Made in Japan by Toy's Heart, the Ichigo Hakusho is a sleeve designed for male masturbation. It is a long, soft tube with an open hole at one end where an erect penis will fit. Inside the tube are several nubs which add stimulation. Manual hand motion is needed to stroke the tube over the penis. It can be used within the privacy of one's own bedroom, alone or with a partner.

Soft and squishy would be a good description of how the Ichigo Hakusho sleeve feels. The exterior of the sleeve is smooth with a soft textured surface which makes gripping it easier. The interior is slick and slightly sticky. Inside the sleeve there are 12 rows of tiny nubs, 12 in each row. At its entrance, there are two rows of four slightly larger nubs.



The Ichigo Hakusho sleeve is composed of TPE, a rubber polymer blend that is both soft and durable. There is a very slightly sweet, barely noticeable odor. The material is slightly porous and condoms are recommended if the toy is to be shared. The box states (in Japanese) that the material is in accordance with the Food Sanitation Law Standards of Japan's Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare.

There's no getting around it: the Ichigo Hakusho sleeve is one weird-looking toy. If you're looking for something realistic, you'll need to look elsewhere. My first impression out of the box was that it resembled a giant pink slug. It's 6 inches long, 5 and half of which are insertable, but the material will stretch to fit. The diameter is 2 and half inches, but that will also accommodate the majority of men. I'm average-sized and it was neither too big nor too small. The sleeve is really only as tight as your grip.



The box states (in Japanese) that its inner wet grooves prevent the lubricant from leaking out. From my experience, this is more or less true. More translation fun from the box: "The elliptic warts are arranged on the portion where the loose waves are tightened so that you can enjoy the stimulations of new sense which stimulate your penis while tightening it." I believe there is something lost in translation there.

Silicone and water-based lubricants can be used with the TPE material of the Ichigo Hakusho sleeve. For best results, pour the lubricant inside the hole of the sleeve. Avoid getting it on your hands as this will make it hard to grip the sleeve. Not a lot of lubrication is needed. It stays pretty slick and won't dry out quickly.

Initially cool, the sleeve will warm up quickly during use.

How the sleeve is used during masturbation can be as varied as you want it to be: one-handed, two-handed, up, down, twisting back and forth. It is not very good to use hands-free because it is simply too slippery. The nubs on the inside aren't very big but can provide extra stimulation. Whether or not you feel the nubs may depend on the thickness of your lube. I've tried it with two kinds and with the thinner lube the nubs were more noticiable. After orgasm, the feeling of the nubs is especially pronounced on the sensitive glans of the penis.

I'm rating the sleeve one bee because of the suction sounds it makes during use. It was surprisingly loud, much more than a Fleshlight or a Tenga Egg. However, it is not as loud after the pockets of air inside the tube are reduced (pushed out by stroking).

The elasticity of the Ichigo Hakusho sleeve enabled me to turn it inside out for easy clean-up. I'm not sure if turning the sleeve inside out will shorten its lifespan; however, it's the best way to get it completely cleaned out. The sleeve cannot be boiled, but it can be cleaned with your favorite toy cleaner or simply with soap and warm water. It can be towel or air-dried, but the inside of the sleeve is a bit tacky and it can attract lint if left to dry inside out.

The Ichigo Hakusho sleeve comes in a cardboard box, wrapped in open-ended crinkly plastic wrap. The box could be used as storage, but since it's cardboard it's not very durable. I didn't keep the original plastic wrap and instead stored the sleeve in a ziploc plastic bag. A packet of lube is also included with the sleeve, but I prefer to use my own and I did not try it.



I was really fascinated by the packaging of the Ichigo Hakusho. It features a cute, big-eyed Anime girl on two sides and a cutaway of the inside of the sleeve on the other two (see photo). Using Google Translate and a Japanese Sex Toy web site I was able to figure out some of what was written on the box. Ichigo Hakusho is translated literally as "Strawberry White Paper." This didn't make any sense to me at all. However, traditional hand-made dolls in Japan are made of white paper or cloth, so white paper could be synonomous with doll. Anyway, that's my theory and besides, Strawberry Doll sounds much better than Strawberry White Paper. If you are familiar with or are from Japan and this is wrong, please let me know in the comments.

Consumer culture is very youth-oriented in Japan and it's interesting to see how the Ichigo Hakusho is marketed there. The Kanji characters that go from top to bottom on the side with the anime girl, starting just beneath the strawberry, are translated as follows: the bittersweet first experience once again. Here, in North America, it's a masturbation sleeve. In Japan, it's a chance to relive the first time you had sex, presumably with a young girl like the one featured on the box. Now, that's marketing. It may not feel like that at all, and I'm pretty sure it won't with this sleeve, but it's clever.

My experience with the Ichigo Hakusho sleeve reminded most of a Tenga Egg. Although the Tenga Egg is made of silicone, the feel of the TPE material was very similar. One advantage that the Ichigo Hakusho has over the Tenga Egg is that it is longer and can stretch to cover the shaft of the penis.

The feel of the sleeve is very different than the feel of a Fleshlight. The Ichigo Hakusho is too squishy to be considered very realistic. Also, the little bit of fantasy I can have with a Fleshlight is completely lost with the Ichigo Hakusho. It does not resemble human anatomy at all.

Despite its weird appearance, using the Ichigo Hakusho was a kind of fun. It's a sleeve I see myself using occasionally in the future. That is unless I start having nightmares about giant pink slugs that want to devour my penis.