Having not posted here for about 12 months, I need a good excuse and I have a doozy!

I was just across the street lost in some gardens, running around in 360 degree circles getting really confused so I couldn’t find my way back.

But I took some pictures while I was there to share with you:

http://kyotogardens.org

By Kaori Shoji
Monday, August 25, 2008

New York Times

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/08/26/style/flinen.php

TOKYO: Japanese linen, once made almost obsolete by the general preference for the much cheaper Chinese product, is quietly making a comeback. Up until now, linen had been about summer shirts and suits, but these days the subtext is changing from mere summer fashion to year-round lifestyle.

“‘People are starting to think differently about textiles, and more are buying or using linen in the way Europeans did in the 19th century,” said the interior stylist Mika Sonomiya. “Unlike cotton, good linen is expensive but grows more beautiful with time and washing.”

Sonomiya is a self-professed “laundry fiend” and considers the washing/drying of linen products to be the highest of stress relievers. She insists on 100 percent domestic linen for sheets, towels and wraps, used lovingly in every aspect of daily living.

“Before, I loved the feel of French linen but now I’ve come to recommend the Japan-made product,” she said. “It makes sense to support the domestic textile industry, not just for cost purposes but simply because new companies in that field are doing great work.”

Kyoto and the nearby Omi region had been well known for domestic linen, and a few textile artisans had kept the flame going. But the problem is, their linen products are often formal (mostly kimono materials and related paraphernalia) and too expensive to use on a daily basis, which had kept the average linen user from crossing over to home-grown products.

Recognizing the demand for more casual linen, the textile giant Teikoku set up an online linen shop called Teisen where finely woven sheets, towels, pajamas and other sundries bearing the “made in Japan” logo are available.

“But the ones to watch are the smaller companies,” Sonomiya said. “Hardly anyone knows about them, because they operate on such a small basis and rarely bother to advertise.”

In Omi, the family-operated Loop produces bed and bath items made from ramie and hemp – stitched by hand and the brand logo (artfully faded) stamped with typewriter keys.

Closer to Tokyo, Oldman’s Tailor, run by the young couple Toku and Yuji Shimura, has become a metaphor for domestic linen products in just seven years, from its start in 2001. Oldman’s Tailor has no shop, and there are no employees, apart from the Shimuras (not counting Yuji’s mother, who helps out by washing and then sun-drying the finished products). The office is in their home (located at the foot of Mount Fuji, an area once renowned for textiles) and the more than 200 linen products they create (by themselves or collaborating with weavers) are sold in a handful of selected boutiques, or online.

The Shimuras, intent on making linen products “that would enchant and entice people 100 years later” are not only dedicated craftsmen but also designers – towels, for instance, have a marine theme that is reminiscent of the captain’s cabin of a French naval fleet in the late 19th century.

Sonomiya, a fan of the couple’s work, said: “There’s an unmistakable air of authenticity and romance in everything they make. You can tell that they understand and love linen, how romantic and evocative it is.”

Analysts see the revival of Japanese linen as part of a bigger trend, one that bears the stamp of ecology. The textile artist Hiromi Kanzaki said she sees a shift from “design to materials” in Japanese fashion.

“It’s less about the cut and the silhouette” than “whether the material is natural and how it feels on the skin, where it was made, whether the process damaged the environment unnecessarily,” Kanzaki said. “People are much more attuned to that sort of information.”

The concern and interest in materials is bolstering the domestic textile industry, and design companies, quick to ride the wave, are now creating textile products made from domestic organic cotton, washi and wood charcoal and colored with 100 percent water-soluble plant dyes.

As the editorial director Masanobu Sugatsuke said: “Right now, no fashion trend could emerge or last very long without giving a big bow to the environment, because the consumer is so much more concerned about such things than they were 10 years ago. Now whatever is wasteful, excessive or selfish just won’t cut it anymore, no matter how snazzy the design.”

Tuesday 27th May, 10:02 AM JST

Man disguised as schoolgirl arrested for trespassing in Ibaraki school

IBARAKI —
A 30-year-old man was arrested Monday night for sneaking into an Ibaraki high school, wearing a schoolgirl’s uniform and wig, police said Tuesday.

