
Japan’s elaborate, colorful manhole covers - bookofjoe
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/japanese-manhole-covers
======
NegatioN
I remember this was one thing that really made an impact on me about Japan
when I went there as an exchange student.

"Even their manholes are thoroughly done and look amazing! What is even going
on!?"

They can still make me smile every now and again when I visit, and I really
admire the "Japanese sense of" (I don't know if it's particular to Japan)
putting lots of effort into something seemingly mundane; putting effort into
something which yields no practical return on investment. I wish there was
more of this artisanship in the everyday city-life around us, to keep remind
us how lovely life can really be. It's easy to forget sometimes.

~~~
spectramax
I think you'll enjoy Junichiro Tanizaki's essay: "In Praise of Shadows"[1] on
Japanese aesthetics - from toilet design to art of Kintsukuroi. If you haven't
read it, it was written more than 50 years ago[2] and still stands true about
the Japanese aesthetic culture - it is amazing.

[1][PDF]
[http://wwwedu.artcenter.edu/mertzel/spatial_scenography_1/Cl...](http://wwwedu.artcenter.edu/mertzel/spatial_scenography_1/Class%20Files/resources/In%20Praise%20of%20Shadows.pdf)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Praise_of_Shadows](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Praise_of_Shadows)

~~~
GuiA
I read this book recently and... yeah. It’s filled with stuff like him
bemoaning how “western” chemistry and the periodic table of elements are, and
speculating about how “Japanese physics” would be.

Oh and that’s not getting into the whole BS about purity and skin color he
gets into.

It’s nihonjinron at its finest.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nihonjinron](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nihonjinron)

------
hrktb
Fun fact: they sometimes make them with celebrities, which happen to be cause
public outrage later in their career, causing issues with what to do with the
manholes.

Recently Pierre Taki was arrested for Cocaine, and the manhole with him on it
is in an interesting debate, the town is thinking about covering it:
[https://news.nicovideo.jp/watch/nw4980896](https://news.nicovideo.jp/watch/nw4980896)

~~~
ekianjo
> with celebrities, which happen to be cause public outrage later in their
> career,

That's the funny thing about Japan. Regarding outrage and celebrities. I have
seen that over and over in the past 10 years, it goes like that (not talking
about manholes here):

\- Celebrity X is super popular and well loved

\- Celebrity X gets into trouble for something that is frowned upon in
society.

\- Mass media rush to eat Celebrity X alive and paint them as a horrible
person.

\- Celebrity X will do public apologies on TV.

\- Suddenly all media ties/advertising ties with Celebrity X are severed. In
fact, you won't see or hear about Celebrity X for quite a while (usually a
couple of years).

\- Then, without any prior notice, suddenly you will see Celebrity X coming
back on a talking show at some point, "just to test the waters".

\- Celebrity X becomes accepted again, just because time has passed.

It's... largely nonsensical.

Note: exception for drugs. People who have done drugs are usually burned
forever. For example, the famous band "Dreams Come True" used to have 3
members, and one of them was arrested for drugs at some point, and since then
the band continued with 2 members only, and all material they show about "the
past of Dreams Come True" is carefully edited to remove any memory of that
person. It's like he had never existed. Astonishing.

~~~
bowties2cool
Genuine question, can you elaborate on why you feel that such cycles are
nonsensical? Cuz for me I just think that the celeb "paid their dues" by not
receiving compensation/exposure for some time (like a prison sentence in the
public eye), and if the misendeavor is minor enough they can be reaccepted.

~~~
raquo
Can't speak for people who actually care about celebrities, but the
predictability and insincerity of this manufactured cycle would definitely bug
me personally.

------
cerealbad
Is Japan a benevolent dictatorship (psuedo-imperial corporate fascism and
guaranteed political monopolies) in exchange for social cohesion. Is there an
equivalent concept to a zaibatsu in a republic or democracy? Monopolies here
are hidden behind the trident of usury, corporation and government spending;
beyond terms like corporate capture, manufacturing consent,
military/health/tech/energy industrial complex, conspiracy... With the
American Republic at least it seems stability was replaced by extremes, and an
active tension is rather encouraged in the population in order for dialectic
opposition thesis+antithesis->synthesis. This rule by fear tends to sacrifice
a lot of civility and social harmony, as an outsider it appears tiring, but
Americans must prefer it or it would have never sold in the post ww2 era as
the new normal.

~~~
james_s_tayler
Yeah, it's kind of funny. The extreme social cohesion itself forms a sort of
dictatorship. Although it's a distributed dictatorship. Every one of your
peers is a dictator.

------
snvzz
I visited numazu recently, and took this manhole's pic:
[https://imgur.com/a/sihTun3](https://imgur.com/a/sihTun3)

------
panemic
Aaah, atlasobscura, where every time I visit I get: "We value your privacy[1]"
with one button saying "accept!".

[1] "we clearly don't"

~~~
bookofjoe
I must have clicked "accept" 'cause I never see that button.

~~~
panemic
I wouldn't be surprised if this was geofenced (I'm browsing from the EU).

------
1024core
Oh Japan!

When I was first visiting Japan, I asked an architect friend of mine who had
lived in Japan: what should I see?

His response: see how much attention to detail has been paid to even some of
the most mundane things.

