List of Japanese inventions and discoveries

This is a list of Japanese inventions and discoveries. The Japanese have made contributions across a number of scientific, technological and art domains. In particular, the country has played a crucial role in the digital revolution since the 20th century, with many modern revolutionary and widespread technologies in fields such as electronics and robotics introduced by Japanese inventors and entrepreneurs.

Arts

See also: Japanese art

Origami paper cranes (orizuru)

A kamishibaiya (kamishibai artist) in Tokyo, performing Ōgon Bat (1930).

• Costumed superhero —The kamishibai characters Ōgon Bat (1930) and Prince of Gamma (early 1930s) were the earliest costumed superheroes with superpowers.
  • Superhero secret identity — Prince of Gamma (early 1930s) was the earliest superhero with superpowers and a secret identity.
  • Kyodai Hero — This superhero subgenre was established by the Japanese television tokusatsu show Ultraman (1966).
• High-definition television program (HDTV program) — NHK's Images for Hi-Vision (1982) was the first HDTV program, produced for NHK's Hi-Vision analog HDTV.
• Kamishibai — Originates from 8th century Buddhist temples, where monks used emakimono ("picture scrolls"), an early combination of picture and text to convey a story.
  • Mecha — Dai Ningen Tanku from the kamishibai Ōgon Bat (1930) was the first piloted humanoid giant mecha robot.
• Noh — A historical genre of Japanese theatre that originated from sarugaku in the mid-14th century.
  • Kabuki — A genre of Japanese theatre developed by female dancer Okuni in the early 17th century.
• Origami — Folded paper were used for decorations and tools in Shinto ceremonies, where decorations and gifts in folded paper became stylized as ceremonial origami.
  • Paper crane (orizuru) — The kozuka of a Japanese sword made by Gotō Eijō between the 1500s–1600s was decorated with a picture of a crane made of origami.
  • Yoshizawa–Randlett system — The Yoshizawa–Randlett system is a diagramming system used for origami models. It was first developed by Akira Yoshizawa in 1954. It was later improved upon by Samuel Randlett and Robert Harbin.
• Physical challenge game show — Takeshi's Castle (1986) hosted by Takeshi Kitano established a genre of game shows involving physical challenges and painful entertainment. It inspired numerous game shows, both in Japan and internationally.
• Revolving stage — Invented for the Kabuki theatre in Japan in the 18th century, the revolving stage was introduced into Western theater at the Residenz theatre in Munich in 1896 under the influence of japonism fever.

Animation

See also: Anime and History of anime

Katsudō Shashin (1907), an early anime.

• Anime — Japanese animation, or anime, today widely popular both in Japan and abroad, began in the early 20th century.
• Bishōjo — Several characters created by Hayao Miyazaki are considered icons of the bishōjo boom, the earliest being Lana from the TV series Future Boy Conan (1978)
  • Moe — The character of Clarisse from Hayao Miyazaki's The Castle of Cagliostro (1979) has been cited as a potential ancestral example.
• Bullet time — The bullet time visual effect originated as a cel animation effect in the anime series Speed Racer (1967).
• CGI in animated feature film — Golgo 13: The Professional (1983) was the first animated feature film to incorporate scenes with CGI animation.
  • Photorealistic CGI animated feature film — Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (2001), directed by Hironobu Sakaguchi and produced by Square Pictures, was the first computer-animated feature film with photorealistic characters.
  • Motion capture feature film — Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (2001) was the first major feature film produced entirely with motion capture technology.
• Cyberpunk animation — The earliest animated cyberpunk work was the original video animation (OVA) Megazone 23 (1985).
  • Digital rain — Originates from the cyberpunk anime film Ghost in the Shell (1995), a strong influence on The Matrix (1999).
  • Postcyberpunk animation/film — The first postcyberpunk media work in an animated/film format was Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex (2002). It has been called "the most interesting, sustained postcyberpunk media work in existence".
  • Simulated reality — Megazone 23 (1985) tackled the concept of a simulated reality more than a decade before live-action films such as Dark City (1998), The Matrix and Existenz (1999).
• Hadouken — Game designer Takashi Nishiyama credits an energy attack called Hadouho (lit. the "Wave Motion Gun"), from the 1970s anime Space Battleship Yamato, as the origin of Hadouken.
• Multi-season story arc — 1980s Japanese anime series, notably Dragon Ball (1986) and Dragon Ball Z (1989), developed a serialization format where a continuous story arc stretches over numerous episodes or multiple seasons.
• Original net animation (ONA) — Makoto Shinkai was a pioneer of ONA, producing the earliest ONA short films starting with Tōi Sekai (1997).
  • Animated web film — The earliest animated web film was Makoto Shinkai's ONA short film Tōi Sekai (1997).
  • Anime web series — The earliest anime web series was the ONA series Infinite Ryvius: Illusion (2000).
• Real robot — Mobile Suit Gundam (1979) introduced the real robot concept and, along with The Super Dimension Fortress Macross (1982), formed the basis of real robot anime.
• Steampunk animation — The earliest example of steampunk animation was Hayao Miyazaki's anime series Future Boy Conan (1978).
• Superflat — A postmodern art form, founded by the artist Takashi Murakami, which is influenced by manga and anime.
• Sweat drop — The sweat drop had long been part of manga iconography. The first anime to depict a large sweat drop, when a character is in trouble, is believed to be the 1991 anime adaptation of the manga Goldfish Warning!
• Time loop animation — The earliest animated work with the time loop concept was Mamoru Oshii's anime film Urusei Yatsura 2: Beautiful Dreamer (1984).
• Video game film — The first video game film adaptations were the 1986 anime films Super Mario Bros: Peach-hime Kyūshutsu Dai Sakusen and Running Boy: Star Soldier no Himitsu.
• Virtual idol — Originates from Macross franchise (1982). First virtual idol was Lynn Minmay from Macross.
• Virtual influencer — The Japanese talent agency Horipro created the first real-life AI virtual influencer, Kyoko Date, in 1995.

Architecture

See also: Japanese architecture and Construction industry of Japan

Nagoya Castle

• Capsule hotel — The first capsule hotel in the world opened in 1979 and was the Capsule Inn Osaka, located in the Umeda district of Osaka, designed by Kisho Kurokawa.
• Earthquake-resistant structure — Shinbashira-based pagodas and temples are earthquake resistant, dating back to Hōryū-ji (7th century).
• Electronic wallpaper — At the FPD 2008 exhibition, Japanese company Soken demonstrated a wall with electronic wall-paper.
• Japanese castle — Fortresses constructed primarily out of stone and wood used for military defence in strategic locations.
• Japanese pagoda — The Japanese pagoda originates from the Chinese pagoda, but was adapted for Japan's environment. Notably, the addition of a shinbashira pillar to better withstand earthquakes in Japan.
  • Tahōtō — Tahōtō is a form of Japanese pagoda found primarily at Esoteric Shingon and Tendai school Buddhist temples. Unlike most pagodas, it has two stories.
• Love hotel — Originates from Osaka's Hotel Love, opened in 1968.
• Metabolism — A post-war Japanese architectural movement developed by a wide variety of Japanese architects including Kiyonori Kikutake, Kisho Kurokawa and Fumihiko Maki.
• Shinbashira — A central pillar at the core of a Japanese pagoda or temple. The pillar structure is made out of straight trunks of Japanese cypress (hinoki) trees. Hōryū-ji (7th century) is an early example.
• Wooden building — Hōryū-ji, a Buddhist temple built in the 7th century, is widely recognized as the world's oldest wooden building.

Cinema

See also: Cinema of Japan

Seven Samurai (1954), directed by Akira Kurosawa.

• Blockbuster format — Akira Kurosawa's films, such as Seven Samurai (1954), were "the clearest precursor" and "the model for" the Hollywood blockbuster format in the 1970s.
  • Assembling the team — Seven Samurai (1954) originated the "assembling the team" trope, commonly used in action films, sports films and heist films.
  • Cutting on action — Kurosawa's approach to cutting on motion in films such as Seven Samurai has been widely adopted by many Hollywood blockbuster films.
  • Evil empire — Kurosawa's The Hidden Fortress (1958) established the adventure film trope of rebels against an evil empire, notably inspiring Star Wars (1977).
  • Numbered sequel — Kurosawa's Sanshiro Sugata Part II (1945) was the earliest numbered sequel in the history of cinema.
• Buddy cop — Akira Kurosawa's Stray Dog (1949), starring Toshiro Mifune and Takashi Shimura as a police duo, was a precursor to the buddy cop film genre.
  • Police procedural film — Stray Dog was also a precursor to the modern police procedural film genre.
• Fatality — Fatality finishing moves first appeared in The Street Fighter (1974), a Japanese martial arts film starring Sonny Chiba.
• IMAX film — Tiger Child (1970), the first IMAX film production, was produced by Japanese company Asuka Productions. It premiered at Expo '70 in Osaka at the Fuji Group Pavilion.
  • 16K resolution digital film — In early 2014, the Japanese companies Nest+Visual, Sony and Indy Associates produced the first 16K film. It was presented in March 2014 at the Tokyo International Airport in Haneda.
• Jidaigeki — Jidaigeki silent films date back to the early 20th century.
  • Ninja film — Jidaigeki silent films began depicting ninjas in the 1910s.
  • Samurai cinema — Jidaigeki silent films began depicting samurai in the 1910s.
• Kaiju — Yoshirō Edamasa's The Great Buddha Arrival (1934) is one of the earliest examples of a kaiju film in Japanese cinematic history.
  • Giant monster suit — Eiji Tsuburaya, while working on the film Godzilla (1954), formulated the technique of using a human actor in a creature suit to play a giant monster combined with the use of miniatures and scaled-down city sets.
• Live-action video game film — The Japanese film Mirai Ninja (1988) was the first live-action video game film adaptation.
• Low angle — A noted aspect of Yasujirō Ozu's camera technique is his consistent use of an extremely low camera position to shoot his subjects, a practice traced back to his films of the 1931–1932 period.
  • Tatami shot — Yasujirō Ozu invented the tatami shot, in which the camera is placed at a low height, roughly the eye level of a person kneeling on a tatami mat.
• Man with No Name — A stock character that originated with Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo (1961), where the archetype was first portrayed by Toshirō Mifune. The archetype was adapted by Sergio Leone for his Spaghetti Western Dollars Trilogy.
• Mentorship — Akira Kurosawa films such as Sanshiro Sugata (1943), Drunken Angel (1948) and Stray Dog (1949) established the themes of mentorship and mentor-student relationships in cinema.
• Modern action film — Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai (1954) is considered to be the first modern action film.
  • Multi-camera action scene — Pioneered by Kurosawa with films such as Sanshiro Sugata (1943), Rashomon (1950) and Seven Samurai (1954).
  • Opening action scene — Seven Samurai established the common action film trope where the action hero is introduced in an action opening scene unrelated to the film's larger plot.
  • Slow motion action scene — Pioneered by Kurosawa with films such as Sanshiro Sugata, Rashomon and Seven Samurai.
• Time loop feature film — The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (1983), based on the 1969 novel of the same name, was the earliest feature film about a time loop.
• Tokusatsu — Tokusatsu special effects date back to films by Shōzō Makino (from 1914 to 1928).
  • Suitmation — Eiji Tsuburaya, while working on the film Godzilla (1954), formulated the special effects technique of suitmation, the use of a human actor in a costume to play a giant monster combined with the use of miniatures and scaled-down sets.
  • Suit actor — A notable early example was Godzilla suit actor Haruo Nakajima.
• Yakuza film — Akira Kurosawa's Drunken Angel (1948) was the first film to depict post-war yakuza.

Comics

See also: Manga, History of manga, and Manga iconography

Hokusai Manga, published in the early 19th century, was an early manga comic book.

• Comic book — Kibyoshi picture books from the late 18th century were the world's first comic books. These graphical narratives share themes with with modern manga.
• Large eyes — Originates from shōjo magazines in the early 20th century, with the illustrations of Yumeji Takehisa, Jun'ichi Nakahara and Kashō Takabatake.
• Manga — Origins in 12th century scrolls, the basis for the right‑to‑left reading style. During the Edo period (1603–1867), Toba Ehon embedded the concept of manga.
  • Binge-viewing — Shōnen Jump (founded 1968) developed a formula of compiling chapters into standalone tankōbon volumes that could be "binged" all at once.
  • Cyberpunk manga — The genre began with Katsuhiro Otomo's Akira (1982).
  • Lone Wolf and Cub — The genre began with Osamu Tezuka's manga Dororo (1967) and Kazuo Koike's manga Lone Wolf and Cub (1970).
  • Magical girl — Princess Knight (1953) was a prototype for the genre. Himitsu no Akko-chan (1962) was the earliest true magical girl series.
• Mobile comic — Following the launch of NTT's i-mode (1999), Japanese mobile phones began offering downloadable mobile manga comics.
• Steampunk comic — Steampunk manga appeared in the 1940s, starting with Osamu Tezuka's Lost World (1948).
• Super robot — Introduced by Go Nagai's manga series Mazinger Z (1972).
• Video game comic — The earliest comic book based on video games was the manga Game Center Arashi (1978).

Literature

See also: Japanese literature and Japanese science fiction

Kaguya-hime returning to the Moon in The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter (10th century)

• Isekai — The concept has origins in the story of fisherman Urashima Tarō (8th century), who saves a turtle and is brought to a wondrous undersea kingdom.
• J-horror — Origins can be traced back to the horror fiction and ghost stories of the Edo period and Meiji era, which were known as kaidan ("strange story").
• Novel — Ochikubo Monogatari (10th century) has been called the "world's first full-length novel".
  • Historical novel — The Tale of Genji (11th century) is considered to be the first historical novel.
  • I-novel — The first I-novel is believed to be Tōson Shimazaki's The Broken Commandment (1906).
  • Light novel — Origins trace back to the serialization of Record of Lodoss War (1986–1989) in the magazine Comptiq.
  • Battle royale genre — The genre was established by Koushun Takami's novel Battle Royale (1999) and Kinji Fukasaku's 2000 film adaptation.
  • Cell phone novel — The first cell phone novel was Deep Love (2002).
• Science fiction — The early Japanese science fiction subgenre of Mirai-ki ("records of the future") dates back to the 7th century. Famous Mirai‑ki works includes Urashima Tarō (8th century) and The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter (10th century).
  • Time travel — Dates back to the tale of Urashima Tarō from the Mukashibanashi (8th century).
  • Extraterrestrial fiction — The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter (10th century) is considered to be the first story about an extraterrestrial visiting Earth.
  • Flying saucer — The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter (10th century) has an early manuscript illustration of a round flying machine similar to a flying saucer.
  • Time loop — The earliest novel about a time loop was Yasutaka Tsutsui's The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (1965).
• Superhero — Sarutobi Sasuke was a superhero ninja from 1910s children's novels.
• Unreliable narrator — Dates back to Ryūnosuke Akutagawa's novel In a Grove (1922) and Akira Kurosawa's film adaptation Rashomon (1950).

Audio

Audio technology

Sony Discman D121

• Automatic dual-side record player — In 1981, Sharp released the first record player that automatically switches sides of a vinyl record.
• Delta-sigma modulation (ΔΣ) — This digital sampling method was defined and named in 1962 by University of Tokyo researchers H. Inose, Y. Yasuda and J. Murakami.
  • High-resolution delta-sigma — In 1999, Sharp introduced the first 1-bit amplifier utilizing 2.8 MHz high-resolution sampling with 7th order delta-sigma modulation.
• Digital audio optical disc — First demonstrated by Sony in 1976. In 1978, they demonstrated a disc with 150 minutes, 16-bit audio and 44,056 Hz sample rate.
  • Cross-interleaved error correction — In 1978, Sony demonstrated an optical digital audio disc with cross-interleaved error correction code. Compact Disc Digital Audio (CD-DA) — Developed by Sony and Philips in 1980. Sony proposed 16-bit depth and 44.1 kHz sampling based on earlier PCM adaptor.
  • CD player — The world's first CD player was Denon's DN-3000F (1981).
• Digital audio recorder — Heitaro Nakajima, head of NHK's Technical Research Laboratories, in 1967 had commenced work on the digitization of sound and within two years had developed the first digital audio tape recorder.
  • Digital audio mastering — Denon's DN-023R (1972) was the first pulse-code modulation (PCM) digital recorder for audio mastering.
  • Digital multi-track recorder — The Denon DN-023R (1972) was the first digital multi-track recorder, supporting eight audio channels.
  • Digital audio player — Sony's PCM-1, introduced in 1976, was the first commercial product allowing PCM digital audio recording and playback, using Betamax cassette tapes as storage media.
  • PCM adaptor — The first PCM adaptor was Sony's PCM-1, introduced in 1976.
  • Random access digital editing — The Denon DN-036ED (1982) was the first random access PCM digital audio editing system.
  • Digital mixing console — The Denon DN-050MD (1984) was the first digital mixing console for audio mastering.
  • Digital audio tape (DAT) — Introduced by Sony in 1987.
• Electrostatic headphones — The Stax SR-1 were the first electrostatic headphones, developed between 1959 and 1960 by Stax Ltd.
  • 3.5 mm headphone jack — Introduced with Sony's EFM-117J transistor radio in 1964.
• High-resolution audio — In 1972, Denon's DN-023R digital audio recorder introduced a high-resolution 47.25 kHz sample rate.
  • CD quality — The CD quality standard of 16-bit audio and 44.1 kHz sample rate was introduced by Sony's PCM-1600 (1978) PCM adaptor.
  • 48,000 Hz (48 kHz) — The Denon DN-023R's 47.25 kHz sample rate in 1972 came close to 48 kHz, which was later standardized by Sony's Digital Audio Tape (DAT) format in 1987.
  • 24-bit audio — Panasonic's D-5 HD (1994) digital video format supported 24-bit digital audio bit depth and 48 kHz sample rate.
• Home stereo system — In 1962, Pioneer Corporation introduced the world's first home stereo system with detachable speakers.
  • Stereo digital audio — In 1969, NHK developed the first pulse-code modulation (PCM) stereo digital audio recorder.
  • Discrete quadraphonic sound — In September 1970, JVC introduced Compatible Discrete 4 (CD-4), the first discrete quadraphonic sound system for LP records.
  • 8-channel digital audio — Denon's DN-023R (1972) digital audio recorder supported 8-channel digital audio.
  • 22.2 surround sound — In 2005, NHK Science & Technology Research Laboratories (NHK STRL) demonstrated the first prototype 22.2 surround sound system for its Super Hi-Vision UHDTV technology.
• Human voice synthesis — Early speech synthesis systems typically produced a low-quality robotic voice. In 1998, Toshiba introduced the first speech synthesis system that produced a high-quality human voice.
• Integrated amplifier — Sony's TA-1120 (1965) was the first silicon transistor stereo integrated amplifier. Compared to vacuum tube amplifiers at the time, the TA-1120 offered higher output with lower distortion.
• Karaoke — In 1971, the karaoke machine was invented by Japanese musician Daisuke Inoue in Kobe, Japan.
• Linear predictive coding (LPC) — The origins of linear predictive coding (LPC) speech coding dates back to the work of Fumitada Itakura (Nagoya University) and Shuzo Saito (Nippon Telegraph and Telephone) in 1966.
  • Itakura–Saito distance — In 1968, Itakura and Saito presented the Itakura–Saito distance algorithm.
  • Line spectral pairs (LSP) — Developed by Fumitada Itakura in 1975.
• MPEG-1 Audio Layer II (MP2) — The MUSICAM (MP2) audio coding format was co-developed by Matsushita (Panasonic) in 1989.
  • Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) — The AAC patent holders include Japanese companies JVC Kenwood, NEC, NTT, Panasonic and Sony.
• Paper audio record — In 1950, Yoshiro Nakamatsu invented the Jūshoku record, an optical sound media which uses a printed paper sheet instead of transparent film. He claimed it was an early floppy disk, which is disputed by IBM.
• Portable audio player — Denon's R-26-F (1951) was the first portable audio tape recorder.
  • Pocket radio — Sony's TR-63 (1957) was the first transistor radio that could fit in a pocket.
  • Personal stereo — The Sony Walkman was released in 1979, created by Akio Morita, Masaru Ibuka and Kozo Ohsone. In everyday language, walkman became a generic term, referring to any personal stereo, regardless of producer or brand.
  • Portable CD player — Sony's Discman, released in 1984, was the first portable CD player.
• Sound chip — The earliest was Sony's PCM-1, a pulse-code modulation (PCM) processor introduced in 1976.
  • Differential PCM sound chip — The earliest was Oki Electric Industry's MSM5205, an adaptive differential PCM (ADPCM) speech synthesis chip released in 1979.
  • FM synthesis sound chip — Yamaha Corporation's GS1 (1980) synthesizer featured the earliest frequency modulation synthesis (FM synthesis) chipset.
  • Sample-based synthesis sound chip — The earliest is the Roland LA32 (1987) chip, producing LA synthesis (a form of sample-based synthesis) in the Roland D-50 synthesizer and Roland MT-32 sound module.
• Speech recognition — In 1966, Fumitada Itakura and Shuzo Saito developed an early practical speech recognition algorithm using LPC.

Instruments

Roland TR-808 Rhythm Composer (1980), the first fully programmable drum machine and one of the most influential inventions in popular music.