Shigemitsu Kajiro, 30, was caught by a teacher in a corridor around 5:30 p.m. after the teacher noticed he was wearing shoes which did not match the school’s uniform. After discovering the student was a man, the teacher took him to a staff room and called police. The suspect has so far said nothing about what he was up to or whether he had done this before, police said.

The world’s most sophisticated users of wireless technology may be unimpressed by Apple’s high-tech gadget

by Kenji Hall
http://www.businessweek.com/print/globalbiz/content/dec2007/gb20071220_152247.htm
The Japanese fell for the iPod. So why should they not embrace the iPhone, too? It’s tempting to think that Japan’s love affair with Apple’s (AAPL) iPods would extend to the mobile phone that shares the same high-tech DNA. After all, the iPod controls about 50% of the Japanese market for portable media players, according to Tokyo market researcher BCN, and Apple’s carefully cultivated image as a maker of hip, edgy, yet user-friendly gizmos should work in its favor.

But when the Cupertino (Calif.) company wades into the world’s most advanced wireless market next year, it could find Japan’s 98 million cell-phone users a hard bunch to please. For one thing, consumers here won’t be as starstruck by the iPhone’s high-tech gadgetry as users elsewhere. Japan’s 10 handset makers, which dominate the domestic market, already offer dozens of models typically costing several hundred dollars that send e-mail, browse the Internet, shoot photos and videos, and even pick up live TV broadcasts. Most come with a built-in global positioning system, and some even double as credit cards and commuter passes or safeguard personal data using fingerprint or face-recognition technology.

In its current form, the iPhone doesn’t work on Japan’s advanced third-generation, or 3G, network. Rumors abound that Steve Jobs & Co. will release a new, faster 3G iPhone next year. But analysts are skeptical that will be enough to please consumers in Japan. In its current form, the iPhone’s 3.5-inch touchscreen and its access to online applications such as YouTube and Google (GOOG) Maps are about all that set it apart from other handsets in Japan.

Potential Turnoff

In other ways, the device is inferior, and some of its functions won’t be all that useful. The iPhone’s Wi-Fi networking, for instance, won’t get much of a workout since few Japanese retailers are wired for such short-range broadband wireless Internet service. “I don’t think it’s going to do that well,” says Makio Inui, a managing director at UBS (UBS) in Tokyo. He predicts the iPhone’s high price and limited features will be a turnoff for many in Japan.

Where the iPhone will fill a need is with consumers like Keiko Ohashi. The 32-year-old sales manager already owns an iPod, doesn’t care for all the bells and whistles of Japanese handsets, and prefers the full QWERTY keypad and browser of a computer-like device. “I’d love to get an iPhone,” she says.

She may get her wish. In recent months, Jobs has met with Masao Nakamura, chief executive at Japan’s No. 1 wireless operator, NTT DoCoMo (DCM), to discuss a possible deal, DoCoMo spokesman Shinya Yokota said. Connecting the iPhone to DoCoMo’s high-speed 3G network isn’t the only draw for Apple. It also could tap into DoCoMo’s sales and marketing muscle. That gives Apple a better shot at grabbing a chunk of the roughly 50 million cell phones sold in Japan annually, and meeting its target of selling 10 million iPhones worldwide by 2008. (Apple had sold 1.4 million by Oct. 22.)

Stumbling Blocks in DoCoMo Talks

But industry executives think the negotiations are likely to get bogged down. DoCoMo declined to elaborate on the details of the talks, but Jobs is reportedly pushing for a cut of the iPhone’s revenues. (Apple officials couldn’t be reached for comment.) DoCoMo executives are likely to strongly resist such demands. One reason: Caving in to Apple would embolden other handset makers to try to win more favorable terms from DoCoMo.

