing are drowned out by the roar of a rushing river, perhaps flecked with other sounds from nature. Some older models simply emit the recorded sound of a toilet flushing.
These devices have been standard in Japanese ladies’ rooms for years, both for concealing unwanted sounds and conserving water: In 2016, a survey by the newspaper Nikkei found that women flushed an average of 2.3 times without a sound device, and 1.5 times with one.
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Now they’re finding new audiences across the gender spectrum in offices, shopping centers and other public spaces across the country. And as they become more widespread, the noises they make are getting stranger, with exporters and hackers tailoring them to more niche audiences.
“It became a matter of course for women to use Otohime,” said Tsukasa Matsuyama, who works in Toto’s faucets and appliances division. “As younger men are more sensitive about toilet noise, it’s being installed in men’s rooms as well. There’s a growing movement to not distinguish between genders when designing public toilets.”