• Analog modeling synthesizer — The Roland D-50 from 1987 was the first virtual analog synthesizer.
  • Linear arithmetic synthesis (LA synthesis) — A sample-based synthesis method invented by Roland Corporation for the Roland D-50 synthesizer (1987).
  • Sample-based synthesis with digital effects — The Roland D-50 (1987) was the first sample-based synthesizer with built-in digital effects such as delay, reverb and chorus.
  • Supersaw — A waveform created by Roland for the Roland JP-8000 (1996) analog modeling synthesizer. It is commonly used in trance music.
• Bass synthesizer–sequencer — The Japanese instruments Firstman SQ-01 (1980) and Roland TB-303 (1981) were the first bass synthesizers with integrated sequencers.
  • Acid bass — Acid house music is characterized by the distinctive squelching basslines of the Roland TB-303 (1981) bass synthesizer.
• Chorus pedal — The Boss CE-1 Chorus Ensemble, released by Boss Corporation in 1976, was the first chorus pedal.
  • Overdrive pedal — The Boss OD-1 Overdrive (1977) was the first overdrive pedal.
  • Digital delay pedal — The Boss DD-2 (1983) was the first digital delay pedal.
  • Digital reverb pedal — The Boss RV-2 (1989) was the first digital reverb pedal.
• CV/gate — Introduced with the Roland MC-8 Microcomposer sequencer in 1977.
  • Digital Control Bus (DCB) — A proprietary data interchange interface by Roland Corporation, developed in 1981.
• Digital audio workstation with MIDI timecode (MTC) — Korg's Soundlink (1990) was the first digital audio workstation (DAW) with MTC synchronisation.
  • Digital audio workstation with touchscreen — The Korg OASYS and Korg Trinity (1995) were the first DAWs with a touch-sensitive screen.
  • Digital audio workstation with color LCD — Roland Corporation's Fantom-X Synthesizer (2004) was the first DAW with a color LCD display.
• Digital piano — Yamaha Corporation's GS1 (1980) FM synthesizer was the earliest digital piano.
  • Digital piano sound module — The Roland MKS-20 (1986) was an early digital piano MIDI module, using Roland's structured adaptive synthesis (SAS) for more realistic piano sounds.
• Digital synthesizer — Yamaha built the first prototype frequency modulation synthesis (FM synthesis) digital synthesizer in 1974.
  • Phase distortion synthesis (PD) — Invented by Casio for its Casio CZ-101 digital synthesizer in 1984.
  • Digital accordion — Roland Corporation's FR-7 (2004) was the first digital accordion.
• Direct-drive turntable — Invented by Shuichi Obata, an engineer at Matsushita (now Panasonic), based in Osaka. In 1969, Matsushita released it as the SP-10, the first in their influential Technics series of turntables. The Technics SL-1100, released in 1971, was adopted by early hip hop DJs for turntablism, and the SL-1200 is still widely used by dance and hip hop DJs.
• Electronic drum — In 1964, Ikutaro Kakehashi developed the first fully transistorized electronic drum instrument, the R1 Rhythm Ace, which was exhibited in 1964. It was manually hand-operated like modern electronic drum pads.
  • Electronic cajón — Roland's ELCajon EC-10 Electronic Percussion (2016) was the first hybrid cajón with built-in electronic sounds.
• Guitar synthesizer — The Roland GR-500 (1977), manufactured by Roland Corporation and FujiGen, was the first guitar synthesizer.
  • Keytar — The earliest commercial keytar was Hillwood's RockeyBoard RB-1 (synth piano with VCF) released in 1977.
  • MIDI guitar — The Roland GR-700 (1984) was the first guitar synthesizer to support MIDI and memory functions.
• Handheld electronic tuner — Korg's WT10 (1975) was the first battery-powered handheld electronic tuner.
  • Chromatic tuner — Boss Corporation's TU-12 (1983) was the first automatic chromatic tuner.
  • Compact pedal tuner — The Boss TU-2 (1998) was the first combat pedal tuner.
• Microprocessor music sequencer — In 1977, the Roland MC-8 Microcomposer was an early stand-alone, microprocessor‑based, digital CV/gate sequencer.
  • Polyphonic digital sequencer — In 1977, the Roland MC-8 Microcomposer was an early polyphonic digital sequencer.
  • MIDI music sequencer — In 1983, the first MIDI music sequencer was the Roland MSQ-700.
• Microprocessor programmable drum machine — In 1978, the Roland CR-78 and CR-68 were the first microprocessor‑based programmable rhythm machines.
  • Fully programmable drum machine — The Roland TR-808, also known as the 808, introduced by Roland in 1980, was the first fully programmable drum machine. It was the first drum machine with the ability to program an entire percussion track from beginning to end, complete with breaks and rolls. Created by Ikutaro Kakehashi, the 808 has been fundamental to hip hop music and electronic dance music since the 1980s, making it one of the most influential inventions in popular music.
  • Groovebox — The Roland MC-202, released in 1983, has been described as the original groovebox.
  • MIDI drum machine — In 1983, the first MIDI drum machine was the Roland TR-909.
• MIDI — In June 1981, Ikutaro Kakehashi of Roland Corporation proposed a standardized means of synchronizing electronic music instruments in 1981. Roland and other Japanese companies co-developed the MIDI standard between 1982 and 1983.
  • MIDI synthesizer — In 1983, the first MIDI synthesizers were the Roland Jupiter-6 and Prophet 600.
  • MIDI sound card — Roland Corporation's MPU-401, released in 1984, was the first MIDI-equipped sound card, capable of MIDI sound processing and sequencing.
  • General MIDI — Standardized in 1991 by the Japan MIDI Standards Committee (JMSC) and MIDI Manufacturers Association (MMA).
• Music computer — The Yamaha CX5M, based on the MSX standard and introduced in 1983, was the first dedicated music home computer.
  • USB audio interface — Roland's UA-100 USB Audio Interface (1998) was the first USB audio interface, allowing recording and playback of high-fidelity digital audio with a personal computer.
• Music Macro Language (MML) — The first commands for classical MML appeared on the Sharp MZ-80K (1978) computer.
• PCM digital sampler — Toshiba's LMD-649 (1981) was an early digital sampler that played and recorded PCM samples.
  • Multi-timbral polyphony — Akai's S900 (1986) digital sampler was the first multi-timbral MIDI instrument with dynamically‑assigned polyphonic parts.
• Phaser effects pedal — In 1968, Shin-ei's Uni-Vibe effects pedal, designed by audio engineer Fumio Mieda, incorporated phase shift and chorus effects, soon becoming favorite effects of guitarists such as Jimi Hendrix and Robin Trower.
• Physical modelling synthesis — The first commercially available physical modelling synthesizer was Yamaha Corporation's VL‑1 in 1994.
• Polyphonic synthesizer with digital keyboard scanning — In the early 1970s, Yamaha developed polyphonic synthesizers with voice allocation technology and digital keyboard scanning. The Yamaha GX-1 (1973) used voice allocation technology.
  • Polyphonic string synthesizer — The earliest polyphonic string synthesizer was Roland Corporation's RS-101 (1975).
• Singing voice synthesis software — Between 1999 and 2003, Yamaha developed Vocaloid, a then novel software that synthesized a singing human voice.
• Sound module — Roland Corporation's SPV355 Pitch‑to‑Voltage Synthesizer (1979) was the earliest rack-mounted sound module.
  • MIDI sound module — The Yamaha SFG-01 (1983) sound module for the MSX introduced FM synthesis and MIDI sequencing to computers.
  • Multi-timbral sound module — The Roland MT-32 (1987) was the first MIDI sound module using LA synthesis, a form of multi-timbral sample-based synthesis. It was commonly used in computer music, especially game music.
  • General MIDI sound module — The Roland SC-55 (1991), the first in the Roland Sound Canvas series, was the first sound module based on the General MIDI standard.
  • USB MIDI sound module — The Roland SC-8850 (1999) was the first USB-enabled MIDI sound module.
• Touch-sensitive electronic keyboard — Roland Corporation's EP-30 (1974) electronic piano featured the first touch-sensitive keyboard.
• Vowel–consonant synthesis — A type of hybrid digital-analog synthesis first employed by the early Casiotone keyboards in the early 1980s.

Music

See also: Music of Japan

Yellow Magic Orchestra (YMO) in 1981: Haruomi Hosono (left), Ryuichi Sakamoto (center) and Yukihiro Takahashi (right).

• Ambient music — Pioneered by Japanese electronic music composer Isao Tomita during the late 1960s to early 1970s.
  • Space music — Pioneered by Isao Tomita in the early 1970s.
  • Chillwave — According to Mojo magazine, Haruomi Hosono's album Paraiso (1978) was "prescient of late-noughties chillwave."
  • Deep Note — YMO's "Loom" from BGM (1981) has "a patiently ascending, two-minute-long Shepard’s tone" anticipating the Deep Note.
  • Glitch music — Originated as a distinct movement in Japan and Germany during the 1990s, including the musical works of Ryoji Ikeda in Japan.
• Commercial digital recording — Commercial digital recording was pioneered in Japan by NHK and Nippon Columbia, also known as Denon, in the 1960s. The first commercial digital recordings were released in 1971.
  • Digital classical music — The first digitally recorded classical music album was recorded in Tokyo in April 1972 and released by Nippon Columbia.
  • Digital sample loops — Yellow Magic Orchestra's Technodelic (1981) was the first music album with digital sample loops.
  • FM synthesis music album — The earliest commercial music album produced using FM synthesis was Mari Iijima's city pop album Rosé (1983), produced by Ryuichi Sakamoto using the Yamaha DX7 synthesizer.
• Electro — Pioneered by electronic band Yellow Magic Orchestra (Haruomi Hosono, Ryuichi Sakamoto and Yukihiro Takahashi), also known as YMO, starting with "Computer Game / Firecracker" (1978).
  • Boom bap — YMO's "Music Plans" from the album BGM (1981) is where "the beginnings of that funky, electronic boom-bap vibe of hip‑hop beats start to emerge" according to UnderMain Magazine.
  • Electronic hip-hop — YMO's "Music Plans" and "Rap Phenomena" from BGM (1981) were the earliest synthesized electronic rap songs with drum machine beats.
  • Grime music — The origins of grime music has been traced back to the work of Ryuichi Sakamoto, dating back to the tracks "Grasshopper" and "End of Asia" from his solo debut album Thousand Knives (1978).
  • Jungle music — According to Fact magazine, Ryuichi Sakamoto's "Differencia" from the album B-2 Unit (1980) has "relentless tumbling beats and a stabbing bass synth that foreshadows jungle by nearly a decade".
• Electro-pop — Pioneered by Yellow Magic Orchestra (YMO) in the late 1970s, before it became popular in 1980s music.
  • Synth-pop — Pioneered by YMO in the late 1970s, before it became popular in the 1980s.
  • Gated reverb — YMO's "Behind the Mask" (1979) was the first song to use gated reverb on the snare drums, a technique that later became popular in 1980s pop music.
  • Techno — Pioneered by YMO during the late 1970s to early 1980s. They coined the "techno" genre label, with releases such as "Technopolis" (1979), Technodelic (1981) and "The Spirit of Techno" (1983).
  • Electronica — According to Pitchfork, Ryuichi Sakamoto's "E-3A" from the album B-2 Unit (1980) was looking "ahead to Mouse on Mars’ idyllic ’90s electronica."
  • Synthwave — YMO's "Mass" from the album BGM (1981) anticipated the "ominous drama" of synthwave according to Noah Yoo of Pitchfork.
• Electronic dance music (EDM) — Japanese composer Ryuichi Sakamoto's "Riot in Lagos" from the album B-2 Unit (1980) laid the groundwork for modern dance music.
  • Broken beat — Foreshadowed by Ryuichi Sakamoto's B-2 Unit (1980).
  • Electronic body music (EBM) — Ryuichi Sakamoto's "Riot in Lagos" from B-2 Unit (1980) was "a new body music" that "foretold the future" of music according to Mary Anne Hobbs of BBC Radio 6 Music.
  • Intelligent dance music (IDM) — Foreshadowed by Ryuichi Sakamoto's B-2 Unit (1980).
  • Industrial techno — Ryuichi Sakamoto's B-2 Unit (1980) anticipated the sounds of industrial techno.
  • Ambient techno — YMO's "Happy End" from the album BGM (1981) was "a progenitor of" ambient techno according to Noah Yoo of Pitchfork.
• Funky house — Yellow Magic Orchestra's "Tighten Up" from the album X∞Multiplies (1980) featured "grooves now‑recognizable as funky house" according to Tastemakers Music Magazine.
  • Ambient house — Pioneered by Yellow Magic Orchestra in the early 1980s.
  • Deep house — "Heartbeat" (1981) by Colored Music (Ichiko Hasimoto and Atsuo Fujimoto) "sounds remarkably like classic deep house" according to Aaron Coultate of Resident Advisor in 2016.
• Japanese mode — A pentatonic musical scale commonly used in traditional Japanese music.
  • Royal road progression — The earliest example of the contemporary royal road chord progression occurs in Yumi Arai's "Yasashisa ni Tsutsumareta Nara" (1974), closely followed by Arai's "Sotsugyou Shashin" (1975) released by Hi-Fi Set.
• J-pop — Modern J-pop has its roots in traditional music of Japan, and significantly in 1960s pop and rock music.
  • City pop — The genre's origin has been attributed to the Japanese band Happy End (Haruomi Hosono, Takashi Matsumoto, Eiichi Ohtaki and Shigeru Suzuki), active from 1969 to 1972.
  • Shibuya-kei — A music genre that flourished in Japan during the 1990s.
• Noise rock — The genre was pioneered by Japanoise band Les Rallizes Dénudés, founded in 1967.
  • Visual kei — Visual kei emerged in the 1980s Japanese underground music scene.
  • Kawaii metal — In the early 2010s, Japanese idol heavy metal music group Babymetal pioneered the kawaii metal genre.
• Quadraphonic LP record — In June 1971, JVC released Wonderful CD-4 Sound in Japan. It was the first quadraphonic LP record produced using the Compatible Discrete 4 (CD-4) quadraphonic sound system.

Combat

Martial arts

See also: Japanese martial arts, Mixed martial arts in Japan, and Professional wrestling in Japan

All-Japan Judo Championships, 2007 men's final

• Bushido
  • Kendo
• Jujutsu — Japanese martial art styles including unarmed and armed techniques. Evolved among the samurai of feudal Japan for defeating an armed and armored opponent without weapons.
  • Judo — It was created as a physical, mental and moral pedagogy in Japan, in 1882, by Kanō Jigorō.
  • Aikido — Aikido was created and developed by Morihei Ueshiba in first half of the 20th century.
  • Kimura lock — Known as gyaku ude-garami in judo, it was popularized by Masahiko Kimura in 1951. It is commonly used in judo, Brazilian jiu-jitsu and mixed martial arts.
• Kenpō
  • Okinawan martial arts — In the 14th century, Chinese Chuan Fa was taught to Okinawans, who combined Chuan Fa with the existing martial art of Te to form Tō-de (Okinawa-te).
  • Karate — Began as a common fighting system known as "ti" (or "te") among the pechin class of the Ryukyuans. The Motobu‑ryū school was notably passed down by Seikichi Uehara.
• Mixed martial arts (MMA) — Mixed martial arts in Japan dates back to ancient times.
• Ninjutsu — Developed by groups of people mainly from the Iga Province and Kōka, Shiga of Japan. Throughout history, many different schools (ryū) have taught their unique versions of ninjutsu. An example of these is the Togakure-ryū.
• Puroresu
  • Soccer kick — A high-profile early user of soccer kicks as a finishing move was Antonio Inoki. In a 1977 puroresu match, Inoki used soccer kicks to legitimately knock out Great Antonio.
  • Strong style
• Shoot wrestling — Originates from 1970s Japanese puroresu.
  • Shoot boxing — Shoot boxing was created in August 1985 by former kickboxer Caesar Takeshi.
  • Shootfighting
• Sumo — According to the Nihon shoki, published in 720, the origin of sumo is the contest of strength between Nomi no Sukune and Taima no Kehaya in 26 BC.

Military

See also: Samurai, Imperial Japanese Armed Forces, and Japan Self-Defense Forces

The Wakamiya conducted the world's first naval-launched air raids in 1914.

• Air raid — Early in World War I (1914), the Imperial Japanese Navy ship Wakamiya conducted the world's first carrier-launched air raid.
• Amphibious assault ship — Imperial Japanese Army Akitsu maru is regarded as the first of the kind.
• Dock landing ship — Imperial Japanese Army Shinshu maru is regarded as the first of the kind.
• Fire balloon — A fire balloon, or balloon bomb, was an experimental weapon launched by Japan from 1944 to 1945, during World War II.
• Diesel-powered tank — The world's first diesel-powered tank, this distinction goes to Japanese Type 89B I-Go Otsu, produced with a diesel engine from 1934 onwards.

Katana

• Katana — Traditional Japanese swords used by samurai warriors of ancient and feudal Japan. The swords originated in the Muromachi period (1392–1573).
• Shuriken — The shuriken was invented during the Gosannen War as a concealed weapon, primarily for the purpose of distracting a target.

Replica guns

Airsoft players defending an objective.

• Airsoft — Airsoft originated in Japan, then spread to Hong Kong and China in the late 1970s.
  • Airsoft gun — The inventor of the first airsoft gun was Tanio Kobayashi in the 1970s.
• Modelguns — Japan's Model Gun Collection, founded in 1959, was the first manufacturer of modelguns, which they debuted in 1962.

Computing

See also: Supercomputing in Japan

• Parametron — Eiichi Goto invented the parametron in 1954 as an alternative to the vacuum tube. Early Japanese computers used parametrons until they were superseded by transistors.
  • Quantum flux parametron — Eiichi Goto invented the quantum flux parametron in 1986 using superconducting Josephson junctions on integrated circuits as an improvement over existing parametron technology.
• Programmable interrupt controller (PIC) — The first PIC was the Intel 8259 (1976) designed by Masatoshi Shima.
  • Programmable interval timer (PIT) — Dates back to the Intel 8253 (1975) designed by Masatoshi Shima.
  • Universal synchronous and asynchronous receiver-transmitter (USART) — Dates back to the Intel 8251 (1976) designed by Masatoshi Shima.
• Switching circuit theory — From 1934 to 1936, NEC engineer Akira Nakashima introduced switching circuit theory in a series of papers showing that two-valued Boolean algebra can describe the operation of switching circuits.
• Text-to-speech (TTS) — Noriko Umeda et al. developed the first general English text-to-speech system in 1968, at the Electrotechnical Laboratory in Japan.
• Universal Serial Bus (USB) — The USB standard was co-developed by NEC in 1996.

Artificial intelligence

• Artificial intelligence marketing (AIM) — Toyota's "Driven by Intuition" advert for the 2018 Lexus ES car was the first advert written entirely by artificial intelligence (AI).
• Convolutional neural network (CNN) — A feedforward neural network, a type of deep learning artificial neural network (ANN), first proposed by Kunihiko Fukushima as neocognitron in 1979.
  • Neocognitron — A hierarchical multi-layered CNN first proposed by Kunihiko Fukushima in 1979.
• Deep learning artificial neural network (ANN) with stochastic gradient descent (SGD) — In 1967, Shun'ichi Amari proposed the first deep learning ANN using the SGD algorithm.
  • Recurrent neural network (RNN) — In 1972, Shun'ichi Amari and Kaoru Nakano published the first papers on deep learning RNN networks.
  • Amari–Hopfield network — The Amari network, the earliest deep learning RNN, was first published by Shun'ichi Amari in 1972. It was rediscovered by John Hopfield in 1982 as the Hopfield network.
• Facial recognition system — In 1970, Takeo Kanade publicly demonstrated a face‑matching system.
  • Face detection with artificial neural network (ANN) — In 1996, Takeo Kanade, Henry Rowley and Shumeet Baluja developed a face detector using ANN network.
• Fifth Generation Computer Systems (FGCS) — Japan's Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) initiated the FGCS project in 1982. The FGCS project extensively researched AI and natural language processing (NLP).
  • AI personal computer — The Sega AI Computer (1986) was the earliest home computer specialized for AI and NLP.
• Lucas–Kanade method — In computer vision, the Lucas–Kanade method is a widely used differential method for optical flow estimation developed by Takeo Kanade and Bruce D. Lucas in 1981.
  • Kanade–Lucas–Tomasi feature tracker (KLT) — The KLT feature tracker is an approach to feature extraction. It was developed by Takeo Kanade and Carlo Tomasi in 1991.
  • KLT corner detection — Developed by Kanade and Tomasi in 1991.
  • Tomasi–Kanade factorization — Developed by Kanade and Tomasi in the early 1990s.
• Rectified linear unit (ReLU) — In 1969, Kunihiko Fukushima introduced ReLU in the context of visual feature extraction in hierarchical ANN networks.

Calculators

Casio electronic pocket calculator with a seven-segment liquid-crystal display (LCD) that can perform arithmetic operations

• All-electric compact calculator — In 1957, Casio's Model 14-A was the first all-electric compact calculator, based on relay technology.
  • All-transistor desktop calculator — Sharp Corporation's CS-10A (1964) was the first all-transistor-diode electronic desktop calculator.
  • Calculator with memory — The Casio 001 (1965) was the first electronic calculator with a memory function.
• Integrated circuit calculator — Between 1964 and 1966, Sharp Corporation developed the CS-31A, the first electronic calculator incorporating integrated circuit (IC) chips.
  • MOS calculator — In 1966, NEC developed the first metal–oxide–semiconductor (MOS) calculator IC chip for Hayakawa Electric (Sharp).
  • LSI calculator — The Sharp QT-8D Micro Compet (1969) was the first calculator to use MOS large-scale integration (LSI) chips.
  • Microprocessor calculator — Busicom's 141-PF (1971) calculator was the first commercial product to use a microprocessor.
• Pocket calculator — The first pocket calculators were the Sanyo ICC-0081 Mini Calculator (1970), Canon Pocketronic (1970), Sharp QT-8B Micro Compet (1970), Sharp EL-8 (late 1970), and Busicom LE-120A HANDY (early 1971).
  • Battery-powered calculator — The Sharp EL-8 (1970) was the first battery-operated portable calculator.
  • LED calculator — Busicom's LE-120A (Handy-LE) and LE-120S (Handy), released in 1971, were the first calculators to use LED displays.
  • LCD calculator — The Busicom Handy-LC (1971) was the first calculator with a liquid-crystal display (LCD).
  • Credit card size calculator — Casio 's Mini Card LC-78 (1978) was the first credit-card sized calculator.
  • Graphing calculator — Casio released the first commercial graphing calculator, the Casio fx-7000G, in 1985. Sharp released its first graphing calculator in 1986.
  • Mathematical display — Casio's fx-82ES (2004) introduced a natural mathematical display as the calculator input method.
• Soroban — The soroban is an abacus developed in Japan. It is derived from the ancient Chinese suanpan, imported to Japan in the 14th century.
  • Soroban with electronic calculator — In the 1970s, Suntory released a device combining a soroban abacus with an electronic calculator.
• Solar-powered calculator — Sharp Corporation's EL-8026 Sunman (1976) was the first solar-powered electronic calculator, utilizing solar cell technology.
• Touch key calculator — In 1975, Sharp released the lsimate EL-8130 Arithmetic Calculator, the first touch key calculator. Instead of a push-button keypad, it had a flat touch key interface using membrane keypad (like a touchpad or touchscreen).

Computers

Epson HX-20, introduced in 1981, was the first laptop.

