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 north ...

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 i ...

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 interdisciplinarity, 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 human ...

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 u ...

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 create ...

. ; 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 u ...

: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 characteriz ...

(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 Kyō ...

'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 The is a collection of sketches of various subjects by the Japanese artist Hokusai. Subjects of the sketches include landscapes, flora and fauna, everyday life and the supernatural. The word ''manga'' in the title does not refer to the contemp ...

'' books (1814–1834). ;

Revolving stage A revolving stage is a mechanically controlled platform within a theatre that can be rotated in order to speed up the changing of a scene within a show. A fully revolving set was an innovation constructed by the hydraulics engineer Tommaso Francin ...

: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 whic ...

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 st ...

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 is a 1961 Japanese samurai film co-written, produced, edited, and directed by Akira Kurosawa. The film stars Toshiro Mifune, Tatsuya Nakadai, Yoko Tsukasa, Isuzu Yamada, Daisuke Katō, Takashi Shimura, Kamatari Fujiwara, and Atsushi Watanabe. ...

'' (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 "''Doll ...

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 is a Japanese super robot manga series written and illustrated by Go Nagai. The first manga version was serialized in Shueisha's ''Weekly Shōnen Jump'' from October 1972 to August 1973, and it later was reissued in Kodansha ''TV Magazine ...

'' by

Go Nagai , better known by the pen name , is a Japanese manga artist and a prolific author of science fiction, fantasy, horror and erotica. He made his professional debut in 1967 with ''Meakashi Polikichi'', but is best known for creating popular 1970s ...

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 image, still figures are manipulated to appear as Motion picture, moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent cel, celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited ...

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 , also known as ''Conan, The Boy in Future'', is a Japanese post-apocalyptic science fiction anime series. It is an adaptation of American science-fiction writer Alexander Key's 1970 novel ''The Incredible Tide''. It was broadcast for twenty ...

'' (1978), ''

Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind may refer to * Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (manga), ''Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind'' (manga), a manga series by Hayao Miyazaki * Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (film), ''Nausicaä of the Valle ...

'' (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, ...

'' (1986). ;

Superflat Superflat is a postmodern art movement, founded by the artist Takashi Murakami, which is influenced by manga and anime. However, superflat doesn't have an explicit definition because Takashi Murakami does not want to limit the movement, but rather ...

: 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 cell ...

: 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 Uch ...

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 d ...

and

Fumihiko Maki is a Japanese architect who teaches at Keio University SFC. In 1993, he received the Pritzker Prize for his work, which often explores pioneering uses of new materials and fuses the cultures of east and west. Early life Maki was born in Tokyo. A ...

, Metabolism aimed to fuse ideas about architectural

megastructures ''Megastructures'' is a documentary television series appearing on the National Geographic Channel in the United States and the United Kingdom, Channel 5 in the United Kingdom, France 5 in France, and 7mate in Australia. Each episode is an ed ...

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 origin ...

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 a ...

Shingon file:Koyasan (Mount Koya) monks.jpg, 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 suc ...

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 represent ...

. 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 ...

: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 2. ...

, 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 he is ...

. ;

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 determ ...

: 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, altho ...

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 repla ...

.Tornado Damage Scales: Fujita Scale and Enhanced Fujita Scale
/ref> ;

Fujiwhara effect The Fujiwhara effect, sometimes referred to as the Fujiwara effect, Fujiw(h)ara interaction or binary interaction, is a phenomenon that occurs when two nearby cyclonic vortices move around each other and close the distance between the circulations ...

: The Fujiwhara effect is an atmospheric phenomenon where two nearby

cyclonic In meteorology, a cyclone () is a large air mass that rotates around a strong center of low atmospheric pressure, counterclockwise in the Northern Hemisphere and clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere as viewed from above (opposite to an anti ...

vortices In fluid dynamics, a vortex ( : vortices or vortexes) is a region in a fluid in which the flow revolves around an axis line, which may be straight or curved. Vortices form in stirred fluids, and may be observed in smoke rings, whirlpools in th ...

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, Fujiwha ...

in 1921. ;

Jet stream Jet streams are fast flowing, narrow, meandering thermal wind, air currents in the Atmosphere of Earth, atmospheres of some planets, including Earth. On Earth, the main jet streams are located near the altitude of the tropopause and are west ...

: 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 194 ...

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 communi ...

