pac-man ghosts meet otamatone for pocket-sized musical crossover

PAC-MAN FINDS ANOTHER REASON TO OPEN ITS MOUTH

Some collaborations barely need an introduction. PAC-MAN and Otamatone already share one particularly useful feature: a mouth designed to stay busy. The arcade icon now appears as a miniature Otamatone Melody, turning its familiar yellow face into a pocket-sized music maker preloaded with 11 songs. Small enough to attach to a keychain, the crossover trades maze-running for melody while keeping the playful simplicity that made both characters instantly recognizable.

The Melody models simplify the peculiar mechanics of the full-size electronic instrument. A button on the tail selects a song, while pressing the stem advances through the melody and squeezing the soft cheeks opens the mouth to produce the characteristic ‘wah’ effect. Low, medium and high pitches can also alter the sound. The result sits somewhere between musical instrument, toy and collectible: less expressive than the larger Otamatone, but considerably easier to carry around.

bright colors reinforce the toy-like character of the crossover | images courtesy of PAC-MAN and Otamatone

FROM ARCADE MAZES TO SQUEEZABLE SYNTHESIZERS

PAC-MAN entered Japanese arcades in 1980, with the game’s first location test taking place on May 22 before its wider Japanese release that July and US arrival in October. Planned by Toru Iwatani, the premise reduced gameplay to something almost stubbornly understandable: move through a maze, consume the dots and avoid the pursuing ghosts until a Power Pellet briefly reverses the hierarchy. That simplicity helped turn the former PUCK MAN into one of gaming’s most recognizable figures, while Blinky, Pinky, Inky and Clyde became unusually enduring antagonists in their own right.

Otamatone arrived much later, in 2009, from Japanese art unit Maywa Denki, produced by Nobumichi Tosa. Its note-shaped body combines a stem that controls pitch with a soft silicone head whose mouth can be opened and closed while playing. Sliding along the stem produces continuous changes in pitch, shaking it introduces vibrato, and manipulating the cheeks reshapes the sound into the instrument’s signature vocal-like effect. The official playing guide even treats squeezing, sliding and shaking as distinct techniques, confirming that respectable musical behavior was never really the point.

the pac-man otamatone brings arcade nostalgia into a playful musical format

A VERY NATURAL MATCH OF TWO VERY UNNATURAL VOICES

Visually, the crossover almost designs itself. PAC-MAN’s circular yellow body replaces the familiar Otamatone face, while the ghosts translate their red, pink, cyan and orange arcade palettes into equally compact musical characters. The connection extends beyond the Melody keychains: PAC-MAN has also appeared across the Regular and Deluxe Otamatone formats, while Blinky, Pinky and Inky joined the full-size Regular collection in early 2026. The original PAC-MAN Regular model incorporates small game references including pixel graphics and a pellet motif on its controls.

The miniature versions measure roughly 1.6 × 3.75 × 3 inches (4.1 × 9.5 × 7.6 cm) and run on a CR2032 battery, with a chain attachment turning each character into a portable accessory. Their 11 preset melodies mean they cannot reproduce the continuous fingerboard control of the standard Otamatone, whose notes respond directly to where the player presses or slides along its stem. But perhaps precision would spoil things slightly. After 45 years of being chased through mazes, PAC-MAN has earned the right to make a strange little noise instead.

the collaboration reimagines pac-man as a compact electronic instrument