Visual Anthropology of Japan - 日本映像人類学: Kadoma-shi

Showing posts with label Kadoma-shi. Show all posts

Wednesday, June 10, 2026

Old Tobidashi Bōya "Running (or Jumping?) Boy" Sign in my Kadoma-shi Neighborhood

One day, while out on a jalan-jalan ("walking for nothing") with my camera I happened upon this very old sign. It was located on a storage garage at a Showa-era house in Kamishima-cho in Kadoma-shi.

The sign looked familiar, but I did not know what it really was or what the character on the sign was called. So I did a little AI research...

I uploaded the photo to Google Images and its AI said it was a pictograph or geoglyph. I guess the AI was fixated on the white lines. When I added more information ("Kadoma-shi, Osaka, Japan"), the AI said it was probably something from the Nazca Lines in Peru, because Japanese scientists had done research there (luckily I was familiar with the Nazca Lines after seeing them on the Ancient Aliens show on the History channel...). I typed "no, try again," and the AI said it was an image of Anpanman ("no"), Doraemon ("no"), and then Hoshio-kun (the Baby Star Ramen mascot). I then decided to give up with the AI and try to use my own memory.

I knew I had seen the sign and character before and then I finally found it on another jalan-jalan.

The sign, in flag form, was at an old tako-yaki shop near my home. I asked the master (after I ordered some tako-yaki, a benefit of ethnographic research) if I could take a picture of it. He said yes, of course, and added that the flag had been at the shop for a long time, since the time his father ran it.

I now had a new image to search, and when I did, I found out it was the Tobidashi Bōya (飛び出し坊や, or "Running Boy" or "Jumping Boy"). This character was made by Yasuhei Hisada for the city council of Yokaichi, Shiga Prefecture in 1973 as a warning sign that was adopted by local PTAs and neighborhood associations who placed them around schools and other areas to remind drivers to drive slowly and watch out for children in the street. Tobidashi Bōya spread to other communities who made their own versions.

So the sign I photographed is the Kadoma-shi version (I have seen it in Neyagawa-shi as well). The Kadoma-shi version has made it to also indicate a safety spot (business or home) for children to get help or call 110 to get emergency assistance from the police. I recently noticed that the small hospital behind my house puts the flag up whenever they are open.

Takeaways from this experience? 1) The sign, while severly weathered, is not as old as I thought it was... 2) My memory, also extremely weathered, along with fieldwork, seem to be superior to AI.

For more information, see "50 Years with the "Tobidashi Boy" Sign | Higashiomi, the Birthplace of the Tobidashi Boy Sign": https://tobidashibouya.com/

See also "An Exhibition of Tobidashi Boy": https://www.lmaga.jp/news/2016/08/14038/

Monday, January 5, 2026

Pre/Re/Construction...

You have seen this:

「Deconstruction: Demolishing a Showa Era House in the Neighborhood (this post is still under construction...)」

https://visualanthropologyofjapan.blogspot.com/2025/09/deconstruction-demolishing-showa-era.html

The next phase of neighborhood gentrification has begun... (Photos taken 12/26/25 - 12/31/25)

The plot has been divided into two.

A representative of the construction company recently made the rounds to houses in the neighborhood to inform us (verbally and in writing) about the upcoming construction of two new 3-story apartment buildings called 「フォレストグリェオーレ城垣町 I II」, or in English (?) Shirogaki-cho Grieore Forest I and II (not sure what "Grieore" is or refers to - and by the way, our neighborhood is not a forest...). Construction will begin on January 13 and continue until some time in May, daily from 8:00 AM to 6:00 PM.

I can't promise to take photos everyday of the construction. But I will do my best to record substantial phases of construction and share it with a post in May.

So it seems like it will be a very noisy spring...

Saturday, September 6, 2025

Deconstruction: Demolishing a Showa Era House in the Neighborhood (this post is still under construction...)

I moved into my neighborhood in 2003. Most of the houses were new and very ordinary. From the outside, there was really no architectural evidence of any particular Japanese design. But there was one large, older "traditional" Japanese house with three kura (storehouses) on a large plot of land where an elderly couple lived. I only had contact with the couple once, when I was the local han-cho (block leader) out collecting the annual neighborhood association dues. The dues were 200 yen per month, 2,400 yen for the year. But this older couple always gave 10,000 yen. As the years went on the house and property became more and more unkept. Eventually the couple passed away and the house was empty.

This summer in July, the house started to be demolished. VAoJ has documented and lamented recent older house demolitions in the neighborhood. You can see previous posts on this subject here, here and here.

In place of the old homes are empty lots, new apartment complexes and new osharei (stylish, and presumably expensive) houses, all adding to the "bed-town" atmosphere of the neighborhood (where people live and sleep but work elsewhere and do not interact with neighbors).

I talked with our shi-cho (neighborhood chief), a life-long resident who happens to be a retired architect and he told me the demolished house was built in the Showa Era (1926 - 1989), post-war around 1950. At that time the rural land was mostly rice fields. The house and much of the surroundings was owned by a family by the name of Akai. There are still a few descendent Akai families living in similar large Showa Era houses in the area.

VAoJ has recenlty become interested in the history of this neighborhood, and so a future project might ensue (stay tuned).

April, 2019

I happened to take this photo in 2019, so you can get an idea of what the house was like. (I wish I had taken more photos of the house.)

September, 2024 (image taken from Google Street View)

I was able to find this photo on Google Street View from last year. Here you can see that the front kura had been demolished and replaced with a metal fence.

July 15, 2025

The demolition started in mid-July. It was a long and slow process as there were only three construction workers and two large heavy equipment earthmovers. The days were extremely hot and humid which also had to add to the slower undertaking. The demolition process was very close to my house. There were times when the ground and my house shook violently, like an earthquake or a bombing (living through this everyday from 9:00 AM to 5:30 PM for over a month was psychologically distressing; I cannot imagine how people in natural disasters and wars deal with such situations). What follows is a series of 49 photos (out of 200 of so total shots) organized by dates. I usually took the shots in the early evening after the construction workers left. Most shots were from the outside, but once I was able to go inside the house before it was totally leveled.

July 18, 2025

July 19, 2025

July 24, 2025

July 25, 2025

I found this artifact in the rubble. The name "Akai" in kanji is carved in the handle. There are some worn markings on the ax head which I have not been able to decipher yet. Anaylysis continues...

July 28, 2025