Japan’s ‘Cardboard Theater’ uses your tablet to create a private movie house

Japan is known for its quirky trends that don't always make sense to the rest of us, but this latest one might be a winner: the Cardboard Theater.

The set-up, designed to deliver a private, somewhat immersive movie-watching experience, consists of a large cardboard box and a tablet or smartphone. That's it. It might not sound very technical, but it works well enough that a number of Japanese movie lovers are using the set-up to watch their favorite films.

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By strategically cutting a display hole on the bottom of the box and a neck hole on its side, the user is suddenly afforded a private cinema of sorts that cuts out all light and ambient sound from the outside world.

Tracking the trend online, it's unclear when the first one was created and shared, but there are examples dating back to 2013, with most of the activity around creating the contraption starting earlier this year.