This is a list of

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the n ...

ese

invention An invention is a unique or novel device, method, composition, idea or process. An invention may be an improvement upon a machine, product, or process for increasing efficiency or lowering cost. It may also be an entirely new concept. If an ...

s and discoveries. The Japanese have made contributions across a number of scientific and technological domains. In particular, the country has played a crucial role in the digital revolution since the 20th century, with many modern revolutionary and widespread technologies in fields such as

electronics The field of electronics is a branch of physics and electrical engineering that deals with the emission, behaviour and effects of electrons using electronic devices. Electronics uses active devices to control electron flow by amplification ...

and

robotic Robotics is an interdisciplinary branch of computer science and engineering. Robotics involves design, construction, operation, and use of robots. The goal of robotics is to design machines that can help and assist humans. Robotics integrate ...

s introduced by Japanese inventors and entrepreneurs.

Arts

;

Comic book A comic book, also called comicbook, comic magazine or (in the United Kingdom and Ireland) simply comic, is a publication that consists of comics art in the form of sequential juxtaposed panels that represent individual scenes. Panels are of ...

:Adam L. Kern has suggested that '' kibyoshi'', picture books from the late 18th century, may have been the world's first comic books. These graphical narratives share with modern

manga Manga ( Japanese: 漫画 ) are comics or graphic novels originating from Japan. Most manga conform to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century, and the form has a long prehistory in earlier Japanese art. The term ''manga'' is ...

humorous, satirical, and romantic themes. Some works were mass-produced as serials using

woodblock printing Woodblock printing or block printing is a technique for printing text, images or patterns used widely throughout East Asia and originating in China in antiquity as a method of printing on textiles and later paper. Each page or image is crea ...

. ; Folding hand fan :In ancient Japan, the first hand fans were oval and rigid fans, influenced greatly by Chinese fans. The earliest visual depiction of fans in Japan dates back to the 6th century AD, with burial tomb paintings showed drawings of fans. The folding fan was invented in Japan, with dates ranging from the 6th to 9th centuries and later exported to East Asia, Southeast Asia, and the West. Such a flourishing trade involving Japanese hand fans existed in the Ming dynasty times, when folding fans almost absolutely displaced the old rigid type in China. ;

Manga Manga ( Japanese: 漫画 ) are comics or graphic novels originating from Japan. Most manga conform to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century, and the form has a long prehistory in earlier Japanese art. The term ''manga'' is ...

:The

history of manga Manga, in the sense of narrative multi-panel cartoons made in Japan, originated from Euro-American-style cartoons featured in late 19th-century Japanese publications. The form of manga as speech-balloon-based comics more specifically originate ...

has origins in scrolls dating back to the 12th century, and it is believed they represent the basis for the right-to-left reading style. During the

Edo period The or is the period between 1603 and 1867 in the history of Japan, when Japan was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's 300 regional '' daimyo''. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengoku period, the Edo period was character ...

(1603–1867), ''Toba Ehon'' embedded the concept of manga. The word itself first came into common usage in 1798,
with the publication of works such as

Santō Kyōden Santō Kyōden (山東京伝, 13 September 1761 Edo – 27 October 1816) was a Japanese artist, writer, and the owner of a tobacco shop during the Edo period. His real name was Iwase Samuru (岩瀬醒), and he was also known popularly as Ky� ...

's picturebook ''Shiji no yukikai'' (1798), and in the early 19th century with such works as Aikawa Minwa's ''Manga hyakujo'' (1814) and the '' Hokusai Manga'' books (1814–1834). ; Revolving stage :Invented for the Kabuki theatre in Japan in the 18th century, the revolving stage was introduced into Western theater at the

Residenz theatre The Residence Theatre (in German: Residenztheater) or New Residence Theatre (Neues Residenztheater) of the Residence in Munich was built from 1950 to 1951 by Karl Hocheder. The renovation of 1981 by Alexander von Branca removed the decoration w ...

in Munich in 1896 under the influence of

japonism ''Japonisme'' is a French term that refers to the popularity and influence of Japanese art and design among a number of Western European artists in the nineteenth century following the forced reopening of foreign trade with Japan in 1858. Japon ...

fever.

Film and animation

;

Anime is Traditional animation, hand-drawn and computer animation, computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside of Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, in Japan and in Japane ...

: Japanese animation, or anime, today widely popular both in Japan and abroad, began in the early 20th century. ;

Man with No Name The Man with No Name ( it, Uomo senza nome) is the antihero character portrayed by Clint Eastwood in Sergio Leone's "''Dollars Trilogy''" of Italian Spaghetti Western films: ''A Fistful of Dollars'' (1964), ''For a Few Dollars More'' (1965), ...

: A

stock character A stock character, also known as a character archetype, is a fictional character in a work of art such as a novel, play, or a film whom audiences recognize from frequent recurrences in a particular literary tradition. There is a wide range of s ...

that originated with

Akira Kurosawa was a Japanese filmmaker and painter who directed thirty films in a career spanning over five decades. He is widely regarded as one of the most important and influential filmmakers in the history of cinema. Kurosawa displayed a bold, dyna ...

's '' Yojimbo'' (1961), where the archetype was first portrayed by

Toshirō Mifune was a Japanese actor who appeared in over 150 feature films. He is best known for his 16-film collaboration (1948–1965) with Akira Kurosawa in such works as ''Rashomon'', ''Seven Samurai'', ''The Hidden Fortress'', ''Throne of Blood'', and ' ...

. The archetype was adapted by

Sergio Leone Sergio Leone (; 3 January 1929 – 30 April 1989) was an Italian film director, producer and screenwriter credited as the pioneer of the Spaghetti Western genre and widely regarded as one of the most influential directors in the history of cin ...

for his

Spaghetti Western The Spaghetti Western is a broad subgenre of Western films produced in Europe. It emerged in the mid-1960s in the wake of Sergio Leone's film-making style and international box-office success. The term was used by foreign critics because most o ...

Dollars Trilogy ''Dollars Trilogy'' ( it, link=no, Trilogia del dollaro), also known as the ''Man with No Name Trilogy'' ( it, link=no, Trilogia dell'Uomo senza nome) or the ''Blood Money Trilogy'', is an Italian film series consisting of three Spaghetti Weste ...

'' (1964–1966), with

Clint Eastwood Clinton Eastwood Jr. (born May 31, 1930) is an American actor and film director. After achieving success in the Western TV series '' Rawhide'', he rose to international fame with his role as the " Man with No Name" in Sergio Leone's "'' Do ...

playing the role of the "Man with No Name" in Japan. The first depiction of mecha

Super Robot Mecha anime and manga, known in Japan as and , are anime and manga that feature robots (mecha) in battle. The genre is broken down into two subcategories; "super robot", featuring super-sized, implausible robots, and "real robot", where robots are ...

s being piloted by a user from within a cockpit was introduced in the

and

anime is Traditional animation, hand-drawn and computer animation, computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside of Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, in Japan and in Japane ...

series '' Mazinger Z'' by Go Nagai in 1972. ; Postcyberpunk animation/film : The first postcyberpunk media work in an animated/film format was '' Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex'' in 2002. It has been called "the most interesting, sustained postcyberpunk media work in existence." ; Steampunk animation : The earliest examples of steampunk

animation Animation is a method by which still figures are manipulated to appear as moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited on film. Today, most ani ...

are

Hayao Miyazaki is a Japanese animator, director, producer, screenwriter, author, and manga artist. A co-founder of Studio Ghibli, he has attained international acclaim as a masterful storyteller and creator of Japanese animated feature films, and is widel ...

works '' Future Boy Conan'' (1978), '' Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind'' (1984) and ''

Castle in the Sky , titled ''Laputa: Castle in the Sky'' for release in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand, is a 1986 Japanese animated fantasy adventure film written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki. The first film produced by Studio Ghibli, i ...

'' (1986). ; Superflat : A

postmodern art Postmodern art is a body of art movements that sought to contradict some aspects of modernism or some aspects that emerged or developed in its aftermath. In general, movements such as intermedia, installation art, conceptual art and multimedia, ...

form, founded by the artist

Takashi Murakami is a Japanese contemporary artist. He works in fine arts media (such as painting and sculpture) as well as commercial (such as fashion, merchandise, and animation) and is known for blurring the line between high and low arts as well as co ae ...

, which is influenced by ''

'' and ''

''.

Architecture

;

Japanese castle are fortresses constructed primarily of wood and stone. They evolved from the wooden stockades of earlier centuries, and came into their best-known form in the 16th century. Castles in Japan were built to guard important or strategic sites, such ...

: Fortresses constructed primarily out of stone and wood used for military defence in strategic locations. ;

Metabolism Metabolism (, from el, μεταβολή ''metabolē'', "change") is the set of life-sustaining chemical reactions in organisms. The three main functions of metabolism are: the conversion of the energy in food to energy available to run ...

: A post-war Japanese architectural movement developed by a wide variety of Japanese architects including

Kiyonori Kikutake (April 1, 1928 – December 26, 2011) was a prominent Japanese architect known as one of the founders of the Japanese Metabolist group. He was also the tutor and employer of several important Japanese architects, such as Toyo Ito, Shōzō ...

Kisho Kurokawa (April 8, 1934 – October 12, 2007) was a leading Japanese architect and one of the founders of the Metabolist Movement. Biography Born in Kanie, Aichi, Kurokawa studied architecture at Kyoto University, graduating with a bachelor's ...

and Fumihiko Maki, Metabolism aimed to fuse ideas about architectural megastructures with those of organic biological growth.Lin (2010), p. 23 ;

Tahōtō A is a form of Japanese pagoda found primarily at Esoteric Shingon and Tendai school Buddhist temples. It is unique among pagodas because it has an even number of stories (two). (The second story has a balustrade and seems habitable, but ...

: Tahōtō is a form of

Japanese pagoda Multi-storied pagodas in wood and stone, and a ''gorintō'' Pagodas in Japan are called , sometimes or and historically derive from the Chinese pagoda, itself an interpretation of the Indian ''stupa''. Like the ''stupa'', pagodas were origi ...

found primarily at

Esoteric Western esotericism, also known as esotericism, esoterism, and sometimes the Western mystery tradition, is a term scholars use to categorise a wide range of loosely related ideas and movements that developed within Western society. These ideas ...

Shingon Shingon monks at Mount Koya is one of the major schools of Buddhism in Japan and one of the few surviving Vajrayana lineages in East Asia, originally spread from India to China through traveling monks such as Vajrabodhi and Amoghavajra. Kn ...

and

Tendai , also known as the Tendai Lotus School (天台法華宗 ''Tendai hokke shū,'' sometimes just "''hokke shū''") is a Mahāyāna Buddhist tradition (with significant esoteric elements) officially established in Japan in 806 by the Japanese m ...

school

Buddhist temples A Buddhist temple or Buddhist monastery is the place of worship for Buddhists, the followers of Buddhism. They include the structures called vihara, chaitya, stupa, wat and pagoda in different regions and languages. Temples in Buddhism represen ...

. Unlike most pagodas, it has two stories. ;

Capsule hotel Capsule hotel ( ja, カプセルホテル, kapuseru hoteru), also known in the Western world as a pod hotel, is a type of hotel developed in Japan that features many small bed-sized rooms known as capsules. Capsule hotels provide cheap, basic o ...

:The first capsule hotel in the world opened in 1979 and was the Capsule Inn Osaka, located in the

Umeda is a major commercial, business, shopping and entertainment district in Kita-ku, Osaka, Japan, and the city's main northern railway terminus (Ōsaka Station, Umeda Station). The district's name means "plum field". History Umeda was historical ...

district of

Osaka is a designated city in the Kansai region of Honshu in Japan. It is the capital of and most populous city in Osaka Prefecture, and the third most populous city in Japan, following Special wards of Tokyo and Yokohama. With a population of ...

, Japan and designed by

. From there, it spread to other cities within Japan. Since then, the concept has further spread to various other territories, including Belgium, China, Hong Kong, Iceland, India, Indonesia, and Poland.

Atmospheric sciences

;

Downburst In meteorology, a downburst is a strong downward and outward gushing wind system that emanates from a point source above and blows radially, that is, in straight lines in all directions from the area of impact at surface level. Capable of pro ...

: Downbursts, strong ground-level wind systems that emanate from a point above and blow radially, were discovered by

Ted Fujita was a Japanese-American meteorologist whose research primarily focused on severe weather. His research at the University of Chicago on severe thunderstorms, tornadoes, hurricanes, and typhoons revolutionized the knowledge of each. Although ...

. ;

Fujita scale The Fujita scale (F-Scale; ), or Fujita–Pearson scale (FPP scale), is a scale for rating tornado intensity, based primarily on the damage tornadoes inflict on human-built structures and vegetation. The official Fujita scale category is deter ...

: The first scale designed to measure

tornado A tornado is a violently rotating column of air that is in contact with both the surface of the Earth and a cumulonimbus cloud or, in rare cases, the base of a cumulus cloud. It is often referred to as a twister, whirlwind or cyclone, alt ...

intensity, the Fujita scale, was first introduced by

(in collaboration with

Allen Pearson Allen Pearson was the Director of the National Severe Storms Forecast Center from 1965 to 1979 and began to collaborate with Tetsuya Theodore "Ted" Fujita on tornado physical characteristics soon after the 1970 Lubbock Tornado. They bounced ideas ...

) in 1971. The scale was widely adopted throughout the world until the development of the

Enhanced Fujita scale The Enhanced Fujita scale (abbreviated as EF-Scale) rates tornado intensity based on the severity of the damage they cause. It is used in some countries, including the United States, Canada, China, and Mongolia. The Enhanced Fujita scale repl ...

.Tornado Damage Scales: Fujita Scale and Enhanced Fujita Scale
/ref> ; Fujiwhara effect : The Fujiwhara effect is an atmospheric phenomenon where two nearby cyclonic vortices orbit each other and close the distance between the circulations of their corresponding

low-pressure area In meteorology, a low-pressure area, low area or low is a region where the atmospheric pressure is lower than that of surrounding locations. Low-pressure areas are commonly associated with inclement weather (such as cloudy, windy, with possible ...

s. The effect was first described by

Sakuhei Fujiwhara was a Japanese meteorologist who became the namesake for the Fujiwhara effect. Novelist Jirō Nitta is his nephew and mathematician Masahiko Fujiwara is his grandnephew. Biography Early life Born in the city of Suwa, Nagano Prefecture, Fuj ...

in 1921. ;

Jet stream Jet streams are fast flowing, narrow, meandering air currents in the atmospheres of some planets, including Earth. On Earth, the main jet streams are located near the altitude of the tropopause and are westerly winds (flowing west to east) ...

: Jet streams were first discovered by Japanese meteorologist

Wasaburo Oishi was a Japanese meteorologist. Born in Tosu, Saga, he is best known for his discovery of the high-altitude air currents now known as the jet stream. He was also an important Esperantist, serving as the second Board President of the from 1930 to 1 ...

by tracking

ceiling balloon A ceiling balloon also called a pilot balloon or pibal, is used by meteorologists to determine the height of the base of clouds above ground level during daylight hours. In the past, and sometimes today, a theodolite was used to track the ball ...

s. However, Oishi's work largely went unnoticed outside Japan because it was published in

Esperanto Esperanto ( or ) is the world's most widely spoken constructed international auxiliary language. Created by the Warsaw-based ophthalmologist L. L. Zamenhof in 1887, it was intended to be a universal second language for international communic ...

. ; Microburst : The microburst was first discovered and identified as a small scale

downburst In meteorology, a downburst is a strong downward and outward gushing wind system that emanates from a point source above and blows radially, that is, in straight lines in all directions from the area of impact at surface level. Capable of pro ...

affecting an area 4 km (2.5 mi) in diameter or less by

in 1974. Microbursts are recognized as capable of generating wind speeds higher than 270 km/h (170 mph). In addition, Fujita also discovered macrobursts and classified them as downbursts larger than 4 km (2.5 mi).

Sports

; Drifting competition : In 1988, Keiichi Tsuchiya alongside ''Option'' magazine founder and

chief editor An editor-in-chief (EIC), also known as lead editor or chief editor, is a publication's editorial leader who has final responsibility for its operations and policies. The highest-ranking editor of a publication may also be titled editor, managing ...

Daijiro Inada organised the first contest specifically for sliding a car sideways. In 1996, Option organized the first contest outside Japan which began to spread to other countries. ;

Ekiden is a long-distance running multi-stage relay race, mostly held on roads.Otake, Tomoko. ''One for All.'' Dec. 28, 200The Japan Times accessed Feb. 19, 2009. The original Japanese term had nothing to do with a sport or a competition, but it sim ...

(Road Relay) ; Gateball ;

Keirin – literally "racing cycle" – is a form of motor-paced cycle racing in which track cyclists sprint for victory following a speed-controlled start behind a motorized or non-motorized pacer. It was developed in Japan around 1948 for gambling ...

: Started as a gambling sport in 1948 and became an Olympic sport in 2000.

Martial arts

;

Aikido Aikido ( , , , ) is a modern Japanese martial art that is split into many different styles, including Iwama Ryu, Iwama Shin Shin Aiki Shuren Kai, Shodokan Aikido, Yoshinkan, Renshinkai, Aikikai and Ki Aikido. Aikido is now practiced in aroun ...

: Aikido was created and developed by

Morihei Ueshiba was a Japanese martial artist and founder of the martial art of aikido. He is often referred to as "the founder" or , "Great Teacher/Old Teacher (old as opposed to ''waka (young) sensei'')". The son of a landowner from Tanabe, Ueshiba st ...

in first half of the 20th century. ;

Judo is an unarmed modern Japanese martial art, Olympic sport (since 1964), and the most prominent form of jacket wrestling competed internationally.『日本大百科全書』電子版【柔道】(CD-ROM version of Encyclopedia Nipponica, "Judo") ...

:It was created as a physical, mental and moral

pedagogy Pedagogy (), most commonly understood as the approach to teaching, is the theory and practice of learning, and how this process influences, and is influenced by, the social, political and psychological development of learners. Pedagogy, taken ...

in Japan, in 1882, by

Kanō Jigorō was a Japanese educator, athlete, and the founder of Judo. Along with Ju-Jutsu, Judo was one of the first Japanese martial arts to gain widespread international recognition, and the first to become an official Olympic sport. Pedagogical in ...

. ;

Jujutsu Jujutsu ( ; ja, link=no, 柔術 , ), also known as jiu-jitsu and ju-jitsu, is a family of Japanese martial arts and a system of close combat (unarmed or with a minor weapon) that can be used in a defensive or offensive manner to kill or subd ...

: Jujutsu, the "way of yielding", is a collective name for Japanese martial art styles including unarmed and armed techniques. Jujutsu evolved among the samurai of feudal Japan as a method for defeating an armed and armored opponent without weapons. Due to the ineffectiveness of striking against an armored opponent, the most efficient methods for neutralizing an enemy took the form of pins, joint locks, and throws. These techniques were developed around the principle of using an attacker's energy against him, rather than directly opposing it. ;

Karate (; ; Okinawan pronunciation: ) is a martial art developed in the Ryukyu Kingdom. It developed from the indigenous Ryukyuan martial arts (called , "hand"; ''tii'' in Okinawan) under the influence of Chinese martial arts, particularly Fuj ...

: It began as a common fighting system known as "'' ti''" (or "''te''") among the pechin class of the Ryukyuans. There were few formal styles of ''ti'', but rather many practitioners with their own methods. One surviving example is the

Motobu-ryū is a karate school founded in 1922 by Motobu Chōki from Okinawa. Its official name is ''Nihon Denryū Heihō Motobu Kenpō'' ("Japan Traditional Fighting Tactics Motobu Kenpō"), or Motobu Kenpō for short. Motobu-ryū has the characteristics o ...

school passed down from the Motobu family by Seikichi Uehara. Early styles of karate are often generalized as Shuri-te,

Naha-te Okinawan martial arts refers to the martial arts, such as karate, tegumi and Okinawan kobudō, which originated among the indigenous people of Okinawa Island. Due to its central location, Okinawa was influenced by various cultures with a long hi ...

