At Book Off last week, I picked up an English translation of Tsutsumi Seiji’s Japan’s Consumer Society: A Critical Introduction 『消費社会批判』. Tsutsumi is, for those who do not know his legend, the man behind the Saison retailing group and its sophisticated retail chains Seibu Department Store, PARCO, Loft, Mujirushi Ryohin (MUJI), Wave, and Seed. He is also a former Marxist and award-winning poet/novelist who used his industrial power to support avant-garde artists such as Terayama Shuji.

The title of Tsutsumi’s book is a bit misleading: The volume is mostly abstract and theoretical, quoting Barthes, Bourdieu, and Baudrillard rather than talking about the specifics of Japanese consumer society. Written in 1996 — just as the Bubble had popped and the consumer market was about to peak — Tsutsumi offered many critiques to the Japanese industrial system. He, however, sounded most worried about Japan’s lag in the information technologies. When framed within the context of mobile phones and video games, this may have seemed like a silly concern. The following facts about the state of computer usage within Japan, however, grabbed my attention:

[A] 1993 study…of the diffusion rates for personal computers in the office showed Japan at 9.9% and the United States at 41.7%. Looking at Internet-connected systems as of January 1995, Japan had only 96,632 compared to the United States’ 3,179,170, and the gap is widening year by year. (174)

This data reveals a very significant difference in the centrality of the personal computer and Internet within the two perspective societies — even when held for population.

Of course, Japan eventually “caught up” and now boasts an impressive Internet diffusion rate. Thanks to highly-evolved mobile phones, even non-PC users can connect to the Internet (or its i-mode simulacra). Yet when you look at the “cultural development” of the Net, Japan still feels stunted. The most obvious example is that a very niche site like 2ch still works as the central hub for Net cultural creation and sets the overall tone, despite the core users’ non-mainstream values such as obsession with little girls and bitter neo-right-wing tendencies.

These computer diffusion numbers from 1995 help explain what is happening: Internet culture does not just rely upon the current state of usage but a compounded set of familiarities and expectations about the medium forged over a broad historical period. If less than 10% of the working Japanese population used computers in the 1990s and very few families had computers at home, that means that most Japanese people are not likely to be comfortable with computers nor communicating through them. Even those who have embraced computers in the last decade do not have a lifetime of knowledge about them from which to pull.

Personally speaking, my father’s work on math and statistics meant we always had a PC at home — from a TRS-80 to a Mac Classic II. Part of my joy of using computers and belief in the power of the Internet comes from my good fortune of being exposed to both PCs and the Net at an early age. And I do not think my case was that rare.

Conversely you cannot expect a population without these experiences to somehow make a full psychological embrace of the medium. This is especially true for older Japanese who likely never used computers at work nor saw their peers and neighbors use them with any kind of regularity. And based on the relative recentness of PC diffusion, we should expect that the top decision-makers in Japanese companies — who have always traditionally been in their 50s and 60s — do not have a deep-seated familiarity with the computer.

In this sense, I would argue that while Japan has caught up in terms of infrastructure, the idea of using computers as a social and communicative tool is still very young within a great majority of the population.

The new fonts I designed for Onitsuka Tiger, Kirimomi Geometric Sans and Kirimomi Swash, are now available for free download on Néojaponisme.

For the past year I’ve been working on a new type design project with the Japanese sports fashion brand Onitsuka Tiger in conjunction with my online journal Néojaponisme. I sat down with some folks at Onitsuka Tiger’s office in Tokyo to pore over the company’s vast archives of print advertising from the company’s advent in 1949 through around 1977, and to draw inspiration as I pleased for the design of a pair of digital fonts that help tell the story of Onitsuka Tiger as a brand.

Looking through the hundreds of ads, catalogs, brochures and assorted other materials, it became immediately clear that there was a bigger story to be told — the Onitsuka Tiger materials span the technological and cultural development of Modern printing. The typography and graphic design of Onitsuka Tiger’s assorted printed materials provided a myriad of potential jumping-off points that span both Japanese and Western history, revealing a startling series of commonalities as well as interesting divergent moments in time.

From classical influence to highly futuristic, there is a huge gamut of interesting sources to pull from. Onitsuka Tiger’s printed promotions started in the age of metal typesetting, took advantage of phototype compositing in the 1960s through the 1980s, then entered the digital realm in the the late 1980s. As a Japanese company that marketed domestically and abroad, the marketing department had to be aware of typographic trends internationally, and this was reflected in their printed materials. From the prevalence of American Type Founders typefaces used in early advertising mixed with hand lettering to incised prototype katakana and hiragana to the Helveticization of the globe, Onitsuka Tiger’s printed matter functions as a cultural and aesthetic survey of popular styles and unique approaches to graphic design.

