Introduction

Since last year, I've been working on putting my thoughts on brands into words from an academic perspective. I've been writing about them in my own way up until now, but I was very interested in how they would look objectively. So, through a friend's introduction, I asked writer Ryunosuke Murokoshi to help me. Murokoshi majored in anthropology and has done fieldwork in Cuba and other places. As I myself have an interest in cultural anthropology, I asked Murokoshi to help me, and I was excited to see what would come out of applying the methods of cultural anthropology to myself.

First, Murokoshi interviewed me. On the first day, the interview and the subsequent meal totaled more than eight hours. Later, he interviewed the founding members of blueover and then met with me again. The results were more than satisfactory. The total length was 10,000 characters. Having my thoughts organized in this way was a strange feeling, but at the same time, I felt like I was able to visualize things that I hadn't noticed before.

According to Murokoshi, the structure of the text "feels like a mixture of Japanese and French argumentation, and it's dialectical in that it introduces the thesis of the 'concrete world' against the thesis of the 'abstract world'." (Perhaps it would have been better to write the story in a bit more depth as a synthesis...) I think the Japanese aspect is how it ends with the change that comes from entering the 'concrete world'." Indeed, the dialectical development of modern economic rationality and its irrationality, and the attempt to discover the possibilities beyond, allowed me to notice things I hadn't even noticed before, and it has had a major impact on the future direction of the brand.

The resulting written version will be completed at the end of 2024. The timing was just right, and we have decided to include this analysis, titled "anonymous embodiment," in the booklet we will be distributing at the pop-up store. This is the booklet you are holding in your hands right now.

Blueover is a very small Japanese sneaker brand. However, their sneakers have more than just functional value for the wearer; they have something special. I think there are many people who have heard of Blueover for the first time. For those people, this magazine also contains the brand's basic philosophy, so I would be very happy if this is an opportunity for them to learn that there is such a sneaker brand in Japan.

End of February 2025

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Anonymous Examination

Ryunosuke Murokoshi

The question of blueover

　Blueover's shoes are a question to our society that has been quietly placed there.
When we say "our society," there are four things that come to mind.

The first is globalization. Today, we live with a network of commodities that spans the entire globe. When you eat sushi, it contains tuna caught in the Indian Ocean, trout (salmon) farmed in Chile, and octopus caught in Mozambique. Cotton grown in Pakistan is made into fabric in India, sewn in Vietnam, and delivered to you as clothing. We use a smartphone that is designed in California, uses parts produced in Taiwan, and assembled in China. We are connected to the world through commodities.

The second is industrialization, which also means mass production. Commodities are mass-produced to meet massive consumption. Machines make mass production possible. To use machines, materials, parts, and products need to be planned. Factories can churn out seemingly infinite quantities of products with precise accuracy. And standardized products can be bought anywhere. You can drink Coca-Cola in Osaka or Tokyo, or in Russia or Cuba. You can get roughly similar products at any time, regardless of location or time.

The third is being mainstream. And there is a value system centered around the mainstream. We have a common idea of ​​what has value and what has no value. Placing value on something means not placing value on something else. Therefore, thinking something is "good" creates a hierarchy. Furthermore, if "everyone thinks something is good," a hierarchy of values ​​is created in society centered around what "everyone thinks is good." For example, if it is something that is fleeting, we could call it a fad. However, if everyone thinks something is good over a relatively long period of time, a mainstream emerges that creates a hierarchy of values.

The fourth is abstraction. We are not often treated as concrete individuals in society. In a company, we are treated as employees, and at home, we are treated as parents and children. When we consume, we are not treated as subjects who appreciate and choose something aesthetically, but as targets for selling commodities. We are not treated as ourselves, but as men or women, people in their 30s or 40s, people with urban lifestyles, or outdoor enthusiasts. Rather than being ourselves, we are treated as consumers. We live in a concrete world, but when we see the world, we perceive it in abstract terms.

Blueover exists as a resistance to these four imaginations.
It is local rather than global, artisanal rather than industrial, unique rather than mainstream, and concrete rather than abstract.
Now, let's take a look at how blueover responds to these four imaginations.

Thinking about "exchange"

In blueover's brand story, designer Hitoshi Watari writes, "While taking on product design work, I began to question the cycle of product development and consumption."