, and

Tomari-te Okinawan martial arts refers to the martial arts, such as karate, tegumi and Okinawan kobudō, which originated among the indigenous people of Okinawa Island. Due to its central location, Okinawa was influenced by various cultures with a long hi ...

, named after the three cities from which they emerged. ;

Kendo is a modern Japanese martial art, descended from kenjutsu (one of the old Japanese martial arts, swordsmanship), that uses bamboo swords ( shinai) as well as protective armor ( bōgu). Today, it is widely practiced within Japan and has spre ...

;

Ninjutsu , sometimes used interchangeably with the modern term , is the martial art strategy and tactics of unconventional warfare, guerrilla warfare and espionage purportedly practised by the ninja. ''Ninjutsu'' was a separate discipline in some tra ...

: Developed by groups of people mainly from the

Iga Province was a province of Japan located in what is today part of western Mie Prefecture. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "Iga" in . Its abbreviated name was . Iga is classified as one of the provinces of the Tōkaidō. Under the '' Engishiki'' cl ...

and

Kōka, Shiga 280px, Kōka "ninja house" 280px, Shigaraki ware ceramics is a city in southern Shiga Prefecture, Japan. (The word 'Kōka' is often rendered as 'Koga' in English, especially when referring to the "Koga Ninja".) , the city had an estimated pop ...

. Throughout history, many different schools ('' ryū'') have taught their unique versions of ''ninjutsu''. An example of these is the

Togakure-ryū is a historical tradition of ''ninjutsu'' known as the "School of the Hidden Door", allegedly founded during the Oho period (1161–1162) by ( ), who learned his original fighting techniques from a Chinese monk named Kain Dōshi. However, the h ...

. This ''ryū'' was developed after a defeated samurai warrior called Daisuke Togakure escaped to the region of Iga. Later he came in contact with the warrior-monk Kain Doshi who taught him a new way of viewing life and the means of survival (''ninjutsu''). ; Okinawan martial arts : In the 14th century, when the three kingdoms on Okinawa (

Chūzan was one of three kingdoms which controlled Okinawa in the 14th century. Okinawa, previously controlled by a number of local chieftains or lords, loosely bound by a paramount chieftain or king of the entire island, split into these three more ...

Hokuzan , also known as before the 18th century, located in the north of Okinawa Island, was one of three independent political entities which controlled Okinawa in the 14th century during Sanzan period. The political entity was identified as a tiny co ...

, and

Nanzan Nanzan (), also known as Sannan (山南) before the 18th century, located in the south of Okinawa Island, was one of three independent political entities which controlled Okinawa in the 14th century. The political entity was identified as a tiny ...

) entered into a tributary relationship with the

Ming dynasty The Ming dynasty (), officially the Great Ming, was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China, ruling from 1368 to 1644 following the collapse of the Mongol Empire, Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming dynasty was the last ort ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...

, Chinese Imperial envoys and other Chinese arrived, some of whom taught Chinese Chuan Fa ( Kempo) to the Okinawans. The Okinawans combined Chinese Chuan Fa with the existing martial art of Te to form , sometimes called .msisshinryu.com , Okinawan Masters
/ref> By the 18th century, different types of Te had developed in three different villages – Naha, Shuri, and Tomari. The styles were named Naha-te, Shuri-te, and Tomari-te, respectively. Practitioners from these three villages went on to develop modern karate.msisshinryu.com , History of Karate
/ref>

Sumo is a form of competitive full-contact wrestling where a '' rikishi'' (wrestler) attempts to force his opponent out of a circular ring ('' dohyō'') or into touching the ground with any body part other than the soles of his feet (usually by t ...

: Sumo is said to have started in the Heian period (794–1192). The imperial family watches sumo as a form of entertainment. It has evolved over the centuries with professional sumo wrestlers appearing in the Edo period (1603–1868). The word ''sumo'' is written with the Chinese characters or Kanji of "mutual bruising."

Video games

;

PlayStation is a video gaming brand that consists of five home video game consoles, two handhelds, a media center, and a smartphone, as well as an online service and multiple magazines. The brand is produced by Sony Interactive Entertainment, a di ...

:The first Sony PlayStation was invented by

Ken Kutaragi is a Japanese engineering technologist and businessman. He is the former chairman and CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE), the video game division of Sony Corporation, and current president and CEO of Cyber AI Entertainment. He is known ...

. Research and development for the PlayStation began in 1990, headed by Kutaragi, a Sony engineer. ;

Nintendo is a Japanese multinational video game company headquartered in Kyoto, Japan. It develops video games and video game consoles. Nintendo was founded in 1889 as by craftsman Fusajiro Yamauchi and originally produced handmade playing cards ...

Gunpei Yokoi , sometimes transliterated Gumpei Yokoi, was a Japanese video game designer. He was a long-time Nintendo employee, best known as creator of the Game & Watch handheld system, inventor of the cross-shaped Control Pad, the original designer of the ...

was the creator of the Game Boy and Virtual Boy and worked on Famicom (and NES), the Metroid series, Game Boy Pocket and did extensive work on the system we know today as the Nintendo Entertainment System (called the FamiCom in Japan). ; Active Time Battle :

Hiroyuki Ito , is a Japanese game producer, director and designer who works for Square Enix. He is known as the director of '' Final Fantasy VI'' (1994), '' Final Fantasy IX'' (2000) and ''Final Fantasy XII'' (2006) and as the creator of the Active Time ...

introduced the "Active Time Battle" system in ''

Final Fantasy IV known as ''Final Fantasy II'' for its initial North American release, is a role-playing video game developed and published by Square (now Square Enix) for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. Released in 1991, it is the fourth main insta ...

'' (1991), where the time-keeping system does not stop. Square Co., Ltd. filed a United States

patent application A patent application is a request pending at a patent office for the grant of a patent for an invention described in the patent specification and a set of one or more claims stated in a formal document, including necessary official forms and re ...

for the ATB system on March 16, 1992, under the title "Video game apparatus, method and device for controlling same" and was awarded the patent on February 21, 1995. On the battle screen, each character has an ATB meter that gradually fills, and the player is allowed to issue a command to that character once the meter is full. The fact that enemies can attack or be attacked at any time is credited with injecting urgency and excitement into the combat system. ;

Beat 'em up The beat 'em up (also known as brawler and, in some markets, beat 'em all) is a video game genre featuring hand-to-hand combat against a large number of opponents. Traditional beat 'em ups take place in scrolling, two-dimensional (2D) leve ...

: The first game to feature fist fighting was Sega's boxing game '' Heavyweight Champ'' (1976), but it was Data East's fighting game ''

Karate Champ ''Karate Champ'', known in Japan as , is a 1984 arcade fighting game developed by Technōs Japan (which would later developing 1995 Neo Geo titles ''Voltage Fighter Gowcaizer'' with SNK) and released by Data East. A variety of moves can be per ...

'' (1984) which popularized martial arts themed games.Spencer, Spanner
The Tao of Beat-'em-ups
''Eurogamer'', February 6, 2008, Accessed March 18, 2009 The same year,

Hong Kong cinema The cinema of Hong Kong ( zh, t=香港電影) is one of the three major threads in the history of Chinese language cinema, alongside the cinema of China and the cinema of Taiwan. As a former British colony, Hong Kong had a greater degree of pol ...

-inspired '' Kung-Fu Master'' laid the foundations for scrolling beat 'em ups with its simple gameplay and multiple enemies.Kunkel, Bill; Worley, Joyce; Katz, Arnie, "The Furious Fists of Sega!", ''Computer Gaming World'', October 1988, pp. 48–49 ''

Nekketsu Kōha Kunio-kun , released as ''Renegade'' in the West, is a beat 'em up video game developed by Technōs Japan and distributed by Taito for the arcades in 1986. In the original Japanese version ''Nekketsu Kōha Kunio-kun'', the game revolves around a high-scho ...

'', released in 1986 in Japan, deviated from the martial arts themes of earlier games and introduced street brawling to the genre. ''

Renegade Renegade or The Renegade may refer to: Aircraft *Lake Renegade, an American amphibious aircraft design *Murphy Renegade, a Canadian ultralight biplane design *Southern Aeronautical Renegade, an American racing aircraft design Games *''Command ...

'' (released the same year) added an underworld revenge plot that proved more popular with gamers than the principled combat sport of other games.Spencer, Spanner
The Tao of Beat-'em-ups (part 2)
''EuroGamer'', February 12, 2008, Accessed March 18, 2009 ''Renegade'' set the standard for future beat 'em up games as it introduced the ability to move both horizontally and vertically. ;

Bullet hell Shoot 'em ups (also known as shmups or STGs ) are a sub-genre of action games. There is no consensus as to which design elements compose a shoot 'em up; some restrict the definition to games featuring spacecraft and certain types of charact ...

: The bullet hell or ''danmaku'' genre began to emerge in the early 1990s as 2D developers needed to find a way to compete with 3D games which were becoming increasingly popular at the time.

Toaplan was a Japanese video game developer based in Tokyo responsible for the creation of a wide array of scrolling shooters and other arcade games. The company was founded in 1979 but its gaming division was established in 1984 by former Orca and ...

's '' Batsugun'' (1993) is considered to be the ancestor of the modern bullet hell genre.Ashcraft, p. 77 The ''

Touhou Project The , also known simply as , is a bullet hell shoot 'em up video game series created by one-man independent Japanese ''doujin'' soft developer Team Shanghai Alice. Since 1995, the team's member, Jun'ya "ZUN" Ōta, has independently developed ...

'' series is one of the most popular bullet hell franchises. ;

Fighting game A fighting game, also known as a versus fighting game, is a genre of video game that involves combat between two or more players. Fighting game combat often features mechanics such as blocking, grappling, counter-attacking, and chaining atta ...

Sega is a Japanese multinational video game and entertainment company headquartered in Shinagawa, Tokyo. Its international branches, Sega of America and Sega Europe, are headquartered in Irvine, California and London, respectively. Its division ...

's black and white boxing game '' Heavyweight Champ'' was released in 1976 as the first

video game Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This feedba ...

to feature fist fighting. However,

Data East , also abbreviated as DECO, was a Japanese video game, pinball and electronic engineering company. The company was in operation from 1976 to 2003, and released 150 video game titles. Its main headquarters were located in Suginami, Tokyo. The A ...

's ''

'' from 1984 is credited with establishing and popularizing the one-on-one fighting game genre, and went on to influence

Konami , is a Japanese multinational video game and entertainment company headquartered in Chūō, Tokyo, it also produces and distributes trading cards, anime, tokusatsu, pachinko machines, slot machines, and arcade cabinets. Konami has ca ...

's '' Yie Ar Kung-Fu'' from 1985. ''Yie Ar Kung Fu'' expanded on ''Karate Champ'' by pitting the player against a variety of opponents, each with a unique appearance and fighting style.

Capcom is a Japanese video game developer and publisher. It has created a number of multi-million-selling game franchises, with its most commercially successful being '' Resident Evil'', '' Monster Hunter'', '' Street Fighter'', ''Mega Man'', ''De ...

's ''

Street Fighter , commonly abbreviated as ''SF'' or スト (''Suto''), is a Japanese media franchise centered on a series of fighting video and arcade games developed and published by Capcom. The first game in the series was released in 1987, followed by six ...

'' (1987) introduced the use of special moves that could only be discovered by experimenting with the game controls. ''

Street Fighter II is a fighting game developed by Capcom and originally released for arcades in 1991. It is the second installment in the '' Street Fighter'' series and the sequel to 1987's '' Street Fighter''. It is Capcom's fourteenth game to use the CP S ...

'' (1991) established the conventions of the fighting game genre and, whereas previous games allowed players to combat computer-controlled fighters, ''Street Fighter II'' allowed players to play against each other. ;

Platform game A platform game (often simplified as platformer and sometimes called a jump 'n' run game) is a sub-genre of action video games in which the core objective is to move the player character between points in an environment. Platform games are charac ...

: ''

Space Panic is a 1980 arcade game designed by Universal. Predating Nintendo's ''Donkey Kong'', and lacking a jump mechanic, ''Space Panic'' was the first game involving climbing ladders between walkable platforms. The genre was initially labeled as "climbi ...

'', a 1980 arcade release, is sometimes credited as the first platform game. It was clearly an influence on the genre, with gameplay centered on climbing ladders between different floors, a common element in many early platform games. ''

Donkey Kong is a video game franchise created by Shigeru Miyamoto and owned by Nintendo. It follows the adventures of a gorilla named Donkey Kong (character), Donkey Kong and his clan of other Ape, apes and monkeys. The franchise primarily consists of plat ...

'', an

arcade game An arcade game or coin-op game is a coin-operated entertainment machine typically installed in public businesses such as restaurants, bars and amusement arcades. Most arcade games are presented as primarily games of skill and include arcade vi ...

created by

, released in July 1981, was the first game that allowed players to jump over obstacles and across gaps, making it the first true platformer. ;

Psychological Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries bet ...

horror game A horror game is a video game genre centered on horror fiction and typically designed to scare the player. Unlike most other video game genres, which are classified by their gameplay, horror games are nearly always based on narrative or visual ...

: ''

Silent Hill is a horror anthology media franchise centered on a series of survival horror games created by Keiichiro Toyama and published by Konami. The first four video games in the series, '' Silent Hill'', ''Silent Hill 2'', ''Silent Hill 3'' and '' ...

'' (1999) was praised for moving away survival horror games from

B movie A B movie or B film is a low-budget commercial motion picture. In its original usage, during the Golden Age of Hollywood, the term more precisely identified films intended for distribution as the less-publicized bottom half of a double feature ...

horror elements to the psychological style seen in

art house An art film (or arthouse film) is typically an independent film, aimed at a niche market rather than a mass market audience. It is "intended to be a serious, artistic work, often experimental and not designed for mass appeal", "made primarily ...

Japanese horror Japanese horror is horror fiction derived from popular culture in Japan, generally noted for its unique thematic and conventional treatment of the horror genre differing from the traditional Western representation of horror. Japanese horror tends ...

films, due to the game's emphasis on a disturbing atmosphere rather than visceral horror. The original ''Silent Hill'' is considered one of the scariest games of all time, and the strong narrative from ''

Silent Hill 2 is a 2001 survival horror game developed by Team Silent, a group in Konami Computer Entertainment Tokyo, and published by Konami. The game was released from September to November, originally for the PlayStation 2. The second installment in t ...

'' in 2001 has made the series one of the most influential in the genre. ''

Fatal Frame ''Fatal Frame'', titled in Japan and ''Project Zero'' in Europe and Australia, is a Japanese survival horror video game series created, published and developed by Koei Tecmo (originally Tecmo). Debuting in 2001 with the first entry in the serie ...

'' from 2001 was a unique entry into the genre, as the player explores a mansion and takes photographs of ghosts in order to defeat them. ;

Rhythm game Rhythm game or rhythm action is a genre of music-themed action video game that challenges a player's sense of rhythm. Games in the genre typically focus on dance or the simulated performance of musical instruments, and require players to press ...

: ''

Dance Aerobics ''Dance Aerobics'', released in Japan as , is a music video game developed by Human Entertainment for the Nintendo Entertainment System. It was released in Japan by Bandai in February 1987 and North America by Nintendo in March 1989. It is t ...

'' was released in 1987, and allowed players to create music by stepping on Nintendo's

Power Pad The Power Pad (known in Japan as Family Trainer, and in Europe and briefly in the United States as Family Fun Fitness) is a floor mat game controller for the Nintendo Entertainment System. It is a gray mat with twelve pressure-sensors embedded be ...

peripheral. It has been called the first rhythm-action game in retrospect,Block, Gerry
NES Power Pad Rocking Rhythm-Action Play
, ''IGN'', July 7, 2008, Accessed April 10, 2009 although the 1996 title ''

PaRappa the Rapper is a rhythm video game developed by NanaOn-Sha and published by Sony Computer Entertainment for the PlayStation in Japan in 1996 and worldwide in 1997. Created by music producer Masaya Matsuura in collaboration with artist Rodney Greenblat, t ...

'' has also been deemed the first rhythm game, whose basic template forms the core of subsequent games in the genre. In 1997,

's ''

Beatmania (styled as ''beatmania'') is a rhythm video game developed and distributed by Japanese game developer Konami and first released in December 1997. It contributed largely to the boom of music games in 1998, and the series expanded not only wit ...

'' sparked an emergent market for rhythm games in Japan. The company's music division,

Bemani , stylized as BEMANI, is Konami's music video game division. Originally named the Games & Music Division (G.M.D.), it changed its name in honor of its first and most successful game, '' Beatmania'', and expanded into other music-based games, m ...

, released a number of music games over the next several years. ; Scrolling platformer : The first

platform game A platform game (often simplified as platformer and sometimes called a jump 'n' run game) is a sub-genre of action video games in which the core objective is to move the player character between points in an environment. Platform games are charac ...

to use

scrolling In computer displays, filmmaking, television production, and other kinetic displays, scrolling is sliding text, images or video across a monitor or display, vertically or horizontally. "Scrolling," as such, does not change the layout of the text ...

graphics was '' Jump Bug'' (1981), a simple platform-shooter developed by Alpha Denshi. In August 1982,

Taito is a Japanese company that specializes in video games, toys, arcade cabinets and game centers, based in Shinjuku, Tokyo. The company was founded by Michael Kogan in 1953 as the importing vodka, vending machines and jukeboxes into Japan. I ...

released ''

Jungle King ''Alpinia purpurata'', commonly referred to as red ginger, also called ostrich plume and pink cone ginger, are native Malaysian plants with showy flowers on long brightly colored red bracts. They look like the bloom, but the true flower is the sma ...

'', which featured scrolling jump and run sequences that had players hopping over obstacles.

Namco was a Japanese multinational video game and entertainment company, headquartered in Ōta, Tokyo. It held several international branches, including Namco America in Santa Clara, California, Namco Europe in London, Namco Taiwan in Kaohsiun ...

took the scrolling platformer a step further with the 1984 release ''

Pac-Land is a 1984 side-scrolling arcade platform game developed and released by Namco. It was distributed in North America by Bally Midway, and in Europe by Atari Games. Controlling Pac-Man (character), Pac-Man, the player must make it to the end of eac ...

''. ''Pac-Land'' came after the genre had a few years to develop, and was an evolution of earlier platform games, aspiring to be more than a simple game of hurdle jumping, like some of its predecessors. It closely resembled later scrolling platformers like ''

Wonder Boy The series, also known as the series, is a franchise of video games published by Sega and developed by Westone Bit Entertainment (formerly Escape). Beginning with the original '' Wonder Boy'' arcade game released in April 21, 1986, the game has ...

'' and ''

Super Mario Bros. is a platform game developed and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). The successor to the 1983 arcade game '' Mario Bros.'' and the first game in the ''Super Mario'' series, it was first released in 1985 for ...

'' and was probably a direct influence on them. It also had multi-layered parallax scrolling. ;

Shoot 'em up Shoot 'em ups (also known as shmups or STGs ) are a sub-genre of action games. There is no consensus as to which design elements compose a shoot 'em up; some restrict the definition to games featuring spacecraft and certain types of charac ...

: ''

Space Invaders is a 1978 shoot 'em up arcade game developed by Tomohiro Nishikado. It was manufactured and sold by Taito in Japan, and licensed to the Midway division of Bally for overseas distribution. ''Space Invaders'' was the first fixed shooter an ...

