“Man-ge-kyo” is a Japanese word for kaleidoscopes.　
It literally means millions of flowers in mirrors. What a beautiful name it is !
Although this “Man-ge-kyo” has been very familiar to Japanese people for a long time as a toy or a simple cardboard tube with reflective surfaces inside and small colorful pieces at the end, neither the word “kaleidoscope” nor the modern kaleidoscopes have been known to most Japanese until 15 years ago.
5 years after “Through the Kaleidoscope”, the first book on modern kaleidoscopes published by Cozy Baker in the US, some Japanese people discovered these kaleidoscopes for the first time. They wanted to introduce these new kinds of “Man-ge-kyo” into Japan. In the early 1990s a few stores in Japan began selling these kaleidoscopes from the US.
Though gradually, these kaleidoscopes began receiving media attention and gained popularity among the Japanese people. The interest in this modern, scientific, and interactive form of art did not find any borders.
Next to the US, it is said that Japan has the biggest market for kaleidoscopes. Hopefully you will find the reasons for this popularity in this website.