• E-reader with electronic paper — The Sony Librie, released in 2004 and the precursor to the Sony Reader, was the first e‑reader to use electronic paper.
• Fifth generation computer — Japan's Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) initiated the Fifth Generation Computer Systems (FGCS) project in 1982.
  • Massively parallel microcomputers — LINKS-1 (1982) was an early massively parallel computing system with up to 256 microcomputer network nodes.
• Handheld computer — Sharp Corporation's PC-1211 (1980) was the first handheld computer.
  • Pocket computer — The Sharp PC-1211 (1980) was the first pocket computer.
• Integrated circuit minicomputer — NEC's NEAC-1240 (1967) was the first minicomputer to use integrated circuit (IC) chips.
• Measurement-based quantum computer (MBQC) — In 2008, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (NTT) presented the first demonstration of quantum computing based on quantum gate teleportation.
• Microcomputer — The Sord SMP80/08, developed from 1972 to early 1973, was an early microcomputer, using the Intel 8008 microprocessor. In early 1974, the Sord SMP80/x was the first microcomputer to use the Intel 8080 microprocessor.
  • 16-bit microcomputer — In 1976, the Panafacom L-16A was released. It was an early 16-bit microcomputer, based on the 16-bit Panafacom MN1610 (1975) microprocessor.
  • Home computer with disk drive — In 1977, Sord's M200 Smart Home Computer was an early integrated home desktop computer with a Zilog Z80 CPU, computer keyboard, CRT monitor, floppy disk drive and MF-DOS operating system.
• Notebook computer — Yukio Yokozawa, an employee for Suwa Seikosha, a branch of Seiko (now Seiko Epson), invented the first notebook computer in July 1980, receiving a patent for the invention.
  • Laptop — The Epson HX-20 (1981) was the first laptop computer.
  • Clamshell design — In 1983, the Sharp PC-5000 and Ampere WS-1 laptops from Japan featured a modern clamshell design.
  • Laptop with fingerprint scanner — Laptops with built-in fingerprint readers emerged with devices such as NEC's MC/R730F in the late 1990s.
• OLED personal digital assistant (PDA) — The Sony CLIÉ PEG-VZ90 (2004) was the first PDA to feature an OLED display.
• Personal computer with hard disk drive — The Sord M223 Mark VI came with a built-in hard disk drive in 1979.
  • Personal computer with optical disk drive — Fujitsu's FM Towns, released in February 1989, was the first personal computer sold with a built-in CD-ROM drive.
• Standardized computer architecture — The first attempt at a standardized computer architecture was the MSX, introduced by ASCII Corporation and Microsoft Japan in 1983.
  • Personal computer with laserdisc player — The Pioneer Palcom, a 1984 MSX computer by Pioneer Corporation, was the first personal computer sold with an optional laserdisc player.
• Stored-program transistor computer — The ETL Mark III began development in 1954, and was completed in 1956, created by the Electrotechnical Laboratory. It was the first stored-program transistor computer.

Memory and storage

See also: Semiconductor industry in Japan

Toshiba SD card, a type of flash memory card.

• 3.5 inch floppy disk — Pioneered by Sony in 1981.
  • Quick Disk — A 3-inch (75 mm) floppy disk format by Mitsumi, originally released for the MSX computer in 1984.
• Compact disc (CD) — The CD format was jointly developed by Sony (Toshitada Doi) and Philips (Joop Sinjou).
  • CD-ROM — Sony and Philips created the technical standard that defines the format of a CD-ROM in 1983.
  • LD-ROM — In 1984, Sony introduced a laserdisc format designed to store digital data, with a capacity of 3.28 GB.
  • GD-ROM — A proprietary optical disc format developed as a collaboration between Sega and Yamaha Corporation for the Dreamcast (1998) game console and Sega NAOMI arcade system.
• Digital versatile disc (DVD) — The DVD, first developed in 1995, resulted from a cooperation between three Japanese companies (Sony, Toshiba and Panasonic) and one Dutch company (Philips).
  • DVD recordable (DVD-R) — The DVD-R format was developed by Pioneer in 1997.
  • Blu-ray Disc (BD) — After Shuji Nakamura's invention of practical blue laser diodes, Sony proposed the BD format in 2002.
  • Ultra Density Optical (UDO) — Proposed by Sony in 2002.
  • HD DVD — Introduced by Toshiba in 2006.
• Dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) — In 1965, Toshiba introduced bipolar dynamic RAM (DRAM) for electronic calculator Toscal BC-1411.
  • Stacked capacitor — Introduced by Fujitsu in 1984.
  • Synchronous graphics RAM (SGRAM) — Introduced with the Hitachi HM5283206, an 8 Mbit SGRAM chip that debuted in November 1994.
• EEPROM — ETL began research in 1971, fabricating an electrically re-programmable non-volatile memory in 1972.
• Flash memory — Flash memory was invented by Dr. Fujio Masuoka while working for Toshiba. In 1980, he filed a patent for NOR flash memory.
  • NAND flash — Invented by Fujio Masuoka, while working at Toshiba, in 1986.
  • Charge trap flash (CTF) — In 1991, NEC researchers including N. Kodama, K. Oyama and Hiroki Shirai developed a type of flash memory that incorporated a charge trap method.
  • Vertical NAND (V-NAND) — V-NAND, also known as 3D NAND, stacks NAND flash memory cells vertically within a chip using 3D CTP technology. V-NAND technology was introduced by Toshiba in 2007.
• Heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) — In 1992, Sony introduced the MiniDisc. Recordable MiniDiscs used HAMR, but the discs were read optically via the Kerr effect.
• Megabyte memory chip — The first megabyte (MB) memory chip was a DRAM chip demonstrated by Hitachi in January 1984.
  • Gigabit memory chip — The first gigabit (Gbit) memory chips were DRAM (CMOS) chips demonstrated by Hitachi (160 nm process) and NEC (250 nm process) in 1995.
  • Terabit memory chip — The first terabit (Tbit) memory chip was a V-NAND flash memory chip demonstrated by Toshiba in 2010, manufactured using a 32 nm process.
• Memory card — In 1985, the earliest memory card formats were the Bee Card and Astron SoftCard for the MSX, and the Sega Card for the SG-1000 and Master System.
  • Flash memory card — The Fujix Image Memory Card (1988) by Fujifilm and Toshiba was the earliest flash memory card, compatible with digital cameras from Fuji and Toshiba.
  • SD card — The Secure Digital (SD) memory card format was jointly developed in 1999 by Panasonic (then known as Matsushita), Kioxia (then part of Toshiba) and SanDisk.
• Minidisc — In 1992, Sony introduced the MiniDisc (MD), a music recording and playback format intended to replace audio cassettes.
• NILFS — A log-structured file system for Linux developed by Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (NTT) in 2005.
• Optical disc drive — The first erasable optical disc drive was announced in 1983 by Matsushita.
• Quad-level cell (QLC) — NEC demonstrated QLC in 1996, with flash memory storing 2 bits per cell. In 1997, NEC demonstrated DRAM with QLC cells.
  • Triple-level cell (TLC) — Toshiba introduced NAND flash memory chips with triple-level cells (TLC) in 2009.
• Perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR) — In 1976, Shun-ichi Iwasaki verified advantages in PMR. In 1978, T. Fujiwara began developing floppy disk media optimized for PMR and the first commercial magnetic storage devices using the technique.
  • GMR head — In 1997, Toshiba released the first practical hard disk drive (HDD) equipped with a giant magnetoresistance (GMR) disk read-and-write head.
  • Flux control MAMR (FC-MAMR) — In 2021, Toshiba released the first flux control microwave-assisted magnetic recording (FC-MAMR) hard disk drive.
• Spin-transfer torque (STT) — In 1997, Sony Research Center published the first patent for STT RAM.
• Three-dimensional memory chip — In 1969, a 3D IC memory chip was proposed by NEC.

Microprocessors

• Microprocessor — The concept was proposed in 1968 by Tadashi Sasaki and a Nara Women's College researcher. Masatoshi Shima of Busicom co-developed the first single-chip microprocessor, Intel 4004, between 1968 and 1971.
  • 12-bit microprocessor — The Toshiba TLCS-12 (1973) was the first 12-bit microprocessor.
  • 16-bit microprocessor — the NEC μCOM-16 (1974) was the earliest two-chip 16-bit microprocessor.
  • 16-bit microprocessor chip — The Panafacom MN1610 (1975) was the first single-chip 16-bit microprocessor.
  • Microcontroller unit (MCU) — In the early 1970s, Japanese manufacturers produced MCUs for automobiles, including 4-bit MCUs for in-car entertainment, automatic wipers, electronic locks, and dashboard, and 8-bit MCUs for engine control.
  • DMA controller — Dates back to the Intel 8257 (1976) designed by Masatoshi Shima.
  • Digital signal processor (DSP) — The NEC μPD7720, released in 1980, was the first commercial DSP chip.
  • Compressed instruction set — Originally developed by Hitachi for their SuperH (1992) central processing unit (CPU) microprocessor.
  • 128-bit microprocessor — The Hitachi SH-4 (1997) featured the earliest 128-bit floating-point unit (FPU).
  • Glass CPU — Shunpei Yamazaki invented an integrated circuit chip made entirely from glass and with an 8-bit central processing unit.
• NMOS microprocessor — NEC's μCOM-4 (1973) was the earliest NMOS microprocessor, fabricated by the NEC LSI team consisting of five researchers led by Sohichi Suzuki.
• Plastic CPU — Shunpei Yamazaki invented a central processing unit (CPU) chip made entirely from plastic.

Culture

See also: Culture of Japan and Japanese popular culture

Kawaii items, from left to right, top to bottom: shelf of decorated tea kettles; food served at a maid café; Hello Kitty on a sign in Ikebukuro, Tokyo; mobile phone charm attached to a pink Palm

• Dab — Known as "henshin" or "sentai move" in Japan, it originates from the tokusatsu shows Kamen Rider (1971) and Super Sentai (1975).
• Folding hand fan — The folding fan was invented in Japan, with dates ranging from the 6th to 9th centuries.
• Kawaii — Roots date back to The Pillow Book (1002).
• Netsuke — A miniature sculpture, originating in 17th-century Japan.
• Selfie — Modern selfie originates from 1990s Japanese kawaii culture. Digital selfie originates from Japanese purikura in 1995.
• Soramimi — Derived from long-running "Soramimi Hour" segment (debuted 1992) on Japanese comedian Tamori's TV program Tamori Club.

Finance

See also: Japanese financial system and Economy of Japan

Scheme of a single candlestick chart.

• Candlestick chart — Candlestick charts have been developed in the 18th century by Munehisa Homma, a Japanese rice trader of financial instruments.
• Futures contract — The first futures exchange market was the Dōjima Rice Exchange in Japan in the 1730s.

• Mobile payment — Mobile payments began adoption in Japan during the early 2000s.
  • Mobile wallet — In 2004, NTT DoCoMo and Sony introduced the first mobile wallets, for 3G mobile phones in Japan.
• Smart card — Kunitaka Arimura of the Arimura Technology Institute in Japan independently developed the idea of an integrated circuit card, and filed a smart card patent in March 1970.

Food and drink

See also: Japanese cuisine

Instant noodles before boiling

• Canned coffee — Canned coffee was invented in 1965 by Miura Yoshitake, a coffee shop owner in Hamada, Shimane Prefecture, Japan.
• Cooking comic — Genre emerged in 1970, with Totsugeki Ramen, Cake Cake Cake and Kitchen Kenpo.
• Fake food — Simulated food was invented after Japan's surrender ending World War II in 1945. Japanese artisans and candlemakers created wax food initially for foreigners.
• Fortune cookie — They most likely originated from cookies made by Japanese immigrants to the United States in the late 19th or early 20th century.
• Instant noodle — Invented by Momofuku Ando, a Taiwanese-Japanese inventor, in 1958.
• Monosodium glutamate — Invented and patented by Kikunae Ikeda.
• Umami — Umami as a separate taste was first identified in 1908 by Kikunae Ikeda of the Tokyo Imperial University while researching the strong flavor in seaweed broth.

Philosophy

See also: Japanese philosophy

Tajōmaru and the samurai's wife, two unreliable narrators in Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon (1950), which the Rashomon effect is named after.

• Kokugaku — A school of Japanese philology and philosophy originating during the Edo period.
• Kyokan — A concept forwarded by Masao Kawai. It first appeared to Western readers in Kawai's book Ecology of Japanese Monkeys (1969).
• Lean manufacturing — A generic process management philosophy derived mostly from the Toyota Production System (TPS) and identified as "Lean" only in the 1990s.
• Paris syndrome — Hiroaki Ota, a Japanese psychiatrist working at the Sainte-Anne Hospital Center in France, identified the syndrome in the 1980s.
  • Galápagos syndrome — Identified in Japan during the 2000s.
• Postmodern video game — Hideo Kojima's Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty (2001) is considered the first postmodern video game.
  • Post-truth politics — Hideo Kojima's Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty (2001) is cited as an early work that anticipated contemporary post-truth politics.
• Psychological novel — The Tale of Genji (11th century) is considered to be the first psychological novel.
• Rashomon effect — The concept originates from Ryūnosuke Akutagawa's novel In a Grove (1922), which was adapted into Akira Kurosawa's film Rashomon (1950).
• Uncanny valley — Masahiro Mori first introduced the concept in his 1970 essay The uncanny valley phenomenon (不気味の谷現象, Bukimi no tani genshō).

Display technology

Sony home cinema setup, with full HD LCD television, digital TV set-top box, DVD player, PlayStation 3 video game console, and loudspeakers.

• Active shutter 3D system — Matsushita Electric developed a 3D television that employed active-shutter stereoscopic technology in the late 1970s, unveiled in 1981.
  • Autostereoscopy — A prototype single-viewer display, the Floating Image System, was presented by Sega AM3 in 1997.
  • Parallax barrier — In the early 2000s, Sharp released electronic flat-panels with parallax barrier autostereoscopy, selling laptops with the first 3D LCD displays.
• Aperture grille — One of two major cathode ray tube (CRT) display technologies, along with shadow mask. It was introduced by Sony with their Trinitron television in 1968.
  • Surface-conduction electron-emitter display (SED) — Canon began SED research in 1986. In 2006, Canon and Toshiba demonstrated SED display technology.
• AV receiver — Denon's AVC-500 (1985) was the first AV amplifier, enabling the development of modern home cinema.
• Color electroluminescent display (ELD) — Demonstrated by K. Okamoto of Osaka University in 1981.
  • Color plasma display — The world's first color plasma display was produced by Fujitsu in 1989.
• Color TFT LCD — In 1983, a-Si TFT color LCD panels were demonstrated by Canon, Sanyo and Sanritsu.
• High-definition (HD) — Between 1964 and 1969, NHK Science & Technology Research Laboratories (NHK STRL) developed a monochrome Hi-Vision 1125i analog HDTV system, demonstrated in 1969 with a CRT monitor and video camera.
  • Component video — Between 1970 and 1973, NHK and Panasonic improved Hi-Vision 1125i HDTV with color analog component video, demonstrated by Panasonic in 1973 with HD display monitor and video camera.
  • HD interlaced video — Between 1970 and 1975, NHK developed video cameras and prototype CRT displays with analog HD interlaced display resolutions from 935i to 2125i.
  • HD progressive scan — Between 1974 and 1975, NHK developed prototype CRT displays with analog HD progressive scan resolutions from 731p to 1195p.
• High-definition digital graphics — NEC's μPD7220 (1981) graphics processing unit (GPU) supports digital HD resolutions up to 1024p with 16 colors or up to 2048i in monochrome.
  • 4K resolution — The NEC μPD7220 (1981) GPU supports monochrome 4K resolutions up to 4096×1024p or 4096×2048i.
  • Ultra HD (UHD) — Hitachi's ARTC HD63484 (1984) GPU supports monochrome UHD resolutions up to 4096×2048p or 4096×4096i. The resolutions were targeted at the bit-mapped desktop publishing market.
  • 8K resolution — Between 1995 and 2003, NHK and JVC developed an 8K video system, demonstrated in 2003 with 8K compatible UHDTV, video camera, video disc recorder and video projector.
  • 16K resolution — Sony, Nest+Visual and Indy Associates in early 2014 demonstrated 16K video, using a modified Sony F65 CineAlta camera. A 16K film was presented in March 2014 on a multi-screen video display at Tokyo International Airport.
  • 32K resolution — In 2018, Sony were working on developing a 32K display.
• High-definition video projector — Introduced with the Sony HDVS in 1981.
  • Color LCD projector — The Epson VPJ-700, released in January 1989, was the first compact color LCD projector.
• High frame rate — Between 1974 and 1975, NHK developed prototype CRT displays capable of frame rates higher than the 60 Hz NTSC standard, reaching up to 500 Hz frame rate.
• Multi-segment vacuum fluorescent display (VFD) — The first multi-segment VFD was a 1967 Japanese single-digit, seven‑segment device made by Ise Electronics Corporation.
• OLED display — Manufacturing of OLED displays began in 1997 by Pioneer Corporation, followed by TDK in 2001.
  • Flexible OLED display — In 2005, Sony and the Institute of Physical and Chemical Research developed a prototype OLED rollable display.
  • OLED head-mounted display (HMD) — The Sony HMZ-T1 (2011) was the first 3D HMD equipped with a HD OLED display.
  • Crystal LED (CLED) — Sony unveiled CLED display technology at CES 2012.
• S-Video — The S-Video cable standard was introduced in 1987 with JVC's S-VHS format.
  • Digital Visual Interface (DVI) — Developed in 1999 by the Digital Display Working Group (DDWG), which included Japanese companies Fujitsu and NEC.
  • High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) — In 2002, the HDMI founders included Hitachi, Panasonic, Maxell, Sony and Toshiba.
• See-through display — An early commercial transparent display was the Sony Ericsson Xperia Pureness, released in 2009.

Cameras

Minolta RD-175, a portable digital SLR (DLSR) camera released in 1995.

