No.4 Grand Prize

Danbokko Kitchen

KAYAC Inc.(Japan)

About

The smart toy kitchen allows children to experience fun cooking by inlaying smartphones into the cardboard kitchen set of frying pan, saucepan and cutting board. The app delivers a magical feel, allowing children to feel as though they are cooking in real life, with all the authentic sounds and the abstract cardboard toy. Rice grains jump out of the pan when you shake the frying pan, hot steam bursts out when you open the lid, and you can even cut the ingredients with the toy cutting knife. This is an app that was designed to use smartphone’s abilities to its full potential.

Prize Comment

Thank you for choosing ‘Danbokko Kitchen’ as Digital Ehon Award’s Grand Prize. Danbokko allows children to create their own story using their imagination. In order to spark children’s creativity, we made the best use of digital device, imitated a real cooking experience, and designed it to be expandable. We chose cardboards and made it 3 dimensional, allowing to feel the texture. We also drew the illustrations, trying to make it as original as possible. We were able to successfully execute this project with the collaboration of Kayac, who produced the app with the storyline, and Bando, who produced the safe cardboard toy. I hope the experience of children using their own imagination, rather than merely looking or hearing, will support the strength and smiles of the children in the new era.
(Ikuyo Horiguchi: Proposal and producer)

Comment by Juror

This is an intuitively exciting app, mimicking a real life cooking experience by shaking the screen as if it is a frying pan or a pot, putting a lid, and so on. The way that the ingredients are cooked are expressed through color and music, making it all realistic. When the meal was cooked, I could not help myself from raising my voice with joy. This is an app that both children and adults can play together. The idea to combine ‘digital’ with ‘cardboards’ is innovative, and I believe this piece has expanded the possibilities of Digital Ehon. (Tsuguhiko Kadokawa) It was very impressive that it has materialized the idea of ‘experience cooking and have fun’, by combining apps with pots and flying pans that are made out of cardboards. The realistic feeling of cutting, frying and baking was very well executed with movements and sounds. I believe both children and adults can enjoying playing with this app. (Koji Ishikawa)