Awesome Japan

Gramicci Japan teamed up with F/CE. to create a collection of modern outdoor clothing that’s equally at home in the city and the mountains. The lightweight Mountain Jacket is made from 100% Taslan military nylon and features a zip-and-snap opening, multiple utility pockets, and a dramatic skirted shape. Complete the look with matching cargo pants.

To celebrate the 2023 Japanese Grand Prix, drivers from Oracle Red Bull Racing battled Scuderia Alpha Tauri competed in this Japanese game show. Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez took on Yuki Tsunoda and Liam Lawson in a series of silly driving and cargo-hauling challenges in tiny Kei trucks. Mini-truck bowling looks like a blast.

We’ve seen how Japanese Kumiko lattice is made. Now, watch Yamanaka Kumiki Works create a different kind of wood pattern called Yosegi. The process involves applying thin wood veneers to boards, cutting them into small pieces, arranging and gluing them into a pattern, and slicing them back into a veneer. Here’s another unique Yosegi pattern being made.

For dental health, it’s important to brush your teeth a couple of times each day. If you’ve ever been curious how the toothbrush you use came to be, check out this video. Process X takes us inside the Lapis factory in Japan to see how they injection mold plastic pellets into toothbrush handles, then attach and prepare nylon bristles in the most satisfying way.

For years, Tokyo’s Akihabara district was home to one of the most amazing little shops. But after 43 years in business, Koichi Shimayama shuttered his tiny electronics shop under the tracks. After being gifted the remnants of the shop, Norm Nakamura from Toyko Lens (with the help of his supporters) paid a crew to dismantle and rebuild it inside his studio.

There are chefs with knife skills, then there’s Ryota Togishi. In this clip, the kitchen blademaster shows off his skills by cutting impossibly thin slices of bread, tomato, cucumber, and bacon. An extra-sharp Japanese knife certainly helps, but it also takes incredible dexterity to cut with such precision.

We’ve seen how Crayola mass-produces crayons. The Nippon Rikagaku Kogyo factory in Japan has a more hands-on process and uses different materials, including rice wax and rice oil, to make its Kitpas bath crayons. Process X shows us how ingredients are combined into a thick paste, rolled smooth, then poured into forms before applying labels by hand.

Screws are one of those everyday objects we take for granted but are critical to holding together everything from our kitchen appliances to our vehicles. Process X takes us inside Japan’s Okitsurasen factory to see how they turn coils of steel wire into millions of precision screws, washers, and other hardware.

Restaurants in Japan sometimes use fake food in their display windows. Shigeharu Takeuchi has been honing his skills in creating lookalike food for over 50 years. In this Process X video, you’ll see how he makes realistic lettuce, omelets, tempura shrimp, and other inedible delicacies from wax, pigments, and plastic. He even makes caulk look like an appetizing dessert.

Rubber bands are one of those ubiquitous things that we don’t really give a second thought to. But behind every rubber band is a factory and a team of skilled workers. Process X takes us inside Kyowa’s manufacturing facility to see how they transform blocks of natural rubber into millions of these useful office supplies every week.

Only in Japan host John Daub takes us inside the Komatsu Fireworks Company for a look at how they handmake their shells. Some fireworks can take months to create, each starting with a tiny ceramic ball at its center, built up in layers to produce effects. Their largest shell can produce an explosion nearly 1/2 a mile across.

The members of the Japanese group Bozestyle are proud of their bald heads. In fact, they’ve made them part of their performances. To bring their music to life, they rig their heads with buttons that can be used to trigger electronic sounds. Their version of The Imperial March is one of our favorites, but check out their Instagram for more.

Process X visited Marusho Co., a Japanese factory that makes metal toys. During this production run, you’ll see how they create tiny airplanes by cutting sheet metal into strips, stamping their fuselages, and assembling the parts. It’s amazing to see how much handwork goes into creating each toy.

This unique utensil was designed by Masami Takahashi for diners at the Japanese ramen chain Sugakiya. The stainless steel spoon/fork combo makes it easy to enjoy both the delicious noodles and broth at the same time, and without wasting disposable chopsticks.

After making a homebrew hovercraft with a leaf blower, Hideyasu Ito created his own unique take on the air-cushioned ride, a single-person hovercraft that floats on four plastic bubbles. Tom Scott had the rare privilege to meet the inventor and take his amazing creation for a ride.

Masks have been part of Japanese culture for more than a thousand years. Process X takes us inside, Womokage, a small company that makes these detailed masks the traditional way. Skilled artisans use chisels to carve facial features from a solid block of wood, then hand-apply a coating and paint pigments to bring out details.

Locking up your bicycle to a rack or pulling your car into a marked space seem like nice, low-tech approaches to parking. Tom Scott explains why some locations in Japan have adopted a much more complicated system, using underground garages and massive, robotically-controlled systems for parking bikes and cars.

Process X takes us inside Japan’s Miura Golf Co. to see how the factory produces heads for golf clubs. They start by chopping up steel rods, then heating, shaping, stamping, fine-tuning, polishing, and sandblasting them until a club head emerges. The process for making wood golf clubs is quite different.

If there’s one thing humans use a lot of, it’s toilet paper. This video from Process X takes us inside Japan’s Marutomi Paper Co., a factory that cranks out millions of rolls of the stuff every month. They start with stacks of paper pulp that they wet and press into massive rolls, which they then print, wrap around cores, and slice.

Pencils and pasta have more in common than you might think. Process X takes us inside a factory in Japan that makes pencil leads using a similar process to making spaghetti. After mixing raw ingredients, they extrude them into soft noodles, then cut them. Though instead of boiling them, they bake then soak them in hot oil.

If you’ve eaten at a Japanese restaurant, you’ve probably seen a maneki-neko. These decorative cat figurines are believed to bring good luck to those who possess one, so they’re incredibly popular. Process X visited the Umetsuki Tomimoto Doll Garden factory, birthplace of roughly 80% of ceramic maneki-neko sold in Japan.

Take a trip to Japan with each sip from this glass inspired by the shape of the famed Mount Fuji. While it works for sipping whiskey, we like how the foamy head from beer resembles the snow-capped peak of the 12,380-foot-tall mountain. Holds 360 ml or about 12 oz.

Process X takes us inside the Ishii Sports shoe factory to see how artisans create boots by hand. Each shoe starts by cutting shapes out of leather, refining its edges, then gluing and stitching the pieces together, adding lace rivets, and nailing it around a wooden form before sewing on its insole and attaching the layers of its sole.