• Action camera — The first action camera was the Canon CI-10 (1985) by Canon Inc.
• Active-pixel sensor (APS) — The first active-pixel MOS image sensor was invented by Olympus in 1985. It had a vertical APS structure with NMOS transistors.
  • PMOS sensor — From 1988 to 1991, Toshiba developed a "double-gate floating surface transistor" sensor. It had a lateral APS structure with PMOS transistors.
  • Stacked CMOS — In 2012, Sony released the first stacked CMOS sensor, the Exmor RS.
• Aperture priority auto-exposure — The Asahi Pentax Electro-Spotmatic (ES), released in 1971, was the first single-lens reflex (SLR) camera with aperture priority auto-exposure.
• Autofocus camera — The Konica C35 AF (1977) was the first camera with autofocus.
  • Autofocus lens mount — Ricoh's Rikenon 50mm f/2 AF (1980) was the first autofocus interchangeable lens mount.
• Bayonet lens mount — The Nikon F-mount, debuted with the Nikon F (1959), was the first interchangeable lens bayonet mount.
  • Close range correction (CRC) — Nikon's Nikkor Auto 24mm f/2.8 (1967) was the first lens with a CRC system.
  • SLR camera aspheric lens — Nikon's OP Fisheye-Nikkor 10mm f/5.6 (1968) was the first aspheric lens for use with SLR cameras.
  • Extra-low dispersion (ED) — The Nikkor 300mm f/2.8 (1973) was the first ED lens.
  • CPU lens — The Nikkor 50mm f/1.8S (1986) was the first lens with a built-in central processing unit (CPU).
• Bridge camera — In early 1988, the first bridge cameras were the Ricoh FF-7, Kyocera's Samurai, Olympus Corporation's Infinity SuperZoom 300, and the Chinon Genesis.
• Center-weighted average metering — The Nikon F Photomic TN (1967) was the first camera with a center-weighted exposure metering system.
  • Matrix metering — The Nikon FA (1983) was the first SLR camera with matrix metering.
• Color CCD camera — Sony's XC-1 (1980) was the first color camera with a charge-coupled device (CCD) image sensor.
  • Three-CCD camera (3CCD) — The Minolta RD-175 (1995) was the first camera integrated with three CCD image sensors.
• Color home video camera — In 1973, Toshiba released the first color video camera for home use.
  • Camcorder — In 1983, Sony released the first camcorder, the Betacam system, for professional use. Sony released the first consumer camcorder in 1983, the Betamovie BMC-100P.
• Compact camera with zoom lens — The Pentax Zoom 70 (1986) was the first compact camera equipped with zoom lens.
  • Digital camera optical zoom — Fujifilm's Fujix DS-100 (1991) was the first digital camera with 3× optical zoom.
• Digital camera with flash memory — In 1988, Fujifilm introduced the Fujix DS-1P, the first fully digital camera to record digital images on a flash memory card.
  • Lithium-ion battery camera — Fujifilm's Fujix DS-220 (1995) was the first digital camera using a lithium-ion battery.
  • Digital infrared camera — Sony's DSC-F1 (1996) was the first digital camera with a built-in infrared transceiver.
  • Touchscreen camera — The Nikon Coolpix 300 (1996) was the first digital camera with a touchscreen.
  • Front-facing camera — The first front-facing camera was Nintendo's Game Boy Camera, released as an accessory for the Game Boy handheld game console in February 1998.
  • Color instant-print camera — The Fujifilm FinePix PR21 (1999) was the first digital camera with built-in color printer.
  • Digital rangefinder — The Epson R-D1 (2004) was the first digital rangefinder camera.
• Digital single-lens reflex camera (DSLR) — On August 25, 1981, Sony unveiled a prototype of the first still video camera, the Sony Mavica. This camera was an analog electronic camera that featured interchangeable lenses and a SLR viewfinder. At photokina in 1986, Nikon revealed a prototype electronic still SLR camera, the Nikon SVC, the first digital SLR. The prototype body shared many features with the N8008.
  • Full-frame DSLR — The first full-frame DSLR was the N Digital by Contax, announced in 2000 and released in 2002.
  • Four Thirds system (4/3) — Standard co-developed by Olympus Corporation in 2001 for DSLR design and development.
• Digital stereoscopic 3D camera — The Minolta Dimâge 3D 1500 (1999) was the first digital stereoscopic 3D camera.
  • Autostereoscopic 3D camera — The Fujifilm FinePix Real 3D (2009) was the first autostereoscopic 3D camera.
• Digital video camera — Ricoh RDC-1 (1995) was the first digital camera with video recording and remote control. Hitachi MP-EG1 (1996) introduced MPEG support. Sharp Corporation's VN-EZ1 Internet ViewCam (1999) introduced MPEG-4 support.
  • Digital TV camera — Sansui Electric's CT0110 (1996) was the first digital camera with a built-in TV tuner.
  • DSLR video camera — The Nikon D90 (2008) was the DSLR camera capable of video recording.
  • Full HD DSLR video camera — The Canon EOS 5D Mark II (2008) was the first DSLR camera capable of full high-definition video recording.
• Event camera — The development of silicon retina event cameras dates back to Kunihiko Fukushima’s Reticon in 1989.
  • Smart digital camera — In 2012, Nikon's Coolpix S800c and Samsung's Galaxy Camera were the first digital cameras to run the Android operating system. They can integrate with the same Android-compatible services (such as e-mail attachments, social networks and photo sharing sites) used by smartphones.
  • Intelligent vision sensor — In 2020, Sony launched the first intelligent vision sensors with AI edge computing capabilies.
• Fisheye lens for 35 mm camera — In 1962, Nikon introduced the first regular production fisheye lens for 35 mm cameras.
  • Diagonal fisheye lens — The Fish-eye Takumar 18mm F11 (1962) by Pentax was the first diagonal fish-eye lens, used for a 35 mm SLR camera.
  • Orthographic projection fisheye lens — Nikon's OP Fisheye-Nikkor 10mm f/5.6 (1968) was the first fisheye lens with an orthographic projection.
• Flash camera — Konica's C35 EF (1975) was the first camera with built-in flash.
  • Single-lens reflex flash camera (SLR flash camera) — The Pentax SFX (1987) was the first SLR camera with built-in flash.
• Handheld TV camera — Ikegami Tsushinki introduced the first portable 4+1⁄2-inch Image Orthicon tube hand-held TV camera. The camera made its US debut in February 1962.
  • Portapak — In 1967, Sony unveiled the first self-contained video tape analog recording system that was portable.
  • Electronic news gathering (ENG) — Portapak (1967) led to the development of ENG.
  • Color ENG video camera — In 1972, Ikegami Tsushinki's HL-33 was the first compact handheld color video camera for ENG.
• High-definition video camera (HD camera) — The Saticon (1973) video camera developed by Hitachi and NHK Science & Technology Research Laboratories (NHK STRL) was the first Hi-Vision analog HDTV camera.
• High-speed camera — Between 1974 and 1975, NHK developed a Saticon video camera capable of frame rates higher than the 60 Hz NTSC standard, reaching up to 500 Hz frame rate.
  • High-speed shutter — The Nikon FM2 (1982) was the first camera with a shutter speed of ¹⁄₄₀₀₀ second (250 nanoseconds). The Nikon F-801 (N8008) in 1988 was the first camera with ¹⁄₈₀₀₀ second (125 nanoseconds) shutter speed.
• Image stabilization — Panasonic invented optical image stabilization (OIS) for the PV-460 (1988) video camera.
  • Electronic image stabilization (EIS) — Panasonic invented EIS for the Brenby NV-S1 (1990) compact video camera.
  • Vibration reduction (VR) — The Nikon Zoom 700VR (1994) was the first camera featuring optical vibration reduction.
• LCD camera — The Nikon F3 (1980) was the first camera with a liquid-crystal display (LCD).
  • LCD digital camera — The Rhythm Watch Visimo (1994) was the first digital camera with LCD display.
• Mirrorless camera — The Epson R-D1 (2004) was also the first mirrorless interchangeable-lens camera (MILC).
  • Micro Four Thirds system (MFT) — MILC standard developed by Olympus Corporation and Panasonic in 2008.
  • Full-frame mirrorless interchangeable-lens camera (full-frame MILC) — The Sony α7 (2013) was the first full-frame MILC.
  • Stacked CMOS mirrorless camera — The Sony α9 (2017) was the first full-frame MILC with stacked CMOS sensor.
• Multi-layer optical coating — The first multi-layer coating was the "Super-Multi-Coating" introduced by Pentax in the 1950s.
• Pinhead mirror — The Nikon F3 (1980) was the first through-the-lens metering (TTL) camera with a pinhole mirror.
• Selfie stick — Invented for the Minolta Disc-7 camera (1983), which had a package showing the camera mounted on a selfie stick.
• Single-lens reflex compact camera (compact SLR) — The Olympus OM-1 (1972) was the first compact SLR camera.
  • Full-frame compact camera — The Sony Cyber-shot DSC-RX1 (2012) was the first compact camera with a full-frame sensor.
• Single-lens reflex system camera (system SLR) — The Nikon F (1959) was the first system SLR camera.
  • Electric motor drive — The Nikon F (1959) was the first camera with an electric motor drive.
  • Full-frame SLR camera — The Nikon F (1959) was the first SLR camera with full frame coverage.
  • Half-frame SLR camera — The Olympus Pen F (1963) was the first half-frame SLR camera.
• Single-use camera — The first single-use disposable camera was Fujifilm's QuickSnap (1986).
• Still video — Canon began developing a still video system in 1977.
  • Still video camera — The first still video camera was the Sony Mavica, which was introduced in 1981.
• Through-the-lens metering (TTL) — The first camera to feature TTL light metering was by Japanese company Nikon, with a prototype rangefinder camera, the SPX, in 1950.
  • Through-the-lens SLR camera (TTL SLR) — Pentax introduced the first TTL SLR camera, the Pentax Spotmatic, at the 1960 photokina show.
  • Open-aperture metering — The Asahi Pentax Electro-Spotmatic (ES), released in 1971, was equipped with the first TTL open-aperture metering.
  • Through-the-lens autofocus (TTL AF) — The Pentax ME-F (1981) was the first TTL auto-focusing SLR camera.
• Ultra wide angle lens — In 1968, Nikon's Masaki Isshiki and Keiji Matsuki filed a patent for super wide fisheye lens with 220° to 270° field of view.
  • Ultra wide angle interchangeable lens — Nikon's Nikkor 13mm f/5.6 (1976) was the first F-mount interchangeable lens with ultra wide angle of view.
  • Ultra wide angle DSLR — Fujifilm's Fujix DS-505 (1995) was the first DSLR camera with full angle of view.
• Universal viewfinder — The Nikon SP (1957) was the first rangefinder camera with universal viewfinder supporting focal lengths ranging from 28 mm to 135 mm.
  • Electronic viewfinder (EVF) — In 1988, Epson's EVF Liquid Crystal Panel Module was the first liquid-crystal display (LCD) viewfinder.
• Weather-proof camera — Olympus Corporation's AF-1 Nuretemo-Pikaso (Wet Flash), released in 1986, was the first weather‑proof compact camera.
  • Weather-proof digital camera — The Olympus µ-10 (2003) was the first weather‑proof metal-body digital camera.
• Wide-angle zoom lens — Nikon's Zoom-Nikkor 28-45mm f/4.5 (1975) was the first full-fledged wide-angle zoom lens.

Computer graphics

• 3D computer graphics software — Earliest was 3D Art Graphics, a set of 3D computer graphics effects written by Kazumasa Mitazawa and released for the Apple II in 1978.
  • Ray-tracing hardware — In 1982, the first interactive ray tracer was the LINKS-1 Computer Graphics System, used to render 3D graphics with high-speed ray tracing.
  • Render farm — The LINKS-1 Computer Graphics System (1982) was a massively parallel system with up to 256 computer nodes for rendering 3D graphics.
• Animated color character sprite — First appeared in Kasco's arcade video game Playtron (1973).
  • Human sprite — Tomohiro Nishikado's arcade game TV Basketball (1974) first represented human sprites.
  • Multi-color sprite — Taito's arcade game Super Speed Race (1977) first displayed multi-color sprites.
  • Hardware sprite with line buffer — Introduced by the Namco Galaxian arcade system board with Galaxian (1979).
• Cel shading — First appeared in Riverhillsoft's video game Doctor Hauzer (1994).
• Frame memory — Between 1964 and 1969, NHK STRL developed a prototype 1125i Hi-Vision analog HDTV system which utilized a minicomputer with 20 megabyte (MB) frame memory disk storage to store images.
• Graphics processing unit (GPU) — The NEC μPD7220 (1981) was the first specialized GPU on a single LSI chip.
  • 3D GPU — The first GPUs dedicated to 3D polygon graphics were developed in Japan for arcades, with the Namco System 21 (developed 1985–1988) and Taito Air System (developed 1986–1988).
  • T&L GPU — In 1995, Fujitsu developed the first integrated 3D GPU with hardware T&L.
• High color — The Sega Super Scaler (1985) arcade board had a 16-bit color palette (65,536 colors).
  • True color — The Namco System 2 (1987) arcade board had a 24-bit color palette (16,777,216 colors).
• High-dynamic-range rendering (HDR rendering) — In 1990, Hiroshima University researchers presented a lighting model for driving simulators that demonstrated high dynamic range (HDR) processing.
• Isometric graphics — Introduced by Data East's arcade video game Treasure Island (1981) for the DECO Cassette System.
  • Axonometric graphics — Introduced by Sega's arcade game Zaxxon (1981).
• Multisync monitor — The first was the NEC Multisync, released in 1985 for use with personal computers. It supported a wide range of sync frequencies.
• Scrolling — Introduced by Tomohiro Nishikado's arcade racing game Speed Race (1974).
  • Vertical scrolling — Introduced by Tomohiro Nishikado's Speed Race (1974).
  • Side-scrolling — Dates back to Taito's arcade racing game Dead Heat (1975).
  • Multi-directional scrolling — Introduced by Tomohiro Nishikado's arcade shooter game Interceptor (1975).
  • Forward scrolling — Introduced by Sega's arcade driving game Road Race (1976).
  • Parallax scrolling — Introduced by Alpha Denshi's Jump Bug (1981).
• JPEG arithmetic coding — Patents providing the basis for JPEG's arithmetic coding algorithm include two Mitsubishi Electric patents by Toshihiro Kimura, Shigenori Kino, Fumitaka Ono and Masayuki Yoshida in 1989 and 1990.
• PC–TV set — In 1982, the Sharp X1 was the first PC with a TV tuner, functioning as both a computer and television. The RGB display monitor could superimpose a computer screen over a TV screen, allowing both on the same display.
• Super video graphics array (SVGA) — In 1988, NEC Home Electronics created the Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA) to develop the SVGA computer display standard. The development of SVGA was led by NEC.
• Tile-based graphics — The tile-map model was introduced by Namco's arcade game Galaxian (1979), which ran on the Namco Galaxian arcade system board.
  • Hardware scrolling — The Namco Galaxian arcade system board introduced with Galaxian (1979) pioneered a hardware sprite system that animates pre-loaded sprites over a scrolling background, the basis for later 2D game systems.
• Tile-based graphics card — HAL Laboratory's PCG (1980) was an early tile-based graphics card for home computers.

Television

See also: Television in Japan

A recreation of Kenjiro Takayanagi's pioneering television experiment (1926), on display at the NHK Broadcasting Museum in Atagoyama, Tokyo.

• All-electronic television (TV) — In 1926, Kenjiro Takayanagi invented the first all‑electronic TV. By 1927, Takayanagi improved the resolution to 100 scanlines.
  • Cathode-ray tube TV (CRT TV) — Demonstrated by Kenjiro Takayanagi in 1926.
  • Halftone TV — By 1928, Kenjiro Takayanagi was the first to transmit human faces in halftones. His work had an influence on the later work of Vladimir K. Zworykin.
  • Transistor TV — The first fully transistorized, portable solid-state TV set was the Sony TV8-301, developed from 1958 to 1959 and then released in early 1960.
  • Automatic fine tuning (AFT) — In 1969, Toshiba released the first color TV with AFT integrated circuit technology.
  • Integrated circuit color TV — In 1969, Toshiba released an early color TV incorporating an integrated circuit (IC) chip. In 1971, they released the first color TV with mostly IC chips.

• Digital television (DTV) — In the mid-1980s, Toshiba, Sony and NEC released TV sets with digital capabilities. These early digital TV sets converted analog TV signals into digital video signals.
  • DTV broadcast — Proposed in 1986 by NTT and MPT, as part of the Integrated Network System (INS).
• Direct broadcast satellite (DBS) — From 1965 to 1984, the first practical DBS service was developed by NHK Science & Technology Research Laboratories along with the National Space Development Agency of Japan (NASDA) and Toshiba.
  • Satellite HDTV — NHK used Yuri, a Japanese broadcasting satellite launched in 1978, to demonstrate HDTV satellite transmission in 1979.
• Enhanced-definition television (EDTV) — Nippon TV (NTV) began broadcasting Clear-Vision (EDTV) in 1989 and Wide Clear Vision (widescreen EDTV) in 1995.
  • Improved-definition television (IDTV) — In 1989, IDTV used digital electronics to improve NTSC picture quality in Japan.
• Handheld television — In 1970, Panasonic released the first television that was small enough to fit in a large pocket, the Panasonic IC TV MODEL TR-001. It featured a 1.5-inch display, along with a 1.5-inch speaker.
• High-definition television (HDTV) — Between 1964 and 1969, NHK Science & Technology Research Laboratories (NHK STRL) developed an early 1125i Hi-Vision analog HDTV system with CRT display.
  • Multiple sub-Nyquist sampling encoding (MUSE) — Video compression format developed by NHK for its Hi-Vision analog HDTV system in the 1970s.
  • 3D HDTV — In the 1998 Nagano Olympics, some sporting events were filmed in 3D high definition.
  • Ultra HDTV (UHDTV) — Between 1995 and 2003, NHK and JVC researchers developed an early UHDTV prototype, which they demonstrated in 2003.
• Hybrid log–gamma (HLG) — High-dynamic-range television (HDR TV) format developed by NHK and BBC in 2015.
• Interactive TV — Between 1975 and 1977, Pioneer Electronics developed Qube, the first two-way addressable, interactive cable TV system.
• Large-screen television technology (video wall) — In 1980, Mitsubishi Electric introduced the first large-scale video board, the Diamond Vision, which was a large screen using cathode-ray tube (CRT) technology.
  • Jumbotron — Introduced by Sony at the Expo '85 held in May 1985 at Tsukuba, Ibaraki.
• Laser TV — World's first HD laser TV was produced by Mitsubishi Electric in 2008.
• LCD television (LCD TV) — The first LCD televisions were invented as handheld televisions in Japan. In 1980, Hattori Seiko's R&D group began development on color LCD pocket televisions. In 1982, Seiko Epson released the first LCD television, the Epson TV Watch, a wristwatch equipped with an active-matrix LCD television. In 1983, Casio released a handheld LCD television, the Casio TV-10.
  • Color TFT LCD TV — Epson's ET-101, introduced in 1983 and released in 1984, was he first commercial color TFT LCD TVs.
• LED-backlit LCD — The world's first LED-backlit LCD television was Sony's Qualia 005, released in 2004.
  • Quantum dot LED (QLED) — The first manufacturer shipping QLED TVs was Sony in 2013 as Triluminos, Sony's trademark for the technology.

Sony XEL-1, the world's first OLED TV.

• OLED TV — In 2007, the Sony XEL-1 was the world's first OLED TV.
• On-screen display (OSD) — In 1972, Sharp Corporation introduced the first television set to display a television channel number on the corner of the screen.
  • Picture-in-picture (PIP) — In 1978, Sharp's CT-1804X was the first TV that could display two programs at once on the same screen.
• SAW TV receiver — In 1977, Toshiba produced the first surface acoustic wave (saw) device for TV receivers.
• Smart TV — Introduced in Japan during the early 1980s. LSI chips with memory and character generator enabled a mix of programming and information over TV signals.
• Widescreen television — Between 1970 and 1975, NHK developed widescreen TV displays for their Hi-Vision analog HD system. They experimented with different aspect ratios from 1:1 to 9:1 before settling on 5:3.

Timekeeping

See also: Japanese clock

2A Seiko quartz wristwatch using the chronograph function (movement 7T92)

• Digital stopwatch — Seiko's Stop Clock (1963), used at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, was the first digital stopwatch.
• Digital wristwatch — In 1953, Yoshiro Nakamatsu invented the first prototype wristwatch with a digital display.
  • Digital calendar — The Casiotron QW02-10 (1974) by Casio was the first digital watch with an automatic calendar function.
• Japanese clock (wadokei)
  • Myriad year clock — Universal clock designed by the Japanese inventor Hisashige Tanaka in 1851. It belongs to the category of Japanese clocks called Wadokei.
• Portable quartz clock — Seiko's Crystal Chronometer (1963), used at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, was the first portable quartz clock.
• Quartz wristwatch — The world's first quartz wristwatch was revealed in 1967, a prototype of the Astron revealed by Seiko in Japan, where it was in development since 1958. It was eventually released to the public in 1969.
  • CMOS watch — Suwa Seikosha (Seiko Epson) began developing a CMOS integrated circuit chip for a Seiko quartz watch in 1969, and began mass‑production with the Seiko Analog Quartz 38SQW in 1971.
  • LCD watch — In 1972, Seiko developed the first digital watch with a six-digit liquid-crystal display (LCD), the Seiko Digital Quartz 06LC, commercially released in 1973.
  • Automatic quartz — The first watch to combine self-winding with a crystal oscillator for timekeeping was unveiled by Seiko in 1986.
• Self-winding chronograph — In early 1969, Seiko produced the first commercial self-winding chronograph with a vertical clutch system and column wheel.
  • Digital chronograph — The Seiko LC Chronograph (1975) was the first digital chronograph.
• Spring Drive — A watch movement which was first conceived by Yoshikazu Akahane working for Seiko in 1977 and was patented in 1982. It features a true continuously sweeping second hand, rather than the traditional beats per time unit, as seen with traditional mechanical and most quartz watches.
• Smartwatch — In the 1980s, Seiko began to develop computers in the form of watches, starting with the Data 2000 (1984) watch.
• Television watch — The world's first television watch, the TV-Watch, was developed by Seiko in 1982.

Video

Sony's U-matic, the first videocassette format, introduced in 1971.

• Digital video recording — In 1972, Toshiba's TOSBAC computer was using digital video disks to display color digital images.
  • Digital component video — The D-1 (Sony) digital videocassette format introduced in 1986 was the first commercial digital component video format.
  • Digital video recorder (DVR) — Sony's DVR-1000 (1987) was the first DVR, using D‑1 digital video cassettes as the storage media.
  • Deep color (30-bit color) — The D-5 (Panasonic) digital videocassette introduced in 1993 was the first component video format supporting 10-bit color per component.
  • DV format — Introduced in 1995, the format was developed by Sony and several other Japanese video camera manufacturers.
• Digital video disc (DVD) — The DVD format was developed in 1995 by Sony, Toshiba, Panasonic and Philips.
  • DVD player — The first DVD player was released by Toshiba in November 1996.
  • DVD recorder — The first DVD recorder was released by Pioneer Corporation in 1999.

Betamax (top) and VHS (bottom) tapes were respectively created by Japanese companies Sony and JVC.

• Helical scan video tape recorder (VTR) — Invented by Norikazu Sawasaki in 1953. In 1959, Toshiba released the first commercial helical scan VTR.
  • Transistor VTR — Sony's SV-201 (1961) was the first transistor-based VTR.
  • Videocassette — The first video cassette tape format was Sony's U-matic, developed in the 1960s before being released in 1971.
  • Videocassette recorder (VCR) — In 1971, the first videocassette player was the Sony VP-1100 and the first VCR was the Sony VO-1700, using U-matic videocassettes.
  • VHS — The VHS (Video Home System) was invented in 1973 by Yuma Shiraishi and Shizuo Takano who worked for JVC.
  • Betamax — Betamax was an analog videocassette magnetic tape marketed to consumers released by Sony on May 10, 1975.
• High-definition video recording (HD video) — Introduced with Sony HDVS (1981), including Hi-Vision VCR recording 1125i analog HDTV content on U-matic cassettes.
  • Digital HD video recording — In 1988, Sony's HDD-1000 was the first HD digital video recorder, which required the HDDP‑1000 video processor. It recorded 1125i digital HD content at 60 fps.
  • HD video disc — In 1988, Sony introduced the HDL-2000 High Definition Videodisc Player, which played HDVS video discs with 1125i HD content.
  • Progressive scan HD video — Panasonic's D-5 HD (1994) videocassette format was the first HD digital video format to support progressive scan, recording 720p content.
• H.261 — The majority of patents for H.261 (1988) were from Japanese companies, including Hitachi, NTT, Toshiba, KDDI, Sony, Sharp, Oki and Matsushita.
  • AVC (H.264) — The majority of patents for AVC (2003) were from Japanese companies, including Panasonic, Godo Kaisha, Toshiba, NTT, Sony and Fujitsu.
  • HEVC (H.265) — Japanese companies that contributed patents towards HEVC (2013) include NTT, JVC, NEC, Canon, Fujitsu, Maxell and NHK.
  • VVC (H.266) — Japanese companies that contributed patents towards VVC (2020) include NTT, Godo Kaisha, JVC, KDDI, Mitsubishi, NEC, Panasonic and Fujitsu.
• Inter-frame motion compensation (MC) — In 1959, the concept of inter-frame motion compensation was proposed by NHK researchers Y. Taki, M. Hatori and S. Tanaka. They proposed predictive inter-frame video coding in the temporal dimension.
  • AV1 — Japanese companies that contributed patents towards the development of the AV1 video coding format, released in 2018, include NTT and Toshiba.
  • VC-1 — Japanese companies that contributed patents towards the VC-1 video coding format include Panasonic, Hitachi, Mitsubishi Electric, Sony, JVC Kenwood, Toshiba, Fujitsu, Sharp Corporation, and Nippon Telegraph and Telephone.
• Laserdisc player (LD player) — In February 1979, Pioneer released the first laserdisc (LD) player for business use.
  • Video CD (VCD) — The Video CD standard was created in 1993 by JVC, Sony, Matsushita and Philips.
• MPEG — The Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) was co-founded by Hiroshi Yasuda.
  • MPEG-1 — Majority of companies that contributed patents for MPEG-1 (1991) were Japanese companies, e.g. Fujitsu, Matsushita, Mitsubishi, NEC, NHK and Pioneer.
  • H.262/MPEG-2 Part 2 — The majority of patents contributed towards MPEG-2 (1995) were from Japanese companies, including Sony, Mitsubishi, Panasonic, JVC Kenwood, Toshiba, Hitachi, Fujitsu, Canon, KDDI, NTT, Sanyo and Sharp.
  • MPEG-4 Visual (H.263) — The majority of patents that contributed towards MPEG-4 Visual (1999) were from Japanese companies, e.g. Mitsubishi, Hitachi, Panasonic, Toshiba, Sony, Sharp, NTT, JVC, Fujitsu, Canon, KDDI, Oki and Sanyo.
• Video Floppy — Video floppy disks were first demonstrated by Sony and introduced under the Mavipak name in 1981 for their prototype Mavica.
• Video High Density (VHD) — Video disc with caddy developed by JVC in 1978.

