{"id":2320,"date":"2026-03-30T12:00:56","date_gmt":"2026-03-30T03:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.gk-design.co.jp\/dy_en\/?p=2320"},"modified":"2026-03-04T11:31:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-04T02:31:08","slug":"an-attempt-to-interpret-machines-as-yokais","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gk-design.co.jp\/dy_en\/2320\/","title":{"rendered":"An attempt to interpret machines as yokais"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

I like Japanese art, especially ukiyo-e and the likes. So, I often visit museums and buy art books. Then one day, an interesting idea occurred to me: People in Japan have traditionally had unique feelings about machines though the nation is regarded a technological leader that has played a key role in the advancement of machine civilization.<\/p>\n

As a matter of fact, Japanese people have relatively a short history of using modern machines. I believe my ancestors from about three generations ago, who wore topknots on their heads, must have cried out, \u201cWow, it\u2019s a monster!\u201d when they first saw a steam locomotive. That was quite different from the western view of machines, which was developed by integrating pieces of technologies to achieve practical goals. Japanese people studied machinery trying to catch up with advanced countries in the western world. So, in addition to understanding the mechanism of machines, they tended to harbor something like ethnic consciousness that felt the presence of monstrous creatures when they stared into vacant spaces inside the machine or marveled at how it worked.<\/p>\n

This tendency becomes evident in the world of fiction. The mechanical creations that appear in Japanese manga and anime, when viewed from a distance, often look not so different from traditional images of armored warriors trying to get rid of yokais.<\/p>\n

In this schema, we can see the coexistence of traditional fantasy with an advanced understanding of modern technology, which is a unique characteristic of Japan. I also feel this traditional feature is found, for example, in the appearance of a shrine quietly nestled between towering high rises.<\/p>\n

CMFG Design Dept.
\nExective Officer
\nTakuji Watanabe<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I like Japanese art, especially ukiyo-e and the li\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2313,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gk-design.co.jp\/dy_en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2320"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gk-design.co.jp\/dy_en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gk-design.co.jp\/dy_en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gk-design.co.jp\/dy_en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gk-design.co.jp\/dy_en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2320"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.gk-design.co.jp\/dy_en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2320\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2325,"href":"https:\/\/www.gk-design.co.jp\/dy_en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2320\/revisions\/2325"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gk-design.co.jp\/dy_en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gk-design.co.jp\/dy_en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gk-design.co.jp\/dy_en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gk-design.co.jp\/dy_en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}