Although we’ve seen plenty of wacky mouse designs and concepts, this one deviates so much from the familiar form factor that it would be easy to miss the fact that it’s a mouse at all. It looks more like a battery with buttons – but it could in fact be the future of input devices.

The wireless MENDO Kandenshi Mouse is a small cylinder that you grasp with your thumb on top and index and middle fingers wrapped around the side. The left and right buttons occupy one side of the cylinder while the top houses a hidden USB plug, which is presumably the dongle that pairs the mouse with the computer. The Kandenshi Mouse really does look just like a large battery, complete with the little nubbin on top.

It looks like some design student’s thesis project (and probably was at some point) but this unusual mouse is actually set to go on sale in Japan very soon. It probably wouldn’t be practical for heavy all-day users (looking at you, author of this very post), but for office drones who feel the need to have different gadgets than everyone else in their cubicle farm this would provide a blissful several minutes of attention from jealous colleagues.