Games

A modern pachinko machine

• Pachinko — Pachinko machines were first built during the 1920s as a children's toy called the "Corinth game" (コリントゲーム, korinto gēmu).
• Transforming mecha — Pioneered by Shōji Kawamori with the Diaclone toy line in 1980.

Board games

See also: List of traditional Japanese games

Renju is played on a 15×15 grid Go board.

• 2d6 System — Created by Group SNE for Sword World RPG (1989), one of the most successful tabletop role-playing games in Japan.
• Go (modern rules) — Though the game originated in China, free opening of the game as it is played globally began in the 16th century Japan.
• Gomoku — Historical records indicate the origins of gomoku can be traced back to the mid-1700s during the Edo period. By the late Edo period, around 1850, books had been published on gomoku.
• Renju — A professional variant of gomoku. It was named renju by journalist Ruikou Kuroiwa in 1899.
• Replays — Created by Group SNE with Record of Lodoss War (1986).

Electro-mechanical

See also: Electro-mechanical game and Arcade game

A child playing with a classic Japanese Mogura Taiji (Whac‑A‑Mole) machine.

• Audio-visual novelty game — Electro-mechanical (EM) arcade game genre originating from Japan, pioneered by Periscope (1965) from Namco and Sega.
  • Special effects — Introduced by Periscope (1965).
  • Pseudo-3D — Pseudo-3D effects date back to Periscope (1965).
  • Virtual world — Introduced by Periscope (1965).
  • Image projection — EM games with rear image projection on a screen were introduced in 1968 with Sega's Duck Hunt and Kasco's Indy 500.
  • Character animation — Sega's Duck Hunt (1968) introduced the projection of animated moving targets on a screen.
  • 4D effect — Taito's arcade game Cycle Rider (1970) was the first game with a 4D effect in the form of wind blowing at the player.
• Bonus points — Dates back to Sega's Duck Hunt (1968). It awarded a higher score of 15 points for a head shot, whereas a standard body shot earned 10 points.
• Car combat — The concept of ramming cars dates back to Sega's Stunt Car (1970) and Dodgem Crazy (1972). They reversed racing game conventions by making vehicle collisions the objective of the gameplay.
  • Block breaker — In Sega's Stunt Car (1970), the car is used as a kicker to launch balls into holes on the playfield, anticipating the gameplay of Breakout (1976).
• Cockpit arcade cabinet — In 1970, Kasco's Indy 500 (F-type) introduced a sit-down cockpit arcade cabinet.
• Cooperative gameplay (co-op) — Periscope (1965) by Namco and Sega was both a single-player game and a three-player co-op game.
  • 3-player (3P) — Periscope (1965) was both a single-player game and a three-player game.
• First-person light gun shooter — Sega's Duck Hunt (1968) was the first shooter game to project first-person graphics on a screen.
  • Headshot — The concept dates back to Sega's Duck Hunt (1968). The game awarded the player a higher score for a head shot, earning 15 points, whereas a standard body shot earned 10 points.
  • First-person shooter (FPS) — Sega's Jet Rocket (1970) was the earliest FPS, with free-roaming first-person movement and shooting. Sega expanded its FPS gameplay with Heli‑Shooter (1977) using microprocessor technology.
• First-person racing game — Kasco's arcade racer Indy 500 (1968) introduced pseudo-3D graphics projected using mirrors to give a first-person perspective on a screen.
• Flight simulator game — Sega's Jet Rocket (1970), a first-person combat flight simulator, was the first flight simulator game.
• Full-motion video (FMV) — Nintendo's EM arcade game Wild Gunman (1974), published by Sega in North America, was the first FMV game.
  • Live action — Wild Gunman (1974) was the first game to use live-action actors.
  • Adult game — The first erotic game was Nintendo's FMV arcade game Fascination (1974).
  • Female character — Nintendo's FMV arcade game Fascination (1974) featured the earliest female character in an electronic game, portrayed by a live-action Swedish model.
• Family fun center — Modern family fun centers appeared in Japan during the late 1960s, notably arcades operated by Sega.
• Handheld electronic game — Waco's Electronic Tic-Tac-Toe (1972) is commonly cited as the first commercial handheld electronic game.
• Head-to-head shooting — Sega's Gun Fight (1969) introduced competitive head-to-head shooting between two players, inspiring several early shooter video games.
• Holography — Sega's Monte Carlo (1971) was the first game to display holographic animations.
• Interactive movie game (cinematic game) — Nintendo's Wild Gunman (1974) was the first interactive movie game.
  • Interactive storytelling — Wild Gunman (1974) was the first game with interactive storytelling. Each scenario presents alternate FMV scenes depending on user action.
• Medal game — Medal games began in Japan during the early 1970s and started becoming popular with Sega's Harness Racing (1974), Nintendo's EVR Race (1975) and Aruze's The Derby Vφ (1975).
• Ninja game — The earliest ninja game was Kasco's EM arcade shooter game Ninja Gun (1977).
• Open world — Sega's Jet Rocket (1970) is considered the earliest open world game. Sega expanded its first-person open world gameplay with Heli‑Shooter (1977) using microprocessor technology.
• Quick time event (QTE) — Nintendo's electro-mechanical arcade game Wild Gunman (1974) featured the earliest quick time events (QTE).
• Rhythm game — In the early 1970s, Kasco created a rhythm-based EM arcade game, designed by Kenzou Furukawa, whose idea was "a game where you'd lift girls skirts in time to some rhythm" inspired by the 1969 Oh! Mouretsu commercials.
• Score printing — Sega's arcade title Duck Hunt (1968) was the first game to print out the player's score.
• Submarine simulator — Periscope (1965), by Namco and Sega, used lights and plastic waves to simulate sinking ships from a submarine.
• Whac-A-Mole — Invented in 1975 by Kazuo Yamada of TOGO, based on the designer's 1974 pencil sketches.

Game audio

Playing Dance Dance Revolution, one of the most successful rhythm games.

• Chiptune — Taito's arcade video game Space Invaders (1978), designed by Tomohiro Nishikado, had the earliest continuous background music produced from a sound chip.
  • Adaptive music — The first example was Space Invaders (1978). Simple background music increased in tempo as time goes on and aliens descend upon the player.
  • Melodic chiptune — Nintendo's arcade game Sheriff (1979) had the earliest continuous melodic music produced from a sound chip.
• Digital sample loops — Rally-X (1980), composed by Namco's Toshio Kai, demonstrated the earliest use of digital sample loops.
• Electronic sound effects — Introduced with electro-mechanical (EM) arcade game Periscope (1965) by Namco and Sega.
  • Loudspeaker — Periscope (1965) was the first electronic game with sound effects played through a speaker.
  • Solid-state electronics — Dates back to Sega's EM game Duck Hunt (1968), which had solid‑state electronic sound.
  • Sound volume — Duck Hunt (1968) introduced volume controls for the sound effects.
• Game music — Sega introduced electronic game music with their EM arcade game Jumbo (1969), which used an 8-track player to stream electronic circus music.
  • Game music tape loops — Sega introduced tape music loops to arcades with EM games such as Sand Buggy (1972).
• Microphone game controller — Nintendo's Famicom (1983) introduced the first microphone game controller.
• Pulse-code modulation (PCM) — Namco's arcade game King & Balloon (1980) was the first video game to feature PCM digital samples, using a digital-to-analog convertor (DAC) for voice synthesis.
  • Differential PCM (DPCM) — Moon Patrol (1982) by Irem's Takashi Nishiyama was the earliest video game to use an adaptive DPCM (ADPCM) sound chip, the MSM5205 by Oki Electric Industry.
  • Bit Rate Reduction (BRR) — Audio compression format based on ADPCM, introduced with Sony's SPC700 sound chip in the Super Nintendo (1990) game console.
• Rhythm video game — Dance Aerobics was released in 1987, and allowed players to create music by stepping on Nintendo's Power Pad peripheral. It has been called the first rhythm-action game in retrospect, although the 1996 title PaRappa the Rapper has also been deemed the first rhythm game, whose basic template forms the core of subsequent games in the genre. In 1997, Konami's Beatmania sparked an emergent market for rhythm games in Japan. The company's music division, Bemani, released a number of music games over the next several years.
  • Dance pad — The earliest dance pad was Bandai's Power Pad, released for the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1987.
  • Guitar controller — Invented by Konami's Bemani division in 1998 for the arcade game GuitarFreaks.
• Speech synthesis — Sunsoft's arcade shooter Stratovox (1980) was the first video game to feature speech synthesis.
• Streaming audio — Sega's EM game MotoPolo (1968) introduced an 8-track player unit that plays sounds from endless tape cartridge through a speaker.
  • Streaming audio in video games — Nintendo's arcade title EVR Race (1975) was the first video game to stream pre-recorded audio from a video tape.
• Streaming video game music — Sega's Astron Belt, an arcade laserdisc game debuted in 1982 and released in early 1983, was the first video game with streaming music.
• Voice acting — Dates back to Nintendo's EM game Wild Gunman (1974), where the full-motion video (FMV) intro scene has a voiced narrator giving gameplay instructions.
  • Video game voice acting — The first video game with voice acting was Nintendo's arcade game EVR Race (1975), streamed from a video tape.
• Wavetable synthesis — The Namco WSG (Waveform Sound Generator) was a wavetable synthesis chip introduced in 1980 and used in several arcade system boards including the Namco Pac-Man (1980) and Namco Galaga (1981).

Game consoles

See also: Video game console and Video games in Japan

Nintendo Entertainment System (NES)

• 32-bit console — Fujitsu's FM Towns Marty (1993) was the first console with a 32-bit central processing unit (CPU).
  • 64-bit console — Nintendo 64 (1996) was the first console with 64-bit CPU.
  • 128-bit console — Sega's Dreamcast (1998) was the first console with a 128-bit floating-point unit (FPU).
• 8-bit handheld console — Nintendo's Game Boy (1989) was the first handheld game console with an 8-bit CPU.
  • 16-bit handheld console — SNK's Neo Geo Pocket Color (1998) was the first handheld console with a 16-bit CPU.
• 3D stereoscopic handheld — Bandai's Terror House (1982) produced an early 3D-like effect. Tomy's Tomytronic 3D (1983) featured an early stereoscopic 3D display.
  • Solar-powered video game — In 1982, the Bandai LCD Solarpower was the first solar‑powered video game device.
  • Autostereoscopic game console — The Nintendo 3DS (2011) was the first console with an autostereoscopic 3D display, using a parallax barrier.
• Console geometry processor — The Sega Saturn (1994) was the first console with a 3D geometry processor.
  • Game console with T&L GPU — The Nintendo 64 (1996) was the first console with a graphics processing unit (GPU) capable of transform, clipping, and lighting (T&L).
  • Game console with FPU and Z-buffer — The Nintendo 64 (1996) was the first console with a floating-point unit (FPU) and Z‑buffering hardware.
• Dual-ported video RAM (dual-port VRAM) — First console to use dual-port VRAM was the Sega Mega Drive, released in 1988.
  • Synchronous graphics RAM (SGRAM) — The earliest commercial use of SGRAM was the NEC μPD481850 memory chip in the Sony PlayStation, included in models from December 1995 onwards.
  • Three-dimensional integrated circuit (3D IC) — The earliest commercial use of a 3D IC was Toshiba's eDRAM memory chip in the PlayStation Portable (2004).
• Hybrid console — The Sega Nomad (1995) was the first hybrid console.
• Mass storage — The Famicom Disk System (1986) introduced mass disk storage to console gaming, using Mitsumi's Quick Disk format.
  • Optical disk drive — The CD-ROM² add-on for NEC's PC Engine, released in November 1988, was the first game console to use CD-ROM as storage media.
• Multi-screen display — First appeared with Nintendo's Game & Watch series. The first game in the Multi-Screen series was Oil Panic (1982).
• Memory card — Earliest memory cards introduced in 1985, the Sega Card for the SG-1000 and Master System consoles. The Sega Card was developed as a cheaper alternative to game cartridges.
• Nintendo — Gunpei Yokoi was the creator of the Game Boy and Virtual Boy and worked on Famicom (NES), the Metroid series, Game Boy Pocket and did extensive work on the system we know today as the Nintendo Entertainment System (called the Famicom in Japan).
  • Memory management controller (MMC) — Enhancement chip introduced by Nintendo for the NES in the mid-1980s.
  • Multi-color hardware sprite — The Famicom (1983) was the first console featuring a graphics chip (by Ricoh) with hardware support for multi-colored sprites.
  • Pulse-code modulation (PCM) — Nintendo's Famicom (1983) was the first game console with a sound chip that supports differential PCM (DPCM) digital samples.
• Online console multiplayer — In 1987, Nintendo launched the Family Computer Network System for the Famicom in Japan. Online games developed for the system include a graphical, competitive online multiplayer version of Go.
  • Digital purchase — Introduced in 1987 with Nintendo's Japan-only Disk Writer kiosks, which allowed users to purchase and download the latest Famicom Disk System games onto their floppy disks.
  • Downloadable content (DLC) — The Sega Meganet service launched for the Japanese Mega Drive in 1990. Phantasy Star II (1989) featured eight Phantasy Star II Adventures for download on Meganet. This was the earliest example of DLC.
  • Satellite modem — Nintendo's Satellaview (1995) for the Super Famicom was the first satellite modem for a console.
  • Built-in modem — Sega's Dreamcast, launched in 1998, was the first console with a built-in modem.
  • Voice chat in online gaming — Began with the Dreamcast in 1999. Games such as Seaman (1999) and Alien Front Online (2001) included built-in voice chat functionality via the SegaNet online service.
• PlayStation — The first Sony PlayStation was invented by Ken Kutaragi. Research and development for the PlayStation began in 1990, headed by Kutaragi, a Sony engineer.
• Saved game — The Legend of Zelda (1986) for the Famicom Disk System was the first console game with a save feature, using Mitsumi's Quick Disk format.
  • Cartridge save — Taito's Mirai Shinwa Jarvas (1987) for the Famicom introduced the concept of saves stored on a battery‑backed static RAM (SRAM) memory chip on the game cartridge.
  • FRAM save — Ferroelectric RAM (FRAM) was commercialized in the mid-1990s. Its first high-profile commercial use was by game company Sega, who used FRAM chips to store saves in Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (1994) cartridges.
  • Memory card save — SNK's Neo Geo (1990) was the first home game console to feature a removable memory card for saves.
• Touchscreen handheld — In the early 1990s, Sega were planning to release a Game Gear successor with a touchscreen interface. However, touchscreen technology was expensive, so they instead released the Sega Nomad in 1995.
• TV game — The Sharp Nintendo Television (C1 NES TV) is a CRT television with a built-in Famicom that was produced by Sharp Corporation under license from Nintendo. It was originally released for Japan in October 1983 as the My Computer TV.
  • Video screen capture — Sharp's Famicom Titler (1989) was a Famicom variant that captured direct game footage from a Famicom game, along with video editing capabilities, keypad and touchpad controls, and microphone audio input.
• Vertical scrolling game console — The first console with vertical scrolling was Nintendo's dedicated console Color TV-Game Racing 112 (1978), a clone of Taito's arcade video game Speed Race (1974).
  • Scrolling tiled background — The Famicom (1983) was the first console featuring a graphics chip with hardware support for scrolling tiled backgrounds.
• Virtual reality headset (VR) — The Sega VR headset was an early unreleased VR device with built-in motion tracking, first announced in 1991. Its sensors tracked the player's movement and head position.

Game controllers

See also: Game controller

Nintendo 64 controller, debuted in 1995 and released in 1996, popularized analog thumbstick controls.

• Analog thumbstick — Introduced by Dempa's XE-1 AP (1989) controller for the Sega Mega Drive console and Japanese computers.
  • Digital-analog thumbstick — Introduced with the Nintendo 64 controller, debuted in 1995 and released in 1996. Its thumbstick was a digital-analog hybrid.

Donkey Kong (1982), showing its revolutionary D-pad design.

• Cockpit controls — Sega's Jet Rocket (1970) introduced cockpit controls.
  • Throttle — Sega's EM arcade game Heli-Shooter (1977) involves the player piloting a helicopter using a throttle joystick to accelerate and decelerate.
  • Throttle lever — Sega's arcade video game After Burner II (1987) introduced a throttle lever to accelerate and decelerate the speed.
• D-pad — Developed by Nintendo's Gunpei Yokoi, who developed the modern "cross" design for the Donkey Kong (1982) Game & Watch handheld game.
• Directional buttons — Sega's arcade electro-mechanical game Missile (1969) had two directional buttons are used to move a motorized tank.

Controller of the PlayStation 2, the best-selling video game console of all time.

• Dual control — Sega's EM game Missile (969 ) had dual-control scheme, with two directional buttons moving a tank and a joystick used to shoot and steer the missile.
  • Twin-stick shooter — Introduced by Taito's Western Gun (1975), which used one joystick for movement and a second for firing.
  • Dual analog control — Sony's Dual Analog and DualShock controllers in 1997 were the first to feature two analog sticks.
• Force feedback — Sega's arcade motorbike game Man T.T. (1976), also known as Fonz, was the first game using haptic technology for vibrating collisions.
• Gamepad (joypad) — Introduced by Nintendo with the D-pad controller for the Donkey Kong Game & Watch handheld (1982) and the NES controller (1983).
  • Shoulder buttons and grip handles — Introduced by Dempa's XE-1 AP (1989) controller for the Sega Mega Drive console and Japanese computers.
• Joystick — Sega's EM arcade game MotoPolo, released in early 1968, introduced joystick controllers, used to move miniature motorbikes in any direction on the table.
  • Analog joystick — Introduced by Sega's MotoPolo (1968). Joysticks used analog magnetic lever technology to move miniature motorbikes in any direction.
  • Joystick with fire button — First game to use a joystick with fire button was Sega's Missile (1969), which used a joystick to shoot and steer the missile.
  • Analog flight stick — Sega's Space Harrier (1985) introduced an analog flight stick for movement. It could register movement in any direction as well as measure the degree of push.
  • Rotary joystick — Joystick–knob hybrid, which can move in various directions like a joystick and be rotated like a knob, such as for 8‑direction movement and 360-degree aiming. Introduced by SNK's TNK III (1985) and Ikari Warriors (1986).
• Light gun toy — Nintendo introduced a light gun toy to the home market with the Kōsenjū SP (Beam Gun) in 1970. The gun was developed by Nintendo's Gunpei Yokoi with Sharp's Masayuki Uemura.
  • Solar-powered game — Nintendo's Kōsenjū SP (Beam Gun) introduced solar cell technology from Sharp.
  • Video game light gun — The first video game light gun, released for the Magnavox Odyssey console in 1972, was designed and manufactured by Nintendo, based on their earlier Kōsenjū SP light gun.
  • Hands-free head-mounted display with head tracking and voice command — The first such device was Konami's LaserScope (1990) for the NES console. It supported all NES Zapper light gun games.
• Motion controller — Sega's arcade boxing game Heavyweight Champ (1985) featured the first motion-based controllers.
  • Full-body motion control — Invented by Yu Suzuki for Sega's arcade motorbike racing game Hang-On (1985).
  • Motion-sensing controller — Invented by Nintendo for the Wii, the Wii Remote is the first controller with motion-sensing capability. It was a candidate for Time's Best Invention of 2006.
• Motion simulator — The first hydraulic motion simulator arcade cabinets were developed by Sega for the arcade games Space Tactics (1981), Hang-On (1985) and Space Harrier (1985).
  • Gyroscope — Sega's R360 cabinet, debuted with the arcade game G-LOC: Air Battle (1990), introduced the use of gyroscope technology for the first 360-degree motion simulator experience.
• Periscope — Periscope (1965) by Namco and Sega introduced a new controller in the form of a periscope viewer. Its periscope viewer arcade cabinet design was later adopted by several arcade video games.
• Positional gun — Earliest example of a positional gun was used for Sega's EM arcade gun game Sea Devil (1972).
• Racing wheel with accelerator pedal — Kasco's EM game Indy 500 (1968) featured a steering wheel along with an accelerator pedal.
  • Handheld racing wheel — Tomy's Demon Driver (1978) and Turnin’ Turbo Dashboard (1983) were the first handheld games with racing wheels.
• Touch control — In 1985, the Sega Graphic Board for the SG-1000 and SC-3000 was a touch tablet with stylus pen, used for the drawing game Terebi Oekaki.
  • Touchpad — In 1986, the Sega AI Computer had a touchpad, mainly used for educational games.
• Trackball control — The earliest use of trackball controls in a video game was Sega's arcade football/soccer game World Cup, released in March 1978.

Sports

See also: Sports in Japan

Nissan Silvia (S14) performing a drift (2014)

• Air hockey — Sega's electro-mechanical (EM) arcade game MotoPolo (1968) anticipated air hockey gameplay.
  • Motorbike electronic sports game — Sega's MotoPolo (1968) was the first electronic sports game featuring motorbikes.
  • Formula One electronic game — Namco's EM arcade games Formula-X (1973) and F-1 (1976) were the first Formula One electronic games.
  • Bowlingo — Capcom's Bowlingo (1990) was a coin-operated, electro-mechanical, automated mini ten-pin bowling installation, smaller than a standard bowling alley.
• Animated sports — Animal Olympic Games, a 1928 animated short film directed by Yasuji Murata, was the first sports anime.
  • Sports comic — The judo manga series Igaguri-kun by Eiichi Fukui, first published in the manga magazine Bōken'ō in 1952, was the first sports manga series.
• Association football video game — Tomohiro Nishikado's arcade video game Soccer (1973) was the first association football (soccer) sports video game.
  • Basketball video game — Tomohiro Nishikado's arcade title TV Basketball (1974) was the first basketball video game.
  • Esports — Has arcade roots dating back to 1974, with Sega's All Japan TV Game Championships, a nationwide tournament in Japan.
  • Skiing video game — Taito's arcade title Alpine Ski (1981) was the first skiing video game.
  • Olympic video game — Konami's arcade title Track & Field (1983) was the first officially licensed video game based on the Olympic Games.
  • Rugby video game — Data East's Scrum Try (1984) for arcade DECO Cassette System was the first rugby video game.
  • 3D sports video game — ASCII's Amnork (1986) for the for the FM-77 AV computer was the first sports video game with real-time 3D polygon graphics.
• Combat sports video game — Sega's arcade game Heavyweight Champ (1976) was the first combat sports video game.
  • Boxing video game — Sega's Heavyweight Champ (1976) was the first boxing video game.
  • Wrestling video game — Technōs Japan's arcade title Tag Team Wrestling (1983) was the first wrestling video game.
  • Sumo video game — Technōs Japan's arcade title Shusse Ōzumō (1984) was the earliest sumo video game.
• Drifting — Kunimitsu Takahashi created drifting techniques in the 1970s.
  • Drifting competition — In 1988, Keiichi Tsuchiya alongside Option magazine founder and chief editor Daijiro Inada organised the first contest specifically for sliding a car sideways. In 1996, Option organized the first contest outside Japan which began to spread to other countries.
• Ekiden (road relay)
• Gateball
• Instant replay — From 1957, NHK began instant replay broadcasts of sumo wrestling events. Due to matches being short, broadcasters would quickly rewind the video tape after a match to replay the contest.
  • HDTV coverage — The 1984 Summer Olympics, where NHK shot some of the events in HD video, was the first sporting event broadcast on HDTV.
  • 3D TV coverage — In the 1998 Nagano Olympics, some sporting events were filmed for 3D HDTV.
  • VOD coverage — The 1998 Nagano Olympics included the first video-on-demand (VOD) sports coverage.
• Keirin — Started as a gambling sport in 1948 and became an Olympic sport in 2000.