. ; 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

macroburst 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 ...

s and classified them as downbursts larger than 4 km (2.5 mi).

Sports

; Drifting competition : In 1988,

Keiichi Tsuchiya is a Japanese professional race car driver. He is known as the for his nontraditional use of drifting in non-drifting racing events and his role in popularizing drifting as a motorsport. In professional racing, he is a two-time 24 Hours of Le ...

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 is a mallet team sport inspired by croquet. It is a fast-paced, non-contact, highly strategic team game, which can be played by anyone regardless of age or gender. Gateball is most popular in China, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, with ...

;

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 gamblin ...

: 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 around 1 ...

: 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 gendai budō, 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 Nipponi ...

: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 as ...

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 inno ...

. ;

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 subdu ...

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

: It began as a common fighting system known as "'' ti''" (or "''te''") among the

pechin , or , historically ''Opoyakomoi'', was a rank among the Yukatchu class of the former Ryukyu Kingdom (modern-day Okinawa, Japan), above the rank of Satunushi and below the rank of Ueekata. As scholar-officials The scholar-officials, also known ...

class of the

Ryukyuans The Ryukyuan people ( ryu, 琉球民族 (るーちゅーみんずく), Ruuchuu minzuku or ryu, どぅーちゅーみんずく, Duuchuu minzuku, label=none, ja, 琉球民族/りゅうきゅうみんぞく, Ryūkyū minzoku, also Lewchewan or L ...

. 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 ...

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

Shuri-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 hist ...

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 hist ...

, 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 spread ...

;

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 tradit ...

: 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 hi ...

. 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 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 hist ...

: 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 so ...

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 most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

, Chinese Imperial envoys and other Chinese arrived, some of whom taught Chinese

Chuan Fa Chinese martial arts, often called by the umbrella terms kung fu (; ), kuoshu () or wushu (), are multiple fighting styles that have developed over the centuries in Greater China. These fighting styles are often classified according to common ...

( 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 is the capital city of Okinawa Prefecture, the southernmost prefecture of Japan. As of 1 June 2019, the city has an estimated population of 317,405 and a population density of 7,939 persons per km2 (20,562 persons per sq. mi.). The total area i ...

, 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 thr ...

: 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 divisi ...

: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 corporation, 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 produce ...

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 th ...

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 In video and other games, the passage of time must be handled in a way that players find fair and easy to understand. This is usually done in one of the two ways: real-time and turn-based. Real-time Real-time games have game time progress cont ...

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 Batt ...

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 instal ...

'' (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) levels, ...

: The first game to feature fist fighting was Sega's boxing game ''

Heavyweight Champ is a series of boxing video games released by Sega. The original arcade game was released in 1976. The game featured black-and-white graphics and critics have since identified it as the first video game to feature hand-to-hand fighting.Spen ...

'' (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 perform ...

'' (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 po ...

-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 *'' Comman ...

'' (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 charac ...

: 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 Shoot 'em up#Scrolling shooters, scrolling shooters and other arcade games. The company was founded in 1979 but its gaming division was establis ...

's ''

Batsugun is a 1993 vertically scrolling bullet hell arcade video game originally developed and published by Toaplan in Japan and Europe by Taito, as well as Korea by Unite Trading. The last shoot 'em up created by Toaplan, the title takes place on a di ...

'' (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 video game genre, genre of video game that involves combat between two or more players. Fighting game combat often features mechanics such as Blocking (martial arts), blocking, grappli ...

Sega is a Japanese multinational corporation, 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, r ...

's black and white boxing game ''

'' 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 fee ...

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 Am ...

'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 corporation, multinational video game company, video game and entertainment company headquartered in Chūō, Tokyo, Chūō, Tokyo, it also produces and distributes trading cards, anime, tokusatsu, pachinko machin ...

's ''

Yie Ar Kung-Fu () is an arcade fighting game developed by Konami. It first had a limited Japanese release in October 1984, before having a wide release nationwide in January 1985 and then internationally in March 1985. Along with ''Karate Champ'' (1984), which ...

'' 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 video game publisher, publisher. It has created a number of List of best-selling video game franchises, multi-million-selling game franchises, with its most commercially successful being ''Resident Evil' ...

'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 Syst ...

'' (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 v ...

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 between t ...

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 pr ...

: ''

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 f ...

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 ...

'' 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 seri ...

'' 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 pres ...

: ''

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 the ...