DoCoMo also might balk at the idea of letting iPhone owners activate their handsets using Apple’s iTunes online music store, as AT&T allows in the U.S. DoCoMo subscribers now can only activate their phones at a licensed DoCoMo shop. Letting iPhone owners circumvent DoCoMo’s sales channel suggests they also would be able to avoid using DoCoMo’s proprietary i-mode portal site and all the music, shopping, and investing services that are offered through it. Stripped of the high-margin earnings from services, DoCoMo would simply be left managing the towers and servers of a wireless network. “If that happens, DoCoMo would be reduced to the dumb pipes they live in fear of becoming,” says one telco industry executive, who requested anonymity.

The two sides have a few other options. DoCoMo could rent spectrum to Apple in an arrangement known as mobile virtual network operator, or MVNO. But that would set Apple back at least $30 million just for the data centers to handle voice calls and data transmissions, and Apple would have to hire a local staff to manage the operations of a full-service wireless carrier. The two could work out a hybrid solution, such as having Apple pay a fee for spectrum in exchange for a cut of the iPhone’s revenues from DoCoMo. But finding a middle ground could take some time.

Hall is BusinessWeek’s technology correspondent in Tokyo

Rock gardens below your feet!

A combination of an urban lifestyle and infrastructure advantages mean that the fixed internet is being left behind by the mobile

Michael Fitzpatrick

The Guardian

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2007/sep/27/guardianweeklytechnologysection.mobilephones

Thursday September 27 2007

Japanese commuters while away the journey by watching TV on their mobiles. Photograph: David Sacks/Getty

Yasuko San is aiming her mobile at a small, square tattoo on paper, clicking a little and peering happily at the result. Her prize? The latest novel written for the mobile, entitled “Teddy”. Such serialised novels for mobiles are just the latest phone application that has caught the Japanese imagination, but – apart from neighbouring South Korea – few others.

Those printed square icons, however, made their debut in the UK earlier this month (to promote the DVD of the film 28 Weeks Later). Known as QR (quick read) codes, they have aided Japan’s mobile revolution by making it easy to access a web page via mobile. Users can be directed to sites by snapping the codes printed in magazines, posters and even on biscuits.

Mobile subscribers

Their British outing is a full four years behind Japan’s adoption. In fact, we lag Japan in nearly every aspect of mobile use – except possibly in annoying other commuters on trains.

Lost in Japan? Let your mobile’s GPS guide you. Bored? Download the latest manga comic or an e-book to read on the train, or go shopping and pay by swishing your mobile in front of the till, because the phone is also an electronic wallet.

You can also collect e-coupons, pay bills, play Final Fantasy, update your blog and pay and check into hotels wirelessly. Soon the airport check-in will be history in Japan, too, as the e-ticket in your phone becomes your boarding pass.

Nearly all are services based on the success of the mobile web in Japan, where in a nation of 127 million the number of mobile internet subscribers recently passed 100 million. Not for nothing are the Japanese now known as the Thumb Tribe – a tribe who, for the most part, prefer their mobile to the fixed internet.

Apart from the killer application – email – 80% say they use other functions too. Downloading music is popular (80% have tried it), as is TV for mobile – half of its subscribers use it regularly. Three quarters of users say they enjoy online clothes shopping with their mobile at least once a month. What they are less keen on is video calling: in Japan, as in the UK, 90% say “no thanks, never”. And as for using the mobile as a modem – to link to the internet – that’s very expensive in Japan.

It is no wonder those touting m-commerce as the next big web thing tell us Japan is the future blueprint. “Japan is the world’s high-tech testbed for a wide range of consumer electronic devices and systems – many of which never see the light of day in overseas markets,” says Daniel Scuka, keitai guru and consultant for publishers Wireless Watch Japan. “So keeping up with developments here is vital to knowing what’s going to hit Europe and the US 24 months in the future; doubly so with respect to mobile and wireless.”

By offering the Japanese a multiplicity of services – and, very importantly, some very cool handsets to use them on – the operators have created what every western mobile service provider is dreaming of: a mobile lifestyle culture that keeps millions reaching for the mobile rather than the fixed internet. But it does have its disadvantages.

Most us would feel miffed if we lost or damaged our mobiles. The Japanese would be paralysed without theirs: nearly half of Japanese confess to being obsessed with their mobile phones.