In a capitalist system, increasing profits tends to be the top priority. And profit-based rationality is exercised. In order to increase profits, it is necessary to encourage consumers to consume more. To do this, new products must be introduced and consumers stimulated. This means that it is rational to develop products, shorten the cycle from product development to consumption, and produce large quantities of products in that short time. Watari had doubts about the "speed" of this cycle.
I understand this question. Profit-based rationality may seem like the only ethical principle to us, but when we look at human society more broadly, we see that it is actually a way of thinking that is unique to our society and in some ways is special.

For example, in his book The Gift, Marcel Mauss argued that gift exchange (gift exchange) is a more common means of acquiring things for humanity than the buying and selling (exchange) that we engage in.
According to Mauss, in many societies, there is an obligation to give gifts, an obligation to receive gifts, and an obligation to reciprocate. Obligations create dynamics within society. Although they have largely fallen out of use, Japan also has gift-giving customs such as ochugen and oseibo. Ochugen and oseibo were almost obligatory, a way of expressing gratitude to those who had helped you. Most people would probably understand that refusing a gift given as a token of gratitude would be rude. And when a gift is received, you also have to return the gift.
As the decline of the custom of mid-year gifts in our society shows, gift-giving is a hassle. We receive things we don't want and have to give things at a cost. As a result, we get nothing.
However, Morse believes that in fact, in addition to gifts, we gain something through gift-giving. And that is human relationships. Giving a gift makes you friendly with the recipient. In other words, it creates human relationships. The exchange of goods has the power to connect people, but not always in a positive way. Among Native Americans, there was a custom of becoming slaves if you were unable to reciprocate a gift. The exchange of goods can also connect people in this way.

Karl Polanyi did not distinguish between two categories: gift and exchange, but rather three: reciprocity, redistribution, and exchange. Reciprocity is a relationship of mutual aid created by giving gifts to each other, while redistribution creates a power structure between the center and the periphery through mandatory payments to the center of power and repayments from the center. Exchange is similar to the buying and selling in our society: the movement of goods and services in the market.
What's interesting is that while reciprocity creates relatively equal relationships and redistribution creates relatively hierarchical relationships, exchange assumes that relationships can be settled on a temporary basis.
In fact, Ruth Benedict, author of "The Chrysanthemum and the Sword," who studied the cultural characteristics of the Japanese people, said something similar. According to Benedict, the way Japanese people exchange goods consists of three types of "giri," "on," and "kasou." Giri corresponds to reciprocity, on to redistribution, and kasou to exchange.

Based on these theories, it seems that the decline of mid-year and year-end gifts is due to the fact that we are moving from a world of obligation and gratitude to a world of pure exchange.
In a world of pure exchange, countless abstract, nameless people are mediated solely by the exchange of goods with countless abstract, nameless people.
In our everyday lives, we don't think about where commodities come from, or who made them or designed them. We see people and things in terms of their functions, and don't think about their specific uniqueness. When we acquire things through exchange, we don't have to think about such things.
Therefore, "questioning the cycle of consumption" can be interpreted as questioning a world in which buying and selling connects consumers and in which no concrete person exists anywhere. This questioning can lead to a certain element of gift-giving in market buying and selling. Gifted items cannot be obtained anywhere else. If the roses you buy at a florist wilt, you can just buy them again at the florist, or even at a different florist. However, if the roses your lover gave you wilt, you can't replace them with another rose. This is because "roses given to you by your lover" are endowed with a special meaning born out of your relationship with your lover. In other words, if the act of buying a commodity can create special meaning by connecting one person with another, then a simply interchangeable commodity becomes a unique, concrete thing. In this case, the act of "buying from someone" can be a special behavior that creates individual value.
So, this is what will happen.

Normally, to consumers, brands and shoes are merely commodities that can be substituted or selected. There is no special relationship between consumers and commodities or between consumers and brands. Therefore, if consumers receive a stronger stimulus, they will quickly replace their shoes. If a new design, new function, or new added value is presented, consumers will respond.
However, blueover shoes do not appear to be presented in this way.
When buying blueover shoes, the customer is expected to form a specific relationship with them. This could be a relationship with Harada, the manager of the company's struct store, or with other staff, or with the designer, Watari. Or perhaps the message embedded in the shoes themselves makes the customer feel a specific connection.

