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Why has Aichi become the ‘Kingdom of Manufacturing’?
As an industrial hub, Aichi Prefecture’s total value of manufactured goods shipped stands at 58.2 trillion yen or £270 billion (according to the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry’s ‘2024 Survey on the Actual State of the Economic Structure’) and it has consistently ranked first in Japan for this figure for nearly half a century. In addition to the automotive sector, it holds the top market share in ten industries, including electrical machinery, production machinery and food manufacturing.
So why is this region so overwhelmingly strong in ‘monozukuri (lit. making things)’?
The roots lie in raw materials and maritime transport. It has earth that has been accumulating for millions of years, an abundance of timber and because the region faces the sea, even in a time when land routes were still undeveloped, products could be transported by ship to major consumer markets. This gave it a significant advantage, allowing the manufacturing industry to flourish.
The craft of ‘karakuri’, born of abundant forest resources
With the end of the Warring States period came the Edo period (1603–1868), a time of national unification. The western part of what is now Aichi Prefecture was ruled by the Owari Domain, with Yoshinao – the ninth son of Shōgun Tokugawa Ieyasu – serving as its first lord. Ieyasu built Nagoya Castle for him and, on the occasion of his wedding in 1615, bestowed upon him 200,000 hectares of mountain forests in the Kiso River basin (now parts of Gifu and Nagano Prefectures). From then on, felled timber was floated down the river to the sea, transforming Nagoya into one of the country’s largest timber trading centres. It was this abundance of timber that allowed Aichi’s culture of monozukuri to flourish.
In the town, now at peace, lively festivals were held, and dashi (floats) with dancing karakuri ningyō, highly intricate wooden mechanical dolls (or automata), became hugely popular.
The dashi, standing several metres tall, were magnificently adorned with carvings of dragons and lions, maku (curtains) woven with gold and silver thread, as well as lacquer work decorated with makie (lit. sprinkled pictures’) and raden (mother-of-pearl inlay). The performances of the karakuri ningyō, modelled on warriors, wizards and karako (a Japanese term to describe the depiction (in art) of Chinese children playing), were dedicated to the gods. The crowds would gasp in awe at the aerial acrobatics, the traversing thin cherry blossom branches and the rapid costume changes, as the festival reached its climax.
The karakuri ningyō, which could be described as Japan’s wooden robots, evolved into those ‘dashi karakuri’ (float karakuri) and then into ‘shibai karakuri’ (stage karakuri), where performances were held in theatres, and then further into ‘zashiki karakuri’. A zashiki is a Japanese-style sitting room and the zashiki karakuri were a form of entertainment enjoyed by wealthy townspeople, during which the karakuri ningyō performed acts such as serving tea, writing-characters with a brush and firing arrows from a bow.
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The intricate mechanisms and performance of karakuri ningyō
I once had the opportunity to witness a ‘tea-serving’ karakuri being demonstrated at a Japanese restaurant, when the host places a teacup on the saucer held by the puppet, which stands about 30 cm tall, the doll puppet begins to walk, making a faint sound. It stops dead in its tracks when it reaches the guest. The guest picks up the teacup, drinks the tea, and places it back on the saucer. The puppet then makes a sharp U-turn and returns to its starting position. It was truly a humanoid robot. Moreover, it seemed to embody the Japanese spirit of omotenashi (hospitality).
When you remove the little waiter’s uniform, you can clearly see the mechanism consisting of a mainspring, gears, cams and levers. Excluding the mainspring, all of the approximately 40 parts are made of wood with the raw material coming from Kiso.
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The fusion of clockmaking and karakuri culture
To understand how this all came together, we need to step back a little. In the 1590s, European mechanical clocks began arriving in Japan as gifts to Ieyasu. At that time however, Japan had virtually no tradition of gearwork, and precision metalworking techniques had not yet been developed. Nevertheless, at the behest of Ieyasu, who took a great liking to the clocks, Tsuda Sukezaemon – a craftsman living in Kyoto at the time – succeeded in repairing them and went on to produce domestically made mechanical clocks. After becoming a retainer of Ieyasu, he went on to serve the Owari Domain. In around 1620, the official position of ontokei-shi (clockmaker to the feudal lord) was instigated within the Owari Domain, and as the Tsuda family passed down this role through the generations, mechanical technology within the domain continued to improve.
Just over a century later, in 1733, a puppet-maker – who would later take the name Tamaya Shōbei – was invited from Kyoto, and both the clockmakers and the karakuri craftsman came to belong to the Owari Domain’s onsaikusho (a general term used to refer to the craft workshop and group of artisans employed by feudal domains and the shogunate during the Edo period). Craftsmen specializing in precision woodwork and metalwork also gathered in Nagoya, laying the foundations for the region to develop as a centre of Japanese craftsmanship.
From mechanical puppets and wa-dokei (traditional Japanese clocks) to precision instruments, and onto aerospace and robotics
By the 1880s, thanks in part to the ability to produce wooden cases cheaply, Aichi-made grandfather clocks had taken the Asian market by storm. Their internal mechanisms evolved from wood to metal, transforming into precision machinery, which in turn drove the development of the automotive, aerospace and robotics industries.
If we look at the robotics industry, in particular, we see a direct link to the philosophy and technology of karakuri.
Modern robots operate by batteries, motors, shafts, programmes and actuators, a configuration that corresponds directly to the mechanisms of traditional karakuri ningyō. Furthermore, just as the ‘tea-serving puppet’ was cherished as a luxury toy for entertaining guests, the Japanese have developed robots that ‘stand by people and coexist with them’ and this spirit lives on today.
A violin-playing robot and the ‘karakuri’ technology passed down through local communities
At the Toyota Commemorative Museum of Industry and Technology in Nagoya, visitors can not only see demonstrations of industrial robots performing tasks such as welding and assembly, but they can also encounter a robot that plays the violin. Known as ‘Pearl’, he made a name for himself at the 2010 Shanghai World Expo and continues to perform daily as an active ‘musician’.
Furthermore, in Aichi, numerous festivals involving dashi are still held today, where karakuri puppets are met with great acclaim. Frequent performances ensure that there is a need for people to operate the karakuri and play the gongs and drums, and in turn this ensures that maintenance techniques are passed down. These skills are handed down from generation to generation, to young people and children. It is not just the presence of master craftsmen such as Tamaya Shōbei IX, but the fact that the spirit and techniques of the karakuri are being passed down within the community that is so important.
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About the author
Akasaki Makiko is Director and Content Producer at Kernel Research Institute Co., Ltd. Akasaki plans content and events specializing in manufacturing, food culture and tourism. She has been involved in the planning and production of projects such as ‘Monozukuri Story’ website by Chubu District Transport Bureau, Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (2018), ‘Monitor Tour of Fermentation Breweries with European visitors’ by Japan Travel and tourism Association (2024), and ‘Endless Tracks: Hiroshi Suda and His Life in Railways and Tourism’ Published by Fūbaisha (2026).