'' is frequently cited as the "first" or "original" in the genre.Game Genres: Shmups
Professor Jim Whitehead, January 29, 2007, Accessed June 17, 2008Buchanan, Levi

, ''IGN'', March 31, 2003, Accessed June 14, 2008 ''Space Invaders'' pitted the player against multiple enemies descending from the top of the screen at a constantly increasing speed. As with subsequent shoot 'em ups of the time, the game was set in space as the available technology only permitted a black background. The game also introduced the idea of giving the player a number of "

lives Lives may refer to: * The plural form of a '' life'' * Lives, Iran, a village in Khuzestan Province, Iran * The number of lives in a video game * '' Parallel Lives'', aka ''Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans'', a series of biographies of famous ...

". ''Space Invaders'' was a massive commercial success, causing a coin shortage in Japan. The following year, Namco's ''

Galaxian is a 1979 fixed shooter arcade video game developed and published by Namco. The player assumes control of the Galaxip starfighter in its mission to protect Earth from waves of aliens. Gameplay involves destroying each formation of aliens, wh ...

'' took the genre further with more complex enemy patterns and richer graphics. ;

Stealth game A stealth game is a type of video game in which the player primarily uses ''stealth'' to avoid or overcome opponents. Games in the genre typically allow the player to remain undetected by hiding, sneaking, or using disguises. Some games allow th ...

: The first stealth-based

videogame Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This feedba ...

was Hiroshi Suzuki's ''Manbiki Shounen'' (1979). The first commercially successful stealth game was

Hideo Kojima is a Japanese video game designer, director, producer and writer. He is regarded as an auteur of video games. He developed a strong passion for action/adventure cinema and literature during his childhood and adolescence. In 1986, he was hi ...

's ''

Metal Gear is a series of techno-thriller stealth games created by Hideo Kojima. Developed and published by Konami, the first game, ''Metal Gear'', was released in 1987 for MSX home computers. The player often takes control of a special forces operativ ...

'' (1987), the first in the ''Metal Gear'' series. It was followed by '' Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake'' (1990) which significantly expanded the genre, and then ''

Metal Gear Solid is a series of techno-thriller stealth games created by Hideo Kojima. Developed and published by Konami, the first game, ''Metal Gear'', was released in 1987 for MSX home computers. The player often takes control of a special forces opera ...

'' (1998). ;

Survival horror Survival horror is a subgenre of survival of the players as the game tries to frighten them with either horror graphics or scary ambience. Although combat can be part of the gameplay, the player is made to feel less in control than in typical ac ...

: The term survival horror was coined by

's ''

Resident Evil ''Resident Evil'', known in Japan as is a Japanese horror game series and media franchise created by Capcom. It consists of survival horror, third-person shooter and first-person shooter games, with players typically surviving in environments ...

'' (1996) and definitely defined that genre. The game was inspired by Capcom's earlier horror game '' Sweet Home'' (1989). The earliest survival horror game was ''Nostromo'', developed by Akira Takiguchi (a

Tokyo University , abbreviated as or UTokyo, is a public research university located in Bunkyō, Tokyo, Japan. Established in 1877, the university was the first Imperial University and is currently a Top Type university of the Top Global University Project by ...

student and

contractor) for the

PET 2001 The Commodore PET is a line of personal computers produced starting in 1977 by Commodore International. A single all-in-one case combines a MOS Technology 6502 microprocessor, Commodore BASIC in read-only memory, keyboard, monochrome monitor, an ...

and published by

ASCII ASCII ( ), abbreviated from American Standard Code for Information Interchange, is a character encoding standard for electronic communication. ASCII codes represent text in computers, telecommunications equipment, and other devices. Because ...

for the

PC-6001 The NEC PC-6000 series is a series of 8-bit home computers introduced in November 1981 by NEC Home Electronics. There are several models in this series, such as the PC-6001, the PC-6001 MK2 and the PC-6001 MK2 SR. There is also an American versio ...

in 1981. ;

Visual novel A , often abbreviated as VN, is a form of digital semi-interactive fiction. Visual novels are often associated with and used in the medium of video games, but are not always labeled as such themselves. They combine a textual narrative with sta ...

: The visual novel genre is a type of

Interactive fiction '' Interactive fiction, often abbreviated IF, is software simulating environments in which players use text commands to control characters and influence the environment. Works in this form can be understood as literary narratives, either in the ...

developed in Japan in the early 1990s. As the name suggests, visual novels typically have limited interactivity, as most player interaction is restricted to clicking text and graphics.

Philosophy

;

Lean manufacturing Lean manufacturing is a production method aimed primarily at reducing times within the production system as well as response times from suppliers and to customers. It is closely related to another concept called just-in-time manufacturing (J ...

: A generic process management philosophy derived mostly from the

Toyota Production System The Toyota Production System (TPS) is an integrated socio-technical system, developed by Toyota, that comprises its management philosophy and practices. The TPS is a management system that organizes manufacturing and logistics for the automobile ...

(TPS) (hence the term Toyotism is also prevalent) and identified as "Lean" only in the 1990s.

Biology, chemistry, and biomedical science

;

Agar Agar ( or ), or agar-agar, is a jelly-like substance consisting of polysaccharides obtained from the cell walls of some species of red algae, primarily from ogonori (''Gracilaria'') and "tengusa" (''Gelidiaceae''). As found in nature, agar i ...

: Agar was discovered in Japan around 1658 by Mino Tarōzaemon. ;

Aspergillus oryzae ''Aspergillus oryzae'', also known as , is a filamentous fungus (a mold) used in East Asia to saccharify rice, sweet potato, and barley in the making of alcoholic beverages such as '' sake'' and ''shōchū'', and also to ferment soybeans f ...

: The

genome In the fields of molecular biology and genetics, a genome is all the genetic information of an organism. It consists of nucleotide sequences of DNA (or RNA in RNA viruses). The nuclear genome includes protein-coding genes and non-coding ...

for ''

'' was sequenced and released by a consortium of Japanese biotechnology companies, in late 2005. ;

CRISPR CRISPR () (an acronym for clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats) is a family of DNA sequences found in the genomes of prokaryotic organisms such as bacteria and archaea. These sequences are derived from DNA fragments of bact ...

Yoshizumi Ishino is a Japanese molecular biologist, known for his discovering the DNA sequence of Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR). Biography Ishino was born in Kyoto Prefecture, Japan. He received his BS, MS and PhD in 198 ...

discovered CRISPR in 1987. ;

Dementia with Lewy bodies Dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) is a type of dementia characterized by changes in sleep, behavior, cognition, movement, and regulation of automatic bodily functions. Memory loss is not always an early symptom. The disease worsens over time an ...

: First described in 1976 by psychiatrist

Kenji Kosaka was a Japanese politician. Biography Kosaka was born in the city of Nagano in Nagano Prefecture, on 12 March 1946. His father is Zentaro Kosaka, also a politician. Kenji Kosaka received a law degree from Keio University in 1968. He worked ...

. Kosaka was awarded the

Asahi Prize The , established in 1929, is an award presented by the Japanese newspaper ''Asahi Shimbun'' and Asahi Shimbun Foundation to honor individuals and groups that have made outstanding accomplishments in the fields of arts and academics and have greatl ...

in 2013 for his discovery. ; Ephedrine synthesis :Ephedrine in its natural form, known as ''má huáng'' (麻黄) in

traditional Chinese medicine Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is an alternative medical practice drawn from traditional medicine in China. It has been described as "fraught with pseudoscience", with the majority of its treatments having no logical mechanism of acti ...

, had been documented in China since the

Han dynasty The Han dynasty (, ; ) was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China (202 BC – 9 AD, 25–220 AD), established by Emperor Gaozu of Han, Liu Bang (Emperor Gao) and ruled by the House of Liu. The dynasty was preceded by th ...

. However, it was not until 1885 that the chemical synthesis of ephedrine was first accomplished by Japanese

organic chemist Organic chemistry is a subdiscipline within chemistry involving the scientific study of the structure, properties, and reactions of organic compounds and organic materials, i.e., matter in its various forms that contain carbon atoms.Clayden, J. ...

Nagai Nagayoshi was a Japanese pharmacist, best known for his study of ephedrine. Early life Nagai was born in Myōdō District, Awa Province in what is now Tokushima Prefecture, as the son of a doctor and started studying ''rangaku'' medicine at the Dutch M ...

. ; Epinephrine (Adrenaline) : Japanese chemist Jōkichi Takamine and his assistant Keizo Uenaka first discovered epinephrine in 1900. In 1901 Takamine successfully isolated and purified the hormone from the adrenal glands of sheep and oxen. ; Esophagogastroduodenoscope :

Mutsuo Sugiura was a Japanese engineer famous for being the first to develop a Gastro-camera (a present-day Esophagogastroduodenoscope). His story was illustrated in the NHK TV documentary feature, "Project X: Challengers: The Development of a Gastro-camera Whol ...

was a Japanese engineer famous for being the first to develop a Gastro-camera (a present-day Esophagogastroduodenoscope). His story was illustrated in the NHK TV documentary feature, "Project X: Challengers: The Development of a Gastro-camera Wholly Made in Japan". Sugiura graduated from Tokyo Polytechnic University in 1938 and then joined Olympus Corporation. While working at this company, he first developed an esophagogastroduodenoscope in 1950. ;

Frontier molecular orbital theory In chemistry, frontier molecular orbital theory is an application of MO theory describing HOMO/LUMO interactions. History In 1952, Kenichi Fukui published a paper in the ''Journal of Chemical Physics'' titled "A molecular theory of reactivity i ...

Kenichi Fukui was a Japanese chemist, known as the first Asian person to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Fukui was co-recipient of the 1981 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Roald Hoffmann, for their independent investigations into the mechanisms of che ...

developed and published a paper on Frontier molecular orbital theory in 1952. ;

General anesthesia General anaesthesia (UK) or general anesthesia (US) is a medically induced loss of consciousness that renders the patient unarousable even with painful stimuli. This effect is achieved by administering either intravenous or inhalational general ...

Hanaoka Seishū was a Japanese surgeon of the Edo period with a knowledge of Chinese herbal medicine, as well as Western surgical techniques he had learned through ''Rangaku'' (literally "Dutch learning", and by extension "Western learning"). Hanaoka is said t ...

was the first surgeon in the world who used the general anaesthesia in surgery, in 1804, and who dared to operate on cancers of the breast and oropharynx, to remove necrotic bone, and to perform amputations of the extremities in Japan. ; Immunoglobulin E (IgE) : Immunoglobulin E is a type of

antibody An antibody (Ab), also known as an immunoglobulin (Ig), is a large, Y-shaped protein used by the immune system to identify and neutralize foreign objects such as pathogenic bacteria and viruses. The antibody recognizes a unique molecule of t ...

only found in

mammals Mammals () are a group of vertebrate animals constituting the class Mammalia (), characterized by the presence of mammary glands which in females produce milk for feeding (nursing) their young, a neocortex (a region of the brain), fur o ...

. IgE was simultaneously discovered in 1966-7 by two independent groups:

Kimishige Ishizaka was a Japanese immunologist who, with his wife Teruko Ishizaka, discovered the antibody class Immunoglobulin E (IgE) in 1966–1967. Their work was regarded as a major breakthrough in the understanding of allergy. He was awarded the 1973 Gair ...

's team at the Children's Asthma Research Institute and Hospital in

Denver Denver () is a consolidated city and county, the capital, and most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Its population was 715,522 at the 2020 census, a 19.22% increase since 2010. It is the 19th-most populous city in the Unit ...

Colorado Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the ...

, and by Gunnar Johansson and Hans Bennich in

Uppsala Uppsala (, or all ending in , ; archaically spelled ''Upsala'') is the county seat of Uppsala County and the fourth-largest city in Sweden, after Stockholm, Gothenburg, and Malmö. It had 177,074 inhabitants in 2019. Located north of the ca ...

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic countries, Nordic c ...

. Their joint paper was published in April 1969. ;

Induced pluripotent stem cell Induced pluripotent stem cells (also known as iPS cells or iPSCs) are a type of pluripotent stem cell that can be generated directly from a somatic cell. The iPSC technology was pioneered by Shinya Yamanaka's lab in Kyoto, Japan, who showed in ...

: The induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSCs) is a kind of

pluripotent Pluripotency: These are the cells that can generate into any of the three Germ layers which imply Endodermal, Mesodermal, and Ectodermal cells except tissues like the placenta. According to Latin terms, Pluripotentia means the ability for many thin ...

stem cell In multicellular organisms, stem cells are undifferentiated or partially differentiated cells that can differentiate into various types of cells and proliferate indefinitely to produce more of the same stem cell. They are the earliest type of ...

which can be created using a mature cell. iPSCs technology was developed by

Shinya Yamanaka is a Japanese stem cell researcher and a Nobel Prize laureate. He serves as the director of Center for iPS Cell (induced Pluripotent Stem Cell) Research and Application and a professor at the Institute for Frontier Medical Sciences at Kyo ...

and his lab workers in 2006. ;

Methamphetamine Methamphetamine (contracted from ) is a potent central nervous system (CNS) stimulant that is mainly used as a recreational drug and less commonly as a second-line treatment for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and obesity. Methamp ...

: Methamphetamine was first synthesized from

ephedrine Ephedrine is a central nervous system (CNS) stimulant that is often used to prevent low blood pressure during anesthesia. It has also been used for asthma, narcolepsy, and obesity but is not the preferred treatment. It is of unclear benefit in ...

in Japan in 1894 by chemist

Nagayoshi Nagai was a Japanese pharmacist, best known for his study of ephedrine. Early life Nagai was born in Myōdō District, Awa Province in what is now Tokushima Prefecture, as the son of a doctor and started studying ''rangaku'' medicine at the Dutch M ...

. In 1919, methamphetamine hydrochloride was synthesized by pharmacologist

Akira Ogata was a Japanese chemist and the first to synthesize methamphetamine in crystalline form in 1919. Career In 1912, Ogata graduated from the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Tokyo. In 1919 he received a degree from the Humboldt University ...

. ; Nihonium : Element 113. Named after ''Nihon'', the local name for Japan. ;

Okazaki fragment Okazaki fragments are short sequences of DNA nucleotides (approximately 150 to 200 base pairs long in eukaryotes) which are synthesized discontinuously and later linked together by the enzyme DNA ligase to create the lagging strand during DNA ...

: Okazaki fragments are short, newly synthesized DNA fragments that are formed on the lagging template strand during

DNA replication In molecular biology, DNA replication is the biological process of producing two identical replicas of DNA from one original DNA molecule. DNA replication occurs in all living organisms acting as the most essential part for biological inheritan ...

. They are complementary to the lagging template strand, together forming short double-stranded DNA sections. A series of experiments led to the discovery of Okazaki fragments. The experiments were conducted during the 1960s by Reiji Okazaki,

Tsuneko Okazaki is a Japanese pioneer of molecular biology known for her work on DNA replication and specifically for discovering Okazaki fragments, along with her husband Reiji. Dr. Tsuneko Okazaki has continued to be involved in academia, contributing to m ...

, Kiwako Sakabe, and their colleagues during their research on

of ''

Escherichia coli ''Escherichia coli'' (),Wells, J. C. (2000) Longman Pronunciation Dictionary. Harlow ngland Pearson Education Ltd. also known as ''E. coli'' (), is a Gram-negative, facultative anaerobic, rod-shaped, coliform bacterium of the genus '' Esc ...

''. In 1966, Kiwako Sakabe and Reiji Okazaki first showed that DNA replication was a discontinuous process involving fragments. The fragments were further investigated by the researchers and their colleagues through their research including the study on

bacteriophage A bacteriophage (), also known informally as a ''phage'' (), is a duplodnaviria virus that infects and replicates within bacteria and archaea. The term was derived from "bacteria" and the Greek φαγεῖν ('), meaning "to devour". Bac ...

in ''

''. ;

Photocatalysis In chemistry, photocatalysis is the acceleration of a photoreaction in the presence of a catalyst. In catalyzed photolysis, light is absorbed by an adsorbed substrate. In photogenerated catalysis, the photocatalytic activity depends on the a ...

Akira Fujishima is a Japanese chemist and president of Tokyo University of Science. He is known for significant contributions to the discovery and research of photocatalytic and superhydrophilic properties of titanium dioxide (TiO2), which is also known as t ...

discovered photocatalysis occurring on the surface of titanium dioxide in 1967."Discovery and applications of photocatalysis — Creating a comfortable future by making use of light energy"
''Japan Nanonet Bulletin'' Issue 44, 12 May 2005. ;

Pulse oximetry Pulse oximetry is a noninvasive method for monitoring a person's oxygen saturation. Peripheral oxygen saturation (SpO2) readings are typically within 2% accuracy (within 4% accuracy in 95% of cases) of the more accurate (and invasive) reading o ...

:Pulse oximetry was developed in 1972, by

Takuo Aoyagi was a Japanese engineer, known for his work leading to the modern pulse oximeter. Early life, education and career Aoyagi was born February 14, 1936, in Niigata Prefecture, Japan. His parents were Monshichi and Tatsu Aoyagi. His father was a ma ...

and Michio Kishi, bioengineers, at Nihon Kohden using the ratio of red to infrared light absorption of pulsating components at the measuring site. Susumu Nakajima, a surgeon, and his associates first tested the device in patients, reporting it in 1975. ; Portable electrocardiograph : Taro Takemi built the first portable electrocardiograph in 1937.Takemi Program in International Health Dr. Taro Takem

;

Statin Statins, also known as HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors, are a class of lipid-lowering medications that reduce illness and mortality in those who are at high risk of cardiovascular disease. They are the most common cholesterol-lowering drugs. Low ...

: The statin class of drugs was first discovered by Akira Endo, a Japanese biochemist working for the pharmaceutical company

Sankyo is a Japanese company, and one of the three major pachinko is a mechanical game originating in Japan that is used as an arcade game, and much more frequently for gambling. Pachinko fills a niche in Japanese gambling comparable to that ...

Mevastatin Mevastatin (compactin, ML-236B) is a hypolipidemic agent that belongs to the statins class. It was isolated from the mold ''Penicillium citrinum'' by Akira Endo in the 1970s, and he identified it as a HMG-CoA reductase inhibitor, i.e., a statin. ...

was the first discovered member of the statin class. ; Takadiastase : A form of diastase which results from the growth, development and nutrition of a distinct microscopic fungus known as Aspergillus oryzae. Jōkichi Takamine developed the method first used for its extraction in the late 19th century.Pulvers, Roger,
Jokichi Takamine: a man with fire in his belly whatever the odds
, ''

Japan Times ''The Japan Times'' is Japan's largest and oldest English-language daily newspaper. It is published by , a subsidiary of News2u Holdings, Inc.. It is headquartered in the in Kioicho, Chiyoda, Tokyo. History ''The Japan Times'' was launched by ...

'', June 28, 2009, p. 8. ; Thiamine (Vitamin B₁) : Thiamine was the first of the water-soluble

vitamin A vitamin is an organic molecule (or a set of molecules closely related chemically, i.e. vitamers) that is an essential micronutrient that an organism needs in small quantities for the proper functioning of its metabolism. Essential nutrie ...

s to be described,Mahan LK, Escott-Stump S, editors. ''Krause's food, nutrition, & diet therapy''. 10th ed. Philadelphia: W.B. Saunders Company; 2000 leading to the discovery of more such trace compounds essential for survival and to the notion of vitamin. It was not until 1884 that Kanehiro Takaki (1849–1920) attributed

beriberi Thiamine deficiency is a medical condition of low levels of thiamine (Vitamin B1). A severe and chronic form is known as beriberi. The two main types in adults are wet beriberi and dry beriberi. Wet beriberi affects the cardiovascular system, r ...

to insufficient

nitrogen Nitrogen is the chemical element with the symbol N and atomic number 7. Nitrogen is a nonmetal and the lightest member of group 15 of the periodic table, often called the pnictogens. It is a common element in the universe, estimated at se ...

intake ( protein deficiency). In 1910, Japanese scientist

Umetaro Suzuki was a Japanese scientist, born in what is now part of Makinohara, Shizuoka, Japan. He was a member of the Imperial Academy, and a recipient of the Grand Cordon of the Order of the Sacred Treasure and the Order of Culture. His research was among t ...

succeeded in extracting a water-soluble complex of

micronutrient Micronutrients are essential dietary elements required by organisms in varying quantities throughout life to orchestrate a range of physiological functions to maintain health. Micronutrient requirements differ between organisms; for example, huma ...

s from rice bran and named it aberic acid. He published this discovery in a Japanese scientific journal. The Polish biochemist Kazimierz Funk later proposed the complex be named "

Vitamin A vitamin is an organic molecule (or a set of molecules closely related chemically, i.e. vitamers) that is an essential micronutrient that an organism needs in small quantities for the proper functioning of its metabolism. Essential nutrie ...

e" (a

portmanteau A portmanteau word, or portmanteau (, ) is a blend of wordsUrushiol Urushiol is an oily mixture of organic compounds with allergenic properties found in plants of the family Anacardiaceae, especially '' Toxicodendron'' ''spp.'' (e.g., poison oak, Chinese lacquer tree, poison ivy, poison sumac), ''Comoclad ...

