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Print yourself as a gummi bear at Tokyo's FabCafe

3D printers help couples make the ultimate romantic gesture

fab cafe gummi sweets
fab cafe gummi sweets

There's no shortage of cafes in Tokyo, but FabCafe has a little more on its menu than most. Opened just over a year ago, the establishment offers its own laser cutter that customers can rent by the hour, and also collaborates with the 3D printer showroom upstairs. The showroom is called Cube and features several printers made by South Carolina-based 3D Systems, making FabCafe a hot spot in Tokyo for anyone who needs something fabricated but can't justify the multi-thousand dollar outlay on a machine of their own.

But FabCafe and Cube's collaborations stretch beyond the pragmatic and veer into the surreal. Recently the two ran a promotion where female customers could create Valentines Day chocolates made from 3D-printed molds of their own faces; in Japan, Valentines Day is exclusively a holiday for women to give chocolates and other gifts to men. However, March 14th marks White Day, where the men must reciprocate the offer to their partners. What to do for the girl that gave you her own edible face? Well, FabCafe had the obvious answer — 3D-print your whole body in the form of gummi sweets. We went along to see exactly how this went down.

3D-printing gummi sweet workshop at FabCafe in Tokyo

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FabCafe sits just a few minutes down the street from the famous scramble crossing in Tokyo's hip Shibuya district.