But why is such technology such a hit in Japan and not in other mobile-savvy nations such as Finland? According to the man who kickstarted the trend – the father of i-mode, NTT DoCoMo’s Takeshi Natsuno – it is because of the Japanese genius for designing new technologies that can be adopted by anyone, especially techno-phobes. It’s not about “bandwidth, nor standards, nor unique Japanese culture”, he says. It is about “fun and convenience”.

When i-mode was launched in the UK a few years ago, the hopes were Natsuno was right and mobile internet would take off as it had in Japan. It didn’t. “Basically these things succeeded best where the Japanese model was most faithfully stuck to. Telecom France, for example, had success with i-mode,” says Scuka.

Britain apparently went its own way with i-mode and relied on phones that weren’t up to the job. It flopped and recently was buried alongside that other great mobile pretender, WAP. However, we in Europe do not have some of the advantages that DoCoMo and the other carriers enjoy in Japan. As Terrie Lloyd, a business analyst, points out: “Japanese mobile phone bandwidth is free to the carriers. They didn’t have to pay for it. So rather than skin the consumers for every cent, they keep a good-value proposition.

Demanding consumers

The Japanese are blessed with some of the best-looking technology in the world. It has to be intuitive, simple and high-quality, not because the Japanese are so tech-savvy, but because they are the most demanding consumers in the world.

According to Scuka, more than 100 new phones hit the Japanese market last year as manufacturers tried out new ideas on the public. Some cultural factors, as with any other country, do play a part in Japan’s willingness to take up some technologies such as TV on the mobile.

As in Europe, this was at first a washout, but as watching TV in public becomes more socially acceptable in Japan, the number of subscribers is rising. Au, the second largest mobile network in Japan, recently signed up its five millionth subscriber to the service.

“Japanese commute on trains. The average person commutes at least an hour each way every day – that’s a lot of eyeball time. Only teenagers in Europe can match this sort of availability,” says Scuka.

It is this urban lifestyle where convenience is the key which has necessitated the rise of the all-in-one mobile plus those very funky handsets. By comparison Apple’s iPhone is a mere 2.5G plaything. In Japan, which is already into 3G and heading towards 4G, they make mobiles look good and work hard.

USA Today: http://www.usatoday.com/tech/wireless/phones/2007-08-21-japan-iphone_N.htm

By Paul Wiseman, USA TODAY

TOKYO — Japan already has the funkiest cellphones in the world: More than their U.S. counterparts, Japanese consumers use mobile phones to watch TV, pay bills, order concert tickets, read manga (comics) and summon help from global-positioning satellites to figure out where they are.

But market analysis suggests there’s still a niche in Japan for Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone. Japanese gadget geeks — and cellphone service providers — are intrigued by the iPhone’s sleek design and touch-screen display. “This is the first phone that thrilled me,” freelance journalist Tsutsumu Ishikawa says. “People regard it as cool and advanced. And the interface is easy to use.”

Apple won’t introduce the iPhone in Japan until next year.

Ishikawa couldn’t wait. He flew to Hawaii on June 29 to buy one the first day they went on sale in the USA — even though he can’t make calls on it in Japan.

Similarly, researchers at Nomura Research Institute think tank here picked up an iPhone from an American colleague. “I have been very proud of Japanese mobile phones,” says Nomura consultant Shunichi Kita, fiddling with an iPhone on which he has downloaded the animated movie Finding Nemo. “But this time, I have an uneasy feeling. I am very sorry Japanese manufacturers didn’t produce a phone like this.”

Kita estimates that Apple can sell 2 million to 3 million iPhones annually in Japan — about 5% of the market. The research firm Yahoo Value Insight found that 13% of the 400 Japanese Internet users it surveyed in July want an iPhone, and 15% of those would switch service providers to get one.

Conquering Japan won’t be easy for Apple. Obstacles include:

•Technology. The iPhone isn’t yet available with the third-generation, or 3G, mobile cellular networks widely used in Japan — although Apple-related websites are filled with speculation that iPhone will go 3G next year. The iPhone doesn’t work with 3G networks in the USA, either.