Video games

See also: Video games in Japan and History of Eastern role-playing video games

Space Invaders (1978), an early arcade shoot 'em up.

• 16-bit video game — Universal's arcade video game Get A Way (1978) was the first game with a 16-bit CPU.
  • 32-bit video game — The Sega X Board arcade system, which debuted with After Burner (1987), featured the first 32-bit graphics processing unit (GPU).
  • 64-bit video game — The Sega Model 1 arcade system, which debuted with Virtua Racing (1992), featured the first 64-bit GPU.
  • 128-bit video game — The Sega NAOMI arcade system, which debuted with The House of the Dead 2 (1998), featured the first 128-bit floating-point unit (FPU).
• 3D polygon graphics — Pre-rendered 3D graphics were introduced with arcade laserdisc game Interstellar, debuted by Funai at the AM Show in September 1983.
  • 3D pre-rendered graphics — Introduced by Funai's arcade game Interstellar (1983).
  • 3D real-time computer graphics — Technosoft's racing game Plazma Line (1984) was the first home computer game with real‑time 3D polygon graphics.
  • 3D adventure game — Synergy's Alice: An Interactive Museum (1991) was the first adventure game with pre-rendered 3D polygon graphics.
• 3D polygon human character — First appeared in Arsys Software's Star Cruiser (1988).
  • 3D character physics — A 3D character physics engine first appeared Sega AM2's Virtua Fighter (1993).
  • Texture-mapped 3D characters — Virtua Fighter 2 (1994) introduced texture-mapped 3D characters.
• 3D stereoscopic game — Sega's SubRoc-3D (1982) was the first 3D stereoscopic game.
  • Autostereoscopy — A prototype single-viewer 3D display, the Floating Image System, was presented by Sega AM3 in 1997.
• 3D texture mapping — Namco's SimDrive (SimRoad) for the Namco System 22, with a limited 1992 release, introduced 3D texture mapping.
  • Texture filtering — The Sega Model 2 arcade system introduced the use of 3D texture filtering with Daytona USA (1993).
• 6-player video game — Dates back to Taito's arcade racing game Dead Heat (1975).
• Action role-playing game (ARPG) — Panorama Toh (1983) is considered to be the first ARPG.
  • Role-playing shooter (RPS) — Panorama Toh (1983) was the first ARPG with shooter game elements.
  • Activity-based progression — Nihon Falcom's Xanadu: Dragon Slayer II (1985) was the earliest role-playing video game where individual stats increase based on activity levels.
  • Morality meter — Xanadu: Dragon Slayer II (1985) featured a Karma meter, which affects the temple's reaction.
  • Soulslike — A subgenre of ARPG and action-adventure games that originate from FromSoftware's Demon's Souls in 2009.
• Adult video game — The first erotic video game was Hudson Soft's Yakyūken (1981) for the Sharp MZ-80K computer.
• Alien invasion — Space Invaders (1978) was the first video game to depict aliens.
• Arcade conversion — Kasco's Playtron (1973) had an early prototype arcade system board that supported interchangeable games.

Kung-Fu Master (1984), an early side-scrolling arcade beat 'em up.

• Beat 'em up — In 1984, Irem's Kung-Fu Master laid the foundations for scrolling beat 'em ups with its hand-to-hand combat against multiple enemies.
  • Belt scrolling— Introduced by Technōs Japan's Nekketsu Kōha Kunio-kun (1986).
• Bloom — The earliest real-time 3D polygon game to use the bloom effect was Squaresoft's The Bouncer (2000).
• Bonus stage — The first bonus stage in video game history is in Rally-X, released by Namco in 1980. This became a signature feature of other arcade games.
• Boss battle in real-time — Sega's Samurai, released March 1980, had the player samurai fight a number of swordsmen before confronting a more powerful boss samurai.
  • Multiple bosses — SNK's Sasuke vs. Commander, released in October 1980, is the earliest game with multiple boss encounters.
  • Final boss — In Phoenix (1980), the player's ship must fight a giant mothership in the final level.
  • Sub-boss — In Irem's Kung-Fu Master (1984), end-of-level sub-bosses are followed by the final boss on the top level.
  • Boss rush — Sega's Fantasy Zone (1986) popularized the concept of a boss rush, a stage where players face multiple previous bosses again in succession.
• Branching storylines — The Portopia Serial Murder Case (1983) introduced non-linear branching storylines, presenting different scenarios in response to player actions.
  • Multiple endings — The Portopia Serial Murder Case (1983) introduced alternate endings, considered "way ahead of its time".
• Breaking the fourth wall — Hideo Kojima's Metal Gear (1987) was the earliest video game to break the fourth wall.
• Camera change button — Introduced in 1991 by MNM Software's Japan-exclusive Sharp X68000 games Magical Shot and Star Wars: Attack on the Death Star.
  • Free-floating camera — Nintendo EAD's Super Mario 64 (1996) introduced a free-floating camera that can be controlled independently of the character.
• CD-ROM video game — The first CD-ROM games were Fighting Street and No-Ri-Ko, released for the PC Engine CD-ROM² in 1988. In 1987, there were CD-ROM² demos of Odori Koen Satsujin Jiken, CD Zoo, and Tengai Makyō: Ziria.
  • CD-ROM RPG — Tengai Makyō: Ziria (Far East of Eden: Ziria) for the PC Engine CD-ROM² was the first RPG on CD-ROM, developed from 1987 to 1989.
  • AAA game — Tengai Makyō II: Manji Maru (1992) for the PC Engine CD-ROM² is considered to be the first AAA game production on CD-ROM.
• Character action game — Genre was established by Pac-Man (1980).
• Cheat code — Dates back to the Konami Code, created in 1986 by Kazuhisa Hashimoto as he worked on porting the 1985 arcade game Gradius for use on the Nintendo Entertainment System.
• Climbing — Nichibutsu's arcade game Crazy Climber (1980) was the first climbing game.
• Combo — Data East's arcade DECO Cassette System game Flash Boy (1981), a scrolling action game, had the earliest combo mechanic. When the player punches an enemy and it explodes, debris can destroy other enemies.
  • Combo system — The first fighting game with a combo system was Culture Brain's Shanghai Kid (1985), with "rush" attacks similar to custom combos in Street Fighter Alpha 2 (1996).
  • Super combo — Introduced by SNK's Art of Fighting (1992).
• Command menu — Yuji Horii's The Hokkaido Serial Murder Case: The Okhotsk Disappearance [ja] (1984) introduced a command menu system.
  • Branching menu — The 1985 NES port of The Portopia Serial Murder Case has branching menu selections.
• Color vector graphics — The Sega G80 arcade system, launched in 1981, possessed the world's first color vector X-Y video system.
• Co-op action video game — Sega's arcade light gun shooter Balloon Gun (1974) was the earliest co-op action video game.
• Cover system — In Tomohiro Nishikado's Western Gun (1975), the player characters could take cover behind destructible objects.
  • Cover button — Namco's 1995 3D light gun shooter arcade game Time Crisis introduced a dedicated cover button, specifically an "action" foot pedal, that could be used to take cover behind in-game objects.
  • Laser sight — A laser sight mechanic, where a laser sight helps assist with manually aiming a gun, first appeared in Metal Gear Solid (1998) and WinBack (1999).
  • Blind fire — The earliest cover system with a blind fire mechanic appeared in Kill Switch (2003), designed by Chris Esaki and released by Namco.
• Cutscene — Taito's Space Invaders Part II (1979) introduced cutscenes as brief comical intermissions between levels.
  • Narrative cutscene — The first video game with storytelling cutscenes was Nintendo's Sheriff (1979).
  • Quick time event cutscene (QTE) — Sega's Die Hard Arcade (1996) introduced QTEs in the modern form of cutscene interludes in an otherwise interactive game.
• Destructible object — Destructible objects were introduced by Tomohiro Nishikado's Western Gun (1975).
  • Destructible environment — Namco's Dig Dug (1982) was the first game with a fully destructible environment.
• Dialogue tree — Introduced by Yuji Horii's The Portopia Serial Murder Case (1983), with branching dialogue choices considered "way ahead of its time".
• Difficulty level — Dates back to Tomohiro Nishikado's Speed Race (1974).
  • Difficulty curve — The concept was accidentally invented by Tomohiro Nishikado when he created Space Invaders (1978).
  • Dynamic difficulty — Pioneered by Space Invaders (1978).
  • Enemy horde — Space Invaders (1978) was the first video game where a player had to repel hordes of hostile enemies.
  • Risk and reward — Pioneered by Space Invaders (1978).
• Digitized character sprite — Magical Company's 2D arcade fighting game Last Apostle Puppet Show (1988) was the first game to feature fully digitized character sprites.
• Drifting mechanic — Introduced by Sega's Out Run (1986). The mechanic incorporates AI assistance and details such as, if the car's tires grip the road surface too closely, the car's handling becomes too twitchy.
• Farm life sim — The genre began with the SNES game Harvest Moon (1996).
• Female character — In Nintendo's arcade game Sheriff (1979), the non-player character Betty was the earliest female character in a video game.
  • Damsel in distress — Betty from Nintendo's Sheriff (1979) was the first damsel-in-distress to appear in a video game.
  • Female protagonist — Hiroshi Suzuki's stealth game Manbiki Shōjo (Shoplighting Girl), released for the PET 2001 computer in 1980, was the earliest video game with a female player character.

Street Fighter II (1991), an arcade fighting game.

• Fighting game — Heavyweight Champ (1976) was the first video game with fist fighting. Karate Champ (1984) established the one-on-one fighting game genre.
  • Special move — Introduced by Technōs Japan's Karate Champ (1984).
  • 3D fighting game — The first 3D polygon fighting game was Sega AM2's Virtua Fighter (1993).
  • Platform fighter — Namco's The Outfoxies (1994) originated the concept of platform fighters. The subgenre was most defined by Nintendo's Super Smash Bros. (1999).
• Flight simulator video game — Tomohiro Nishikado's arcade game Interceptor (1975) was a crude early first-person combat flight simulator video game.
• First-person shooter video game (FPS) — Tomohiro Nishikado's Interceptor (1975) is considered an early first-person shooter (FPS).
  • 3D first-person shooter (3D FPS) — The earliest FPS to use 3D polygons was ASCII's Amnork (1986) for the FM‑77 AV computer.
  • Strafing — Arsys Software's Star Cruiser (1988) was an early FPS with strafing controls, considered ahead of its time.
• FMV video game — The first video game with full-motion video (FMV) was Nintendo's arcade game EVR Race (1975), which played anime scenes from an Electronic Video Recording (EVR) video tape on a CRT display.
  • FMV cutscene — Data East's laserdisc video game Bega's Battle (1983) introduced animated FMV cutscenes with voice acting to develop a story between the game's shooting stages.
• Gouraud shading — Namco's SimDrive (SimRoad) for the Namco System 22, with a limited release in 1992, introduced Gouraud shading.
  • Phong shading — The Sega Hikaru arcade system introduced Phong shading, with the system's debut title Brave Firefighters (1999). Space Channel 5 (1999) for the Sega Dreamcast was the first home console game with limited Phong shading.
• Hack and slash — In Sega's action game Samurai (1980), the player samurai swordsman must fight a number of other swordsmen.
  • Side-scrolling hack and slash — The earliest side‑scrolling hack‑and‑slash game was Taito's arcade game The Legend of Kage (1985).
  • 3D hack and slash (character action) — A subgenre of 3D, third-person, weapon-based, melee action games. The subgenre was defined by Hideki Kamiya's Devil May Cry (2001).
• Health meter — Data East's Flash Boy (1981) for the DECO Cassette System introduced an energy bar.
  • Health meter regeneration — In Punch-Out (developed 1983), a stamina meter replenishes when the player strikes the opponent.
• High score — Defined by Taito's Space Invaders (1978), with high scores determined by playing to stay alive for as long as possible, as scores keep rising.
• Holographic video game — Sega released the first holographic video game, Time Traveler (1991). The holographic mirror-like optical device used by the arcade game was invented by Japanese company Dentsu.
• Horror game — Space Invaders (1978) was a precursor to horror games, as it involved a survival scenario which created a sense of panic in players upon release.
  • Survival horror — The earliest survival horror was AX-2: Uchū Yusōsen Nostromo, developed by Akira Takiguchi for the PET 2001 and PC-6001 in 1981. The genre was named and defined by Capcom's Resident Evil (1996).
  • 3D horror game — Doctor Hauzer (1994) was the first horror game with fully real-time 3D polygon graphics.
  • Fast zombie — Originates from 1990s Japanese horror games. Resident Evil (1996) featured zombie dogs that run towards the player. The House of the Dead (1996) introduced running human zombies who run towards the player, jump and swim.
  • Zombie dog — Resident Evil (1996) was the first video game with zombie dogs, popularizing the concept in mass media.
  • Zombie virus — Resident Evil (1996) gave realistic scientific explanations for zombie origins, such as biological weaponry, genetic manipulation, and parasitic symbiosis. This became the standard approach for explaining zombie origins.
  • Psychological horror game — Silent Hill (1999) moved horror games away from B movie horror to the psychological style of art house and Japanese horror films. The game emphasized a disturbing atmosphere rather than visceral horror.
• Human combat — Tomohiro Nishikado's arcade title Western Gun (1975) was the first video game to depict human-to-human combat.
  • Violent video game — Western Gun was the first video game to depict human violence.
  • Western video game — Western Gun was the first Western genre video game.
• Japanese role-playing game (JRPG) — Koei's The Dragon and Princess (1982), released for the PC-88 and FM-7 computers, was the first role-playing video game (RPG) made in Japan.
  • Active Time Battle (ATB) — Hiroyuki Ito introduced the ATB system in Final Fantasy IV (1991), where the time-keeping system does not stop.
  • Critical hit — The concept of critical hits was introduced to video games with the 1986 JRPG title Dragon Quest.
  • Monster-taming game — Kogado Studio's Cosmic Soldier (1985) introduced the concept of recruiting alien enemies into the player's party.
  • Pausable real-time — The earliest example of pausable real-time combat was ELF Corporation's Knights of Xentar (1991).
  • Tactical RPG (strategy RPG) — Koei's The Dragon and Princess (1982) laid the foundations for the tactical RPG genre, with a tactical turn‑based battle system.
• Jumping — First appeared in Tomohiro Nishikado's arcade game TV Basketball (1974).
  • Double jump — Namco's Dragon Buster (1984) originated the double jump mechanic.
  • Wall jump — First appeared in UPL's arcade game Ninja-Kid II (1987).
• Optical disc video game — The first video game to use optical disc technology was Sega's arcade game Astron Belt, which debuted in 1982.
  • Laserdisc video game — The first laserdisc video game was Sega's Astron Belt, which debuted at the September 1982 AM Show.
• Last man standing — The earliest last-man-standing video game with a shrinking play zone was Hudson Soft's 1983 action game Bomberman.
  • Battle royale game (BR) — Bomberman (1990) is considered the first battle royale game.
• Levels — Tomohiro Nishikado's Space Invaders (1978) introduced the "concept of going round after round."
  • Multiple distinct levels — Dates back to 1979 with Theoretical Science Group's Heiankyo Alien and Nintendo's Sheriff.
• Licensed game — Sega's Fonz (1976) was the first time that a television character was licensed for a video game, with Sega predicting the start of a new coalition between the show business and amusement arcade industries.
  • Merchandising — Space Invaders (1978) and Pac-Man (1980) were the first video games to have merchandise.
• Lives — Taito's classic arcade video game Space Invaders (1978) is credited with introducing multiple lives to video games.
• Maze chase — Heiankyo Alien (1979) was an early maze chase game predating Namco's Pac-Man (1980), which established the maze chase genre and spawning many imitations.
• Microtransaction — Invented by Double Dragon 3: The Rosetta Stone (1990). It has shops where players can insert coins into the arcade machine to purchase upgrades, power-ups, health, weapons, special moves and characters.
• Mini-map — The first video game with a radar mini-map was Namco's arcade game Rally-X (1980).
• Motion capture — In Magical Company's arcade fighting game Last Apostle Puppet Show (1988), an early form of motion capture was used to animate the 2D digitized sprites.
  • 3D motion capture — The first 3D game to use motion capture for animating the 3D character models was the Sega Model 1 arcade game Virtua Fighter (1993).
  • Passive optical motion capture — Namco's arcade fighting game Soul Edge (1995) was the first video game to use passive optical motion-capture technology.
• Multi-directional shooter — Taito's Western Gun (1975) laid the foundations for the multi-directional shooter genre.
• Named character — In Nintendo's arcade game Sheriff (1979), the player character Mr. Jack and non-player character Betty were the earliest video game characters with names.
  • Video game mascot — Pac-Man (1980) is recognized as the first video game mascot.
• Ninja video game — The earliest was SNK's arcade shooter Sasuke vs. Commander (1980).
• Online graphical multiplayer — LINKS, a Japanese online network for the MSX launched in 1986, featured early graphical online multiplayer games: T&E Soft's Daiva Dr. Amandora and Super Laydock, Telenet's Girly Block, and Bothtec's Dires.
• Open world video game — The earliest rudimentary open world video games were Tomohiro Nishikado's Western Gun (1975) and combat flight simulator Interceptor (1975).
  • Overworld — The arcade game Route-16 (1981) by Sun Electronics was the earliest game with an overworld. Exiting a maze takes the player to a large overworld map, from where they could enter various buildings.
  • Hub world — Sega's 1981 arcade game 005 was the first game with a hub world.
  • Day-night cycle — Nihon Falcom's computer game Panorama Toh (1983) introduced an open world with day-night cycles.
  • NPC schedule — Castlevania II: Simon's Quest (1987) introduced a day-night cycle where non-player characters (NPC) appear in certain locations depending on the time of day.
• Open-world graphic adventure — Yuji Horii's The Portopia Serial Murder Case (1983) was the earliest open world graphic adventure.
  • Point-and-click — Legends of Star Arthur: Planet Mephius, released by T&E Soft in July 1983, introduced a point-and-click interface, utilizing a cursor to interact with objects.
• Platformer — Universal's Space Panic (1980) is sometimes credited as the first platformer. Shigeru Miyamoto's Donkey Kong (1981) was the first game that allowed players to jump over obstacles and across gaps, making it the first true platformer.
  • Scrolling platformer — Alpha Denshi's Jump Bug (1981) was the first platformer with scrolling graphics. Taito's Jungle King (1982) was an early side-scrolling platformer.
  • Metroidvania — Brain Breaker (1985) by Enix is considered the first Metroidvania game.
• Power-up — Pac-Man from 1980 is credited as the first video game to feature a power-up mechanic.

Fonz arcade cabinet (1976)

• Pseudo-3D sprite scaling — Introduced by Tomohiro Nishikado's arcade shooter Interceptor (1975).
  • Pseudo-3D third-person scaling — Introduced by Sega's Road Race (1976).
  • Pseudo-3D rotation — Dates back to Sega's arcade game After Burner (1987).
• Puzzle video game — Heiankyo Alien (1979) by University of Tokyo's Theoretical Science Group (TSG) was the first puzzle video game.
  • Puzzle-platformer — Universal's Space Panic (1980) was the earliest puzzle-platformer.
  • Physics game — Nintendo's Gyromite (1985) was an early physics-based puzzle game.
• Racing simulation — The earliest attempt at a racing simulation was Namco's arcade game Pole Position (1982).
  • Checkpoint — Namco's Pole Position (1982) was the first game with a checkpoint system.
  • Time trial — Pole Position (1982) was the first game to have a qualifying lap before the main race.
  • Kart racing game — Sega's arcade game Power Drift featured go-kart racing in 1988.
• Real-time strategy (RTS) — Bokosuka Wars (1983) is considered an early RTS. Herzog Zwei (1989) is considered the first true RTS.
  • Multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) — The genre originates from Herzog Zwei (1989).
• Save data — The first game to save the player's high score was Taito's Space Invaders (1978).
• Shoot 'em up — Space Invaders (1978) is frequently cited as the "first" or "original" in the genre. Space Invaders pitted the player against multiple enemies descending from the top of the screen at a constantly increasing speed.
  • Bullet hell — The bullet hell or danmaku genre began to emerge in the early 1990s. Toaplan's Batsugun (1993) is considered to be the ancestor of the modern bullet hell genre.
• Stealth game — Hiroshi Suzuki's Manbiki Shounen (Shoplifting Boy), released in 1979, was the stealth game. It inspired two stealth games in 1980, Taito's Lupin III and Suzuki's own sequel Manbiki Shoujo (Shoplifting Girl).
  • 3D stealth game — Early gameplay demos of Hideo Kojima's 3D stealth game Metal Gear Solid were revealed to the public at the 1996 Tokyo Game Show and E3 1997.
• Survival game — Survival scenarios date back to Space Invaders (1978), Pac-Man (1980) and early survival horror. Survival game mechanics were introduced in Panorama Toh (1983).
• Third-person shooter (TPS) — Radar Scope (1979) was the first shooter game with a pseudo-3D third-person perspective.
  • Rail shooter — Sega's arcade game Buck Rogers: Planet of Zoom (1982) was an early pseudo-3D third-person rail shooter.
  • 3D third-person shooter (3D TPS) — Namco's Cyber Sled (1993) was the earliest TPS with 3D polygon graphics.
  • Over-the-shoulder (OTS) — Resident Evil 4 (2005) redefined the TPS genre with its "over the shoulder" offset camera angles, where the camera is placed directly over the right shoulder and therefore doesn't obscure the action.
• Visual novel (VN) — The visual novel genre is a type of interactive fiction developed in Japan in the early 1990s. As the name suggests, visual novels typically have limited interactivity, as most player interaction is restricted to clicking text and graphics.

