While I find bidet toilets incredibly useful, I don't understand why this is such a sudden revelation. The French invented these toilets in the 18th century: they were/are in wide use in Europe, middle east, and I've even encountered a few in Canadian hotels (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bidet). Is there something fundamentally different about Japanese bidets (other than integration into the toilet itself)?
I think the main difference is that the Japanese toilet is paperless. From the wikipedia page:
> In 1980 the first "paperless toilet" was launched in Japan, a combination toilet and bidet which also dries the user after washing.
The bidet often required something separate to dry after cleaning, so the difference seems to be integration with the toilet plus the dryer (heated seat optional).
On another note, on a recent trip to Korea, I noticed that many homes had these toilets (mentioned on wikipedia article). The article seems to imply that they are unique to Japan, when they're actually popular almost everywhere outside of the US.