•Price. The Yahoo Value Insight survey found that Japanese consumers want to pay around $190 for an iPhone. In the USA, they cost $499 or $599, plus the cost of two years of service with AT&T. In Japan, much like in the USA, phone companies often offer discounts on mobile handsets to get consumers to spend their money on services instead.

•Culture. “The iPhone’s broad and easily accessible screen could actually be a liability in Japan,” says Roland Kelts, author of Japanamerica: How Japanese Pop Culture Has Invaded the U.S. Japanese are “accustomed to doing more in smaller spaces — and keeping things to themselves. The (pornographic comics) you download on the subway may be all too visible to your neighboring commuter” if you’re using an iPhone.

•Cutting a deal. Japan’s three top service providers — SoftBank, KDDI and DoCoMo — are accustomed to calling the shots. They direct customers to specific websites and services, and bar them from others.

Apple, which keeps tight control of its image, might have trouble negotiating a deal in Japan similar to its exclusive arrangement in the USA with AT&T, says journalist Ishikawa, who covers Japan’s telecommunications industry. He says SoftBank may have an advantage: The firm’s founder, billionaire Masayoshi Son, turned up at the Macworld conference in January, where Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced the iPhone.

SoftBank spokesman Naoki Nakayama says Son has a “personal friendship” with Jobs but won’t comment on whether the two companies are negotiating a deal. Nor will Apple.

KDDI spokeswoman Kana Hisaoka says, “We don’t deny that we’re interested in such a popular product.”

But she won’t confirm whether the firm is in talks with Apple.

“We are interested” in the iPhone, says DoCoMo spokesman Roland Arafat. “But nothing has been decided.”

Apple has already made a splash in Tokyo. IPods are popular despite considerable competition from domestic MP3 players, author Kelts says. The five-story Apple store in the heart of the city’s upscale Ginza shopping district is packed on a weekday lunch hour with consumers browsing everything from iMac computers to iPod-compatible karaoke machines.

Just outside, Tokyo college student Akinori Machino, 22, says he’s got 5,000 songs loaded on his iPod and would gladly buy an iPhone if one were available.

“We figure the screen will be very beautiful,” says Ryo Kikuchi, 30, manager at a food company. “You can see movies better.”

“I would like to buy one,” adds photographer Hiroyuki Kuwata, 35, a Mac enthusiast. “I’d like to use the touch screen.”

Japanese phonemakers aren’t waiting around for Apple to gobble market share. “Domestic producers are hustling to leapfrog iPhone’s offerings,” Kelts says.

Manufacturer Sophia Mobile has just come out with a touch-screen phone — the Sophia Nani — which has been labeled an “iPhone killer” by tech websites such as Softpedia. But it is being marketed by a second-tier Japanese service provider, Willcom.

Mitsubishi Electric actually beat Apple to the Japan market with a touch-screen phone, the FOMA D800iDS.

But it hasn’t had much impact, Nomura’s Kita says: Service provider DoCoMo marketed the Mitsubishi phone to elderly customers, not as a cutting-edge gadget for trendy teens.

Contributing: Naoko Nishiwaki

By Mayumi Negishi – Column

TOKYO (Reuters) – Japanese are getting reacquainted with the kimono, helped by a host of Web sites that are succeeding where pushy sales people and kimono schools have failed.

Today’s Web sites are credited with helping bring the traditional costume back into special or every-day occasions, and even offer tips to guys whose date is wearing a kimono.

“Don’t touch,” is the general rule. “Putting your arm around her shoulder or waist could loosen the fabric and ruin her outfit.”

“Remember that her sandals may be hurting her feet,” is another thing to remember, the sites say. “Sit down as often as possible.”

Online tips on kimono wear and care are helping to reintroduce Japanese to the garment, much to the joy of retailers, who in 20 years have watched the kimono market shrink to less than half its size.

Second-hand kimono stores are posting easy-to-understand instructions on everything from how they are fitted, to tips on stain removal and proper storage (http://www.kyoushouan.com/).