'' 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 game, rhythm video game developed and distributed by Japan, Japanese game developer Konami and first released in December 1997. It contributed largely to the boom of music games in 1998, and the series e ...

'' 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, mos ...

, 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 is a 1981 scrolling shooter platform game developed by Alpha Denshi under contract for Hoei Corporation. It was distributed in arcades by Sega in Japan and Europe, and by Rock-Ola in North America. It was the first platform game to include hor ...

'' (1981), a simple platform-shooter developed by

Alpha Denshi , formerly known as , was a Japanese video game developer founded in 1980. ADK began as a developer of arcade games and is best known for their library of SNK Neo Geo titles, including for its home consoles, produced in partnership with SNK. Mos ...

. 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. It b ...

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

Namco was a Japanese multinational corporation, 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, Na ...

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 (video game), Wonder Boy'' arcade game released in April ...

'' 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 th ...

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

parallax scrolling Parallax scrolling is a technique in computer graphics where background images move past the camera more slowly than foreground images, creating an illusion of depth in a 2D scene of distance. The technique grew out of the multiplane camera tec ...

. ;

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 chara ...

: ''

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 and set ...

'' 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 m ...

". ''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, who ...

'' 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 feedb ...

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 hired ...

'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 operat ...

'' (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 Sweet Home or Sweethome may refer to: Places in the United States * Sweet Home, Arkansas * Sweet Home Central School District in Amherst and Tonawanda, New York ** Sweet Home High School (Amherst, New York), a New York State public high school * ...

'' (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 of ...

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 ( ...

: 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 ma ...

(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 is ...

: 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 for m ...

: 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 ge ...

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 bacte ...

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 ...

: 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 i ...

. 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 action ...

, had been documented in China since the

Han dynasty The Han dynasty (, ; ) was an imperial dynasty of China (202 BC – 9 AD, 25–220 AD), established by Liu Bang (Emperor Gao) and ruled by the House of Liu. The dynasty was preceded by the short-lived Qin dynasty (221–207 BC) and a warr ...

. 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 ...

. ; 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 Esophagogastroduodenoscopy, Esophagogastroduodenoscope). His story was illustrated in the NHK TV documentary feature, "Project X: Challengers: The Developm ...

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 in ...

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 ch ...

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 the ...

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 or ...

. 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 Gairdn ...

'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 t ...

, 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 List of urban areas in Sweden by population, fourth-largest city in Sweden, after Stockholm, Gothenburg, and Malmö. It had 177,074 inha ...

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 country located on ...

. 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 o ...

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 Kyoto ...

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. Methamph ...

: 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. ;

Nihonium Nihonium is a synthetic chemical element with the symbol Nh and atomic number 113. It is extremely radioactive; its most stable known isotope, nihonium-286, has a half-life of about 10 seconds. In the periodic table, nihonium is a transactinid ...

: 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 inheritanc ...

. 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 was a pioneer Japanese molecular biologist, known for his research on DNA replication and especially for describing the role of Okazaki fragments along with his wife Tsuneko. Okazaki was born in Hiroshima, Japan. He graduated in 1953 from Nagoya ...

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 ''Escher ...

''. In 1966, Kiwako Sakabe and

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". Bacteri ...

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 abili ...

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 th ...

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 of ...

: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 Taro () (''Colocasia esculenta)'' is a root vegetable. It is the most widely cultivated species of several plants in the family Araceae that are used as vegetables for their corms, leaves, and Petiole (botany), petioles. Taro corms are a food ...

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 Takadiastase is a form of diastase which results from the growth, development, and nutrition of a distinct microscopic fungus known as ''Aspergillus oryzae'' (Koji). Takadiastase is named after Jōkichi Takamine, who developed the method first us ...

: A form of

diastase A diastase (; from Greek διάστασις, "separation") is any one of a group of enzymes that catalyses the breakdown of starch into maltose. Alpha amylase degrades starch to a mixture of the disaccharide maltose; the trisaccharide maltotriose, ...

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 Nutrient#Essential nutrients, essential micronutrient that an organism needs in small quantities for the proper functioning of its ...

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 Baron was a Japanese naval physician. Early life Born in Hyūga Province (present-day Miyazaki Prefecture) as the son of a ''samurai'' retainer to the Satsuma han, Satsuma domain, Takaki studied Chinese medicine as a youth and served as a med ...

(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 Proteins are large biomolecules and macromolecules that comprise one or more long chains of amino acid residues. Proteins perform a vast array of functions within organisms, including catalysing metabolic reactions, DNA replication, respon ...