: Urushiol, a mixture of alkyl catechols, was discovered by Rikou Majima. Majima also discovered that Urushiol was an

allergen An allergen is a type of antigen that produces an abnormally vigorous immune response in which the immune system fights off a perceived threat that would otherwise be harmless to the body. Such reactions are called allergies. In technical t ...

which gave members of the genus ''

Toxicodendron ''Toxicodendron'' is a genus of flowering plants in the sumac family, Anacardiaceae. It contains trees, shrubs and woody vines, including poison ivy, poison oak, and the lacquer tree. All members of the genus produce the skin-irritating oi ...

'', such as poison ivy and

poison oak Poison oak refers to two plant species in the genus ''Toxicodendron,'' both of which can cause skin irritation: *''Toxicodendron diversilobum'' or Western poison oak, found in western North America *''Toxicodendron pubescens ''Toxicodendron pub ...

, their skin-irritating properties. ;

Vectorcardiography Vectorcardiography (VCG) is a method of recording the magnitude and direction of the electrical forces that are generated by the heart by means of a continuous series of vectors that form curving lines around a central point. Vectorcardiography w ...

: Taro Takemi invented the vectorcardiograph in 1939.

Finance

;

Futures contract In finance, a futures contract (sometimes called a futures) is a standardized legal contract to buy or sell something at a predetermined price for delivery at a specified time in the future, between parties not yet known to each other. The asset ...

: The first futures exchange market was the

Dōjima Rice Exchange The Dōjima Rice Exchange (堂島米市場, ''Dōjima kome ichiba'', 堂島米会所, ''Dōjima kome kaisho''), located in Osaka, was the center of Japan's system of rice brokers, which developed independently and privately in the Edo period ...

in Japan in the 1730s. ;

Candlestick chart A candlestick chart (also called Japanese candlestick chart or K-line) is a style of financial chart used to describe price movements of a security, derivative, or currency. It is similar to a bar chart in that each candlestick represents al ...

: Candlestick charts have been developed in the 18th century by

Munehisa Homma (also known as Sokyu Honma or Sokyu Homma and sometimes called the God of markets ; 1724–1803) was a rice merchant from Sakata, Japan who traded in the Dōjima Rice Exchange in Osaka during the Tokugawa Shogunate. He is sometimes considered to ...

, a Japanese rice trader of financial instruments. They were introduced to the Western world by Steve Nison in his book, Japanese Candlestick Charting Techniques.

Food and food science

;

Instant noodle Instant noodles, or instant ramen, is a type of food consisting of noodles sold in a precooked and dried block with flavoring powder and/or seasoning oil. The dried noodle block was originally created by flash frying cooked noodles, and this is ...

: Invented by

Momofuku Ando , was an inventor and businessman who founded Nissin Food Products Co., Ltd. He is known as the inventor of instant noodles (ramen noodles) and the creator of the brands Top Ramen and Cup Noodles. Early life and education Ando was born Go P ...

, a Taiwanese-Japanese inventor, in 1958. ;

Monosodium glutamate Monosodium glutamate (MSG), also known as sodium glutamate, is the sodium salt of glutamic acid. MSG is found naturally in some foods including tomatoes and cheese in this glutamic acid form. MSG is used in cooking as a flavor enhancer ...

: Invented and

patent A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A ...

ed by

Kikunae Ikeda was a Japanese chemist and Tokyo Imperial University professor of chemistry who, in 1908, uncovered the chemical basis of a taste he named umami. It is one of the five basic tastes along with sweet, bitter, sour and salty. Ikeda graduated in ...

. ;

Umami Umami ( from ja, 旨味 ), or savoriness, is one of the five basic tastes. It has been described as savory and is characteristic of broths and cooked meats. People taste umami through taste receptors that typically respond to glutamates and ...

: Umami as a separate

taste The gustatory system or sense of taste is the sensory system that is partially responsible for the perception of taste (flavor). Taste is the perception produced or stimulated when a substance in the mouth reacts chemically with taste receptor ...

was first identified in 1908 by

of the Tokyo Imperial University while researching the strong flavor in seaweed broth. (partial translation of ) ;

Fortune cookie A fortune cookie is a crisp and sugary cookie wafer usually made from flour, sugar, vanilla, and sesame seed oil with a piece of paper inside, a "fortune", usually an aphorism, or a vague prophecy. The message inside may also include a Chine ...

: Although popular in Western Chinese restaurants, fortune cookies did not originate in China and are in fact rare there. They most likely originated from cookies made by Japanese immigrants to the United States in the late 19th or early 20th century. The Japanese version had a fortune, but not lucky numbers, and was commonly eaten with tea.

Mathematics

Seki Kowa Katsuyo Sampo Bernoulli numbers

;

Bernoulli number In mathematics, the Bernoulli numbers are a sequence of rational numbers which occur frequently in analysis. The Bernoulli numbers appear in (and can be defined by) the Taylor series expansions of the tangent and hyperbolic tangent functions, ...

: Studied by

Seki Kōwa , Selin, Helaine. (1997). ''Encyclopaedia of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine in Non-Western Cultures,'' p. 890 also known as ,Selin, was a Japanese mathematician and author of the Edo period. Seki laid foundations for the subs ...

and published after his death, in 1712.

Jacob Bernoulli Jacob Bernoulli (also known as James or Jacques; – 16 August 1705) was one of the many prominent mathematicians in the Bernoulli family. He was an early proponent of Leibnizian calculus and sided with Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz during the Le ...

independently developed the concept in the same period, though his work was published a year later. Selin, Helaine. (1997), ''An Introduction to the History of Mathematics''. Saunders College Publishing. p. 891, Poole, David. (2005), ''Linear algebra: a modern introductio''. p. 279, .Styan, George P. H.; Trenkler, Götz. (2007)
. Journal of Applied Mathematics and Decision Sciences
2007, Hindawi Publishing Corporation, pp. 2 ;

Determinant In mathematics, the determinant is a scalar value that is a function of the entries of a square matrix. It characterizes some properties of the matrix and the linear map represented by the matrix. In particular, the determinant is nonzero if a ...

: In Japan, determinants were introduced to study elimination of variables in systems of higher-order algebraic equations. They used it to give shorthand representation for the

resultant In mathematics, the resultant of two polynomials is a polynomial expression of their coefficients, which is equal to zero if and only if the polynomials have a common root (possibly in a field extension), or, equivalently, a common factor (ov ...

. The determinant as an independent function was first studied by

in 1683. ;

Elimination theory Elimination may refer to: Science and medicine *Elimination reaction, an organic reaction in which two functional groups split to form an organic product *Bodily waste elimination, discharging feces, urine, or foreign substances from the body ...

: In 1683 (''Kai-Fukudai-no-Hō''),

came up with elimination theory, based on

. To express resultant, he developed the notion of

determinant In mathematics, the determinant is a scalar value that is a function of the entries of a square matrix. It characterizes some properties of the matrix and the linear map represented by the matrix. In particular, the determinant is nonzero if a ...

Howard Eves Howard Whitley Eves (10 January 1911, New Jersey – 6 June 2004) was an American mathematician, known for his work in geometry and the history of mathematics. Eves received his B.S. from the University of Virginia, an M.A. from Harvard Uni ...

: "''An Introduction to the History of Mathematics''", page 405, Saunders College Publishing, 1990. () ;

Hironaka's example In geometry, Hironaka's example is a non-Kähler complex manifold that is a deformation of Kähler manifolds found by . Hironaka's example can be used to show that several other plausible statements holding for smooth varieties of dimension at most ...

: Hironaka's example is a non-Kähler complex manifold that is a deformation of

Kähler manifold In mathematics and especially differential geometry, a Kähler manifold is a manifold with three mutually compatible structures: a complex structure, a Riemannian structure, and a symplectic structure. The concept was first studied by Jan Arn ...

s discovered by

Heisuke Hironaka is a Japanese mathematician who was awarded the Fields Medal in 1970 for his contributions to algebraic geometry. Career Hironaka entered Kyoto University in 1949. After completing his undergraduate studies at Kyoto University, he received his ...

. ;

Itô calculus Itô calculus, named after Kiyosi Itô, extends the methods of calculus to stochastic processes such as Brownian motion (see Wiener process). It has important applications in mathematical finance and stochastic differential equations. The central ...

: Developed by

Kiyosi Itô was a Japanese mathematician who made fundamental contributions to probability theory, in particular, the theory of stochastic processes. He invented the concept of stochastic integral and stochastic differential equation, and is known as the fo ...

throughout the 20th century, Itô calculus extends calculus to

stochastic process In probability theory and related fields, a stochastic () or random process is a mathematical object usually defined as a family of random variables. Stochastic processes are widely used as mathematical models of systems and phenomena that ap ...

es such as

Brownian motion Brownian motion, or pedesis (from grc, πήδησις "leaping"), is the random motion of particles suspended in a medium (a liquid or a gas). This pattern of motion typically consists of random fluctuations in a particle's position insi ...

(

Wiener process In mathematics, the Wiener process is a real-valued continuous-time stochastic process named in honor of American mathematician Norbert Wiener for his investigations on the mathematical properties of the one-dimensional Brownian motion. It is ...

). Its basic concept is the Itô integral, and among the most important results is a change of variable formula known as

Itô's lemma In mathematics, Itô's lemma or Itô's formula (also called the Itô-Doeblin formula, especially in French literature) is an identity used in Itô calculus to find the differential of a time-dependent function of a stochastic process. It serves ...

. Itô calculus is widely applied in various fields, but is perhaps best known for its use in

mathematical finance Mathematical finance, also known as quantitative finance and financial mathematics, is a field of applied mathematics, concerned with mathematical modeling of financial markets. In general, there exist two separate branches of finance that require ...

. ;

Iwasawa theory In number theory, Iwasawa theory is the study of objects of arithmetic interest over infinite towers of number fields. It began as a Galois module theory of ideal class groups, initiated by (), as part of the theory of cyclotomic fields. In th ...

and the

Main conjecture of Iwasawa theory In mathematics, the main conjecture of Iwasawa theory is a deep relationship between ''p''-adic ''L''-functions and ideal class groups of cyclotomic fields, proved by Kenkichi Iwasawa for primes satisfying the Kummer–Vandiver conjecture and ...

: Initially created by

Kenkichi Iwasawa Kenkichi Iwasawa ( ''Iwasawa Kenkichi'', September 11, 1917 – October 26, 1998) was a Japanese mathematician who is known for his influence on algebraic number theory. Biography Iwasawa was born in Shinshuku-mura, a town near Kiryū, in Gunm ...

, Iwasawa theory was originally developed as a

Galois module In mathematics, a Galois module is a ''G''-module, with ''G'' being the Galois group of some extension of fields. The term Galois representation is frequently used when the ''G''-module is a vector space over a field or a free module over a ring ...

theory of ideal class groups. The main conjecture of Iwasawa theory is a deep relationship between ''p''-adic ''L''-functions and ideal class groups of

cyclotomic field In number theory, a cyclotomic field is a number field obtained by adjoining a complex root of unity to , the field of rational numbers. Cyclotomic fields played a crucial role in the development of modern algebra and number theory because of ...

s, proved by for primes satisfying the Kummer–Vandiver conjecture and proved for all primes by . ;

Resultant In mathematics, the resultant of two polynomials is a polynomial expression of their coefficients, which is equal to zero if and only if the polynomials have a common root (possibly in a field extension), or, equivalently, a common factor (ov ...

: In 1683 (''Kai-Fukudai-no-Hō''),

came up with

elimination theory Elimination may refer to: Science and medicine *Elimination reaction, an organic reaction in which two functional groups split to form an organic product *Bodily waste elimination, discharging feces, urine, or foreign substances from the body ...

, based on resultant. To express resultant, he developed the notion of

. ;

Sangaku Sangaku or San Gaku ( ja, 算額, lit=calculation tablet) are Japanese geometrical problems or theorems on wooden tablets which were placed as offerings at Shinto shrines or Buddhist temples during the Edo period by members of all social classes ...

: Japanese geometrical puzzles in

Euclidean geometry Euclidean geometry is a mathematical system attributed to ancient Greek mathematician Euclid, which he described in his textbook on geometry: the '' Elements''. Euclid's approach consists in assuming a small set of intuitively appealing axioms ...

on wooden tablets created during the

(1603–1867) by members of all social classes. The Dutch Japanologist

Isaac Titsingh Isaac Titsingh FRS ( January 1745 – 2 February 1812) was a Dutch diplomat, historian, Japanologist, and merchant.Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "Isaak Titsingh" in . During a long career in East Asia, Titsingh was a senior official of the ...

first introduced ''sangaku'' to the West when he returned to Europe in the late 1790s after more than twenty years in the Far East. ;

Soddy's hexlet In geometry, Soddy's hexlet is a chain of six spheres (shown in grey in Figure 1), each of which is tangent to both of its neighbors and also to three mutually tangent given spheres. In Figure 1, the three spheres are the red inner sphere and tw ...

: Irisawa Shintarō Hiroatsu analyzed Soddy's hexlet in a

in 1822 and was the first person to do so. ;

Takagi existence theorem {{short description, Correspondence between finite abelian extensions and generalized ideal class groups In class field theory, the Takagi existence theorem states that for any number field ''K'' there is a one-to-one inclusion reversing corresponde ...

: Takagi existence theorem was developed by

Teiji Takagi Teiji Takagi (高木貞治 ''Takagi Teiji'', April 21, 1875 – February 28, 1960) was a Japanese mathematician, best known for proving the Takagi existence theorem in class field theory. The Blancmange curve, the graph of a nowhere-differentiabl ...

in isolation during

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

. He presented it at the

International Congress of Mathematicians The International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM) is the largest conference for the topic of mathematics. It meets once every four years, hosted by the International Mathematical Union (IMU). The Fields Medals, the Nevanlinna Prize (to be rena ...

in 1920.

Physics

Cabibbo–Kobayashi–Maskawa matrix In the Standard Model of particle physics, the Cabibbo–Kobayashi–Maskawa matrix, CKM matrix, quark mixing matrix, or KM matrix is a unitary matrix which contains information on the strength of the flavour-changing weak interaction. Technicall ...

: Building off the work of

Nicola Cabibbo Nicola Cabibbo (10 April 1935 – 16 August 2010) was an Italian physicist, best known for his work on the weak interaction. Life Cabibbo, son of a Sicilian lawyer, was born in Rome. He graduated in theoretical physics at the Università di Rom ...

, Makoto Kobayashi and Toshihide Maskawa introduced the Cabibbo–Kobayashi–Maskawa matrix which introduced for three generations of quarks. In 2008, Kobayashi and Maskawa shared one half of the

Nobel Prize in Physics ) , image = Nobel Prize.png , alt = A golden medallion with an embossed image of a bearded man facing left in profile. To the left of the man is the text "ALFR•" then "NOBEL", and on the right, the text (smaller) "NAT•" then " ...

"for the discovery of the origin of the broken symmetry which predicts the existence of at least three families of quarks in nature". ; Nagaoka model (first Saturnian model of the atom) : In 1904, Hantaro Nagaoka proposed the first planetary model of the atom as an alternative to J. J. Thomson's

plum pudding model The plum pudding model is one of several historical scientific models of the atom. First proposed by J. J. Thomson in 1904 soon after the discovery of the electron, but before the discovery of the atomic nucleus, the model tried to explain two ...

Ernest Rutherford Ernest Rutherford, 1st Baron Rutherford of Nelson, (30 August 1871 – 19 October 1937) was a New Zealand physicist who came to be known as the father of nuclear physics. ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' considers him to be the greatest ...

and

Niels Bohr Niels Henrik David Bohr (; 7 October 1885 – 18 November 1962) was a Danish physicist who made foundational contributions to understanding atomic structure and quantum theory, for which he received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1922 ...

would later develop the more viable

Bohr model In atomic physics, the Bohr model or Rutherford–Bohr model, presented by Niels Bohr and Ernest Rutherford in 1913, is a system consisting of a small, dense nucleus surrounded by orbiting electrons—similar to the structure of the Solar Syst ...

in 1913. ;

Sakata model In particle physics, the Sakata model of hadrons was a precursor to the quark model. It proposed that the proton, neutron, and Lambda baryon were elementary particles (sometimes referred to as sakatons ), and that all other known hadrons were made ...

:The Sakata model was a precursor to the

quark model In particle physics, the quark model is a classification scheme for hadrons in terms of their valence quarks—the quarks and antiquarks which give rise to the quantum numbers of the hadrons. The quark model underlies "flavor SU(3)", or the Ei ...

proposed by Shoichi Sakata in 1956.

Technology

;

Airsoft Airsoft is a team game in which participants eliminate opposing players by tagging them out of play with spherical plastic projectiles shot with mock air weapons(usually powered by an electronic motor) called airsoft guns. Although similar ...

: Airsoft originated in Japan, then spread to Hong Kong and China in the late 1970s. The inventor of the first airsoft gun is Tanio Kobayashi. ;

Blue laser A blue laser is a laser that emits electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength between 360 and 480 nanometers, which the human eye sees as blue or violet. Blue beams are produced by helium-cadmium gas lasers at 441.6 nm, and argon-ion lase ...

: In 1992 Japanese inventor

Shuji Nakamura is a Japanese-born American electronic engineer and inventor specializing in the field of semiconductor technology, professor at the Materials Department of the College of Engineering, University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), and is rega ...

invented the first efficient blue LED. ;

Camera phone A camera phone is a mobile phone which is able to capture photographs and often record video using one or more built-in digital cameras. It can also send the resulting image wirelessly and conveniently. The first commercial phone with color ca ...

: The world's first camera phone (it also had a real-time-video-call functionality. It could send an email with a picture), the VP-210, was developed by

Kyocera is a Japanese multinational ceramics and electronics manufacturer headquartered in Kyoto, Japan. It was founded as in 1959 by Kazuo Inamori and renamed in 1982. It manufactures industrial ceramics, solar power generating systems, telecommunic ...

in 1999. ; Digital microscope :Japanese company Hirox created the first ever digital microscope. A variation of a traditional microscope using optics and a digital camera to output an image to a monitor. ; TV Watch : The world's first TV watch, the TV-Watch, was developed by

Seiko , commonly known as Seiko ( , ), is a Japanese maker of watches, clocks, electronic devices, semiconductors, jewelry, and optical products. Founded in 1881 by Kintarō Hattori in Tokyo, Seiko introduced one of the first quartz watches and the ...

in 1982. ;

Japanese typewriter The first practical was invented by Kyota Sugimoto in 1915. Out of the thousands of kanji characters, Kyota's original typewriter used 2,400 of them. He obtained the patent rights to the typewriter that he invented in 1929. Sugimoto's typewrite ...