Sciences

See also: Science and technology in Japan and History of science and technology in Japan

Atmospheric science

A downburst.

• Downburst — Downbursts, strong ground-level wind systems that emanate from a point above and blow radially, were discovered by Ted Fujita.
  • Macroburst — Ted Fujita discovered macrobursts and classified them as downbursts larger than 4 km (2.5 mi).
  • Microburst — The microburst was first discovered and identified as a small scale downburst affecting an area 4 km (2.5 mi) in diameter or less by Fujita in 1974.
• Fujita scale — The first scale designed to measure tornado intensity, it was introduced by Ted Fujita in 1971. The scale was widely adopted until the Enhanced Fujita scale.
• Fujiwhara effect — The Fujiwhara effect is an atmospheric phenomenon first described by Sakuhei Fujiwhara in 1921.
• Jet stream — Jet streams were first discovered by Japanese meteorologist Wasaburo Oishi by tracking ceiling balloons.

Chemistry and biomedical

See also: Kampo

Image from "Surgical Casebook" (Kishitsu geryō zukan) by Hanaoka Seishu

• Agar — Agar was discovered in Japan around 1658 by Mino Tarōzaemon.
• Adrenaline (epinephrine) — Jōkichi Takamine and Keizo Uenaka first discovered epinephrine in 1900. Takamine successfully isolated and purified the andrenaline hormone.
• Aspergillus oryzae — The genome for Aspergillus oryzae was sequenced and released by a consortium of Japanese biotechnology companies, in late 2005.

• CRISPR — Yoshizumi Ishino discovered CRISPR in 1987.
• Dementia with Lewy bodies — First described in 1976 by psychiatrist Kenji Kosaka. Kosaka was awarded the Asahi Prize in 2013 for his discovery.
• Endoscopic submucosal dissection (ESD) — This surgical procedure was developed in Japan by M. Tada, M. Murata and F. Murakami between 1974 and 1984.
• Ephedrine synthesis — In 1885, the chemical synthesis of ephedrine was first accomplished by Japanese organic chemist Nagai Nagayoshi.
• Frontier molecular orbital theory — Kenichi Fukui developed and published a paper on frontier molecular orbital theory in 1952.
• General anesthesia — Hanaoka Seishū was the first surgeon who used the general anaesthesia in surgery, in 1804. He also dared to operate on cancers of the breast and oropharynx, remove necrotic bone, and perform amputations of extremities.
• Immunoglobulin E (IgE) — Antibody only found in mammals. It was discovered during 1966–1967 by Kimishige Ishizaka's team at the Children's Asthma Research Institute and Hospital in Denver, Colorado.
• Induced pluripotent stem cell — The induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSCs) is a kind of pluripotent stem cell which can be created using a mature cell. iPSCs technology was developed by Shinya Yamanaka and his lab workers in 2006.

Chemical structure of methamphetamine

• Methamphetamine (meth) — Methamphetamine was first synthesized from ephedrine in Japan in 1894 by chemist Nagayoshi Nagai.
  • Methamphetamine hydrochloride — In 1919, methamphetamine hydrochloride was synthesized by pharmacologist Akira Ogata.
• Nihonium — Element 113. Named after Nihon, the local name for Japan.
• Okazaki fragment — DNA fragments formed on the lagging template strand during DNA replication. Earliest experiments conducted in the 1960s led by Reiji Okazaki and Tsuneko Okazaki while researching DNA replication of Escherichia coli. In 1966, Kiwako Sakabe and Reiji Okazaki showed that DNA replication was a discontinuous process involving fragments. The fragments were further investigated by the researchers and their colleagues through their research including the study on bacteriophage DNA replication in Escherichia coli.
• Photocatalysis — Akira Fujishima discovered photocatalysis occurring on the surface of titanium dioxide in 1967.
• Pulse oximetry — Pulse oximetry was developed in 1972, by Takuo Aoyagi and Michio Kishi, bioengineers, at Nihon Kohden using the ratio of red to infrared light absorption of pulsating components at the measuring site. Susumu Nakajima, a surgeon, and his associates first tested the device in patients, reporting it in 1975.
• Portable electrocardiograph — Taro Takemi built the first portable electrocardiograph in 1937.

• Statin — The statin class of drugs was first discovered by Akira Endo, a Japanese biochemist working for the pharmaceutical company Sankyo. Mevastatin was the first discovered member of the statin class.
• Takadiastase — A form of diastase which results from the growth, development and nutrition of a distinct microscopic fungus known as Aspergillus oryzae. Jōkichi Takamine developed the method first used for its extraction in the late 19th century.
• Thiamine (Vitamin B₁) — Thiamine was the first of the water-soluble vitamins to be described, leading to the discovery of more such trace compounds essential for survival and to the notion of vitamin. It was not until 1884 that Kanehiro Takaki (1849–1920) attributed beriberi to insufficient nitrogen intake (protein deficiency). In 1910, Japanese scientist Umetaro Suzuki succeeded in extracting a water-soluble complex of micronutrients from rice bran and named it aberic acid. He published this discovery in a Japanese scientific journal. The Polish biochemist Kazimierz Funk later proposed the complex be named "Vitamine" (a portmanteau of "vital amine") in 1912.
• Transurethral resection in saline (TURis) — This urological surgical procedure was developed by Japanese physicians Makoto Miki (Shinjuku Ishikawa Hospital), Hiroaki Shiozawa, Tetsuo Matsumoto and Taku Aizawa between 2000 and 2003.
• Urushiol — Urushiol, a mixture of alkyl catechols, was discovered by Rikou Majima. Majima also discovered that Urushiol was an allergen which gave members of the genus Toxicodendron, such as poison ivy and poison oak, their skin-irritating properties.

Equipment

Miniature USB microscope, a type of digital microscope.

• Automated dispensing cabinet — In 2004, Sumitomo Heavy Industries released the first automatic radiopharmaceutical administering device for positron emission tomography.
• Digital microscope — In 1986, Japanese company Hirox created the first ever digital microscope.
• Digital radiography — In 1981, Fujifilm's FCR (Fuji Computed Radiography) was the first digital X-ray diagnostic imaging system with computer processing.
• Electrosurgical insulated-tip knife (IT knife) — In 2002, Olympus Corporation introduced the electrosurgical IT knife for endoscopic submucosal dissection (ESD) surgical procedures.
  • Electrosurgery with ultrasound and RF energy — In 2012, the Thunderbeat by Olympus was the first electrosurgical device to integrate both ultrasonic and bipolar RF energy.
• Endless hot rolling — In 2000, the first endless hot rolling process was jointly developed by Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal, Kawasaki Steel, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and IHI Corporation.
  • Hot rolling thermometer — In 2011, Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal developed the first hot rolling sheet steel thermometer with high precision.
• Endoscopic ultrasound (EUS) — Introduced by Olympus Corporation in 1982.
• Esophagogastroduodenoscope (EGD) — Mutsuo Sugiura was a Japanese engineer famous for being the first to develop a gastrocamera (EGD). His story was illustrated in the NHK TV documentary feature, Project X: Challengers: The Development of a Gastro-camera Wholly Made in Japan. Sugiura graduated from Tokyo Polytechnic University in 1938 and then joined Olympus Corporation. While working at this company, he first developed the first EGD in 1950, the Olympus GT-1.
  • Fiber gastroscope — Introduced by Olympus in 1964.
• Flexible bronchoscopy — Shigeto Ikeda invented the flexible fiber bronchoscope in 1966.
  • Video bronchoscope — In 1994, Pentax researchers developed video broncoscopes with a charge-coupled device (CCD) video chip located at their distal end.
  • High-definition video bronchoscope — The first high-definition (HD) video bronchoscope was introduced by Pentax in 2011.
• Friction analysis of galvannealed sheet steel — In 2003, Sumitomo Metal Industries and Toyota researchers conducted the first friction analysis of galvannealed sheet steel using Dr. STAMP technology.
• HD video brain surgery — In 1987, a brain surgery was first recorded in HD video, using NHK's Hi-Vision analog HDTV technology.
• HD video endoscopy — In 2002, the EVIS LUCERA by Olympus Corporation was the first HD endoscopic video system.
  • Ultra HD endoscopy — Introduced by Olympus in 2015.
• High-resolution ultrasound machine — Developed by Toshiba between 1971 and 1975.
• High-tensile strength plate — In 2007, Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal developed the first high-tensile strength plate for improving the fatigue strength of welded joints.
• Planetarium projector with 3D ray tracing — LINKS-1 Computer Graphics System was used to create the first 3D planetarium video made with ray-traced 3D computer graphics. It was presented with Fujitsu at a 1985 Tsukuba event.
• Space photography camera — Konica's Minolta Hi-Matic was the first camera taken into outer space on a human spaceflight mission by astronaut John Glenn in 1962.
  • Space photography digital camera — The Nikon NASA F4 (1987) was the first digital camera designed for space photography. It was used on the Space Shuttle Discovery in 1991.
  • HD video space camera — NHK and Sony developed the first HD video camcorder used on a spacecraft, the Space Shuttle Discovery in 1998.
• Vectorcardiography (VCG) — Taro Takemi invented the vectorcardiograph in 1939.

Mathematics

See also: Japanese mathematics

A page from Seki Kōwa's Katsuyo Sampo (1712), tabulating binomial coefficients and Bernoulli numbers.

• Bernoulli number — Studied by Seki Kōwa and published after his death, in 1712. Jacob Bernoulli independently developed the concept in the same period, though his work was published a year later.
• Calculus — Seki Kōwa (1642–1708) founded Enri, a mathematical system with the same purpose as calculus.
  • Itô calculus — Developed by Kiyosi Itô throughout the 20th century, Itô calculus extends calculus to stochastic processes such as Brownian motion (Wiener process). Its basic concept is the Itô integral, and among the most important results is a change of variable formula known as Itô's lemma. Itô calculus is widely applied in various fields, but is perhaps best known for its use in mathematical finance.
• Determinant — In Japan, determinants were introduced to study elimination of variables in systems of higher-order algebraic equations. They used it to give shorthand representation for the resultant. The determinant as an independent function was first studied by Seki Kōwa in 1683.
• Elimination theory — In 1683 (Kai-Fukudai-no-Hō), Seki Kōwa came up with elimination theory, based on resultant. To express resultant, he developed the notion of determinant.
• Hironaka's example — Hironaka's example is a non-Kähler complex manifold that is a deformation of Kähler manifolds discovered by Heisuke Hironaka.
• Iwasawa theory and the Main conjecture of Iwasawa theory — Initially created by Kenkichi Iwasawa, Iwasawa theory was originally developed as a Galois module theory of ideal class groups. The main conjecture of Iwasawa theory is a deep relationship between p-adic L-functions and ideal class groups of cyclotomic fields, proved by Iwasawa for primes satisfying the Kummer–Vandiver conjecture and proved for all primes by Mazur and Wiles.
• Japanese theorem for cyclic quadrilaterals — In geometry, the Japanese theorem states that the centers of the incircles of certain triangles inside a cyclic quadrilateral are vertices of a rectangle. It was originally stated on a sangaku tablet in 1880.
• Japanese theorem for cyclic polygons — This result comes from a sangaku tablet dated 1800.
• Resultant — In 1683 (Kai-Fukudai-no-Hō), Seki Kōwa came up with elimination theory, based on resultant. To express resultant, he developed the notion of determinant.
• Richardson extrapolation — Takebe Katahiro used Richardson extrapolation in 1695, about 200 years earlier than Richardson.
• Sangaku — Japanese geometric puzzles on wooden tablets created during the Edo period (1603–1867) by members of all social classes. The Dutch Japanologist Isaac Titsingh introduced sangaku to the West when he returned to Europe in the late 1790s.
• Soddy's hexlet — Irisawa Shintarō Hiroatsu analyzed Soddy's hexlet in a Sangaku in 1822 and was the first person to do so.
• Takagi existence theorem — Takagi existence theorem was developed by Teiji Takagi in isolation during World War I. He presented it at the International Congress of Mathematicians in 1920.
• Two-valued Boolean algebra — Discovered independently by NEC engineer Akira Nakashima. From 1934 to 1936, his switching circuit theory showed that two-valued Boolean algebra can describe the operation of switching circuits.

Nanotechnology

A "sliced and unrolled" representation of a carbon nanotube as a strip of a graphene molecule.

• Carbon nanofiber (CNF) — Discovered by Morinobu Endo in the early 1970s.
• Nanotechnology — The field of nanotechnology was named and defined by Norio Taniguchi in 1974.
  • Carbon nanotube (CNT) — Discovered by Morinobu Endo in 1976.
  • Multi-walled carbon nanotube (MWCNT) — Discovered by Sumio Iijima of NEC in 1991.
  • Nanoelectronics — 16 nm PMOS transistor was demonstrated by NEC in September 1996.
  • Nanoscale transistor — In 1996, NEC's research team including Hisao Kawaura, Toshitsugu Sakamoto and Toshio Baba demonstrated a 16 nm PMOS transistor.
• Optical communication nanowire lasers — In 2017, NTT demonstrated the first laser oscillation and modulation with optical communication nanowire.

Physics

445–450 nm blue laser (middle)

• Blue laser — In 1992, Japanese inventor Shuji Nakamura invented the first efficient blue LED.
• Cabibbo–Kobayashi–Maskawa matrix — Building off the work of Nicola Cabibbo, Makoto Kobayashi and Toshihide Maskawa introduced the Cabibbo–Kobayashi–Maskawa matrix which introduced for three generations of quarks. In 2008, Kobayashi and Maskawa shared one half of the Nobel Prize in Physics "for the discovery of the origin of the broken symmetry which predicts the existence of at least three families of quarks in nature".
• Ferrite magnet — Yogoro Kato and Takeshi Takei of the Tokyo Institute of Technology synthesized the first ferrite compounds in 1930.
• Nagaoka model (first Saturnian model of the atom) — In 1904, Hantaro Nagaoka proposed the first planetary model of the atom as an alternative to J. J. Thomson's plum pudding model. Ernest Rutherford and Niels Bohr would later develop the more viable Bohr model in 1913.
• Plasma gasification commercialization — In 1999, a 166-short-ton (151 t) per day pilot plant was built in Yoshii, co-developed by Hitachi Metals. It was certified after a demonstration period during 1999–2000.
  • Thermal cracking by gasification — By 2015, Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal had successfully established the first thermal cracking technology using gasification recycling equipment for 100% resource recovery.
• Sakata model — The Sakata model was a precursor to the quark model proposed by Shoichi Sakata in 1956.
• Quantum tunnelling — In 1957, Leo Esaki demonstrated tunneling of electrons over a few nanometer wide barrier in a semiconductor structure and developed a diode based on tunnel effect.
  • Quantum Hall effect — First predicted by Tsuneya Ando's University of Tokyo team in 1975.
• Solar sail — The first spacecraft to successfully use solar sail technology for propulsion was IKAROS, launched in 2010.

Semiconductors

See also: Semiconductor industry in Japan

• Graded-index optical fiber (GI fiber) — Invented by Jun-ichi Nishizawa in the early 1960s, as a channel for transmitting light from semiconductor lasers.
  • Fiber-optic cable — In 1975, NEC and Tokyo Electric Power Company conducted the first comprehensive field test of a fiber‑optic cable system.
  • Optical fiber connector — Invented by Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (NTT) in 1986.
• Solid-state maser — Invented by Jun-ichi Nishizawa in 1955.

Diodes

Blue LEDs

• Avalanche photodiode — Invented by Jun-ichi Nishizawa in 1952.
• Blue LED — In 1992 Japanese inventor Shuji Nakamura invented the first efficient blue LED.
  • White LED — In 1995, Yoshinori Shimizu's team at Nichia developed the first white LED, by combining blue LED with phosphors, the basis for modern LEDs.
• Green LED — Developed by Junichi Nishizawa in 1971.
• PIN diode/photodiode — Invented by Jun-ichi Nishizawa and his colleagues in 1950.
  • Pinned photodiode (PPD) — Invented by Nobukazu Teranishi, Hiromitsu Shiraki and Yasuo Ishihara at NEC in 1980.
• Semiconductor laser — Invented by Jun-ichi Nishizawa in 1957.
  • Continuous wave semiconductor laser — Co-invented by Izuo Hayashi (1970). It's commonly used for fiber-optics, laser printers, barcode readers and optical discs.
  • Vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) — Short cavity VCSEL proposed by Kenichi Iga in 1977. Demonstrated by Soda, Iga, Kitahara and Suematsu in 1979.
• Tunnel diode — It was invented in August 1957 by Leo Esaki and Yuriko Kurose when working at Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo, now known as Sony.
• White OLED — Pioneered by J. Kido's team at Yamagata University in 1995. It led to the commercialization of OLED displays and lighting.

Integrated circuits

• CMOS large-scale integration (CMOS LSI) — Toshiba used C²MOS technology to develop a CMOS LSI chip for Sharp's Elsi Mini LED pocket calculator in 1971.
  • Very-large-scale integration (VLSI) — Dates back to 1972, when Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (NTT) developed a prototype 64 kbit VLSI memory chip.
• Glass integrated circuit (IC) — Shunpei Yamazaki invented an integrated circuit made entirely from glass and with an 8-bit central processing unit (CPU).
• Three-dimensional integrated circuit (3D IC) — In 1969, a 3D MOS integrated circuit memory chip was patented by NEC.
• Through-silicon via (TSV) — First 3D ICs with TSV were fabricated in 1980s Japan. Patents filed by Hitachi (1983) and Fujitsu (1984).
• Wafer bonding — Proposed by Yoichi Akasaka's Mitsubishi Electric research team in 1986. In 1989, Yoshihiro Hayashi's NEC research team fabricated a two active layer 3D IC chip using CUBIC (Cumulatively Bonded IC).

Transistors

A double-gate FinFET transistor device

• Field-effect transistor (FET) — The static induction transistor (SIT), the first type of JFET, was invented by Japanese engineers Jun-ichi Nishizawa and Y. Watanabe in 1950.
  • Static induction transistor (SIT) — Invented by Jun-ichi Nishizawa and Y. Watanabe in 1950.
  • Junction FET (JFET) — The first type of JFET was the SIT, invented by Nishizawa and Watanabe in 1950.
  • Clocked CMOS (C²MOS) — Toshiba developed C²MOS, a circuit technology with lower power consumption and faster operating speed than ordinary CMOS, in 1969.
  • Twin-well CMOS — In 1978, Toshiaki Masuhara's Hitachi team introduced the twin-well Hi-CMOS process with the HM6147 memory chip. Twin-well CMOS became the most common semiconductor process in the 1980s.
  • Microscale transistor — In 1979, NTT demonstrated a 1 μm MOS transistor for their 64 kb DRAM memory chip.
• Insulated-gate bipolar transistor (IGBT) — The basic IGBT mode of operation, where a pnp transistor is driven by a MOSFET, was first proposed by K. Yamagami and Y. Akagiri of Mitsubishi Electric in the Japanese patent S47-21739, filed in 1968.
  • Non-latch-up IGBT — Akio Nakagawa's Toshiba team invented the device design concept of non-latch-up IGBTs in 1984.
• Multi-gate MOSFET — A double-gate MOSFET (metal–oxide–semiconductor FET) was described by Toshihiro Sekigawa of ETL in a 1980 patent describing the XMOS transistor.
  • Fin field-effect transistor (FinFET) — Began with DELTA transistor demonstrated by Digh Hisamoto's Hitachi team in 1989.
  • GAAFET — Gate-all-around (GAA) MOSFET was first demonstrated in 1988 by a Toshiba research team including Fujio Masuoka, Hiroshi Takato, and Kazumasa Sunouchi, who demonstrated a vertical nanowire GAAFET.
• Power MOSFET — In 1969, Hitachi introduced a vertical power MOSFET.
  • DMOS — In 1969, the DMOS (double-diffused MOSFET) with self-aligned gate was first reported by Y. Tarui, Y. Hayashi and Toshihiro Sekigawa of the Electrotechnical Laboratory (ETL).
  • LDMOS — In 1977, Hitachi introduced the LDMOS transistor. They were the only LDMOS manufacturer between 1977 and 1983, mainly for audio power amplifiers and PA systems.
• VMOS — VMOS was invented by Hitachi in 1969.

Telecommunication

• Ansafone — Created by inventor Dr. Kazuo Hashimoto in 1958. He was employed by the company Phonetel, who in 1960 began selling the first answering machines in the US.
• Caller ID — In May 1976, Kazuo Hashimoto first built a prototype of a caller ID display device that could receive caller ID information.
• Digital answering machine — In 1983, Kazuo Hashimoto received a patent for a digital answering machine architecture with US Patent 4,616,110.

Internet

A thread on 4chan, a popular English language imageboard.

• Digital videophone — The first practical videophone for home use was Mitsubishi's Luma 1000 in 1986. It could send digital images over a phone line.
• Fiber-optic communication — Proposed by Jun-ichi Nishizawa in 1963.
  • Fiber-optic communications system — In 1977, NEC developed the first commercial fiber-optic communications system.
  • Multi-core fiber (MCF) — Invented by S. Inao of Furukawa Electric in 1979.
  • Synchronous optical network (SONET) — In 1989, NEC and NTT developed the first commercial synchronous digital hierarchy (SDH) system.
• Image sharing — The Olympus Deltis VC-1100 (1994) was the first digital camera capable of digital image transmission via internal modem. Ricoh RDC-2S (1996) camera introduced image sharing via PHS network.
• Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) — NTT's Integrated Services Network (INS), also called INS-Net, was the world's first ISDN service. After field tests from 1984 to 1987, NTT launched INS-Net in 1988.
  • Broadband fiber-optic network — In 1986, INS was planned to be a national high‑capacity fibre-optic network supporting a range of broadband services in Japan.
• Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) — Originates from Toshiba's Cell Switch Router (CSR) technology in 1994.
  • Multicast MPLS — In 2003, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (NTT) first developed multicast MPLS for broadband services.
• Online magazine — The first online magazine was Internet Magazine launched by Japanese company Impress in September 1994.
• OpenFlow product — In 2011, NEC's Universe PF Series was the first OpenFlow-compatible product.
• Petabit per second — In 2019, Japan's National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT) demonstrated the first successful network node transmission at 1 petabit (Pbit) per second.
• Photonics telecommunications network — Between 2019 and 2021, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (NTT) led the development of Innovative Optical and Wireless Networks (IOWN), the first all-photonics telecommunications network.
• Streaming media — In 1986, a streaming video-on-demand (VOD) service was proposed in Japan, when there were plans to develop the Integrated Network System (INS).
• Textboard — Textboards like imageboards were invented in Japan. However, unlike imageboards, textboards are relatively unknown outside Japan.
  • Imageboard — The first imageboards were created in Japan. Later imageboards such as 2chan would be created.
• VTuber — In 2010, Nitroplus uploaded YouTube videos with Super Sonico talking to the audience about herself and company releases.