). 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 nutrient, 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 exam ...

s from rice bran and named it aberic acid. He published this discovery in a Japanese scientific journal. The Polish biochemist

Kazimierz Funk Kazimierz Funk (; February 23, 1884 – November 19, 1967), commonly anglicized as Casimir Funk, was a Polish-American biochemist generally credited with being among the first to formulate (in 1912) the concept of vitamins, which he called "vit ...

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 Nutrient#Essential nutrients, essential micronutrient that an organism needs in small quantities for the proper functioning of its ...

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), ''Comocladia sp ...

: 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 terms ...

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 oil uru ...

'', 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 :

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 all f ...

: Candlestick charts have been developed in the 18th century by Munehisa Homma, 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 Pek ...

, 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 wit ...

: 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 p ...

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 1 ...

. ;

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 Chinese ...

: 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 Tea is an aromatic beverage prepared by pouring hot or boiling water over cured or fresh leaves of '' Camellia sinensis'', an evergreen shrub native to East Asia which probably originated in the borderlands of southwestern China and northe ...

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 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 and ...

: 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 (over t ...

. The determinant as an independent function was first studied by Seki Kōwa 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''), Seki Kōwa 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 and ...

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 Universi ...

: "''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 Deformation can refer to: * Deformation (engineering), changes in an object's shape or form due to the application of a force or forces. ** Deformation (physics), such changes considered and analyzed as displacements of continuum bodies. * Defo ...

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 Arnold ...

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 centra ...

: 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 appea ...

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 o ...

). 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 a ...

. 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 the ea ...

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 pr ...

: 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 Gun ...

, 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 i ...

theory of

ideal class group In number theory, the ideal class group (or class group) of an algebraic number field is the quotient group where is the group of fractional ideals of the ring of integers of , and is its subgroup of principal ideals. The class group is a mea ...

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

s 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 th ...

s, proved by for primes satisfying the

Kummer–Vandiver conjecture In mathematics, the Kummer–Vandiver conjecture, or Vandiver conjecture, states that a prime ''p'' does not divide the class number ''hK'' of the maximal real subfield K=\mathbb(\zeta_p)^+ of the ''p''-th cyclotomic field. The conjecture wa ...

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 (over t ...

: In 1683 (''Kai-Fukudai-no-Hō''), Seki Kōwa 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 mathematics, Greek mathematician Euclid, which he described in his textbook on geometry: the ''Euclid's Elements, Elements''. Euclid's approach consists in assuming a small ...

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 correspond ...

: 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 one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

. 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 rename ...

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. Technica ...

: 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 was a Japanese theoretical physicist known for his work on CP-violation who was awarded one quarter of the 2008 Nobel Prize in Physics "for the discovery of the origin of the broken symmetry which predicts the existence of at least three famili ...

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 Sir Joseph John Thomson (18 December 1856 – 30 August 1940) was a British physicist and Nobel Laureate in Physics, credited with the discovery of the electron, the first subatomic particle to be discovered. In 1897, Thomson showed that c ...

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 pr ...

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. B ...

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 Syste ...

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 E ...

proposed by

Shoichi Sakata was a Japanese physicist and Marxist who was internationally known for theoretical work on the subatomic particles.Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "''Sakata Shōichi''" in ; n.b., Louis-Frédéric is pseudonym of Louis-Frédéric Nussbaum, '' ...

in 1956.

Technology

;

Airsoft Airsoft is a team game in which participants eliminate opposing players by tag (game), tagging them out of play with airsoft pellets, spherical plastic projectiles shot with mock air gun, air weapons(usually powered by an electronic motor) call ...

: 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 regar ...

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 cam ...

: 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, telecommuni ...

in 1999. ;

Digital microscope A digital microscope is a variation of a traditional optical microscope that uses optics and a digital camera to output an image to a video monitor, monitor, sometimes by means of software running on a computer. A digital microscope often has it ...

:Japanese company

Hirox Hirox (ハイロックス) is a lens company in Tokyo, Japan that created the first digital microscope in 1985. This company is now known as Hirox Co Ltd. Hirox's main industry is digital microscopes, but still makes the lenses for a variety of ite ...

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 Japanese wo ...

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 , born on February 23, 1870 in Okazaki, Aichi Prefecture – February 12, 1954) was a Japanese metallurgist and inventor. He invented KS steel (initials from Kichiei Sumitomo), which is a type of magnetic resistant steel that is three times mo ...