Shoes that are specifically tied to a relationship are no longer a commodity that can be substituted or chosen.
Replacement doesn't work.
The buyer has no choice but to develop a relationship with the shoes.
Once you receive a gift, give back and receive another gift.
And the more developed the relationship between the buyer and the shoe, the slower the buying cycle becomes.
This will also bring about changes in the product development and production cycle.
Is it possible that such an attempt exists?
You can probably see this through blueover shoes.
So, next let's think about the design.

"Beauty of Use" and Anonymous Shoes

The first shoe made by blueover, "Mikey," has a shape that could be said to be the very image of a shoe. Watari called the design "anonymous." It seems that the important thing is that "it's not clear who made the product."
This idea is likely connected to the concept of folk art and "beauty of utility," which influenced Watari.
Designs that are rooted in the land, born from the handiwork of nameless artisans working in the area, and that are just right, in line with how the tools are used.
That's exactly what Mikey is like.

Watching Mikey reminds me of the story of a lumberjack and his saw.
I heard this story directly from folklorist Professor Yoichiro Katsuki, so I may be misremembering the story. Here's the story I'm telling from my vague memories.
Professor Katsuki's team collected wood saws from all over the country. As forestry became industrialized and chainsaws were introduced, they collected and stored folk tools (tools used daily by local people) to prevent them from being scattered and lost.
He had collected hundreds of saws, and apparently asked an old lumberjack to help him sort them. The old lumberjack picked up one saw and said, "The owner of this saw must not have had a happy life."
Professor Katsuki was curious and asked why he thought that.
The woodcutter replied, "This saw has been well maintained. It must have been made by a skilled craftsman. However, despite its age, the blade is not worn down very much. A meticulous person who takes such thorough care of every last detail would likely not get along with others and would have changed jobs frequently. That's why the blade is so well maintained, considering how skilled the craftsman was."
Every item has a history, and if you have the discerning eye, you can tell that history.
The old woodsman knew neither the face nor the name of the saw's owner, but he knew what kind of person he was.
In other words, from anonymous objects, we gained insight into the specific people involved.
Now, as the old lumberjack looked at his saw, so we look at Mikey.

The brand was born in the basement of the Mokdai Shokaikan in Fukushima, Osaka.
The team that launched the brand emerged from the connections Watari made in Osaka, where he grew up. Watari says that from a young age he would invite people into his space to play games. He started the team with those gaming friends and colleagues he had worked with.
They weren't recruiting from a vast pool of talent.
It was a team that Watari had established from his own personal connections.
No matter how much buying and selling dominates our society, we don't live our daily lives as abstract people. We have parents, siblings, and friends. We have chance encounters and partings. Individual people meet other individual people.
A designer doesn't meet a retail manager. An entrepreneur doesn't meet an employee. That's not how the team started. It was born in a game room, among coworkers.

What Watari wanted to make was shoes.
And they were "100% domestically made" shoes.
I heard that the brand name blueover also had the meaning of going from Japan across the sea to the world.
From the perspective of capitalist rationality, domestically produced shoes are a strange idea.
It would be cheaper and faster to produce overseas, because working with overseas factories accustomed to negotiation and mass production would have allowed them to produce rational commodities more quickly.
This was the way the mainstream of society moved. During the recession of the 2000s, many shoe manufacturers moved their production bases to Asia. The race to cut costs intensified, and the small factories that remained in Japan were pushed into an increasingly difficult situation.
The launch of the company in 2011 was an attempt to respond to this situation. As a product designer involved in manufacturing, he planned to keep the shoe industry in Japan running.
The background to this project is the personal relationships that Watari has built up over the years as a freelance designer, visiting various factories. Mikey was born as a product that supports "Japanese manufacturing as Watari's personal relationships."
He could have chosen the optimal brand launch team and supply chain from options across Japan or the world. In other words, he could have selected marketers, production managers, salespeople, and factories based on the premise that his business would be selling "the shoes that Watari wants to make."
However, rather than being a prerequisite that dictated everything, "the shoes that Watari wanted to make" seemed to act as a catalyst that brought to light a network of people.
Watari's relationships came first, and when the project "Watari's Shoes" was launched, the people who would participate emerged from there.
This is the opposite of ideal planning, such as product planning aimed at pursuing profits, efficient production, and the allocation of human resources for that purpose.
First, there are human relationships, and then the motivation for the project is thrown in. Then, each person in the relationship brings together what they can do to create a product, which then reaches a buyer as a tangible object, ultimately generating profits.
Most production processes are local and correspond to a series of concrete human relationships.
In Japanese, the act of buying and selling is called "sho-i." There are various theories about the origin of this word, including one that it comes from the word "saku," which means to stand between two parties, and another that it comes from the word "atsu," which means to satisfy or fulfill both parties.
In that case, blueover's work can be said to be a business in the sense that it stands between the people who come through its shoes, oversees the connections between them, and manages profits.
Just as the saw blade embodies the humanity of the craftsman, blueover's shoes have a vast amount of specific personal touch mediated by Watari.And there is an anonymity to them that doesn't require any particular awareness of it.

