Is the Human Washing Machine of our Dreams Finally Becoming a Reality?

japanese art, design and culture

If you wandered the Osaka Healthcare Pavilion at Expo 2025 and felt like you’d stepped into a retro sci-fi spa, you weren’t imagining things. One of the talk-of-the-fair exhibits is a futuristic bathing pod — billed as a “Future Human Washing Machine” — that promises to wash and dry a person in roughly 15 minutes using ultra-fine bubbles, sensors and AI to adjust temperature, pressure and even the visuals you see while inside. The project is presented by Science Co., Ltd. and has been promoted as a modern reimagining of a very similar idea first seen at the 1970 World Expo in Osaka.

At Expo ’70, Sanyo (later acquired by Panasonic) exhibited an Ultrasonic Bath, a large capsule that invited people to climb in and be cleaned automatically. The 1970 machine combined pulsing jets, ultrasonic mist and rubber massage balls; the pitch was a 15-minute automated wash, massage and dry routine — essentially a human carwash. It was sensational, photographic and the kind of optimistic gadgetry that defined many pavilions at Expo ’70. Although popular as a spectacle, prohibitive costs kept the Ultrasonic Bath as merely a concept.

The 2025 version keeps the theatrical