The two fonts created for this project are:

Kirimomi Swash

A display typeface which is rooted in both classical form and the sharp edges of photoype lettering. The typeface looks back to the historic forms of French typefounder Jean Jannon for it’s base, as well as the curved terminals and weighty serifs of the work of William Caslon. The various interpretations of their work throughout history have been applied to give each letterform presence, stability and rigidity. Sharp phototype swashes culled from the logo for EMPEROR, a line of golf shoes released by Onitsuka Tiger thirty-plus years ago have been applied to give the face a timeliness of the Modern/Postmodern era, offsetting the historical skeletal frame.

Kirimomi Swash is first and foremost a display face, and in order for it to function gracefully, a number of ligatures and alternate characters have been included. It is intentionally not designed for text setting, as that would require a smoothing-out of the most prominent elements, and the result would most likely be a typeface that while potentially being useful, would not stand out in a crowd.

Kirimomi Geometric Sans

A sans serif inspired by early geometric typefaces and the horizontal directionality of phototype text, yet designed to render immaculately on-screen and in print. This geometric sans owes a deep debt to Roger Excoffon’s 1962 typeface Antique Olive, as much as to contemporary interpretations of Paul Renner’s Futura, the near geometric rounded characters pinched and squeezed for readability.

Antique Olive’s S and s were indicative of brush track twists, having an overly large top story giving it the appearance of almost being upside-down. While many continue to question this move, as Antique Olive was meant to be the French contender for the sans serif crown being vied for by Univers and Helvetica and “failed” due to it’s strong personality, these strong nuances help convey a vivacity and liveliness missing from so much of contemporary sans serif type design. Excoffon’s idiosyncratic moves are mirrored in aspects of Kirimomi Geometric Sans – the scooped top of the lowercase i and j mirror their dotted elements; the whole face has a very large x-height; and terminals are sliced off, creating a distinctively sharp visual impression. The sliced serifs and terminals give the face a horizontal thrust that pushes readers’ eyes forward in lines of text.

Aspects of Kirimomi Geometric Sans veer wildly from these inspirational starting points: the lowercase a being double-storied, the optical “dazzle” of it’s predecessors toned down, and the entire typeface carefully kerned for optimum results in text setting. A number of alternate capitals and ligatures are included for the best possible results, including OpenType auto-substitution for all OpenType-enabled applications.

A number of pattern-making glyphs have been drawn and included in lieu of traditional typographic ornament within each of these fonts. Contemporary font technology allows the deployment of pattern elements in a regulated environment, allowing designers to control the amount of space in side bearings. When typeset and leading/line-height is adjusted, one can create smooth, even patterns, choose coloring and adjust scale quickly without having to resort to external files.

Both fonts are offered in OpenType format, the industry standard font format and will operate smoothly cross-platform. If used with applications such as the Adobe Creative Suite, users can easily access the multiple alternate characters that are included.

Both fonts also feature @font-face CSS webfont kits in the download, allowing users to deploy the fonts in lieu of system fonts on personal websites. (The webfont kits were generated using FontSquirrel, a very handy service for generating @font-face code in an easy, friendly manner.) The webfont kits include sample CSS and HTML files so users can implement the Kirimomi Fonts in an easy-to-understand way.

Download the fonts here:

Kirimomi Swash
Kirimomi Geometric Sans

The past few months I’ve been working on a new type design project with the Japanese sports fashion brand Onitsuka Tiger in conjunction with Néojaponisme. I sat down with some folks at Onitsuka Tiger’s office in Tokyo to pore over the company’s vast archives of print advertising from the company’s advent in 1949 through around 1977, and to draw inspiration as I pleased for the design of a pair of digital fonts that help tell the story of Onitsuka Tiger as a brand.

Looking through the hundreds of ads, catalogs, brochures and assorted other materials, it became immediately clear that there was a bigger story to be told — the Onitsuka Tiger materials span the technological and cultural development of Modern printing. So I will be putting together a series of posts and essays here on Néojaponisme that document both the development of the typefaces and their cultural relevance to the continuum of type design.

The typography and graphic design of Onitsuka Tiger’s assorted printed materials provided a myriad of potential jumping-off points that span both Japanese and Western history, revealing a startling series of commonalities as well as interesting divergent moments in time.

From classical influence to highly futuristic, there is a huge gamut of interesting sources to pull from. Onitsuka Tiger’s printed promotions started in the age of metal typesetting, took advantage of phototype compositing in the 1960s through the 1980s, then entered the digital realm in the the 1990s. As a Japanese company that marketed domestically and abroad, the marketing department had to be aware of typographic trends internationally, and this was reflected in their printed materials. From the prevalence of American Type Founders typefaces used in early advertising mixed with hand lettering to incised prototype katakana and hiragana to the Helveticization of the globe, Onitsuka Tiger functions as a cultural and aesthetic survey of popular styles and unique approaches to graphic design.

The two fonts created for this project are:

• Kirimomi Swash

A display typeface which is rooted in both classical form and the sharp edges of photoype lettering.

• Kirimomi Geometric Sans

A sans serif inspired by early geometric typefaces and the horizontal directionality of phototype text, yet designed to render immaculately on-screen and in print.

