We tried the 30-second ‘wrapping hack’. It took 6 minutes.

This video of a man speed-wrapping boxes in a Japanese department store has been going crazy on the interwebs:

At last, all our problems with wrapping regular-shaped boxes are over! Surely we, too, can flash-wrap our Christmas presents  this way?

Well, I gave it a go. And you know what? It’s impossible. Not only does he do it too quickly for you to actually see what he does, but he also just happens to have perfectly-sized pre-cut sheets that fit his box with no overhang. Well, I don’t. Here’s how it goes when an actual, normal, non-mechanoid person does it.

Dammit, Japan.