(Ir)rational choices

Watari believes that this type of business is "irrational," and it seems that people around him have also pointed this out.
In today's society, the "pursuit of profit" is the goal, and all other decisions tend to be subordinate to that goal. All subordinate decisions are streamlined in line with the objective of profit-making. This is why humans are abstracted in a market economy. Only by treating humans as "labor power" or "purchasing power" that can be quantitatively analyzed and manipulated can it become possible to make decisions about a series of actions related to the pursuit of profit.
If there is a specific individual, not only will that person have a unique physical shape, but also a unique combination of their upbringing, political views, food preferences, occupation, age, and physical condition. No two people are the same. For example, when targeting "men in their 40s and 50s," this merely represents the imagined "men in their 40s and 50s" that the targeters have in mind. Specific "men in their 40s and 50s" are more diverse and diverse than imagined, and it is almost impossible to extract the same group based on characteristics other than "men in their 40s and 50s." Despite this, the behavior of the imagined target is further assumed.
The reason why actions that involve piling preconceptions on top of preconceptions are justified is because a foundation that supports the rationality of "pursuit of profit" is necessary. I believe that rationality cannot actually emerge without such preconceived assumptions.
We generally tend to think of "rationality" as a universal truth. Even if diverse people have diverse perspectives, we believe that there exists an objective, rational perspective that is different from these. In this sense, rationality becomes a privileged perspective.
In other words, being rational can be the only correct answer. From this perspective, being irrational is the wrong answer, and we are forced to consider those who hold such a perspective to be "stupid people."
However, although blueover's endeavors do not quite fit with the mainstream of the times, strangely enough they have continued without failing.
This means that it is not "wrong" as an economic activity under capitalism.
How should we think about this?

Cultural anthropology considers the rationality of others.
In the early days of this academic discipline, people living in different cultures were considered "uncivilized" or "barbaric," and it was believed that humans would eventually become "civilized" like Western Europeans. Colonialism was even justified under the pretext of providing civilization and education to inferior people. The idea that superior people would dominate inferior people was commonplace.
The person who disagreed with this idea was Franz Boas, who was born in Germany and spent his research life in the United States.
Up until Boas's time, many anthropologists had conducted various analyses and developed theories based on materials sent back by colonial administrators and explorers. Unlike these "rocking chair" researchers, Boas conducted fieldwork to study Native Americans in North America and met the local people face-to-face.
This first-hand experience led Boas to recognize that "savages" were different from Westerners, not inferior or backward: each culture was shaped by its own rationality, based on its own historical context.
There is no single rationality, nor does it occupy a privileged position.
If you change the assumptions, a different rationality will emerge.
When we think about it this way, rationality based on the "pursuit of profit" can also be relativized.
In the pursuit of profit, humans are perceived abstractly and categorized, imagining them as controllable objects. This kind of imagination makes efficiency possible. In order to achieve efficiency by working backward from an uncertain future, it is essential to have the imagination that humans are controllable objects.