These digital fonts will be available for free download in the upcoming month.

Popular culture may be imploding in Japan, but this has been good news for the otaku. With not much competition from the trend-minded consumer habits of normal human beings, the otaku have become the most influential player in the market. The few cultural breakthroughs of the last few years have come from this long-standing subculture’s deep psychological need to interact with people in mediated ways, from obsessing over idol collectives, making songs powered by vocaloids, collecting toys, anonymously writing online about their newest favorite anime featuring little girls, and following every moment of Cooking Idol Main.

To get a better sense of what is going on lately in otaku culture, Marxy of Néojaponisme sat down with Patrick Macias — editor of Otaku USA and author of such books as Cruising the Anime City: An Otaku Guide to Neo Tokyo — and Matt Alt — author of Yokai Attack!: The Japanese Monster Survival Guide and Ninja Attack!: True Tales of Assassins, Samurai, and Outlaws — in a cold basement, warmed only by the glow of an old kotatsu.

Listen to the hour-long discussion on the past, present, and future of otaku culture and what it means for us non-otaku.

Download: On Otaku: Marxy x Patrick Macias x Matt Altt
General Néojaponisme Podcast RSS Feed: .rss

Related Articles:
• Matt Alt translation of seminal 1980s article “What Kind of Otaku Are You”
• Matt Alt translation of seminal 1980s article “Can Otaku Love Like Normal People”
• Podcast with Patrick Macias on Japanese style and fashion: Harajuku Requiem
• Podcast with Patrick Macias on Japanese recessionary culture: The Tonkatsu Tapes

Kacie Kinzer‘s Tweenbots made the internet rounds earlier this month on sheer charm. Unlike the awkward double-jointed humanoids in mainstream robotics labs learning to gingerly pour cups of tea for the elderly, Kinzer’s Tweenbots are just boxes on wheels with stylized smiles and taped-on notes indicating a destination and asking for help in their quest to arrive there.

And most of the time, they get it. Kinzer claims that as “not one” Tweenbot got lost or damaged as it made its way through the city. As she puts it:

[T]his ad-hoc crowdsourcing was driven primarily by human empathy for an anthropomorphized object. The journey the Tweenbots take each time they are released in the city becomes a story of people’s willingness to engage with a creature that mirrors human characteristics of vulnerability, of being lost, and of having intention without the means of achieving its goal alone.

In other words, Tweenbots are masters of amae, the art of childish, irresistible dependency. This has intriguing implications for human-robot interaction even if the Tweenbots themselves are more art project than anything else.

It might seem surprising that this idea should come out of the US. Wasn’t Japan the country gradually filling up with roly-poly companions along the lines of those in Tezuka Osamu’s Astroboy and other manga, while the American market favors no-nonsense machines that are faceless, creepy, or both? (Relatively thoughtful example of this narrative: “Why Should We Be Friends?” in Newsweek last year.)

When you think about it, though, Japan’s superstar robots already rely on amae in a very deep and existential way. An AIBO isn’t quite as helpless as a Tweenbot, but it was very carefully designed to appear to be. (Even the sound design was contracted out to Takemura “Child & Magic” Nobukazu.) ASIMO speaks like a child, looks like a whimsical space elf, and acts like a clumsy servant. You could hire a human to do what the ASIMO does much more smoothly, and it would probably even be cheaper — but people forgive the ASIMO its failings because it seems to be trying its hardest to please.

A Roomba, on the other hand, relates to two things: furniture and dirt. It isn’t even designed to simulate awareness of humans, let alone deference. (You can imagine a Roomba doggedly cleaning a post-apocalyptic wasteland, Wall-E-style, but can you imagine an AIBO frolicking there?)

Tweenbots are closer to the Roomba pole than the ASIMO one. They, too, are insects blindly following one very simple algorithm: “move forward while looking cute”. They don’t interact with humans; humans act on them. That humans interpret this as an interaction is an artifact of the human programming to be suckers for cute, helpless creatures. People get attached to their Roombas, too, naming them and treating them like pets, despite the fact that a Roomba literally cannot distinguish a human from an end table.

An AIBO or an ASIMO performs amae, while a Tweenbot embodies it. In robotics, specialization usually increases efficiency, which means that a Tweenbot’s amae comes cheaper and easier. But it also makes them a developmental cul-de-sac: they are designed to need us more than we need them.

This is not the case for the ASIMOs and AIBOs of the world. The hope for them is that they will one day mature into new models dextrous and capable enough to allow us to indulge in amae. Let’s be brutally honest: the manga model for robot-assisted aged care is less Astroboy than Doraemon, the robo-amae fantasy par excellence. If you want a picture of the future, imagine an old man pleading for a takecopter — forever.

Until then, though, we indulge them like the children they are, indulging their weaknesses, applauding proudly when they manage to stand upright unsupported, and waiting patiently for them to grow up — something which Tweenbots, like Peter Pan, will never do.