. ;

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 cre ...

: 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" mi ...

created the first double-coil bulb using a coiled coil tungsten filament while working for

Hakunetsusha was a company established by Shōichi Miyoshi and Fujioka Ichisuke, two of Japan's industrial pioneers during the Tokugawa / Edo period. It specialized in the manufacture of light bulbs. The company was established in 1890, and started out by s ...

(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 system ...

). 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 th ...

: 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 for ...

in 1965. The paving was first introduced in a street in

Okayama city is the prefectural capital, capital Cities of Japan, city of Okayama Prefecture in the Chūgoku region of Japan. The city was founded on June 1, 1889. , the city has an estimated population of 720,841 and a population density of 910 persons per ...

, 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 Sony CDP-101, CDP-101, in 1982, using a slide-out tray design for the Compact Disc. ;Physical modelling synthesis : The first commercially available physical modelling synthesizer was Yamaha Corporation, Yamaha's VL-1 in 1994. ;Digital audio, Commercial digital recording :Commercial digital recording was pioneered in Japan by NHK and Nippon Columbia, also known as Denon, in the 1960s. The first commercial digital recordings were released in 1971. ;Karaoke :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 in Kobe,

, in 1971. ;Portable CD player :

's Discman, released in 1984, was the first portable CD player. ;Perpendicular recording :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, 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 :Invented by Shuichi Obata, an engineer at Panasonic, Matsushita (now Panasonic), based in

.Brian Coleman
The Technics 1200 — Hammer Of The Gods
Medium (website), Medium In 1969, Matsushita released it as the Technics (brand), SP-10, the first in their influential Technics (brand), Technics series of turntables.Trevor Pinch, Karin Bijsterveld
''The Oxford Handbook of Sound Studies'', page 515
Oxford University Press The Technics SL-1100, released in 1971, was adopted by early Hip hop music, hip hop DJs for turntablism, and the SL-1200 is still widely used by Electronic dance music, dance and hip hop DJs. ;Fully programmable drum machine :The Roland TR-808, also known as the 808, introduced by Roland Corporation, Roland 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 Break (music), breaks and Drum roll, rolls.''Keyboard (magazine), 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, 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. ;Phaser (effect), Phaser effects pedal :In 1968, Shin-ei's Uni-Vibe effects pedal, designed by audio engineer Fumio Mieda, incorporated phase shift and Chorus effect, chorus effects, soon becoming favorite effects of guitarists such as Jimi Hendrix and Robin Trower. ;Vowel-Consonant synthesis : A type of hybrid Digital data, Digital-Analog circuit, analogue Sound synthesis, synthesis first employed by the early Casiotone keyboards in the early 1980s.

Batteries

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

and Asahi Kasei released the first commercial lithium-ion battery using Yoshino's design. ;Dry cell :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 : The first portable calculators appeared in Japan in 1970, and were soon marketed around the world. These included the Sanyo ICC-0081 "Mini Calculator", the Canon (company), Canon Pocketronic, and the Sharp Corporation, Sharp QT-8B "micro Compet". Sharp put in great efforts in size and power reduction and introduced in January 1971 the Sharp EL-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 LE-120A "HANDY", which was marketed early in 1971.

Cameras

;Digital single-lens reflex camera : On August 25, 1981 Sony unveiled a prototype of the first still video camera, the Sony Mavica. This camera was an analog electronic camera that featured interchangeable lenses and a Single-lens reflex camera, SLR viewfinder. At photokina 1986, photokina in 1986, Nikon 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 analog recording system that was portable.

Chindōgu

Chindōgu is the Japanese art of inventing ingenious everyday gadgets 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, that effectively it has no utility 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.

Domestic appliances

;Bladeless fan : The first bladeless fan was patented by

in 1981.