: The first

typewriter A typewriter is a mechanical or electromechanical machine for typing characters. Typically, a typewriter has an array of keys, and each one causes a different single character to be produced on paper by striking an inked ribbon selectivel ...

to be based on the

Japanese writing system The modern Japanese writing system uses a combination of logographic kanji, which are adopted Chinese characters, and syllabic kana. Kana itself consists of a pair of syllabaries: hiragana, used primarily for native or naturalised Japane ...

was invented by

Kyota Sugimoto was a Japanese inventor who developed the first practical Japanese typewriter. He received the Blue Ribbon Award and the Small Asahi Ribbon. Out of the thousands of kanji characters, Sugimoto's typewriter used 2,400 of them. Biography Kyota ...

in 1929. ; KS steel : Magnetic resistant steel that is three times more resistant than tungsten steel, invented by Kotaro Honda. ;

MKM steel MKM steel, an alloy containing nickel and aluminum, was developed in 1931 by metallurgist Tokushichi Mishima (三島徳七). While conducting research into the properties of nickel, Mishima discovered that a strongly magnetic steel could be creat ...

: MKM steel, an alloy containing nickel and aluminum, was developed in 1931 by the Japanese metallurgist Tokuhichi Mishima. ;

Neodymium magnet A hard_disk_drive.html"_;"title="Nickel-plated_neodymium_magnet_on_a_bracket_from_a_hard_disk_drive">Nickel-plated_neodymium_magnet_on_a_bracket_from_a_hard_disk_drive_ file:Nd-magnet.jpg.html" ;"title="hard_disk_drive_.html" ;"title="hard_disk_d ...

: Neodymium magnets were invented independently in 1982 by

General Motors The General Motors Company (GM) is an American Multinational corporation, multinational Automotive industry, automotive manufacturing company headquartered in Detroit, Michigan, United States. It is the largest automaker in the United States and ...

(GM) and Sumitomo Special Metals. QR code for mobile English Wikipedia

; Double-coil bulb :In 1921,

Junichi Miura Jun'ichi or Junichi is a masculine Japanese given name. Possible writings Junichi can be written using different kanji characters. "Ichi" is nearly always written with the character ("one") or its ''daiji'' (large numerals) form , while "jun" m ...

created the first double-coil bulb using a coiled coil tungsten filament while working for Hakunetsusha (a predecessor of

Toshiba , commonly known as Toshiba and stylized as TOSHIBA, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. Its diversified products and services include power, industrial and social infrastructure systems, ...

). At the time, machinery to mass-produce coiled coil filaments did not exist. Hakunetsusha developed a method to mass-produce coiled coil filaments by 1936. ;

QR code A QR code (an initialism for quick response code) is a type of matrix barcode (or two-dimensional barcode) invented in 1994 by the Japanese company Denso Wave. A barcode is a machine-readable optical label that can contain information about t ...

: The QR code, a type of

matrix barcode A barcode or bar code is a method of representing data in a visual, machine-readable form. Initially, barcodes represented data by varying the widths, spacings and sizes of parallel lines. These barcodes, now commonly referred to as linear or o ...

, was invented by Denso Wave in 1994. ;

Tactile paving Tactile paving (also called tenji blocks, truncated domes, detectable warnings, tactile tiles, tactile ground surface indicators, tactile walking surface indicators, or detectable warning surfaces) is a system of textured ground surface indicat ...

: The original tactile paving was developed by

Seiichi Miyake was a Japanese engineer and inventor best known for his work on tactile paving (or "Tenji bricks", "Tactile bricks/blocks") to aid the visually impaired at traffic crossings. Miyake's system of tactile paving was first introduced at a school f ...

in 1965. The paving was first introduced in a street in Okayama city,

, in 1967. Its use gradually spread in

and then around the world.

Audio technology

;

Compact Disc player A CD player is an electronic device that plays audio compact discs, which are a digital optical disc data storage format. CD players were first sold to consumers in 1982. CDs typically contain recordings of audio material such as music or audio ...

Sony , commonly stylized as SONY, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. As a major technology company, it operates as one of the world's largest manufacturers of consumer and professional ...

released the world's first CD Player, called the CDP-101, in 1982, using a slide-out tray design for the

Compact Disc The compact disc (CD) is a digital optical disc data storage format that was co-developed by Philips and Sony to store and play digital audio recordings. In August 1982, the first compact disc was manufactured. It was then released in O ...

. ;

Physical modelling synthesis Physical modelling synthesis refers to sound synthesis methods in which the waveform of the sound to be generated is computed using a mathematical model, a set of equations and algorithms to simulate a physical source of sound, usually a musi ...

: The first commercially available physical modelling

synthesizer A synthesizer (also spelled synthesiser) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis a ...

was Yamaha's VL-1 in 1994. ; Commercial digital recording :Commercial digital recording was pioneered in Japan by

NHK , also known as NHK, is a Japanese public broadcaster. NHK, which has always been known by this romanized initialism in Japanese, is a statutory corporation funded by viewers' payments of a television license fee. NHK operates two terrestr ...

and

Nippon Columbia , often pronounced ''Korombia'', operating internationally as , is a Japanese record label founded in 1910 as Nipponophone Co., Ltd. It affiliated itself with the Columbia Graphophone Company of the United Kingdom and adopted the standard UK ...

, also known as

Denon is a Japanese electronics company started in 1910 by Frederick Whitney Horn, an American entrepreneur. Denon produced the first cylinder audio media in Japan and players to play them. Decades later, Denon was involved in the early stages of de ...

, in the 1960s. The first commercial digital recordings were released in 1971. ;

Karaoke Karaoke (; ; , clipped compound of Japanese ''kara'' "empty" and ''ōkesutora'' "orchestra") is a type of interactive entertainment usually offered in clubs and bars, where people sing along to recorded music using a microphone. The music is ...

:There are various disputes about who first invented the name ''karaoke'' (a Japanese word meaning "empty orchestra"). One claim is that the karaoke styled machine was invented by Japanese musician

Daisuke Inoue is a Japanese businessman best known as the inventor of a karaoke machine. Inoue, a musician in his youth employed in backing businesspeople who wanted to sing in bars, invented the machine as a means of allowing them to sing without live ba ...

Kobe Kobe ( , ; officially , ) is the capital city of Hyōgo Prefecture Japan. With a population around 1.5 million, Kobe is Japan's seventh-largest city and the third-largest port city after Tokyo and Yokohama. It is located in Kansai region, whi ...

, in 1971. ;

Portable CD player A portable CD player is a portable audio player used to play compact discs. The first audio player released was the Discman D-50 by Sony.Lungu, R"History of the Portable Audio Player." 2008-11-27. Features The basic features of a portable CD ...

's Discman, released in 1984, was the first portable

CD player A CD player is an electronic device that plays audio compact discs, which are a digital optical disc data storage format. CD players were first sold to consumers in 1982. CDs typically contain recordings of audio material such as music or audio ...

. ;

Perpendicular recording Perpendicular recording (or perpendicular magnetic recording, PMR), also known as conventional magnetic recording (CMR), is a technology for data recording on magnetic media, particularly hard disks. It was first proven advantageous in 1976 by S ...

:Perpendicular recording was first demonstrated in the late 19th century by Danish scientist Valdemar Poulsen, who was also the first person to demonstrate that sound could be recorded magnetically. There weren't many advances in perpendicular recording until 1976 when Dr. Shun-ichi Iwasaki (president of the Tohoku Institute of Technology in Japan) verified the distinct density advantages in perpendicular recording. Then in 1978, Dr. T. Fujiwara began an intensive research and development program at the Toshiba Corporation that eventually resulted in the perfection of floppy disk media optimized for perpendicular recording and the first commercially available magnetic storage devices using the technique. ; Digital audio tape recorder :In 1971, Heitaro Nakajima resigned from his post as head of NHK's Technical Research Laboratories and joined Sony. Four years earlier at NHK, Nakajima had commenced work on the digitization of sound and within two years had developed the first digital audio tape recorder. ;

Direct-drive turntable A direct-drive turntable is one of the three main phonograph designs currently being produced. The other styles are the belt-drive turntable and the idler-wheel type. Each name is based upon the type of coupling used between the platter of the ...

:Invented by Shuichi Obata, an engineer at Matsushita (now

Panasonic formerly between 1935 and 2008 and the first incarnation of between 2008 and 2022, is a major Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation, headquartered in Kadoma, Osaka. It was founded by Kōnosuke Matsushita in 1918 as a lightbulb ...

), based in

.Brian Coleman
The Technics 1200 — Hammer Of The Gods

Medium Medium may refer to: Science and technology Aviation * Medium bomber, a class of war plane * Tecma Medium, a French hang glider design Communication * Media (communication), tools used to store and deliver information or data * Medium ...

In 1969, Matsushita released it as the SP-10, the first in their influential Technics series of turntables.Trevor Pinch, Karin Bijsterveld
''The Oxford Handbook of Sound Studies'', page 515

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print book ...

The Technics SL-1100, released in 1971, was adopted by early hip hop

DJs A disc jockey, more commonly abbreviated as DJ, is a person who plays recorded music for an audience. Types of DJs include radio DJs (who host programs on music radio stations), club DJs (who work at a nightclub or music festival), mobile ...

for

turntablism Turntablism is the art of manipulating sounds and creating new music, sound effects, mixes and other creative sounds and beats, typically by using two or more turntables and a cross fader-equipped DJ mixer. The mixer is plugged into a PA sys ...

, and the SL-1200 is still widely used by

dance Dance is a performing art form consisting of sequences of movement, either improvised or purposefully selected. This movement has aesthetic and often symbolic value. Dance can be categorized and described by its choreography, by its repertoire ...

and hip hop DJs. ;Fully programmable drum machine :The

Roland TR-808 The Roland TR-808 Rhythm Composer, commonly known as the 808, is a drum machine manufactured by the Roland Corporation between 1980 and 1983. It was one of the first drum machines to allow users to program rhythms instead of using preset patte ...

, also known as the 808, introduced by

Roland Roland (; frk, *Hrōþiland; lat-med, Hruodlandus or ''Rotholandus''; it, Orlando or ''Rolando''; died 15 August 778) was a Frankish military leader under Charlemagne who became one of the principal figures in the literary cycle known as the ...

in 1980, was the first fully programmable drum machine. It was the first drum machine with the ability to program an entire percussion track from beginning to end, complete with

breaks Break or Breaks or The Break may refer to: Time off from duties * Recess (break), time in which a group of people is temporarily dismissed from its duties * Break (work), time off during a shift/recess ** Coffee break, a short mid-morning rest ...

and rolls.'' Contemporary Keyboard''
Volume 7, Issues 1–6
1981: "''The Roland TR-808 will undoubtedly become the standard for rhythm machines of the future because it does what no rhythm machine of the past has ever done. Not only does the TR-808 allow programming of individual rhythm patterns, it can also program the entire percussion track of a song from beginning to end, complete with breaks, rolls, literally anything you can think of.''" Created by

Ikutaro Kakehashi , also known by the nickname Taro, was a Japanese engineer, inventor, and entrepreneur. He founded the musical instrument manufacturers Ace Tone, Roland Corporation, and Boss Corporation, and the audiovisual electronics company ATV Corporation. ...

, the 808 has been fundamental to hip hop music and electronic dance music since the 1980s, making it one of the most influential inventions in

popular music Popular music is music with wide appeal that is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. These forms and styles can be enjoyed and performed by people with little or no musical training.Popular Music. (2015). ''Fu ...

. ; Phaser

effects pedal An effects unit or effects pedal is an electronic device that alters the sound of a musical instrument or other audio source through audio signal processing. Common effects include distortion/overdrive, often used with electric guitar in ele ...

:In 1968, Shin-ei's

Uni-Vibe The Uni-Vibe, also marketed as the Jax Vibra-Chorus,Harry Shapiro, Michael Heatley, Roger Mayer''Jimi Hendrix Gear'', page 120 Voyageur Press is a footpedal-operated phaser or phase shifter for creating chorus and vibrato simulations for elect ...

, designed by audio engineer Fumio Mieda, incorporated

phase shift In physics and mathematics, the phase of a periodic function F of some real variable t (such as time) is an angle-like quantity representing the fraction of the cycle covered up to t. It is denoted \phi(t) and expressed in such a scale that it ...

and

chorus Chorus may refer to: Music * Chorus (song) or refrain, line or lines that are repeated in music or in verse * Chorus effect, the perception of similar sounds from multiple sources as a single, richer sound * Chorus form, song in which all verse ...

effects, soon becoming favorite effects of guitarists such as

Jimi Hendrix James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix (born Johnny Allen Hendrix; November 27, 1942September 18, 1970) was an American guitarist, singer and songwriter. Although his mainstream career spanned only four years, he is widely regarded as one of the most ...

and

Robin Trower Robin Leonard Trower (born 9 March 1945) is an English rock guitarist who achieved success with Procol Harum throughout 1967–1971, and then again as the bandleader of his own power trio known as the Robin Trower Band. Biography Robin Trowe ...

. ; Vowel-Consonant synthesis : A type of hybrid

Digital Digital usually refers to something using discrete digits, often binary digits. Technology and computing Hardware *Digital electronics, electronic circuits which operate using digital signals ** Digital camera, which captures and stores digital ...

- analogue

synthesis Synthesis or synthesize may refer to: Science Chemistry and biochemistry * Chemical synthesis, the execution of chemical reactions to form a more complex molecule from chemical precursors **Organic synthesis, the chemical synthesis of organ ...

first employed by the early

Casiotone Casiotone was a series of home electronic keyboards made by Casio in the early 1980s. Casio promoted the Casiotone 201 (CT-201) as "the first electronic keyboard with full-size keys that anyone could afford". The name "Casiotone" disappeared from ...

keyboards in the early 1980s.

Batteries

;

Lithium-ion battery A lithium-ion or Li-ion battery is a type of rechargeable battery which uses the reversible reduction of lithium ions to store energy. It is the predominant battery type used in portable consumer electronics and electric vehicles. It also s ...

: Akira Yoshino invented the modern li-ion battery in 1985. In 1991,

and

Asahi Kasei is a multinational Japanese chemical company. Its main products are chemicals and materials science. It was founded in May 1931, using the paid in capital of Nobeoka Ammonia Fiber Co., Ltd, a Nobeoka, Miyazaki based producer of ammonia, nit ...

released the first commercial lithium-ion battery using Yoshino's design. ;

Dry cell upLine art drawing of a dry cell: 1. brass cap, 2. plastic seal, 3. expansion space, 4. porous cardboard, 5. zinc can, 6. carbon rod, 7. chemical mixture A dry cell is a type of electric battery, commonly used for portable electrical devices. Unl ...

:The world's first dry-battery was invented in Japan during the Meiji Era. The inventor was Sakizou Yai. The company Yai founded no longer exists

Calculators

;

Pocket calculator An electronic calculator is typically a portable electronic device used to perform calculations, ranging from basic arithmetic to complex mathematics. The first solid-state electronic calculator was created in the early 1960s. Pocket-sized ...

: The first portable calculators appeared in Japan in 1970, and were soon marketed around the world. These included the

Sanyo , stylized as SANYO, is a Japanese electronics company and formerly a member of the ''Fortune'' Global 500 whose headquarters was located in Moriguchi, Osaka prefecture, Japan. Sanyo had over 230 subsidiaries and affiliates, and was founded by ...

ICC-0081 "Mini Calculator", the

Canon Canon or Canons may refer to: Arts and entertainment * Canon (fiction), the conceptual material accepted as official in a fictional universe by its fan base * Literary canon, an accepted body of works considered as high culture ** Western ca ...

Pocketronic, and the

Sharp Sharp or SHARP may refer to: Acronyms * SHARP (helmet ratings) (Safety Helmet Assessment and Rating Programme), a British motorcycle helmet safety rating scheme * Self Help Addiction Recovery Program, a charitable organisation founded in 199 ...

QT-8B "micro Compet". Sharp put in great efforts in size and power reduction and introduced in January 1971 the

Sharp EL-8 The Sharp EL-8, also known as the ELSI-8, was one of the earliest mass-produced hand-held electronic calculators and the first hand-held calculator to be made by Sharp. Introduced around the start of 1971, it was based on Sharp's preceding QT-8 ...

, also marketed as the Facit 1111, which was close to being a pocket calculator. It weighed about one pound, had a vacuum fluorescent display, and rechargeable NiCad batteries. The first truly pocket-sized electronic calculator was the

Busicom was a Japanese company that manufactured and sold computer-related products headquartered in Taito, Tokyo. It owned the rights to Intel's first microprocessor, the Intel 4004, which they created in partnership with Intel in 1970. Busicom ask ...

LE-120A "HANDY", which was marketed early in 1971.

Cameras

;

Digital single-lens reflex camera A digital single-lens reflex camera (digital SLR or DSLR) is a digital camera that combines the optics and the mechanisms of a single-lens reflex camera with a digital imaging sensor. The reflex design scheme is the primary difference between ...

: On August 25, 1981 Sony unveiled a prototype of the first still video camera, the

Sony Mavica Mavica (''Magnetic Video Camera'') is a discontinued brand of Sony cameras which use removable disks as the main recording medium. On August 25th 1981, Sony unveiled a prototype of the Sony Mavica as the world's first electronic still video cam ...

. This camera was an analog electronic camera that featured interchangeable lenses and a SLR viewfinder. At

photokina Photokina (rendered in the promoters' branding as "photokina") is a trade fair held in Europe for the photographic and imaging industries. It is the world's largest such trade fair. The first Photokina was held in Cologne, Germany, in 1950, a ...

in 1986,

Nikon (, ; ), also known just as Nikon, is a Japanese multinational corporation headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, specializing in optics and imaging products. The companies held by Nikon form the Nikon Group. Nikon's products include cameras, camera ...

revealed a prototype analog electronic still SLR camera, the Nikon SVC, the first digital SLR. The prototype body shared many features with the N8008.Nikon SLR-type digital cameras
Pierre Jarleton ; Portapak : In 1967, Sony unveiled the first self-contained

video tape Videotape is magnetic tape used for storing video and usually sound in addition. Information stored can be in the form of either an analog or digital signal. Videotape is used in both video tape recorders (VTRs) and, more commonly, videocassett ...

analog recording Analog recording is a technique used for the recording of analog signals which, among many possibilities, allows analog audio for later playback. Analog audio recording began with mechanical systems such as the phonautograph and phonograph. L ...

system that was portable.

Chindōgu

Chindōgu is the Japanese art of inventing ingenious everyday

gadget A gadget is a mechanical device or any ingenious article. Gadgets are sometimes referred to as ''gizmos''. History The etymology of the word is disputed. The word first appears as reference to an 18th-century tool in glassmaking that was develop ...

s that, on the face of it, seem like an ideal solution to a particular problem. However, Chindōgu has a distinctive feature: anyone actually attempting to use one of these inventions would find that it causes so many new problems, or such significant social

embarrassment Embarrassment or awkwardness is an emotional state that is associated with mild to severe levels of discomfort, and which is usually experienced when someone commits (or thinks of) a socially unacceptable or frowned-upon act that is witnessed ...

, that effectively it has no

utility As a topic of economics, utility is used to model worth or value. Its usage has evolved significantly over time. The term was introduced initially as a measure of pleasure or happiness as part of the theory of utilitarianism by moral philosophe ...

whatsoever. Thus, Chindōgu are sometimes described as "unuseless" – that is, they cannot be regarded as 'useless' in an absolute sense, since they do actually solve a problem; however, in practical terms, they cannot positively be called "useful." The term "Chindōgu" was coined by

Kenji Kawakami is the inventor of the Japanese craze Chindōgu. Background Early life and student activism Kawakami studied aeronautical engineering at Tokai University in 1967, but dropped out when he became involved in student protests of the 1970s faci ...

