From vending machines which chit-chat with you in up to 13 dialects & 4 major languages about the weather (they are constructed with thermometers built in) to the cartoon character "Uncle Bow" who shows up on signs posted at a construction site to apologize for the noise & dust - while bowing - to an anime character that smiles (and bows) and talks you through your ATM transaction, the Japanese love to "soften" the highest of high tech with a cutesy childish element.
But why?
Morinosuke Kawaguchi of the Tokyo Institute of Technology & principal associate director for Arthur D. Little Japan argues in his new book, *Geeky-Girly Innovation: A Japanese Subculturalist's Guide to Technology and Design*, that by making the various gadgets and other accouterments of "geek culture" (called "otaku" in Japanese) seem human in a way that bypasses your actual age to appeal directly to your inner child, it capitalizes on children's ability to form strong, lasting bonds and care deeply for another entity.
And whatever you tend to care deeply about, you cherish...and take care of. Neither do you dispose of it lightly.
In other words, it's about sustainability.
"The Japanese are use to respecting products, cherishing a product as a partner and then taking good care of it because it's a friend & using it as long as possible," he explains in a TED Tokyo 2013 talk. "Humanization is not just an immature mentality. Rather, it's just another Japanese way of understanding sustainability."
- Lesley Scott
(Hello Kitty toaster via Sanrio.com)
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