Limited-run graphic tees — every design is a creature caught mid-incident. Crank the machine, see who drops out, read the file, wear it home. New specimen every pull.
Tap TURN, the knob, or the top button
語源 · the name on file
The name is two Japanese ideas welded together: one wildly flexible slang word, and exactly what it sounds like. Between them they explain the entire shop.
/ ya·ba·i / — slang, adj.
Began as underworld slang for dangerous — a situation about to go wrong. Today it's the word Japan reaches for when something is off the scale in either direction: 危険 (this is bad) or 最高 (this is amazing). Same word. The situation decides.
/ ya·ba / — interjection
The clipped version — the noise you make the exact second things go sideways. It's the burst that pops out of the machine every time a fresh specimen drops.
a zoo of yabai moments. Ordinary animals, unreasonable situations, every incident documented. That's the whole institute in one word — and it's why each specimen ships with a case file instead of a hangtag.
標本自販機 · specimen dispenser
21 specimens loaded
取り出し口 · pickup tray
部門 · the archive
日常のやばい
Ordinary tasks treated as extreme missions.
スポーツリーグ
Competing with ridiculous equipment and no rules.
やばい職業
Professions they are clearly unqualified for.
伝説
Escaped heroes, monsters and mythical champions.
ちびやばい
Small animals, disproportionately large chaos.
飼育員の記録
The origin file, verified: Yabaizoo is a French–Japanese collaboration between two graphic artists. One draws the ink — every line of every specimen — and the other lays down the color. Together they created the zoo.
The prints first surfaced in 2018, in small shops across Japan. In 2026 we went looking for printers around the world and found a way to ship the evidence anywhere on the globe. The Keeper — a perfectly ordinary human, calm while the specimens are not — documents each one, front, side and back.
“Two hands, one zoo. One inks, one colors. I have checked the paperwork since 2018 — it holds up.”