A Web site run by small Kyoto kimono goods store Ando Co. has practical advice on finding sandals that don’t hurt your feet as well as animated illustrations on wearing a yukata — a lighter, summer version of the kimono (http://yukatalism.com).

“People say the kimono is dying out,” said Yukatalism chief editor Kimihiro Yamaguchi. “But that’s not the picture I get.”

The site saw 1.95 million hits since 2000 and has lifted Ando’s sandal orders to about 100 a day, up from just a handful before, he said.

Changing fashions have negatively impacted demand for Japan’s traditional garb, which is worn mainly at formal occasions, weddings and coming-of-age ceremonies.

But for the first time in more than two decades, the $5 billion industry is in for a slight expansion in the business year to March 2008, according to Yano Research Institute Ltd.

Internet support groups and online sales of less-expensive and vintage kimono are keeping sales from falling, according to Yano Research spokeswoman Rimi Nakamura.

Online sales of kimono, also described as one of Japan’s oldest works of art, are still relatively slow, as buyers prefer to feel the fabric and hold it against the light. But growth has continued steadily since 2000, according to Yano Research.

One shopper who spent about 300,000 yen ($2,475) on kimono last year, is Chiaki Hara, an athletic trainer. Some of her favourite sites, Kururi and Yukataya, run by small kimono makers, are loaded with blog commentary and tips on selecting the right pattern of kimono (http://www.kururi.net/index.html)(http://www.rakuten.co.jp/gold/yukataya/).

She likes to shop online, despite a disappointing purchase of a striped emerald-green vintage kimono for $100, which she was unable to return.

“The colors were wrong. I can live with that in a shirt or dress, but color is what makes kimono either cheap or elegant,” said Hara, 31. “I might be able to wear it in poor lighting.”

The kimono industry has not done a good job of reaching out to kimono-lovers like Hara with better graphics and more complete information on Internet sites, according to Naoto Obama, a managing director at private equity firm Olympus Capital Holdings Asia.

Last year, one of Japan’s largest kimono store chains, Takeuchi Group, filed for bankruptcy due to sluggish sales and tough competition.

But Olympus is betting it would be able to find untapped demand for the kimono. The fund said earlier this month that it will buy a third of kimono retailer Kyoto Kimono Yuzen Co. Ltd., the No. 1 seller of long-sleeved kimono worn by unmarried women.

Women are spending more per kimono for coming-of-age ceremonies and weddings, and older women are now wearing kimono more often, Obama said.

“Kimono makers and retailers have simply not done enough to promote kimono for daily wear,” he said. “We need to be more creative at marketing kimono. There is so much potential.”

Thousands of Japanese have been swindled in a scam in which they were sold Australian and British sheep and told they were poodles.

Flocks of sheep were imported to Japan and then sold by a company called Poodles as Pets, marketed as fashionable accessories, available at $1,600 each.

That is a snip compared to a real poodle which retails for twice that much in Japan.

The scam was uncovered when Japanese moviestar Maiko Kawamaki went on a talk-show and wondered why her new pet would not bark or eat dog food.

She was crestfallen when told it was a sheep.

Then hundreds of other women got in touch with police to say they feared their new “poodle” was also a sheep.

One couple said they became suspicious when they took their “dog” to have its claws trimmed and were told it had hooves.

Japanese police believe there could be 2,000 people affected by the scam, which operated in Sapporo and capitalised on the fact that sheep are rare in Japan, so many do not know what they look like.

“We launched an investigation after we were made aware that a company were selling sheep as poodles,” Japanese police said, the The Sun reported.

“Sadly we think there is more than one company operating in this way.

“The sheep are believed to have been imported from overseas – Britain, Australia.”

Many of the sheep have now been donated to zoos and farms.

By Kaori Shoji
Monday, April 16, 2007
International Herald Tribune

TOKYO: The designer and architect Shuwa Tei says that the very first home product he bought was a hot dog maker, when he was 6. Young as he was, Tei had a hankering to “eat a good-looking hot dog” and decided that for this end, he must first get the right appliance.

