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Maywa Denki: Japanese robot music

Demented Genius Award is bestowed on Japanese musicians.

Emily Shurr
Emily Shurr is CNET News.com general-assignment news producer.
Emily Shurr

It's not news to anyone that Japan comes out with a vast variety of weirdness and whimsy--it seems to be one of their national cultural specialties. But we'd like to direct your attention to a very specific brand of wacky--what one team of musician-artist-engineers calls "nonsense instruments." It takes a certain kind of lunatic lyrical inspiration to spend your life making carefully engineered objects purely for the sake of mind-breaking entertainment. For this achievement, we award Maywa Denki the coveted Demented Genius Award. Congratulations!

Read more on Maywa Denki on Make's blog: "Made in Japan Vol. 3." Scroll down and watch the BBC video for maximum enjoyment.