Domestic appliances

;

Bladeless fan file:IFA 2010 Internationale Funkausstellung Berlin 109.JPG, The Dyson Air Multiplier at the IFA Berlin trade show in 2010 A bladeless fan, also known as an Air multiplier fan, is a Fan (machine), fan that blows air from a ring or oval opening ...

: The first bladeless fan was patented by

in 1981.

;

Bread machine A bread making machine or breadmaker is a home appliance for baking bread. It consists of a bread pan (or "tin"), at the bottom of which are one or more built-in paddles, mounted in the center of a small special-purpose oven. This small oven is ...

: The bread machine was developed and released in

in 1986 by the Matsushita Electric Industrial Company. ; Electric rice cooker : Invented by designers at the Toshiba Corporation in the late 1940s. ; RFIQin : An automatic cooking device, invented by Mamoru Imura and

ed in 2007.

Electronics

;

Avalanche photodiode An avalanche photodiode (APD) is a highly sensitive semiconductor photodiode detector that exploits the photoelectric effect to convert light into electricity. From a functional standpoint, they can be regarded as the semiconductor analog of phot ...

: Invented by

Jun-ichi Nishizawa was a Japanese engineer and inventor. He is known for his electronic inventions since the 1950s, including the PIN diode, static induction transistor, static induction thyristor, SIT/SITh. His inventions contributed to the development of ...

in 1952.Jun-ichi Nishizawa: Engineer, Sophia University Special Professor
(interview), ''Japan Quality Review'', 2011 ;

Continuous wave A continuous wave or continuous waveform (CW) is an electromagnetic wave of constant amplitude and frequency, typically a sine wave, that for mathematical analysis is considered to be of infinite duration. It may refer to e.g. a laser or partic ...

semiconductor laser The laser diode chip removed and placed on the eye of a needle for scale A laser diode (LD, also injection laser diode or ILD, or diode laser) is a semiconductor device similar to a light-emitting diode in which a diode pumped directly with ...

: Invented by

Izuo Hayashi (May 1, 1922 – September 26, 2005) was a Japanese physicist. Hayashi was born in Tokyo in 1922 and graduated from the faculty of science, University of Tokyo in 1946. He worked as assistant professor at the Institute for Nuclear Research of t ...

and Morton B. Panish in 1970. This led directly to the light sources in

fiber-optic communication Fiber-optic communication is a method of transmitting information from one place to another by sending pulses of infrared light through an optical fiber. The light is a form of carrier wave that is modulated to carry information. Fiber is pr ...

laser printer Laser printing is an electrostatic digital printing process. It produces high-quality text and graphics (and moderate-quality photographs) by repeatedly passing a laser beam back and forth over a negatively-charged cylinder called a "drum" to ...

barcode reader A barcode reader is an optical scanner that can read printed barcodes, decode the data contained in the barcode to a computer. Like a flatbed scanner, it consists of a light source, a lens and a light sensor for translating optical impulses into ...

s, and

optical disc drive In computing, an optical disc drive is a disc drive that uses laser light or electromagnetic waves within or near the visible light spectrum as part of the process of reading or writing data to or from optical discs. Some drives can only r ...

s, technologies that were commercialized by Japanese entrepreneurs. ;

Fiber-optic communication Fiber-optic communication is a method of transmitting information from one place to another by sending pulses of infrared light through an optical fiber. The light is a form of carrier wave that is modulated to carry information. Fiber is pr ...

: While working at

Tohoku University , or is a Japanese national university located in Sendai, Miyagi in the Tōhoku Region, Japan. It is informally referred to as . Established in 1907, it was the third Imperial University in Japan and among the first three Designated Natio ...

proposed the use of

optical fiber An optical fiber, or optical fibre in Commonwealth English, is a flexible, transparent fiber made by drawing glass ( silica) or plastic to a diameter slightly thicker than that of a human hair Hair is a protein filament that grows ...

s for

optical communication Optical communication, also known as optical telecommunication, is communication at a distance using light to carry information. It can be performed visually or by using electronic devices. The earliest basic forms of optical communication date ...

, in 1963. Nishizawa invented other technologies that contributed to the development of optical fiber communications, such as the graded-index optical fiber as a channel for transmitting light from semiconductor lasers.

's invention of the

continuous wave A continuous wave or continuous waveform (CW) is an electromagnetic wave of constant amplitude and frequency, typically a sine wave, that for mathematical analysis is considered to be of infinite duration. It may refer to e.g. a laser or partic ...

semiconductor laser in 1970 led directly to light sources in fiber-optic communication, commercialized by Japanese entrepreneurs. ; Glass integrated circuit :

Shunpei Yamazaki is a Japanese inventor in the field of computer science and solid-state physics. He is a prolific inventor who is listed as a named inventor of 11,000+ patent families and 26,000+ distinct patent publications for his inventions. In 2005, he w ...

invented an integrated circuit made entirely from

glass Glass is a non- crystalline, often transparent, amorphous solid that has widespread practical, technological, and decorative use in, for example, window panes, tableware, and optics. Glass is most often formed by rapid cooling (quenchin ...

and with an 8-bit

central processing unit A central processing unit (CPU), also called a central processor, main processor or just processor, is the electronic circuitry that executes instructions comprising a computer program. The CPU performs basic arithmetic, logic, controlling, a ...

. ;

JFET The junction-gate field-effect transistor (JFET) is one of the simplest types of field-effect transistor. JFETs are three-terminal semiconductor devices that can be used as electronically controlled switches or resistors, or to build amplifi ...

(junction gate

field-effect transistor The field-effect transistor (FET) is a type of transistor that uses an electric field to control the flow of current in a semiconductor. FETs (JFETs or MOSFETs) are devices with three terminals: ''source'', ''gate'', and ''drain''. FETs co ...

) : The first type of JFET was the

static induction transistor The static induction transistor (SIT) is a type of field-effect transistor (FET) capable of high-speed and high-power operation, with low distortion and low noise. It is a vertical structure device with short multichannel. The device was origina ...

(SIT), invented by Japanese engineers

and Y. Watanabe in 1950. The SIT is a type of JFET with a short channel length.Junction Field-Effect Devices
''Semiconductor Devices for Power Conditioning'', 1982 ;

Laptop A laptop, laptop computer, or notebook computer is a small, portable personal computer (PC) with a screen and alphanumeric keyboard. Laptops typically have a clam shell form factor with the screen mounted on the inside of the upper li ...

: Despite that Adam Osborne announced the "first laptop/notebook" called

Osborne 1 The Osborne 1 is the first commercially successful portable computer, released on April 3, 1981 by Osborne Computer Corporation. It weighs , cost US$1,795, and runs the CP/M 2.2 operating system. It is powered from a wall socket, as it has no ...

but it is now called a luggable portable computer along with other protable computers such as

IBM 5100 The IBM 5100 Portable Computer is a portable computer (one of the first) introduced in September 1975, six years before the IBM Personal Computer, and eight before the first successful IBM compatible portable computer, the Compaq Portable. It ...

. Yukio Yokozawa, an employee for Suwa Seikosha, a branch of

(now

Seiko Epson Seiko Epson Corporation, or simply known as Epson, is a Japanese multinational electronics company and one of the world's largest manufacturers of computer printers and information- and imaging-related equipment. Headquartered in Suwa, Nagano ...

), invented the first laptop/notebook computer in July 1980, receiving a patent for the invention. Seiko's notebook computer, known as the HC-20 in Japan, was announced in 1981.【Shinshu Seiki / Suwa Seikosha】 HC-20
Information Processing Society of Japan In North America,

Epson Seiko Epson Corporation, or simply known as Epson, is a Japanese multinational electronics company and one of the world's largest manufacturers of computer printers and information- and imaging-related equipment. Headquartered in Suwa, Nagano ...

introduced it as the Epson HX-20 in 1981, at the

COMDEX COMDEX (an abbreviation of COMputer Dealers' EXhibition) was a computer expo trade show held in the Las Vegas Valley of Nevada, United States, each November from 1979 to 2003. It was one of the largest computer trade shows in the world, usually ...

computer show in

Las Vegas Las Vegas (; Spanish for "The Meadows"), often known simply as Vegas, is the 25th-most populous city in the United States, the most populous city in the state of Nevada, and the county seat of Clark County. The city anchors the Las Veg ...

, where it drew significant attention for its portability.Epson HX-20
Old Computers It had a mass-market release in July 1982, as the HC-20 in Japan and as the Epson HX-20 in North America.Michael R. Peres
''The Focal Encyclopedia of Photography'', page 306

Taylor & Francis Taylor & Francis Group is an international company originating in England that publishes books and academic journals. Its parts include Taylor & Francis, Routledge, F1000 Research or Dovepress. It is a division of Informa plc, a United Ki ...

It was the first notebook-sized handheld computer, the size of an A4 notebook and weighing . In 1983, the

Sharp PC-5000 The Sharp PC-5000 was a pioneering laptop computer, announced by Sharp Corporation of Japan in November 1983. It employed a clamshell design in which the display closes over the keyboard, like the earlier GRiD Compass and contemporary Gavilan ...

and Ampere WS-1 laptops from Japan featured a modern clamshell design.Japanese PCs (1984)
(13:13), ''

Computer Chronicles ''(The) Computer Chronicles'' is an American half-hour television series, which was broadcast from 1983 to 2002 on Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) public television and which documented various issues from the rise of the personal computer from ...

'' ;

Microcomputer A microcomputer is a small, relatively inexpensive computer having a central processing unit (CPU) made out of a microprocessor. The computer also includes memory and input/output (I/O) circuitry together mounted on a printed circuit board (PC ...

for

Automotive Engine , there were a wide variety of propulsion systems available or potentially available for automobiles and other vehicles. Options included internal combustion engines fueled by petrol, diesel, propane, or natural gas; hybrid vehicles, plug-in ...

:Toshiba developed a close relationship with Ford for the supply of rectifier diodes for automobile AC alternators. In March 1971, Ford unexpectedly sent a set bulky specifications asking Toshiba to join a project to make an electronic engine control (EEC) in response to US Clean Air Act (sometimes known as the Muskie Act). ;

Microprocessor A microprocessor is a computer processor where the data processing logic and control is included on a single integrated circuit, or a small number of integrated circuits. The microprocessor contains the arithmetic, logic, and control circ ...

: The concept of a single-chip

microprocessor A microprocessor is a computer processor where the data processing logic and control is included on a single integrated circuit, or a small number of integrated circuits. The microprocessor contains the arithmetic, logic, and control circ ...

(CPU) was conceived in a 1968 meeting in Japan between

engineer Tadashi Sasaki and a software engineering researcher from Nara Women's College. Sasaki discussed the microprocessor concept with

and

Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the developers of the x86 ser ...

in 1968. The first commercial microprocessor, the 4-bit

Intel 4004 The Intel 4004 is a 4-bit central processing unit (CPU) released by Intel Corporation in 1971. Sold for US$60, it was the first commercially produced microprocessor, and the first in a long line of Intel CPUs. The 4004 was the first significa ...

, began with the "Busicom Project"

Federico Faggin Federico Faggin (, ; born 1 December 1941) is an Italian physicist, engineer, inventor and entrepreneur. He is best known for designing the first commercial microprocessor, the Intel 4004. He led the 4004 (MCS-4) project and the design group d ...

The Making of the First Microprocessor
''IEEE Solid-State Circuits Magazine'', Winter 2009,

IEEE Xplore IEEE Xplore digital library is a research database for discovery and access to journal articles, conference proceedings, technical standards, and related materials on computer science, electrical engineering and electronics, and allied fields. It ...

in 1968 as

Masatoshi Shima is a Japanese electronics engineer. He was one of the architects of the world's first microprocessor, the Intel 4004. In 1968, Shima worked for Busicom in Japan, and did the logic design for a specialized CPU to be translated into three-chip ...

's three-chip CPU design, which was simplified down to a single-chip microprocessor, designed from 1969 to 1970 by Intel's Marcian Hoff and

and Busicom's Masatoshi Shima, and commercially released in 1971.Masatoshi Shima

IEEE The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is a 501(c)(3) professional association for electronic engineering and electrical engineering (and associated disciplines) with its corporate office in New York City and its operati ...

;

Parametron Parametron is a logic circuit element invented by Eiichi Goto in 1954.Information Processing Society of Japan Parametron/ref> The parametron is essentially a resonant circuit with a nonlinear reactive element which oscillates at half the driving f ...

: Eiichi Goto invented the parametron in 1954 as an alternative to the

vacuum tube A vacuum tube, electron tube, valve (British usage), or tube (North America), is a device that controls electric current flow in a high vacuum between electrodes to which an electric potential difference has been applied. The type known as ...

. Early Japanese computers used parametrons until they were superseded by

transistor upright=1.4, gate (G), body (B), source (S) and drain (D) terminals. The gate is separated from the body by an insulating layer (pink). A transistor is a semiconductor device used to Electronic amplifier, amplify or electronic switch, switch ...

s. ;

PIN diode A pin is a device used for fastening objects or material together. Pin or PIN may also refer to: Computers and technology * Personal identification number (PIN), to access a secured system ** PIN pad, a PIN entry device * PIN, a former Dutch ...

photodiode A photodiode is a light-sensitive semiconductor diode. It produces current when it absorbs photons. The package of a photodiode allows light (or infrared or ultraviolet radiation, or X-rays) to reach the sensitive part of the device. The packag ...

: Invented by

and his colleagues in 1950. ; Plastic central processing unit :

invented a

made entirely from

plastic Plastics are a wide range of synthetic or semi-synthetic materials that use polymers as a main ingredient. Their plasticity makes it possible for plastics to be moulded, extruded or pressed into solid objects of various shapes. This adapta ...

. ; Quantum flux parametron : Eiichi Goto invented the quantum flux parametron in 1986 using

superconducting Superconductivity is a set of physical properties observed in certain materials where electrical resistance vanishes and magnetic flux fields are expelled from the material. Any material exhibiting these properties is a superconductor. Unlike ...

Josephson junction In physics, the Josephson effect is a phenomenon that occurs when two superconductors are placed in proximity, with some barrier or restriction between them. It is an example of a macroscopic quantum phenomenon, where the effects of quantum mec ...

s on integrated circuits as an improvement over existing parametron technology. ;

Radio-controlled Radio control (often abbreviated to RC) is the use of control signals transmitted by radio to remotely control a device. Examples of simple radio control systems are garage door openers and keyless entry systems for vehicles, in which a small ...

wheel transmitter : Futaba introduced the FP-T2F in 1974 that was the first to use a steering wheel onto a box transmitter.

KO Propo KO PROPO is a brand of radio control equipment and humanoid robot ( KHR-1) by Kondo Kagaku, established in Tokyo, Japan in 1945. In 1982 KO PROPO introduced the Expert EX-1, reported to have been the first to integrate a pistol grip into a transm ...

introduced the EX-1 in 1981 that integrated a wheel with a

pistol grip On a firearm or other tools, a pistol grip is a distinctly protruded handle underneath the main mechanism, to be held by the user's hand at a more vertical (and thus more ergonomic) angle, similar to the how one would hold a conventional pis ...

with its trigger acting as the throttle. This became one of the two types of radio controlled transmitters currently for surface use. ;

Semiconductor laser The laser diode chip removed and placed on the eye of a needle for scale A laser diode (LD, also injection laser diode or ILD, or diode laser) is a semiconductor device similar to a light-emitting diode in which a diode pumped directly with ...

: Invented by

in 1957.The Third Industrial Revolution Occurred in Sendai
Soh-VEHE International Patent Office,

Japan Patent Attorneys Association The (JPAA), headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, is the only one national, professional bar association of Japanese patent attorneys ( Benrishi) with approximately 10,000 members. History The Japanese Patent Attorney System was established on July 1, ...

;

Solid-state Solid state, or solid matter, is one of the four fundamental states of matter. Solid state may also refer to: Electronics * Solid-state electronics, circuits built of solid materials * Solid state ionics, study of ionic conductors and their ...

maser A maser (, an acronym for microwave amplification by stimulated emission of radiation) is a device that produces coherent electromagnetic waves through amplification by stimulated emission. The first maser was built by Charles H. Townes, James ...

: Invented by

in 1955. ;

Static induction transistor The static induction transistor (SIT) is a type of field-effect transistor (FET) capable of high-speed and high-power operation, with low distortion and low noise. It is a vertical structure device with short multichannel. The device was origina ...

: Invented by

and Y. Watanabe in 1950. ;

Stored-program A stored-program computer is a computer that stores program instructions in electronically or optically accessible memory. This contrasts with systems that stored the program instructions with plugboards or similar mechanisms. The definition ...

transistor computer A transistor computer, now often called a second-generation computer, is a computer which uses discrete transistors instead of vacuum tubes. The first generation of electronic computers used vacuum tubes, which generated large amounts of heat, ...

: The ETL Mark III began development in 1954,Martin Fransman (1993)
''The Market and Beyond: Cooperation and Competition in Information Technology'', page 19

Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press is the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted letters patent by King Henry VIII in 1534, it is the oldest university press in the world. It is also the King's Printer. Cambridge University Pr ...

and was completed in 1956, created by the Electrotechnical Laboratory.Early Computers
Information Processing Society of Japan It was the first stored-program transistor computer.Early Computers: Brief History
Information Processing Society of Japan ;

Switching circuit theory Switching circuit theory is the mathematical study of the properties of networks of idealized switches. Such networks may be strictly combinational logic, in which their output state is only a function of the present state of their inputs; or ma ...

: From 1934 to 1936,

NEC is a Japanese multinational information technology and electronics corporation, headquartered in Minato, Tokyo. The company was known as the Nippon Electric Company, Limited, before rebranding in 1983 as NEC. It provides IT and network soluti ...

engineer Akira Nakashima introduced switching circuit theory in a series of papers showing that two-valued

Boolean algebra In mathematics and mathematical logic, Boolean algebra is a branch of algebra. It differs from elementary algebra in two ways. First, the values of the variables are the truth values ''true'' and ''false'', usually denoted 1 and 0, whereas i ...

, which he discovered independently, can describe the operation of switching circuits.Switching Theory/Relay Circuit Network Theory/Theory of Logical Mathematics
IPSJ Computer Museum, Information Processing Society of JapanRadomir S. Stanković (

University of Niš The University of Niš ( sr, Универзитет у Нишу, Univerzitet u Nišu) is a public university in Serbia. It was founded in 1965 and consists of 13 faculties with 1,492 academic staff and around 20,500 students (as of 2018–19 sch ...

), Jaakko T. Astola (

Tampere University of Technology Tampere University of Technology (TUT) ( fi, Tampereen teknillinen yliopisto (TTY)) was Finland's second-largest university in engineering sciences. The university was located in Hervanta, a suburb of Tampere. It was merged with the University o ...

), Mark G. Karpovsky (

Boston University Boston University (BU) is a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. The university is nonsectarian, but has a historical affiliation with the United Methodist Church. It was founded in 1839 by Methodists with its original cam ...

)
Some Historical Remarks on Switching Theory
2007, DOI 10.1.1.66.1248 (3+207+1 pages)
10:00 min
;

Videocassette recorder A videocassette recorder (VCR) or video recorder is an electromechanical device that records analog audio and analog video from broadcast television or other source on a removable, magnetic tape videocassette, and can play back the reco ...

: The first machines (the VP-1100 videocassette player and the VO-1700 videocassette recorder) to use the first

videocassette Videotape is magnetic tape used for storing video and usually sound in addition. Information stored can be in the form of either an analog or digital signal. Videotape is used in both video tape recorders (VTRs) and, more commonly, videocasset ...

format,

U-matic U-matic is an analogue recording videocassette format first shown by Sony in prototype in October 1969, and introduced to the market in September 1971. It was among the first video formats to contain the videotape inside a cassette, as opp ...

, were introduced by

in 1971.

Game controllers

;

D-pad A D-pad (short for directional pad or digital pad; officially referred to by Nintendo as a +Control Pad) is a flat, usually thumb-operated, often digital, four-way directional control with one button on each point, found on nearly all modern vid ...

