日本が世界に誇る先進「トイレ」事情

I have the feeling that another video is going to be uploaded to his youTube channel, too. So stay tuned.

There’s also a channel exclusively about of his tech lessons on youTube. Highly recommended!
Here is the latest contribution:

This is so going into the direction of the Itasha that Kawaguchi referenced as an example in one of his articles. Funny though that Tada rather pointed at the US market, where – as he said – car customization “was an established part of car culture”. Why isn’t he looking at Japan I wonder…Marketing?

Earliest manga in Japan has two big heroes: Atom Boy written by Tezuka Osamu and Medama-oyaji by Shigeru Mizuki. Even though they appeared in the 1950’s, they couldn’t be more different.

Atom Boy is a robot with meticulously described powers: He uses atom power equaling 1 mln horse power, can fly, hears 100,000 times better than a human, speaks 16 languages – and can recognize the good from the bad guys. He is the hero protecting the world with his powers. He is pure hardware.

Opposed to him is Medama-oyaji: A tiny critter, so weak it can barely walk and that lives in the hair of his human son Kitaro. He acts as his son’s advisor and also encourages him when his son is depressed. He is the voice we often wish we had. This hero is pure software.

For years product development has been focused on hardware, to make things more efficient in their functionality. This is the Atom Boy principle. Astro Boy’s raison d’etre was pretty much based on the powers he had, and he had to prove his usefulness as an only near-human. He ends up committing suicide. On the other hand there is Medama-oyaji, an almost non-physical being that as opposed to technology represents a spirit. His soul stems from nature, while Astro Boy’s stems from human design.

Morinosuke Kawaguchi believes that engineers are trapped into asking the wrong – or just the same – question, which is always about what technology can do. As our devices become more intelligent, the Medama-oyaji principle gains in importance, and with this perspective Kawaguchi advises engineers to simply think about what they wish they had. To Kawaguchi, the Medama-oyaji is the predecessor of today’s mobile phone and what it still holds in store for us in the future.

Medama-oyaji is a concierge, a coach, an on-demand functional, wearable advisor. As Atom Boy was reduced to his functionality, he failed in the end. The future devices are not simply function, but a voice telling us to keep going.

In unbalanced power systems there always are winners and losers, strong and weak. While this might be a natural and even required property in many cases, a better harmonization of power may be sought for others.

An example would be the traffic systems on our streets. The power imbalance comes from large variety of vehicles “competing”, from the big powerful trucks to the small and ill-protected mini car. In an accident, the latter will always lose against the stronger traffic participant, resulting in severe injuries to driver and vehicle.
Source: Morinosuke Kawaguchi

It would be illusionary to advise all cars to be of the same size in order to balance the system. Instead, Kawaguchi points at nature and draws from the story “Kimba, the White Lion” by manga legend Tezuka Osamu. Kawaguchi explains that weaker creatures often resort to warning signals in order to protect themselves from larger, more powerful animals that might, say, accidently step on it. Think of the wasp and its stripes in that respect. Such warning signals and patterns are deeply imprinted in our memory, and the brain recognizes the signs very rapidly.

Conversely, features following the baby schema are sending soothing signals to the brain and reduce stress in the viewer. Japanese cuteness (“kawaii”) used in otaku culture very much follows the baby schema and is probably one of the strongest “no danger from me” signals.
As a result, smaller, weaker cars need to be designed to send out warning signals that the brain picks up so they would be more accounted for on the street. Trucks, on the other hand, would be designed to have a milder, cuter appearance in order to reduce stress they cause on weaker traffic participants.
This will not reduce the damage caused in traffic accidents per se. But it helps to reduce the number of accidents in this unbalanced system. And contributes to a gentler traffic flow and reduces road rage.

Our traditional understanding of an electrical gadget is that it meets its functional requirements in order to “serve”, empower and/or gives prestige to its owner. Product cycles are driven by the pattern of newly added functions and status.

But Morinosuke Kawaguchi sees other ways to create prestigious products. He explains this concept with the example of the horse (you may read it as a metaphor for “vehicle”) Kokuogo from the story Fist of the North Star (北斗の拳). This horse is owner-empowering: it is giant, smart and very powerful. However, this horse is far from being a sidekick. It carefully chooses its owner and over the course of the story serves the “evil” as well as the “good” guy. Riding this horse marks a premium achievement. The rider’s goal is thus for this horse to choose him over others.

Kokuogo stands for a product not being a servant at all. It recognizes the present condition of a potential owner and decides if he is eligible. So prestige is not generated by ownership, usually achieved through a certain amount of money proportional to the prestige.

Kawaguchi is already advising top tier Japanese electronics companies on this in order to create a whole new value set in owning and dealing with products. Through creating an air of “distinctiveness” that emanates from the product, the owner will behave in a certain way to become eligible.

There are hints for this kind of product design in e.g. the Japanese money saving boxes by Bandai designed for young girls. Depending on how diligent the girl is in saving money, the “boy” in the money box is either pleasant or chastising the girl up. In the worst case, the boy may even disappear from the money box altogether.

On Japan’s roads you can find a very special kind of car everyone will know to belong to an otaku. Deeply submerged into the world of manga, anime and video gaming, for designing their cars with huge stickers of cute anime girls gave them confidence and allowed them to take their private world and lifestyle feeling onto the street.

These cars are called Itasha, which means “painful car”, basically because the car owners have altered the original, “perfect” design of the car as it was intended by the engineer. The image of a perfectly designed automobile disparaged by geeky subculture must indeed be painful to car designers.

Source: Wikipedia

To Morinosuke Kawaguchi however, the Itasha stands for a very different product conception than that of a perfect, finished product that must not be altered. In the traditional sense, it would almost be a sin to put stickers on a Ferrari since it is engineered and sold as a completely final, it-does-not-get-better-than-this automobile.

A totally opposed concept in the car industry is customization and modularity. Changing the skin of the car as the Itasha owners do is but a first step. But for truly long tail design, Kawaguchi predicts, this is but a beginning.

Engineers need to think of ways to develop cars that cater to a growing demand for customization and individuality. Their customers are allowed and encouraged to design their very personal car to a much more farfetching extent than is possible today.

What makes the Itasha so special is that its owners feel emotionally connected to it. Their very own idea of the ideal car they want to drive has also resulted in the creation of a small industry and new service ideas around the Itasha, such as printing shops able to provide poster size stickers.

Customization and modularity will but increase possibilities in the supplier industry, this time directly in touch with the end consumer. As for ideas, Kawaguchi points out that subculture is already taking the concept further: the anime series “Mezzo forte” integrated the Itasha in the storyline. Here, the Itasha was already a completely modular designable, and very prestigious, car.