Having glimpsed one in a local church bazaar, he immediately pitched a presentation to his parents, who like truly good clients, recognized artistic appeal when they saw it. Tei got his hot dog maker but then was at a loss: the only sausages at home were small, rinky Japanese ones, not the fat juicy frankfurters that went into “good-looking” hot dogs. Tei had his first lesson in home product design: “Having the right equipment isn’t enough. One must think of the project in its totality. The home, the décor, what was in the fridge – all these things had to form a harmonious whole,” he said.
Tei still thinks in those terms. For him, interior design, exterior architecture and product design occupy the same space, instead of being compartmentalized into separate disciplines. “When you’re designing a kitchen product, you have to think of what the kitchen looks like, how it functions, how the product fits into the scheme,” he said. “This is difficult because in Japan, kitchens are often afterthoughts of architects who have little idea of how kitchens should be.”
Tei, who said he would have been a chef had he not become a designer, compares his product designs to Japanese course meals called kaiseki. “There should be different flavors and textures, varying notes on the palate. And in the end, all these elements will gather to form one overall impression. But like kaiseki meals, I want my designs to be light, easy on the eye but not always easy to fathom. Satiation is one of the things I try to avoid,” he said.
Tei directs the home product brand Amadana (the name is taken from a Tokyo lacquer-artisan district of 300 years ago) in addition to working on various architectural and interior design projects, like the much-acclaimed Hotel Claska, United Cinemas Toyosu Theater and the Burberry Blue Label shop (all in Tokyo) with his company Intentionallies. Amadana products are unlike anything the Japanese consumer has seen before – subtly blending wood, leather, metals and acrylic glass to achieve an effect that is neither nostalagic nor futuristic.
“I hope they’ll become classics of the future,” said Tei. “Something that will remain, not for its durability but for the way the designs grow on you over time, in a way that’s subtly but perceptively pleasing.” Indeed, Amadana products are light to the touch and pleasant to behold (and importantly, they’re also reasonably priced) – distinctive but never in-your-face. “I don’t think everyone will get it, but then I’m not aiming for mass appeal. I just want to keep things loosely defined, and hope that those who do get it will get the ambiguity and find it attractive.”
In a sense, Tei’s stance is quintessentially Japanese. Historically, the radicals of the Japanese art world had always avoided the obviously progressive or revolutionary, preferring to make their statements through the seemingly mundane or with shades of nuance.
Often compared to Tei is another maverick in home product design: Naoto Fukasawa, who has collaborated with Muji, an appliance, home products and clothing company.
Muji (whose original corporate slogan was “all value, no frills”) and Fukasawa have popularized the importance of the ordinary; not exactly a less is more aesthetic, but discerning what is necessary and leaving it at that. Fukasawa’s hit product is the wall-hanging CD player. It is about the size of a piece of toast and fits into any niche; it is operated by tugging a cord and has just one tiny dial (for volume). Fukasawa has repeatedly said that ordinariness, or normality, is a state in which the Japanese (designers and users alike) excel, but one that’s in danger of being elbowed out by excessive/obsessive design.
The consumer analyst Midori Itoh said: “It’s true, there’s a consumer awareness that hasn’t been there before. People are starting to care what a home appliance looks like and, in many cases, willing to pay the extra cash for good designs.” They’re also picking up design magazines like “d,” run by the designer-cum-shop owner Kenmei Nagaoka, who assembles tight, readable articles on all things design, from architecture and suitcases to the package on a chocolate bar. Tokyo’s eclectic boutiques, called “select shops,” display designer kettles next to summer dresses and DVD players.

Itoh added that this trend is natural: “Design is the next big industry. It’s not about making things that work anymore. It’s about making things that look better than the competitor, and presenting them to customers inside a chic, attractive space.”
Tei takes that a step further. “Certainly it’s important for a product to look good but what constitutes good?” he asked. “I prefer looser, vague terms like ’sort of good.’ And when I do the designs, I ultimately aim to please just one person, myself. I have no obsessions, and my standards of good and bad are always undefined. So, that simplifies the process. If I try to satisfy everyone, the whole thing becomes a lot more complicated.”