: In 1982,

elaborated on the idea of a circular pad, shrinking it and altering the points into the familiar modern "cross" design for control of on-screen characters in their ''

'' handheld game. It came to be known as the "D-pad". The design proved to be popular for subsequent ''

Game & Watch The Game & Watch brand ( ''Gēmu & Uotchi''; called ''Tricotronic'' in West Germany and Austria, abbreviated as ''G&W'') is a series of handheld electronic games developed, manufactured, released, and marketed by Nintendo from 1980 to 1991. C ...

'' titles. This particular design was patented. In 1984, the Japanese company Epoch created a handheld game system called the

Epoch Game Pocket Computer The is a second-generation handheld game console released by Epoch Co. in Japan in 1984 for 12,800 Japanese yen. It is also known as ''Pokekon'' and was one of the very few truly handheld systems to be released in the early 1980s, preceding the ...

. It featured a D-pad, but it was not popular for its time and soon faded. Initially intended to be a compact controller for the ''Game & Watch'' handheld games alongside the prior non-connected style pad, Nintendo realized that Gunpei's design would also be appropriate for regular consoles, and Nintendo made the D-pad the standard directional control for the hugely successful

Nintendo Entertainment System The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) is an 8-bit third-generation home video game console produced by Nintendo. It was first released in Japan in 1983 as the commonly known as the The NES, a redesigned version, was released in America ...

under the name "+Control Pad". ; Motion-sensing controller : Invented by

for the

Wii The Wii ( ) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Nintendo. It was released on November 19, 2006, in North America and in December 2006 for most other regions of the world. It is Nintendo's fifth major home game console, ...

, the

Wii Remote The Wii Remote, also known colloquially as the Wiimote, is the primary game controller for Nintendo's Wii home video game console. An essential capability of the Wii Remote is its motion sensing capability, which allows the user to interact wi ...

is the first

controller Controller may refer to: Occupations * Controller or financial controller, or in government accounting comptroller, a senior accounting position * Controller, someone who performs agent handling in espionage * Air traffic controller, a person w ...

with motion-sensing capability. It was a candidate for ''Time'''s Best Invention of 2006.

Printing

;

3D printing 3D printing or additive manufacturing is the construction of a three-dimensional object from a CAD model or a digital 3D model. It can be done in a variety of processes in which material is deposited, joined or solidified under computer co ...

: In 1981, Hideo Kodama of

Nagoya is the largest city in the Chūbu region, the fourth-most populous city and third most populous urban area in Japan, with a population of 2.3million in 2020. Located on the Pacific coast in central Honshu, it is the capital and the most po ...

Municipal Industrial Research Institute invented two additive methods for fabricating three-dimensional plastic models with photo-hardening thermoset polymer, where the UV exposure area is controlled by a mask pattern or a scanning fiber transmitter. ; Hydrographics : Hydrographics, also known variously as immersion printing, water transfer printing, water transfer imaging, hydro dipping, or cubic printing has an somewhat fuzzy history. Three different Japanese companies are given credit for its invention. Taica Corporation claims to have invented cubic printing in 1974. However, the earliest hydrographic patent was filed by Motoyasu Nakanishi of Kabushiki Kaisha Cubic Engineering in 1982.

Robotics

; Android :

Waseda University , mottoeng = Independence of scholarship , established = 21 October 1882 , type = Private , endowment = , president = Aiji Tanaka , city = Shinjuku , state = Tokyo , country = Japan , students = 47,959 , undergrad = 39,382 , postgrad ...

initiated the WABOT project in 1967, and in 1972 completed the WABOT-1, the world's first full-scale humanoid intelligent robot. Its limb control system allowed it to walk with the lower limbs, and to grip and transport objects with hands, using tactile sensors. Its vision system allowed it to measure distances and directions to objects using external receptors, artificial eyes and ears. And its conversation system allowed it to communicate with a person in Japanese, with an artificial mouth. This made it the first android. ;

Actroid Actroid is a type of android (humanoid robot) with strong visual human-likeness developed by Osaka University and manufactured by Kokoro Company Ltd. (the animatronics division of Sanrio). It was first unveiled at the 2003 International Robot ...

: DER 01 was developed by a Japanese research group, The Intelligent Robotics Lab, directed by Hiroshi Ishiguro at Osaka University, and Kokoro Co., Ltd. The

is a

humanoid robot A humanoid robot is a robot resembling the human body in shape. The design may be for functional purposes, such as interacting with human tools and environments, for experimental purposes, such as the study of bipedal locomotion, or for other pu ...

with strong visual human-likeness developed by

Osaka University , abbreviated as , is a public research university located in Osaka Prefecture, Japan. It is one of Japan's former Imperial Universities and a Designated National University listed as a "Top Type" university in the Top Global University Project. ...

and manufactured by Kokoro Company Ltd. (the

animatronics Animatronics refers to mechatronic puppets. They are a modern variant of the automaton and are often used for the portrayal of characters in films and in theme park attractions. It is a multidisciplinary field integrating puppetry, anatomy ...

division of

Sanrio is a Japanese entertainment company. It designs, licenses, and produces products focusing on the '' kawaii'' ("cute") segment of Japanese popular culture. Their products include stationery, school supplies, gifts, and accessories which are so ...

). It was first unveiled at the 2003 International Robot Exposition in

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.46 ...

. The Actroid woman is a pioneer example of a real machine similar to imagined machines called by the

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel uni ...

terms ''android'' or ''

gynoid A gynoid, or fembot, is a feminine humanoid robot. Gynoids appear widely in science fiction film and art. As more realistic humanoid robot design becomes technologically possible, they are also emerging in real-life robot design. Name A gynoid ...

'', so far used only for fictional robots. It can mimic such lifelike functions as blinking, speaking, and breathing. The "Repliee" models are interactive robots with the ability to recognise and process speech and respond in kind. ; Karakuri puppet : are traditional

ese mechanized

puppet A puppet is an object, often resembling a human, animal or mythical figure, that is animated or manipulated by a person called a puppeteer. The puppeteer uses movements of their hands, arms, or control devices such as rods or strings to move ...

s or

automata An automaton (; plural: automata or automatons) is a relatively self-operating machine, or control mechanism designed to automatically follow a sequence of operations, or respond to predetermined instructions.Automaton – Definition and More ...

, originally made from the 17th century to the 19th century. The word ''karakuri'' means "mechanisms" or "trick". The dolls' gestures provided a form of entertainment. Three main types of karakuri exist. were used in

theatre Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actors or actresses, to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The perfor ...

. were small and used in homes. were used in religious festivals, where the puppets were used to perform reenactments of traditional

myth Myth is a folklore genre consisting of narratives that play a fundamental role in a society, such as foundational tales or origin myths. Since "myth" is widely used to imply that a story is not objectively true, the identification of a narrat ...

s and

legend A legend is a genre of folklore that consists of a narrative featuring human actions, believed or perceived, both by teller and listeners, to have taken place in human history. Narratives in this genre may demonstrate human values, and possess ...

s. ; Robotic exoskeleton for motion support (medicine) : The first HAL prototype was proposed by

Yoshiyuki Sankai Yoshiyuki Sankai (born 1958/1959) is a Japanese billionaire businessman and academic, the founder, president and CEO of the cyborg-robot maker Cyberdyne; and professor of the Graduate School of Systems & Information Engineering at the Universi ...

, a professor at Tsukuba University. Fascinated with robots since he was in the third grade, Sankai had striven to make a robotic suit in order "to support humans." In 1989, after receiving his Ph.D. in robotics, he began the development of HAL. Sankai spent three years, from 1990 to 1993, mapping out the neurons that govern leg movement. It took him and his team an additional four years to make a prototype of the hardware.

Space exploration

; Interplanetary solar sail spacecraft : IKAROS the world's first successful interplanetary solar sail spacecraft was launched by

JAXA The is the Japanese national air and space agency. Through the merger of three previously independent organizations, JAXA was formed on 1 October 2003. JAXA is responsible for research, technology development and launch of satellites into o ...

on 21 May 2010.

Storage technology

;

Blu-ray Disc The Blu-ray Disc (BD), often known simply as Blu-ray, is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released on June 20, 2006 worldwide. It is designed to supersede the DVD format, and capable of sto ...

(along with other nations) : After

's invention of practical blue laser diodes,

started two projects applying the new diodes: UDO (Ultra Density Optical) and DVR Blue (together with Pioneer), a format of rewritable discs which would eventually become the Blu-ray Disc. The

Blu-ray Disc Association The Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA) is the industry consortium that develops and licenses Blu-ray Disc technology and is responsible for establishing format standards and promoting business opportunities for Blu-ray Disc. The BDA is divided into th ...

was founded by

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of th ...

along with nine companies: five from Japan, two from Korea, one from the Netherlands and one from France. ;

(also Dutch company

Philips Koninklijke Philips N.V. (), commonly shortened to Philips, is a Dutch multinational conglomerate corporation that was founded in Eindhoven in 1891. Since 1997, it has been mostly headquartered in Amsterdam, though the Benelux headquarters is ...

) : The compact disc was jointly developed by Philips (Joop Sinjou) and Sony (

Toshitada Doi is a Japanese electrical engineer, who played a significant role in the digital audio revolution. He received a degree in electrical engineering from the Tokyo Institute of Technology in 1964, and a PhD from Tohoku University in 1972. He joined ...

first publicly demonstrated an optical digital audio disc in September 1976. In September 1978, they demonstrated an optical digital audio disc with a 150 minute playing time, and with specifications of 44,056 Hz sampling rate, 16-bit linear resolution, cross-interleaved

error correction In information theory and coding theory with applications in computer science and telecommunication, error detection and correction (EDAC) or error control are techniques that enable reliable delivery of digital data over unreliable communi ...

code, that were similar to those of the

they introduced in 1982. ;

Digital video disc The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kind ...

(also Dutch company

) : The DVD, first developed in 1995, resulted from a cooperation between three Japanese companies (

and

) and one Dutch company (

). ;

Flash memory Flash memory is an electronic non-volatile computer memory storage medium that can be electrically erased and reprogrammed. The two main types of flash memory, NOR flash and NAND flash, are named for the NOR and NAND logic gates. Both use ...

: Flash memory (both NOR and NAND types) was invented by Dr.

Fujio Masuoka is a Japanese engineer, who has worked for Toshiba and Tohoku University, and is currently chief technical officer (CTO) of Unisantis Electronics. He is best known as the inventor of flash memory, including the development of both the NOR fla ...

while working for

''c.'' 1980. ;

Betamax Betamax (also known as Beta, as in its logo) is a consumer-level analog recording and cassette format of magnetic tape for video, commonly known as a video cassette recorder. It was developed by Sony and was released in Japan on May 10, 1975, ...

: Betamax was an analog

magnetic tape Magnetic tape is a medium for magnetic storage made of a thin, magnetizable coating on a long, narrow strip of plastic film. It was developed in Germany in 1928, based on the earlier magnetic wire recording from Denmark. Devices that use magnet ...

marketed to consumers released by

on May 10, 1975. ; VHS (Video Home System) : The VHS was invented in 1973 by Yuma Shiraishi and Shizuo Takano who worked for

JVC JVC (short for Japan Victor Company) is a Japanese brand owned by JVCKenwood corporation. Founded in 1927 as the Victor Talking Machine Company of Japan and later as , the company is best known for introducing Japan's first televisions and for ...

. ;

Video tape recorder A video tape recorder (VTR) is a tape recorder designed to record and playback video and audio material from magnetic tape. The early VTRs were open-reel devices that record on individual reels of 2-inch-wide (5.08 cm) tape. They were u ...

:Norikazu Sawazaki invented the first video tape recorder in 1953, a prototype

helical scan Helical scan is a method of recording high-frequency signals on magnetic tape. It is used in open-reel video tape recorders, video cassette recorders, digital audio tape recorders, and some computer tape drive A tape drive is a data sto ...

video tape recorder. In 1959, Toshiba released the first commercial helical scan video tape recorder.

Television

; All-electronic television : In 1926, Kenjiro Takayanagi invented the world's first all-electronic television, preceding

Philo T. Farnsworth Philo Taylor Farnsworth (August 19, 1906 – March 11, 1971) was an American inventor and television pioneer. He made many crucial contributions to the early development of all-electronic television. He is best known for his 1927 invention of t ...

by several months. By 1927, Takayanagi improved the resolution to 100 lines, which was not surpassed until 1931. By 1928, he was the first to transmit human faces in halftones. His work had an influence on the later work of Vladimir K. Zworykin. ;

Aperture grille An aperture grille is one of two major technologies used to manufacture color cathode-ray tube (CRT) televisions and computer displays; the other is the shadow mask. Fine vertical wires behind the front glass of the display screen separate t ...

: One of two major

cathode ray tube A cathode-ray tube (CRT) is a vacuum tube containing one or more electron guns, which emit electron beams that are manipulated to display images on a phosphorescent screen. The images may represent electrical waveforms ( oscilloscope), ...

(CRT)

display technologies A display device is an output device for presentation of information in visual or tactile form (the latter used for example in tactile electronic displays for blind people). When the input information that is supplied has an electrical signal t ...

, along with the older

shadow mask The shadow mask is one of the two technologies used in the manufacture of cathode-ray tube (CRT) televisions and computer monitors which produce clear, focused color images. The other approach is the aperture grille, better known by its tr ...

. Aperture grille was introduced by

with their

Trinitron Trinitron was Sony's brand name for its line of aperture-grille-based CRTs used in television sets and computer monitors. One of the first truly innovative television systems to enter the market since the 1950s, the Trinitron was announced in ...

television Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, ...

in 1968. ;

Color Color (American English) or colour (British English) is the visual perceptual property deriving from the spectrum of light interacting with the photoreceptor cells of the eyes. Color categories and physical specifications of color are associ ...

plasma display A plasma display panel (PDP) is a type of flat panel display that uses small cells containing plasma: ionized gas that responds to electric fields. Plasma televisions were the first large (over 32 inches diagonal) flat panel displays to be rele ...

: The world's first color plasma display was produced by

Fujitsu is a Japanese multinational information and communications technology equipment and services corporation, established in 1935 and headquartered in Tokyo. Fujitsu is the world's sixth-largest IT services provider by annual revenue, and the la ...

in 1989. ; Handheld television : In 1970,

released the first

that was small enough to fit in a large pocket, the Panasonic IC TV MODEL TR-001. It featured a 1.5-inch display, along with a 1.5-inch speaker. ; LCD television : The first LCD

s were invented as handheld televisions in Japan. In 1980,

Hattori Seiko , commonly known as Seiko ( , ), is a Japanese maker of watches, clocks, electronic devices, semiconductors, jewelry, and optical products. Founded in 1881 by Kintarō Hattori in Tokyo, Seiko introduced one of the first quartz watches and th ...

's R&D group began development on color LCD pocket televisions.''

Spin Spin or spinning most often refers to: * Spinning (textiles), the creation of yarn or thread by twisting fibers together, traditionally by hand spinning * Spin, the rotation of an object around a central axis * Spin (propaganda), an intentionally ...

''
Jul 1985, page 55
/ref> In 1982,

released the first LCD television, the

TV Watch, a

wristwatch A watch is a portable timepiece intended to be carried or worn by a person. It is designed to keep a consistent movement despite the motions caused by the person's activities. A wristwatch is designed to be worn around the wrist, attached ...

equipped with an active-matrix LCD television. In 1983,

Casio is a Japanese multinational electronics manufacturing corporation headquartered in Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan. Its products include calculators, mobile phones, digital cameras, electronic musical instruments, and analogue and digital watches. ...

released a handheld LCD television, the Casio TV-10. ;

LED-backlit LCD An LED-backlit LCD is a liquid-crystal display that uses LEDs for backlighting instead of traditional cold cathode fluorescent (CCFL) backlighting. LED-backlit displays use the same TFT LCD (thin-film-transistor liquid-crystal display) techno ...

: The world's first LED-backlit LCD television was

's Qualia 005, released in 2004.

Textiles

; Automatic power loom with a non-stop shuttle-change motion :

Sakichi Toyoda was a Japanese inventor and industrialist. He was born in Kosai, Shizuoka. The son of a farmer and sought-after carpenter, he started the Toyoda family companies. His son, Kiichiro Toyoda, would later establish Japan's largest automaker, Toy ...

invented numerous

weaving Weaving is a method of textile production in which two distinct sets of yarns or threads are interlaced at right angles to form a fabric or cloth. Other methods are knitting, crocheting, felting, and braiding or plaiting. The longitudinal ...

devices. His most famous invention was the automatic power loom in which he implemented the principle of ''Jidoka'' (

autonomation Autonomation describes a feature of machine design to effect the principle of （じどうか jidouka), used in the Toyota Production System (TPS) and lean manufacturing. It may be described as "intelligent automation" or "automation with a human ...

or autonomous automation). It was the 1924 Toyoda Automatic Loom, Type G, a completely automatic high-speed loom featuring the ability to change shuttles without stopping and dozens of other innovations. At the time it was the world's most advanced loom, delivering a dramatic improvement in quality and a twenty-fold increase in productivity.This loom automatically stopped when it detected a problem such as thread breakage. ;

Vinylon Vinylon, also known as Vinalon, is a synthetic fiber produced from polyvinyl alcohol, using anthracite and limestone as raw materials. Vinylon was first developed in Japan in 1939 by Ri Sung-gi, Ichiro Sakurada, and H. Kawakami. Trial production ...

: The second man-made fiber to be invented, after

nylon Nylon is a generic designation for a family of synthetic polymers composed of polyamides ( repeating units linked by amide links).The polyamides may be aliphatic or semi-aromatic. Nylon is a silk-like thermoplastic, generally made from pet ...

. It was first developed by Ichiro Sakurada, H. Kawakami, and Korean scientist Ri Sung-gi at the Takatsuki chemical research center in 1939 in Japan.

Timekeeping

;

Automatic quartz Automatic quartz is a collective term describing watch movements that combine a self-winding rotor mechanism (as used in automatic mechanical watches) to generate electricity with a piezoelectric quartz crystal as its timing element. Such mo ...

: The first watch to combine self-winding with a

crystal oscillator A crystal oscillator is an electronic oscillator circuit that uses a piezoelectric crystal as a frequency-selective element. The oscillator frequency is often used to keep track of time, as in quartz wristwatches, to provide a stable clock ...

for timekeeping was unveiled by

in 1986. ;

Myriad year clock The , was a universal clock designed by the Japanese inventor Hisashige Tanaka in 1851. It belongs to the category of Japanese clocks called '' Wadokei''. This clock is designated as an Important Cultural Property and a Mechanical Engineering ...

: The Myriad year clock (万年自鳴鐘 Mannen Jimeishou, lit. Ten-Thousand Year Self-ringing Bell), was a universal clock designed by the Japanese inventor

Hisashige Tanaka was a Japanese rangaku scholar, engineer and inventor during the Bakumatsu and early Meiji period in Japan. In 1875, he founded what became the Toshiba Corporation. He has been called the " Thomas Edison of Japan" or "Karakuri Giemon." Bio ...

in 1851. It belongs to the category of Japanese clocks called

Wadokei A is a mechanical clock that has been made to tell traditional Japanese time, a system in which daytime and nighttime are always divided into six periods whose lengths consequently change with the season. Mechanical clocks were introduced into ...

. ;

Quartz Quartz is a hard, crystalline mineral composed of silica ( silicon dioxide). The atoms are linked in a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon-oxygen tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tetrahedra, giving an overall chemical f ...

: The world's first quartz

was revealed in 1967: the prototype of the

Astron Astron may refer to: * Mitsubishi Astron engine * ASTRON, the Dutch foundation for astronomy research, operating the Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope and LOFAR * Astron (comics), a fictional character, a member of the Marvel Comics group The E ...

revealed by

in Japan, where it was in development since 1958. It was eventually released to the public in 1969. ;

Spring Drive Spring Drive is a name given to a series of watch movements produced by Epson in Shiojiri. The concept of using a mainspring to power a quartz timing package was first conceived in 1977 by Yoshikazu Akahane (赤羽好和) at Suwa Seikosha (now ...