;Bread machine : The bread machine was developed and released in

in 1986 by the Matsushita Electric Industrial Company. ;Rice cooker, 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 : Invented by Jun-ichi Nishizawa in 1952.Jun-ichi Nishizawa: Engineer, Sophia University Special Professor
(interview), ''Japan Quality Review'', 2011 ;Continuous wave semiconductor laser : Invented by Izuo Hayashi and Morton B. Panish in 1970. This led directly to the light sources in fiber-optic communication, laser printers, barcode readers, and optical disc drives, technologies that were commercialized by Japanese entrepreneurs. ;Fiber-optic communication : While working at Tohoku University, Jun-ichi Nishizawa proposed the use of optical fibers for optical communication, in 1963. Nishizawa invented other technologies that contributed to the development of optical fiber communications, such as the Graded-index fiber, graded-index optical fiber as a channel for transmitting light from semiconductor lasers. Izuo Hayashi's invention of the continuous wave semiconductor laser in 1970 led directly to light sources in fiber-optic communication, commercialized by Japanese entrepreneurs. ;Integrated circuit, Glass integrated circuit : Shunpei Yamazaki invented an integrated circuit made entirely from glass and with an 8-bit central processing unit. ;JFET (junction gate field-effect transistor) : The first type of JFET was the static induction transistor (SIT), invented by Japanese engineers Jun-ichi Nishizawa 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 : Despite that Adam Osborne announced the "first laptop/notebook" called Osborne 1 but it is now called a luggable portable computer along with other protable computers such as IBM 5100. Yukio Yokozawa, an employee for Suwa Seikosha, a branch of

(now Seiko Epson), 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 introduced it as the Epson HX-20 in 1981, at the COMDEX computer show in Las Vegas, 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 It was the first notebook-sized handheld computer, the size of an A4 paper, A4 notebook and weighing . In 1983, the Sharp PC-5000 and Ampere WS-1 laptops from Japan featured a modern Flip (form), clamshell design.Japanese PCs (1984)
(13:13), ''Computer Chronicles'' ;Microcomputer for Automotive engine, Automotive Engine :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 : The concept of a single-chip microprocessor central processing unit (CPU) was conceived in a 1968 meeting in Japan between Sharp Corporation, Sharp engineer Tadashi Sasaki (engineer), Tadashi Sasaki and a software engineering researcher from Nara Women's University, Nara Women's College. Sasaki discussed the microprocessor concept with Busicom and Intel in 1968. The first commercial microprocessor, the 4-bit Intel 4004, began with the "Busicom Project"Federico Faggin
The Making of the First Microprocessor
''IEEE Solid-State Circuits Magazine'', Winter 2009, IEEE Xplore in 1968 as Masatoshi Shima'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 Federico Faggin and Busicom's Masatoshi Shima, and commercially released in 1971.Masatoshi Shima
IEEE ;Parametron : Eiichi Goto invented the parametron in 1954 as an alternative to the vacuum tube. Early Japanese computers used parametrons until they were superseded by transistors. ;PIN diode/photodiode : Invented by Jun-ichi Nishizawa and his colleagues in 1950. ;Central processing unit, Plastic central processing unit : Shunpei Yamazaki invented a central processing unit made entirely from plastic. ;Quantum flux parametron : Eiichi Goto invented the quantum flux parametron in 1986 using superconductivity, superconducting Josephson junctions on integrated circuits as an improvement over existing parametron technology. ;Radio-controlled wheel transmitter : Futaba Corporation, Futaba introduced the FP-T2F in 1974 that was the first to use a steering wheel onto a box transmitter. KO Propo introduced the EX-1 in 1981 that integrated a wheel with a pistol grip with its trigger (firearms), trigger acting as the throttle. This became one of the two types of radio controlled transmitters currently for surface use. ;Semiconductor laser : Invented by Jun-ichi Nishizawa in 1957.The Third Industrial Revolution Occurred in Sendai
Soh-VEHE International Patent Office, Japan Patent Attorneys Association ;Solid-state electronics, Solid-state maser : Invented by Jun-ichi Nishizawa in 1955. ;Static induction transistor : Invented by Jun-ichi Nishizawa and Y. Watanabe in 1950. ;Stored-program computer, Stored-program transistor computer : 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 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 : From 1934 to 1936, NEC engineer Akira Nakashima introduced switching circuit theory in a series of papers showing that Two-element Boolean algebra, two-valued Boolean algebra, 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), Jaakko T. Astola (Tampere University of Technology), Mark G. Karpovsky (Boston University)
Some Historical Remarks on Switching Theory
2007, DOI 10.1.1.66.1248 (3+207+1 pages)
10:00 min
;Videocassette recorder : The first machines (the VP-1100 videocassette player and the VO-1700 videocassette recorder) to use the first videocassette format, U-matic, were introduced by

in 1971.