At first I was, WTF. I was looking for recommendations about places to see.
But when I got there, his advice made total sense. I was not disappointed.

~~~
ekianjo
> His response: see how much attention to detail has been paid to even some of
> the most mundane things.

Counter example, about every residential building is so damn ugly, so I am not
sure where the attention to details has gone there. I could go on on how
poorly designed work offices are, how poorly designed the furniture is in
general (enabling IKEA to actually have a market here), and that's enough to
refute that kind of blanket statement.

~~~
imetatroll
I think it really depends on what you are looking for. Older Japanese homes
are, though often "run down", very nice in my opinion. More modern residences
have turned towards a manufactured feeling unfortunately but when you take
into consideration the constraints of possible earthquake and expense of land
it is rather impressive how residences are arranged. The technical challenges,
which go unseen, are not simple I would imagine. The boxlike look is, I think,
probably driven by land value.

Furniture in Japan is often practical and low to the ground which might not
appeal to some people. People used to spend their time exclusively sitting on
the floor of their homes. I wouldn't be surprised if the majority of Japanese
still do.

------
meruru
Love Live manhole covers:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/LoveLive/comments/a2a0yi/found_the_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/LoveLive/comments/a2a0yi/found_the_first_years_manhole_covers/)

------
tzs
1\. How durable is the paint? When it wears away do they repaint?

2\. I could see US cities doing this, except they would probably use the space
for advertising. This would be annoying.

~~~
bookofjoe
Domino's "Paving For Pizza":[https://www.eater.com/2018/9/7/17831586/dominos-
potholes-pav...](https://www.eater.com/2018/9/7/17831586/dominos-potholes-
paving-for-pizza-towns)

------
socratesque
> "A manhole cover in Tokyo depicting “fireboys.”

I can swear I saw this one somewhere the other day. Unless there's another one
just like it. I didn't think much of it at the time, but I remember clearly
giving it a glance when I was walking somewhere. I want to say the firemen
were monkeys though.. maybe a different one, same depiction.

------
DoofusOfDeath
Why do some of the manhole covers have English, not Japanese, text on them?

~~~
SllX
So in the same way that some Americans with no Asian ancestry in the
slightest, or any spiritual inclinations towards the Tao or Buddhism or
anything like that _might_ get a tattoo or article of clothing with certain
symbols, i.e. yin-yang, or some bit of Arabic or Chinese or Japanese writing
as _decoration_ , the Japanese take a similar attitude to English or Spanish
or Christian (Catholic in particular) writing and symbols.

They use English as window dressing because it’s _cool_. Most Japanese kids
will take English in school, but few will ever attain any real fluency in the
language. So if you sprinkle in some gratuitous English into your signage,
clothing and television scripts or character designs, then you _are_ cool, and
you can still effectively communicate to some degree because while almost no
one is fluent, they can still understand at least small amounts of English at
a time. I’m not sure that still holds up with younger generations, but at
least at one point it was the case.

~~~
stordoff
Superdry is perhaps the most obvious example (in the opposite direction). In
the same way that Japanese products often include gratuitous English, they
include gratuitous Japanese on their clothes:

> The company's products include meaningless excerpts of Japanese text
> generated by machine translation.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superdry](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superdry)

~~~
james_s_tayler
I really love this brand because it's just a troll brand but it became
popular. Because 'oh look it's got funky asian writing on it' cool factor.
It's just perfect. Every time I walk passed someone wearing that shit and read
what the hell it says I crack up laughing.

------
z3t4
If they are too beautiful people might walk away with them.

~~~
coldtea
While it occasionally happens, in Japan they still have a sense of civic
responsibility. They wouldn't do that.

There's also the fact that you could (statistically) also forget your Macbook
Pro in a crowded public park in Tokyo and come back 2 hours later to find it
there untouched (and unstolen).

~~~
air7
Wow. Was this ever (anecdotally) tested?

~~~
paulsutter
Absolutely. In Japan most bicycles are left unlocked. You can leave your
cellphone to hold your seat in a coffee shop. Things you lose get returned. My
father lost his passport there and when he called, the embassy already had it.

~~~
titanix2
No they’re not. Most bicycles are locked by the device that is builtin. Also
bike registration exists for a reason: bike stealing is one of the most common
crimes.

~~~
paulsutter
I lived there so I’ve seen it. Bikes are usually locked in the neighborhoods
with a lot of foreigners (Roppongi, etc), but in most of Japan they aren’t.
I’ve seen hundreds of bikes parked outside work without a single lock.

~~~
kalleboo
I live in a more rural part of Japan where you can count the foreigners on
your two hands and I find it hard to believe you can even see how many bikes
have their ubiquitous ring locks[0] locked among hundreds of bikes

[0] [https://i.stack.imgur.com/kPKjx.jpg](https://i.stack.imgur.com/kPKjx.jpg)

------
m3kw9
The man with those half inch thick gloves, you bet that paint isn’t coming off
for years if it touched you.

------
sonnyblarney
I absolutely love this, not so much for the covers which are great, but the
sense of civic participation that would enable such a thing to happen.

Someone on city council has to approve budgets for this ...

------
giorgioz
The Mouth of Truth from ancient Rome was likely a manhole as well:
[https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/the-mouth-of-truth-
rome-...](https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/the-mouth-of-truth-rome-italy)