: A

watch movement A watch is a portable timepiece intended to be carried or worn by a person. It is designed to keep a consistent movement despite the motions caused by the person's activities. A wristwatch is designed to be worn around the wrist, attached by ...

which was first conceived by Yoshikazu Akahane working for

in 1977 and was patented in 1982. It features a true continuously sweeping second hand, rather than the traditional beats per time unit, as seen with traditional mechanical and most quartz watches.

Transportation

; Bullet train : The world's first high volume capable (initially 12 car maximum) "

high-speed train High-speed rail (HSR) is a type of rail system that runs significantly faster than traditional rail, using an integrated system of specialised rolling stock and dedicated tracks. While there is no single standard that applies worldwide, lines ...

" was Japan's

Tōkaidō Shinkansen The is a Japanese high-speed rail line that is part of the nationwide Shinkansen network. Along with the Sanyo Shinkansen, it forms a continuous high-speed railway through the Taiheiyō Belt, also known as the Tokaido corridor. Opened in 19 ...

, which officially opened in October 1964, with construction commencing in April 1959.Shinkansen Chronology
, byun byun Shinkansen. The 0 Series Shinkansen, built by

Kawasaki Heavy Industries (or simply Kawasaki) is a Japanese Public company, public multinational corporation manufacturer of motorcycles, engines, Heavy equipment (construction), heavy equipment, aerospace and Military, defense equipment, rolling stock and ships, headq ...

, achieved maximum passenger service speeds of 210 km/h (130 mph) on the

–

Kyoto Kyoto (; Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in Japan. Located in the Kansai region on the island of Honshu, Kyoto forms a part of the Keihanshin metropolitan area along with Osaka and Kobe. , the c ...

–

route, with earlier test runs hitting top speeds in 1963 at 256 km/h. ; Electronically controlled continuously variable transmission : In early 1987,

Subaru ( or ; ) is the automobile manufacturing division of Japanese transportation conglomerate Subaru Corporation (formerly known as Fuji Heavy Industries), the twenty-first largest automaker by production worldwide in 2017. Subaru cars are ...

launched the Justy in Tokyo with an electronically-controlled continuously variable transmission (ECVT) developed by

Fuji Heavy Industries is a Japanese multinational corporation and conglomerate primarily involved in both terrestrial and aerospace transportation manufacturing. It is best known for its line of Subaru automobiles. Founded in 1953, the company was formerly named ( ...

, which owns Subaru. ;

Self-driving car A self-driving car, also known as an autonomous car, driver-less car, or robotic car (robo-car), is a car that is capable of traveling without human input.Xie, S.; Hu, J.; Bhowmick, P.; Ding, Z.; Arvin, F.,Distributed Motion Planning for S ...

:The first self-driving car that did not rely upon rails or wires under the road is designed by the Tsukuba Mechanical Engineering Laboratory in 1977. The car was equipped with two cameras that used analog computer technology for signal processing. ;

Electric car An electric car, battery electric car, or all-electric car is an automobile that is propelled by one or more electric motors, using only energy stored in batteries. Compared to internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles, electric cars are quiet ...

:The first modern capable mass-produced electric car, the

Mitsubishi i-MiEV The Mitsubishi i-MiEV (MiEV is an acronym for ''Mitsubishi innovative Electric Vehicle'') is a five-door hatchback electric car produced in the 2010s by Mitsubishi Motors, and is the electric version of the Mitsubishi i. Rebadged variants of ...

. ;

Hybrid electric vehicle A hybrid electric vehicle (HEV) is a type of hybrid vehicle that combines a conventional internal combustion engine (ICE) system with an Electric motor, electric propulsion system (hybrid vehicle drivetrain). The presence of the electric powertr ...

: The first commercial hybrid vehicle was the

Toyota Prius The is a car built by Toyota which has a hybrid drivetrain, combining an internal combustion engine with an electric motor. Initially offered as a four-door sedan, it has been produced only as a five-door liftback since 2003. In 2007, ...

launched in 1997. ; Hydrogen car : In 2014,

Toyota is a Japanese multinational automotive manufacturer headquartered in Toyota City, Aichi, Japan. It was founded by Kiichiro Toyoda and incorporated on . Toyota is one of the largest automobile manufacturers in the world, producing about 10 ...

launched the first production hydrogen

fuel cell A fuel cell is an electrochemical cell that converts the chemical energy of a fuel (often hydrogen fuel, hydrogen) and an oxidizing agent (often oxygen) into electricity through a pair of redox reactions. Fuel cells are different from most bat ...

vehicle, the

Toyota Mirai The (from , Japanese for 'future') is a mid-size hydrogen fuel cell vehicle (FCV) manufactured by Toyota, and is one of the first FCV automobiles to be mass-produced and sold commercially. The Mirai was unveiled at the November 2014 Los Ang ...

.Voelcker, John
"Decades Of Promises: 'Dude, Where's My Hydrogen Fuel-Cell Car?'"
Yahoo.com, March 31, 2015 The Mirai has a range of 312 miles (502 km) and takes about five minutes to refuel. The initial sale price was roughly 7 million yen ($69,000). ;

Kei car Kei car (or , kanji: , "light automobile", ), known variously outside Japan as Japanese city car or Japanese microcar, is the Japanese vehicle category for the smallest highway-legal passenger cars with restricted dimensions and engine capaci ...

: A category of small

automobiles A car or automobile is a motor vehicle with wheels. Most definitions of ''cars'' say that they run primarily on roads, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport people instead of goods. The year 1886 is regarded ...

, including

passenger car A car or automobile is a motor vehicle with wheels. Most definitions of ''cars'' say that they run primarily on roads, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport people instead of goods. The year 1886 is regarded as t ...

vans Vans is an American manufacturer of skateboarding shoes and related apparel, established in Anaheim, California, and owned by VF Corporation. The company also sponsors surf, snowboarding, BMX, and motocross teams. From 1996 to 2019, the comp ...

, and

pickup trucks A pickup truck or pickup is a light-duty truck that has an enclosed cabin, and a back end made up of a cargo bed that is enclosed by three low walls with no roof (this cargo bed back end sometimes consists of a tailgate and removable covering) ...

. They are designed to exploit local

tax A tax is a compulsory financial charge or some other type of levy imposed on a taxpayer (an individual or legal entity) by a governmental organization in order to fund government spending and various public expenditures (regional, local, or n ...

and

insurance Insurance is a means of protection from financial loss in which, in exchange for a fee, a party agrees to compensate another party in the event of a certain loss, damage, or injury. It is a form of risk management, primarily used to hedge ...

relaxations, and in more rural areas are exempted from the requirement to certify that adequate

parking Parking is the act of stopping and disengaging a vehicle and leaving it unoccupied. Parking on one or both sides of a road is often permitted, though sometimes with restrictions. Some buildings have parking facilities for use of the buildings' ...

is available for the vehicle."Minicars: Cheap and Cheerful"
Peter Nunn,

JAMA ''The Journal of the American Medical Association'' (''JAMA'') is a peer-reviewed medical journal published 48 times a year by the American Medical Association. It publishes original research, reviews, and editorials covering all aspects of biom ...

, January–February 2005"Owning a Car in Japan"
, ALTs in Sendai ;

Rickshaw A rickshaw originally denoted a two- or three-wheeled passenger cart, now known as a pulled rickshaw, which is generally pulled by one person carrying one passenger. The first known use of the term was in 1879. Over time, cycle rickshaws (als ...

: A two or three-wheeled passenger cart seating one or two people that serves as a mode of

human-powered transport Human-powered transport is the transport of person(s) and/or goods using human muscle power. Unlike animal-powered transport, human-powered transport has existed since time immemorial in the form of walking, running and swimming. Modern techn ...

pulled by a runner draws a two-wheeled cart. The rickshaws was invented in Japan around 1869, after the lifting of a ban on wheeled vehicles from the Tokugawa period (1603–1868), and at the beginning of a rapid period of technical advancement across the Japanese archipelago. ; Spiral escalator :

Mitsubishi Electric , established on 15 January 1921, is a Japanese multinational electronics and electrical equipment manufacturing company headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. It is one of the core companies of Mitsubishi. The products from MELCO include elevators an ...

unveiled the world's first practical spiral escalator in 1985. Spiral escalators have the advantage of taking up less space than their conventional counterparts. ; Inverter-Controlled High-Speed Gearless Elevator : The insulated gate bipolar transistors (IGBTs) realized increased switching frequency and reduced magnetic noise in the motor, which eliminated the need for a filter circuit and resulted in a more compact system. The IGBT also allowed the development of a small, highly integrated and highly sophisticated all-digital control device, consisting of the combination of a high-speed processor, specially customized gate arrays, and a circuit capable of controlling large currents of several kHz. Today, the inverter-controlled gearless drive system is applied in high-speed elevators worldwide. ;

Personal watercraft A personal watercraft (PWC), also called water scooter or jet ski, is a recreational watercraft that a rider sits or stands on, not within, as in a boat. PWCs have two style categories, first and most popular being a runabout or "sit down" whe ...

: Kawasaki were the first to develop stand-up personall watercraft under their trademark

Jet Ski Jet Ski is the brand name of a personal watercraft (PWC) manufactured by Kawasaki, a Japanese company. The term is often used generically to refer to any type of personal watercraft used mainly for recreation, and it is also used as a verb to ...

. While experimentation with personal watercraft preceded this. The Jet Ski was the first commercially successful and practical PWC.

Military

;

Aircraft Carrier An aircraft carrier is a warship that serves as a seagoing airbase, equipped with a full-length flight deck and facilities for carrying, arming, deploying, and recovering aircraft. Typically, it is the capital ship of a fleet, as it allows a ...

: Hōshō was the world's first purpose-built aircraft carrier to be completed. She was commissioned in 1922 for the

Imperial Japanese Navy The Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN; Kyūjitai: Shinjitai: ' 'Navy of the Greater Japanese Empire', or ''Nippon Kaigun'', 'Japanese Navy') was the navy of the Empire of Japan from 1868 to 1945, when it was dissolved following Japan's surrender ...

(IJN). Hōshō and her aircraft group participated in the January 28 Incident in 1932 and in the opening stages of the

Second Sino-Japanese War The Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) or War of Resistance (Chinese term) was a military conflict that was primarily waged between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan. The war made up the Chinese theater of the wider Pacific T ...

in late 1937. ;

Amphibious assault ship An amphibious assault ship is a type of amphibious warfare ship employed to land and support ground forces on enemy territory by an amphibious assault. The design evolved from aircraft carriers converted for use as helicopter carriers (and, a ...

:Imperial Japanese Army '' Akitsu maru'' is regarded as the first of the kind. ;

Dock landing ship A dock landing ship (also called landing ship, dock or LSD) is an amphibious warfare ship with a well dock to transport and launch landing craft and amphibious vehicles. Some ships with well decks, such as the Soviet Ivan Rogov class, also hav ...

:Imperial Japanese Army '' Shinshu maru'' is regarded as the first of the kind. ;

Fire balloon An incendiary balloon (or balloon bomb) is a balloon inflated with a lighter-than-air gas such as hot air, hydrogen, or helium, that has a bomb, incendiary device, or Molotov cocktail attached. The balloon is carried by the prevailing winds t ...

: A fire balloon, or balloon bomb, was an experimental weapon launched by

from 1944 to 1945, during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

. ; Diesel-powered tank : The world's first diesel-powered tank, this distinction goes to Japanese Type 89B I-Go Otsu, produced with a diesel engine from 1934 onwards. Antique Japanese (samurai) katana met museum

Antique Japanese (samurai) katana met museum

;

Katana A is a Japanese sword characterized by a curved, single-edged blade with a circular or squared guard and long grip to accommodate two hands. Developed later than the ''tachi'', it was used by samurai in feudal Japan and worn with the edge ...

: The katana were traditional

Japanese sword A is one of several types of traditionally made swords from Japan. Bronze swords were made as early as the Yayoi period (1000 BC – 300 AD), though most people generally refer to the curved blades made from the Heian period (794 – 1185) to t ...

s used by samurai warriors of ancient and feudal Japan. The swords originated in the

Muromachi period The is a division of Japanese history running from approximately 1336 to 1573. The period marks the governance of the Muromachi or Ashikaga shogunate (''Muromachi bakufu'' or ''Ashikaga bakufu''), which was officially established in 1338 by ...

(1392–1573) as a result of changing battle conditions requiring faster response times. The katana facilitated this by being worn with the blade facing up, which allowed the samurai to draw their blade and slash at their enemy in a single motion. Previously, the curved sword of the samurai was worn with the blade facing down. The ability to draw and cut in one motion also became increasingly useful in the daily life of the samurai. ;

Shuriken A ''shuriken'' ( ja, 手裏剣; literally: "hidden hand blade") is a Japanese concealed weapon that was used as a hidden dagger or metsubushi to distract or misdirect. They are also known as throwing stars, or ninja stars, although they wer ...

: The shuriken was invented during the

Gosannen War The Gosannen War (後三年合戦, ''gosannen kassen''), also known as the Later Three-Year War, was fought in the late 1080s in Japan's Mutsu Province on the island of Honshū. History The Gosannen War was part of a long struggle for power ...

as a concealed weapon, primarily for the purpose of distracting a target.

Wireless transmission

;

Meteor burst communications Meteor burst communications (MBC), also referred to as meteor scatter communications, is a radio propagation mode that exploits the ionized trails of meteors during atmospheric entry to establish brief communications paths between radio stations ...

: The first observation of interaction between meteors and radio propagation was reported by

Hantaro Nagaoka was a Japanese physicist and a pioneer of Japanese physics during the Meiji period. Life Nagaoka was born in Nagasaki, Japan on August 19, 1865 and educated at the University of Tokyo. After graduating with a degree in physics in 1887, Naga ...

in 1929. ;

Yagi antenna Yagi may refer to: Places * Yagi, Kyoto, in Japan * Yagi (Kashihara), in Nara Prefecture, Japan * Yagi-nishiguchi Station, in Kashihara, Nara, Japan * Kami-Yagi Station, a JR-West Kabe Line station located in 3-chōme, Yagi, Asaminami-ku, Hiroshima ...

: The Yagi-Uda antenna was invented in 1926 by

Shintaro Uda was a Japanese inventor, and assistant to Professor Hidetsugu Yagi at Tohoku Imperial University, where together they invented the Yagi–Uda antenna in 1926. In February 1926, Yagi and Uda published their first report on the wave projector an ...

Tohoku Imperial University , or is a Japanese national university located in Sendai, Miyagi in the Tōhoku Region, Japan. It is informally referred to as . Established in 1907, it was the third Imperial University in Japan and among the first three Designated Nation ...

Sendai is the capital city of Miyagi Prefecture, the largest city in the Tōhoku region. , the city had a population of 1,091,407 in 525,828 households, and is one of Japan's 20 designated cities. The city was founded in 1600 by the ''daimyō'' Date M ...

, with the collaboration of Hidetsugu Yagi, also of Tohoku Imperial University. Yagi published the first English-language reference on the antenna in a 1928 survey article on short wave research in Japan and it came to be associated with his name. However, Yagi always acknowledged Uda's principal contribution to the design, and the proper name for the antenna is, as above, the Yagi-Uda antenna (or array).

Writing and correction implements

; Correction tape : Correction tape was invented in 1989 by the Japanese product manufacturer Seed. It is an alternative to

correction fluid A correction fluid is an opaque, usually white fluid applied to paper to mask errors in text. Once dried, it can be handwritten or typed upon. It is typically packaged in small bottles, lids attached to brushes (or triangular pieces of foam) th ...

. ;

Gel pen A gel pen uses ink in which pigment is suspended in a water-based gel. Because the ink is thick and opaque, it shows up more clearly on slick surfaces than the typical inks used in ballpoint or felt tip pens. Gel pens can be used for many types ...

: The gel pen was invented in 1984 by the Sakura Color Products Corporation of Osaka. ;

Rollerball pen Roller ball pens or roll pens are pens which use ball point writing mechanisms with water-based liquid or gelled ink, as opposed to the oil-based viscous inks found in ballpoint pens. These less viscous inks, which tend to saturate more deepl ...

: The first rollerball pen was invented in 1963 by the Japanese company Ohto.

Other

; Artificial snowflake : The first artificial snowflake was created by Ukichiro Nakaya in 1936, three years after his first attempt. ; Canned coffee : Canned coffee was invented in 1965 by Miura Yoshitake, a coffee shop owner in Hamada, Shimane Prefecture, Japan. ;

Emoji An emoji ( ; plural emoji or emojis) is a pictogram, logogram, ideogram or smiley embedded in text and used in electronic messages and web pages. The primary function of emoji is to fill in emotional cues otherwise missing from typed conv ...

: The first emoji was created in 1998 or 1999 in Japan by

Shigetaka Kurita (born May 9, 1972, Gifu Prefecture, Japan) is a Japanese interface designer and often cited for his early work with emoji sets. Many refer to him as the creator of the emoji, a claim clarified in recent years. He was part of the team that cre ...

. ;

Fake food Food models (''shokuhin sampuru''), also known as fake foods or food samples are a model or replica of a food item made from plastic, wax, resin or similar material. These models are commonly used in restaurant street displays in Japan to represen ...

: Simulated food was invented after Japan's surrender ending World War II in 1945. Westerners traveling to Japan had trouble reading Japanese menus and in response, Japanese

artisans An artisan (from french: artisan, it, artigiano) is a skilled craft worker who makes or creates material objects partly or entirely by hand. These objects may be functional or strictly decorative, for example furniture, decorative art, ...

and

candlemaker A chandlery was originally the office in a wealthy medieval household responsible for wax and candles, as well as the room in which the candles were kept. It could be headed by a chandler. The office was subordinated to the kitchen, and only exis ...

s created wax food so foreigners could easily order something that looked appetizing. ; Go, modern rules of : Though the game originated in China, free opening of the game as it is played globally began in the 16th century Japan. ;

Imageboard An imageboard is a type of Internet forum that focuses on the posting of images, often alongside text and discussion. The first imageboards were created in Japan as an extension of the textboard concept. These sites later inspired the creation of ...

: The first imageboards were created in Japan. Later imageboards such as 2chan would be created. ; Yoshizawa–Randlett system : The Yoshizawa–Randlett system is a diagramming system used for origami models. It was first developed by Akira Yoshizawa in 1954. It was later improved upon by Samuel Randlett and Robert Harbin. ;

Textboard A textboard is a simple kind of Internet forum; most textboards require neither registration nor entry of a screen name. Textboards, like imageboards, were invented in Japan, but they remain relatively unknown outside it, in contrast to imageboar ...

: Textboards like

imageboard An imageboard is a type of Internet forum that focuses on the posting of images, often alongside text and discussion. The first imageboards were created in Japan as an extension of the textboard concept. These sites later inspired the creation of ...

s were invented in Japan. However, unlike imageboards, textboards are relatively unknown outside Japan.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Japanese Inventions

Inventions An invention is a unique or novel device, method, composition, idea or process. An invention may be an improvement upon a machine, product, or process for increasing efficiency or lowering cost. It may also be an entirely new concept. If an i ...

Lists of inventions or discoveries

Arts

Film and animation

Architecture

Atmospheric sciences

Sports

Martial arts

Video games

Philosophy

Biology, chemistry, and biomedical science

Finance

Food and food science

Mathematics

Physics

Technology

Audio technology

Batteries

Calculators

Cameras

Chindōgu

Domestic appliances

Electronics

Game controllers

Printing

Robotics

Space exploration

Storage technology

Television

Textiles

Timekeeping

Transportation

Military

Wireless transmission

Writing and correction implements

Other

See also

References