This assumption may work when we are consuming large quantities of mass-produced commodities. But would we engage in such purchasing behavior when, for example, trying to buy a painting? This is not limited to paintings. When choosing an antique or craft item, we are not trying to consume the object. We are trying to go beyond the object's function and form a new relationship with it.
When buying a painting, it doesn't matter which painting you choose. You probably wouldn't buy a painting unless you felt that "this is the painting I want to buy." The same is true when buying a plate. You don't just buy a general plate. You think about the food you'll be serving on it, the season, and the location, and then look for a plate that suits it.
In this sense, blueover shoes seem like craft products. To be precise, they are manufactured products. Unlike crafts that are individually handmade, blueover shoes are produced in such a way that they can be distributed. However, what is intended here is "slow consumption." If consumption that follows the current consumption cycle of profit-seeking is "fast consumption," then consumption that follows a relaxed consumption cycle that is linked by concrete relationships between people and things is "slow." In the scheme of "slow consumption," it is expected that the buyer will form their own relationship with the shoes.
In this sense, buying a Mikey is similar to buying a painting.
Now, let's return to the topic of rationality.

Under capitalism, the pursuit of profit and the pursuit of efficiency for that purpose were often thought to be the only rational way of life. However, Franz Boas suggested that there were other rational ways of life.
While blueover considers the "pursuit of profit" to be a given condition in capitalism, he does not place it as the starting point for his thinking. His starting point is the "concrete relationship between things and people."
If we think about it this way, doesn't "rationality" seem to be reversed?
At Blueover, the pursuit of profit is not a necessary goal, but rather a coincidental outcome of intent. Efficiency applies to creating products that buyers can form special relationships with, rather than mass selling. In other words, repeatedly explaining what their products are like through their directly managed store, struct, and website is more "rational" and "efficient" behavior than wholesale to many retailers.
Slowing down the consumption cycle is not an irrational decision that gives up on the pursuit of profit, but rather a rational consideration for the entire range of human relationships that shoes mediate.

anonymous instantiation

Now, back to the shoes.
These shoes were produced with the expectation that they would remain anonymous. The company, brand and designer had disappeared, and they were expected to be purchased as shoes that had simply appeared from nowhere. They were sold without any authority, simply risking their existence as objects.
Think of the lumberjack's saw: it is anonymous, yet powerfully suggests the nature of its owner.
Blueover shoes also remind the buyer of the unknown creator, because the shoes embody the creator's ideas.
One of the English translations of "embodiment" is "embody." "Em" means "in," and "body" here refers to "matter." In other words, etymologically, it refers to materializing, or actually putting some idea or concept into practice.
Watari's ideas are embodied in the shoes, which transform the behavior of the people they mediate and affect their perceptions.

Anonymous messages can sometimes motivate people.
An anonymous pamphlet entitled "What is the Third Estate?", published in 1789, made a significant contribution to shaping public opinion in the run-up to the French Revolution.
The message stands out precisely because it is anonymous.
The important thing is not "Who said it?" but "What is being said?"
This is a completely different approach to the modern society that relies on advertising to stimulate the brain's reward system and get people to buy abstract products.
When buying shoes, how many people look at the shoes? Are they looking at the logo on the shoes? When buying shoes, how many people look at the store clerk? Are they looking only at the goods being exchanged?
Blueover's shoes ask the question, "Is the world really like this?" in response to our society that operates in this way.
In fact, we don't live in the abstract.
Just like the people in Watari's game room, we have friends, and just like Watari's relationship with his factory and craftsmen, we have work colleagues whose faces and names we know, and whose family structures, origins, and food preferences we know.
The same is true for shoes. Shoes are not worn just to "walk."
They are worn when walking on a particular road at a particular time during a particular season.
The blueover is understated.
He quietly puts the question aside.
You don't have to realize it's a question, and you don't have to answer it.
We can buy shoes and wear them however we like.
However, at the same time, there is an idea that lies beyond the anonymity, and we are given the possibility to respond to the world through our shoes.
When we wear blueover shoes, we are asked the question of "wearing shoes."
What does wearing shoes mean to us?
When we buy shoes, what kind of relationship can we have with the people who sell and make them?
How do we see the world through the ownership of shoes?
When we wear blueover shoes, we are able to step into the concrete web of human relationships that exists through objects.

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Murokoshi Ryunosuke

Anthropologist and writer. Specializing in cultural anthropology. After completing her doctoral studies at Kyushu University's Graduate School of Human-Environment Studies and completing her doctoral studies, she worked at diplomatic missions overseas and at a venture company before going independent. She runs a private seminar called "le Tonneau." She provides research for corporations and training and study sessions for managers and consultants. She currently broadcasts the podcast programs "Norajio" and "Shin Nihon Dana Kyokai."