Game controllers

;D-pad : 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'' titles. This particular design was patented. In 1984, the Japanese company Epoch created a handheld game system called the Epoch Game Pocket Computer. 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 under the name "+Control Pad". ;Wii Remote, Motion-sensing controller : Invented by

for the Wii, the Wii Remote is the first Game controller, controller with Motion detection, motion-sensing capability. It was a candidate for Time (magazine), ''Time'''s Best Invention of 2006.

Printing

;3D printing : In 1981, Hideo Kodama of Nagoya Municipal Industrial Research Institute invented two additive methods for fabricating three-dimensional plastic models with photo-hardening thermosetting polymer, thermoset polymer, where the UV exposure area is controlled by a mask pattern or a scanning fiber transmitter. ;Hydrographics (printing), 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 (robot), Android : Waseda University 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 (robot), android. ;Actroid Actroid-DER 01

: 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 Actroid is a 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 Exposition in Tokyo,

. The Actroid woman is a pioneer example of a real machine similar to imagined machines called by the science fiction terms ''android'' or ''gynoid'', so far used only for List of fictional robots and androids, 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 puppets or automata, 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. were small and used in homes. were used in religious festivals, where the puppets were used to perform reenactments of traditional mythology, myths and legends. ;HAL (robot), Robotic exoskeleton for motion support (medicine) : The first HAL prototype was proposed by Yoshiyuki Sankai, 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

;IKAROS, Interplanetary solar sail spacecraft : IKAROS the world's first successful interplanetary solar sail spacecraft was launched by JAXA on 21 May 2010.

Storage technology

;Blu-ray Disc (along with other nations) : After

's invention of practical Blue laser, blue laser diodes,

started two projects applying the new diodes: Ultra Density Optical, UDO (Ultra Density Optical) and DVR Blue (together with Pioneer Corporation, Pioneer), a format of rewritable discs which would eventually become the Blu-ray Disc. The Blu-ray Disc Association was founded by Massachusetts Institute of Technology along with nine companies: five from Japan, two from Korea, one from the Netherlands and one from France. ;Compact Disc (also Dutch company Philips) : The compact disc was jointly developed by Philips (Joop Sinjou) and Sony (Toshitada Doi).

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 Reed-Solomon coding, cross-interleaved error correction code, that were similar to those of the Compact Disc they introduced in 1982. ;Digital video disc (also Dutch company Philips) : The DVD, first developed in 1995, resulted from a cooperation between three Japanese companies (

and Panasonic) and one Dutch company (Philips). ;Flash memory : Flash memory (both NOR flash, NOR and NAND Flash, NAND types) was invented by Dr. Fujio Masuoka while working for

''c.'' 1980. ;Betamax : Betamax was an analog videocassette magnetic tape 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. ;Video tape recorder :Norikazu Sawazaki invented the first video tape recorder in 1953, a prototype helical scan video tape recorder. In 1959, Toshiba released the first commercial helical scan video tape recorder.

Television

;Kenjiro Takayanagi, All-electronic television : In 1926, Kenjiro Takayanagi invented the world's first all-electronic television, preceding Philo T. Farnsworth 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 : One of two major cathode ray tube (CRT) display technologies, along with the older shadow mask. Aperture grille was introduced by

with their Trinitron television in 1968. ;Color television, Color plasma display : The world's first color plasma display was produced by Fujitsu in 1989. ;Handheld television : In 1970, Panasonic released the first television 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 televisions were invented as handheld televisions in Japan. In 1980, Hattori Seiko's R&D group began development on color LCD pocket televisions.''Spin (magazine), Spin''
Jul 1985, page 55
/ref> In 1982, Seiko Epson released the first LCD television, the Epson TV Watch, a wristwatch equipped with an Active-matrix liquid crystal display, active-matrix LCD television. In 1983, Casio released a handheld LCD television, the Casio TV-10. ;LED-backlit LCD : The world's first LED-backlit LCD television was

's Qualia (Sony), Qualia 005, released in 2004.

Textiles

;Power loom, Automatic power loom with a non-stop shuttle-change motion : Sakichi Toyoda invented numerous weaving devices. His most famous invention was the automatic power loom in which he implemented the principle of ''Jidoka'' (autonomation 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 : The second man-made fiber to be invented, after nylon. 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 : The first watch to combine self-winding with a crystal oscillator for timekeeping was unveiled by

in 1986. ;Myriad year clock : 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 in 1851. It belongs to the category of Japanese clocks called Wadokei. ;Quartz clock, Quartz Watch, wristwatch : The world's first quartz Watch, wristwatch was revealed in 1967: the prototype of the Astron (wristwatch), Astron revealed by

in Japan, where it was in development since 1958. It was eventually released to the public in 1969. ;Spring Drive : A watch movement 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

;Shinkansen, Bullet train : The world's first high volume capable (initially 12 car maximum) "High-speed rail, high-speed train" was Japan's Tōkaidō Shinkansen, 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, achieved maximum passenger service speeds of 210 km/h (130 mph) on the Tokyo–Nagoya–Kyoto–

route, with earlier test runs hitting top speeds in 1963 at 256 km/h. ;Continuously variable transmission, Electronically controlled continuously variable transmission : In early 1987, Subaru launched the Subaru Justy, Justy in Tokyo with an electronically-controlled continuously variable transmission (ECVT) developed by Fuji Heavy Industries, which owns Subaru. ;Self-driving car :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 :The first modern capable mass-produced electric car, the Mitsubishi i-MiEV. ;Hybrid electric vehicle : The first commercial hybrid vehicle was the Toyota Prius launched in 1997. ;Hydrogen car : In 2014, Toyota launched the first production hydrogen fuel cell vehicle, the Toyota Mirai.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 : A category of small automobiles, including Automobile, passenger cars, Microvan, vans, and Kei truck, pickup trucks. They are designed to exploit local tax and insurance relaxations, and in more rural areas are exempted from the requirement to certify that adequate parking is available for the vehicle."Minicars: Cheap and Cheerful"
Peter Nunn, Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association, JAMA, January–February 2005"Owning a Car in Japan"
, ALTs in Sendai ;Rickshaw : A two or three-wheeled passenger cart seating one or two people that serves as a mode of human-powered transport 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 Edo period, Tokugawa period (1603–1868), and at the beginning of a rapid period of technical advancement across the Japanese archipelago. ;Escalator#Design types, Spiral escalator : Mitsubishi Electric unveiled the world's first practical spiral escalator in 1985. Spiral escalators have the advantage of taking up less space than their conventional counterparts. ;Elevator, 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 : Kawasaki Heavy Industries, Kawasaki were the first to develop stand-up personall watercraft under their trademark Jet Ski. While experimentation with personal watercraft preceded this. The Jet Ski was the first commercially successful and practical PWC.

Military

; Aircraft Carrier : Japanese aircraft carrier Hōshō, Hōshō was the world's first purpose-built aircraft carrier to be completed. She was commissioned in 1922 for the Imperial Japanese Navy (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 in late 1937. ;Amphibious assault ship :Imperial Japanese Army ''Japanese aircraft carrier Akitsu Maru, Akitsu maru'' is regarded as the first of the kind. ;Dock landing ship :Imperial Japanese Army ''Japanese amphibious assault ship Shinshū Maru, Shinshu maru'' is regarded as the first of the kind. ;Fire balloon : A fire balloon, or balloon bomb, was an experimental weapon launched by

from 1944 to 1945, during World War II. ;Type 89 I-Go medium tank, Diesel-powered tank : The world's first diesel-powered tank, this distinction goes to Type 89 I-Go, 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 : The katana were traditional Japanese swords used by samurai warriors of ancient and feudal Japan. The swords originated in the Muromachi period (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 Iaijutsu, 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 : The shuriken was invented during the Gosannen War as a concealed weapon, primarily for the purpose of distracting a target.

Wireless transmission

;Meteor burst communications : The first observation of interaction between meteors and radio propagation was reported by Hantaro Nagaoka in 1929. ;Yagi antenna : The Yagi-Uda antenna was invented in 1926 by Shintaro Uda of Tohoku University, Tohoku Imperial University, Sendai, Miyagi, Sendai,

, 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. ;Gel pen : The gel pen was invented in 1984 by the Sakura Color Products Corporation of Osaka. ;Rollerball pen : 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 : The first emoji was created in 1998 or 1999 in Japan by Shigetaka Kurita. ;Fake food : 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 and candlemakers created wax food so foreigners could easily order something that looked appetizing. ;Go (game), 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 : The first imageboards were created in Japan. Later imageboards such as Futaba Channel, 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 : Textboards like imageboards were invented in Japan. However, unlike imageboards, textboards are relatively unknown outside Japan.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Japanese Inventions Japan history-related lists, Inventions Lists of inventions or discoveries Japanese inventions,

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References