Mobile phones

See also: Japanese mobile phone culture

J-SH04, released by Sharp Corporation and J-Phone in 2000, was an early camera phone capable of picture messaging.

• Commercial mobile phone — The Panasonic TZ‑801 (1979) was the first commercial mobile phone. It used NTT's 1G mobile network, initially available only in Tokyo.
  • Pocket mobile phone — The NEC P3 (1990) was the first truly portable pocket-sized mobile phone.
  • Flip phone — The NEC TZ-804 (Mova N), launched in 1991, was the first mobile phone with a clamshell design.
  • Camera phone — The Kyocera Visual Phone VP-210, released in May 1999, was the first commercial camera phone.

Each of the most popular emoji from the 9 major emoji categories according to the Unicode Emoji Frequency study from 2021, rendered in the Noto Color Emoji font

• Emoji — The first emoji was created in 1998 or 1999 in Japan by Shigetaka Kurita.
  • Face with Tears of Joy emoji — NTT DoCoMo's emoji set in 1999 included the "Face with Tears of Joy" emoji.
• Frequency-division multiple access (FDMA) — In 1979, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (NTT) introduced the first mobile phone system using FDMA.
• Front-facing camera phone — The Kyocera VP-210 Visual Phone, released in May 1999, was the first front-facing camera phone.
  • Mobile videophone — The Kyocera VP-210 (1999) was the first mobile videophone, which also doubled as a camera phone for still photos.
• Mobile network — First commercial cellular network, 1G, was launched in Japan by NTT in 1979, initially in the metropolitan area of Tokyo.
  • 1G — The first commercial cellular network was launched in Japan by Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (NTT) in 1979, initially in the metropolitan area of Tokyo.
  • 2G — Personal Digital Cellular (PDC) was developed in the late 1980s. Personal Handy-phone System (PHS) was developed by NTT in 1989.
  • 3G — In 1998, the first 3G network (FOMA) was launched by NTT DoCoMo in Japan.
  • LTE — In 2004, LTE was first proposed by NTT DoCoMo of Japan.
  • 4G — In February 2007, NTT DoCoMo tested a 4G communication system prototype called VSF-OFCDM and completed a trial.
  • 5G — NTT DoCoMo began development in 2010 and demonstrated 5G in 2013.
• Mobile web — In 1999, NTT DoCoMo's i-mode (1999) was the first Internet access service specific to mobile phones.
• Multimedia messaging service (MMS) — Picture messaging was introduced with the J-SH04, released by Sharp Corporation and J-Phone in 2000.
• Ringtone — In September 1996, IDO sold Digital Minimo D319 by Denso. It was the first mobile phone where a user could input an original melody, rather than having to use preloaded melodies. These phones proved to be popular in Japan.
  • Polyphonic ringtone — Polyphonic ringtone technology dates back to 1999, when Yamaha Corporation's MA-1 sound chip was introduced, including four 2-op FM synthesis channels.
• Smartphone — In 1991, NEC introduced a laptop computer with integrated mobile phone. NTT's i-mode (1999) mobile web service offered online shopping, mobile payments, NFC (mobile wallets), 1seg mobile TV, ringtones and games.
  • Foldable smartphone — The earliest commercial foldable smartphone was Kyocera's Echo (2011).
• Stereoscopic 3D mobile phone — The first 3D mobile phone was the Sharp mova SH251iS (2002).
  • Autostereoscopic 3D mobile phone — In January 2009, Hitachi introduced the first autostereoscopic 3D phone under KDDI, the Hitachi H001.
• Wideband Code Division Multiple Access (W-CDMA) — In 1998, the first wideband code-division multiple access network was launched by NTT DoCoMo in Japan.

Wireless

A modern high-gain UHF Yagi television antenna.

• Cordless phone with answering machine — In 1989, Sharp Corporation introduced the first low-power cordless phone with an answering machine function.
• Meteor burst communications — The first observation of interaction between meteors and radio propagation was reported by Hantaro Nagaoka in 1929.
• Near-field communication (NFC) — In March 2002, Sony and Philips established a technology specification for NFC and created a technical outline.
• Radio-controlled wheel transmitter — Futaba introduced the FP-T2F in 1974. It was the first to use a steering wheel onto a box transmitter. KO Propo introduced the EX-1 in 1981. It is one of two types currently for surface use.
• Semiconductor microwave communication — In 1963, NEC developed first solid-state electronic semiconductor microwave communications line.
  • Transistor repeater — In 1963, Nippon Electric Company (NEC) developed the first fully transistorized microwave repeaters, using silicon transistors for microwave amplification.
  • Digital microwave communication — Between 1963 and 1968, Masasuke Morita led a team of NEC and NTT engineers in developing the first commercial pulse-code modulation (PCM) digital microwave communications system.
• Wireless earphones — Onkyo's W800BT range, launched in 2015, were the first wireless in-ear headphones.
• Wireless game console — The earliest was the TV Tennis Electrotennis (1975) by Epoch Co. It connected wirelessly to a TV through ultra high frequency (UHF) antenna technology.
• Wireless guitar amplifier — Boss Corporation's KATANA-AIR Wireless Guitar Amplifier (2018) was the first fully wireless guitar amplifier.
• Wireless outdoor security sensor — In 1983, Japanese company OPTEX developed one of the first wireless outdoor security sensors.
• Wireless transmission with orbital angular momentum multiplexing (OAM) — In 2018, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (NTT) successfully demonstrated the first 100 Gbit/s wireless transmission using OAM multiplexing.
• Yagi antenna — The Yagi-Uda antenna was invented in 1926 by Shintaro Uda of Tohoku Imperial University, Sendai, Japan, with the collaboration of Hidetsugu Yagi, also of Tohoku Imperial University. Yagi published the first English-language reference on the antenna in a 1928 survey article on short wave research in Japan and it came to be associated with his name. However, Yagi always acknowledged Uda's principal contribution to the design, and the proper name for the antenna is, as above, the Yagi-Uda antenna (or array).

Transportation

See also: Transport in Japan

A lineup of JR East Shinkansen bullet trains in October 2012

• Automatic ticket gate — Introduced with the opening of the Tokyo Underground Railway in 1927.
  • Piezoelectric energy harvesting walkway — In 2007, East Japan Railway's Tokyo train stations harvested energy from footsteps for ticket gates and EL displays.
• Bullet train — The world's first high volume capable (initially 12 car maximum) "high-speed train" was Japan's Tōkaidō Shinkansen, which officially opened in October 1964, with construction commencing in April 1959. The 0 Series Shinkansen, built by Kawasaki Heavy Industries, achieved maximum passenger service speeds of 210 km/h (130 mph) on the Tokyo–Nagoya–Kyoto–Osaka route, with earlier test runs hitting top speeds in 1963 at 256 km/h.
• Diesel-powered two-wheel tractor — In 1926, Okayama farmer Nishizaki Hiroshi invented a two-wheel tractor with a diesel powered engine.
  • Coaxial rotary tiller — Honda's Lucky FU650, launched in 1993, was the first rotary tiller with coaxial rotating tines.
• Hybrid electric bus — Introduced by Hino Motors in 1991.
  • Hybrid electric tour bus — Introduced by Hino Motors in 1997.
• Interplanetary solar sail spacecraft — IKAROS the world's first successful interplanetary solar sail spacecraft was launched by JAXA on 21 May 2010.
• Inverter-Controlled High-Speed Gearless Elevator — The insulated gate bipolar transistors (IGBTs) realized increased switching frequency and reduced magnetic noise in the motor, which eliminated the need for a filter circuit and resulted in a more compact system. The IGBT also allowed the development of a small, highly integrated and highly sophisticated all-digital control device, consisting of the combination of a high-speed processor, specially customized gate arrays, and a circuit capable of controlling large currents of several kHz. Today, the inverter-controlled gearless drive system is applied in high-speed elevators worldwide.
• Personal watercraft — Kawasaki were the first to develop stand-up personall watercraft under their trademark Jet Ski. While experimentation with personal watercraft preceded this. The Jet Ski was the first commercially successful and practical PWC.
• Rickshaw — A two or three-wheeled passenger cart seating one or two people that serves as a mode of human-powered transport pulled by a runner draws a two-wheeled cart. The rickshaws was invented in Japan around 1869, after the lifting of a ban on wheeled vehicles from the Tokugawa period (1603–1868), and at the beginning of a rapid period of technical advancement across the Japanese archipelago.
• Spiral escalator — Mitsubishi Electric unveiled the world's first practical spiral escalator in 1985. Spiral escalators have the advantage of taking up less space than their conventional counterparts.

Automobiles

See also: Automotive industry in Japan

Nissan Altra EV (1997), the first battery electric vehicle (BEV) using lithium-ion batteries.

• 4-wheel steering (4WS) — Mazda were pioneers in applying four-wheel steering to automobiles, demonstrating it on their Mazda MX-02 (1984) concept car.
• 5-speed automated manual transmission (AMT) — Isuzu Aska's NAVi5 (1985) introduced the first 5-speed AMT.
• 5-speed automatic transmission (AT) — Introduced with Jatco 5R01 transmission (1989) by Jatco and Nissan, used in the Nissan Cedric, Cefiro, Gloria, Skyline and Laurel.
  • 8-speed AT — Toyota's Lexus LS 460 (2006) featured the first 8-speed AT.
• Active exhaust system — Introduced in 1991 by Mitsubishi 3000GT.
• Automatic car door — Introduced for Japanese taxi vehicles in 1964.
• Battery electric vehicle (BEV) with lithium-ion battery — Nissan's lithium-battery Altra EV miniwagon, introduced in 1997, was notable for being the first production electric vehicle (EV) to use lithium-ion batteries.
  • DC fast charging — The Mitsubishi i-MiEV (2009) was the first electric car with DC fast charging capability.
• Cam-shifting VVT — Between 1982 and 1989, Honda's Ikuo Kajitani invented VTEC, a variable valve timing (VVT) technology. The VTEC system uses two (or occasionally three) camshaft profiles and hydraulically selects between profiles.
  • VVT diesel engine — In 2010, Mitsubishi Motors developed and started mass production of its 4N13 1.8 L DOHC I4, the world's first passenger car diesel engine that features a VVT system.
• Common rail diesel truck — In 1995, the first mass production vehicle with common rail was the Hino Ranger truck, using the ECD-U2 common rail system developed by Denso.
• Diesel boxer engine — In January 2008, the Subaru EE engine became the world's first passenger car diesel boxer engine. This engine is a turbocharged boxer-four with common rail fuel injection.
• Dual-clutch transmission truck — In 2010, the Mitsubishi Fuso 6-speed Duonic transmission became the first dual-clutch transmission (DCT) to be used in a truck.
• Dual-mass flywheel (DMF) — Introduced with the Toyota Mark II in 1984.
• Electric SUV — The Toyota RAV4 EV, developed from 1995 to 1997, was the first electric sport utility vehicle (SUV).
  • Hybrid electric SUV — Toyota's Lexus RX 400h (2004) was the first luxury hybrid SUV.
• Electronic gasoline direct injection (GDI) – Introduced by Mitsubishi Motors in 1995.
  • Gasoline direct and indirect injection – The 2005 Toyota 2GR-FSE V6 engine was the first to combine both direct and indirect injection. The system (called "D-4S") has since been used in most Toyota engines.
  • Turbocharged GDI – The first turbocharged GDI engine was used in the Mitsubishi Pajero iO 4G93 (2000).
• Hybrid electric vehicle (HEV) — The first commercial hybrid vehicle was the Toyota Prius launched in 1997.
  • Atkinson cycle car engine — The first Atkinson cycle car engine was used in the Toyota Prius (1997).
  • Parallel hybrid — The Honda Insight (1999) introduced a parallel hybrid system, Integrated Motor Assist (IMA).
  • BAS hybrid — In June 2001, Toyota introduced a BAS (belted alternator starter) hybrid system under the Toyota Hybrid System-Mild (THS-M) brand name.
  • Mild hybrid electric vehicle (MHEV) — Introduced with the Toyota Hybrid System-Mild (THS-M) in the Toyota Crown Royal Saloon (2001).
  • Hybrid electric sedan — Toyota's Lexus GS 450h (2006) was the first high-performance luxury hybrid sedan.
• Hydrogen car — In 2014, Toyota launched the first production hydrogen fuel cell vehicle, the Toyota Mirai. The Mirai has a range of 312 miles (502 km) and takes about five minutes to refuel. The initial sale price was roughly 7 million yen ($69,000).
• Kei car (mini car) — A category of small automobiles, including passenger cars, vans and pickup trucks. They are designed for more affordable tax, insurance and parking costs in Japan.
  • Automatic transmission mini car — Honda N360 AT (1968).
  • 5-valve engine — Mitsubishi Motors were the first to market a car engine with five valves per cylinder, with the 548 cc 3G81 engine in their Minica Dangan ZZ kei car in 1989.
  • Hybrid electric compact car — Toyota's Lexus CT 200h (2011) was the first full hybrid luxury compact car.
• LED headlight — Toyota's Lexus LS 600h L, introduced in 2006, was the first production car with LED headlights.
• Miller cycle car engine — The Mazda Millenia (1993) was the first production car in the world to employ a Miller cycle engine.
• Modulated displacement (MD) — In 1982, Mitsubishi developed modulated displacement (MD), a form of variable displacement which proved that the technology, first used in Mitsubishi's 1.4 L 4G12 straight-four engine, can function successfully.
• Oxygen storage three-way catalyst — Introduced by Toyota in 1978.
  • NO_x adsorber — Introduced by Toyota in 1994.
• Parallel axis system — Introduced by the Hondamatic system with the Honda N360 AT (1968). The Hondamatic system is used in most Honda automatic and semi-automatic vehicles.
• Rear airbag — In 1993, the Nissan President introduced an SRS airbag for the left-hand side (curbside) rear seat passenger.
  • Dual-chamber airbag — Toyota's 2005 Lexus IS was the first car with a twin-chamber front passenger airbag.
  • Rear curtain airbag — In 2008, the Toyota iQ microcar featured the first production rear-curtain shield airbag to protect the rear occupants' heads in the event of a rear-end impact.
  • Center airbag — In 2009, Toyota developed the first production rear-seat center airbag designed to reduce the severity of secondary injuries to rear passengers in a side collision. This system first appeared on the Crown Majesta.
• Selective catalytic reduction (SCR) — The first large-scale SCR was installed by IHI Corporation in 1978.
• Self-driving car — The first self-driving car that did not rely upon rails or wires under the road is designed by the Tsukuba Mechanical Engineering Laboratory in 1977. The car was equipped with two cameras that used analog computer technology for signal processing.
  • Automatic parking — Toyota's Intelligent Parking Assist System (IPAS) is the first production automatic parking system developed in 1999, initially for the hybrid Prius models and Lexus models. It assists drivers in parking a vehicle.
• Semi-monocoque car — The Honda NSX (1990) was the first production car to feature an all-aluminium semi-monocoque.
• Torque vectoring — In 1996, Honda and Mitsubishi Motors released sports cars with torque vectoring systems. Torque vectoring differentials were originally used in auto racing. Mitsubishi rally cars were some of the earliest to use the technology.
• Turbocharged rotary engine — In 1982, Mazda released the Cosmo RE Turbo, the first car with a turbocharged rotary engine.
  • Twin-turbo rotary engine — In the 1980s, Mazda pioneered a twin-turbo rotary engine configuration.
  • Three-rotor engine — By 1990, Mazda had developed a rotary engine with a three-rotor system.
  • Hydrogen rotary engine — By 2006, Mazda had developed a rotary engine running on hydrogen fuel.
• Variable-geometry turbocharger — Introduced by the Honda Legend Wing Turbo (1988).
• Vehicle emissions control — Pioneered in 1973 by Japanese companies, including Mitsubishi MCA (Mitsubishi Clean Air), Honda, Fuji Heavy Industries, Toyo Kogyo and Nissan.
  • Low emission vehicle (LEV) – The first LEV was the Honda Civic in 1995.
  • Ultra-low-emission vehicle (ULEV) – The first ULEV was the Honda Accord in 1997.
  • Super ultra-low emission vehicle (SULEV) – The first SULEV was the Honda Accord in 1999.
  • Partial zero-emissions vehicle (PZEV) – The first PZEV was the Honda Civic GX in 2001. The first hybrid PZEV was the Honda Civic Hybrid in 2002.
  • Zero-emission vehicle (ZEV) — The Nissan Leaf (2009) was the world's first zero-emission vehicle.
• Water intercooler — Introduced with the Toyota M-TEU engine in 1983.

Automotive electronics

The driver monitoring system (DMS) on Toyota's Lexus LS 600h (2006)

• Adaptive cruise control (ACC) — Introduced by Mitsubishi Motors in 1992. They were the first to offer a lidar-based distance detection system on the Mitsubishi Debonair.
  • Camera ACC — In 1999, Subaru introduced world's first camera-based ACC on the Subaru Legacy Lancaster.
• Advanced driver-assistance system (ADAS)
  • Voice warning system — In 1980, the Toyota Mark II was the first car with a voice warning system.
  • Parking sensor — Toyota introduced ultrasonic Back Sonar on the 1982 Toyota Corona, the first production parking sensor, offering it until 1988.
  • Voice command — In 1982, the Nissan Silvia S110 introduced voice recognition for operating the power windows.
  • Windshield wiper sensor — In 1983, the Nissan Cedric Y30 and Nissan Gloria Y30 introduced the world's first windshield wipers that adjust to changes in rain and snow levels.
  • Electrochromic rear-view mirror — Invented by Nissan engineers Harutoshi Miyagi, Masazumi Ishikawa and Yasuyuki Murofushi between 1985 and 1986.
  • Automotive head-up display (auto-HUD) — Nissan was the first manufacturer to offer a HUD with the 1988 Nissan Silvia S13.
  • Blind spot monitor — Introduced by Mitsubishi Motors with their Driver Support System (DSS) in 1998.
  • Lane departure warning system (LDWS) — Introduced by Mitsubishi with their DSS system in 1998.
  • Active automotive night vision — Toyota's Night View (2002) was the first active automotive night vision system.
• Automatic air conditioner — Introduced by Toyota and Nissan in 1971.
• Automotive microcomputer
  • Automotive engine microcomputer — The earliest microcomputer designed for an automobile was developed by Toshiba for Ford's Electronic Engine Control (EEC) in the early 1970s.
  • Fiber-optic communication — In 1982, the Toyota Century had the first application of fiber-optic communication in an automobile, with optical fibers used to transmit fast signals between microcomputer components.
  • Carputer — In 1987, Toyota's Electro Multi Vision for the Toyota Crown was an integrated car computer system with a wide range of features. Clarion is credited with introducing the first carputer in 1998.
• Car audio features
  • Component car stereo — In 1975, Pioneer Corporation released the first component car stereo.
  • Audio control on steering wheel — In 1984, the Nissan 300ZX introduced car radio controls on the steering wheel.
  • CD player — In 1984, Pioneer introduced the CDX-1, the first car CD player.
  • MP3 player — In 2001, the Mazda Protegé MP3 was the first vehicle to play MP3 files from the CD player.
  • 5.1 surround sound — In 2003, Honda's Acura TL was the first car with 5.1 surround sound.
  • Active noise cancellation (ANC) — In 2004, Honda's Acura RL was the first car with active noise cancellation.
• Collision avoidance system (CAS) — Earliest CAS systems were Toyota's Clearance Sonar (August 1989), Nissan's Traffic Eye (December 1989), Isuzu's system (1990), Hino's Safety Eye (May 1992), and Mitsubishi's Distance Warning (October 1992).
  • Driver monitoring system (DMS) — It was first introduced by Toyota in 2006 for its Lexus models. It was first offered in Japan on the GS 450h. The system's functions co-operate with the pre-collision system (PCS).
  • Driver eyelid monitoring system — Introduced in 2008 on the Toyota Crown's Driver Monitoring System.
• Electro Multi Vision — Toyota's Electro Multi Vision system was an integrated computer system introduced for the Toyota Soarer in 1985 and then further developed for the Toyota Crown in 1987. Electro Multi Vision introduced new features including:
  • CRT digital display panel (1985)
  • High resolution user interface with on-board diagnostics (1985)
  • Television receiver (1985)
  • Video tape recorder (1985)
  • CD-ROM drive (1987)
  • Hands free car phone (1987)
  • Touchscreen interface (1987)
• Electronically adjustable suspension dampers — In 1981, the Nissan Skyline Turbo GT-ES introduced the first electronically adjustable suspension shock absorbers.
  • Electronically controlled suspension (ECS) — In 1983, the Toyota Soarer introduced the Toyota Electronic Modulated Suspension (TEMS), the first electronically controlled car suspension, using a shock absorber control actuator.
  • Semi-active suspension (SAS) — The first production car with SAS was the Toyota Soarer with the semi-active TEMS, from 1983.
  • Ultrasound SAS — In 1985, Nissan introduced ultrasound "Super Sonic Suspension" optionally on the Cedric, Gloria and Laurel.
  • Active air suspension — Introduced in 1984 with the Mitsubishi Galant's CECS (Chassis Electronic Control Systems).
  • Electronically controlled air suspension (ECAS) — In 1986, the Toyota Soarer had the first electronically controlled full air suspension (spring constant, variable attenuation force) installed.
  • Fully active suspension without anti-roll bars: Introduced in 1989 on the Toyota Celica, with the Toyota Active Control Suspension.
• Electronically-controlled anti-lock braking system (ABS) – ABS control was introduced by Toyota and Nissan in 1971.
  • Automated emergency braking system (AEBS) – In 2000, Toyota's laser adaptive cruise control (ACC) added brake control. In May 2003, Honda's Collision Mitigation Brake System (CMBS) on the Inspire was the first AEBS system.
  • Brake-by-wire – Electronically controlled brake (ECB) system, developed by Toyota initially for its hybrid and Lexus models and introduced in June 2001, is the first production brake-by-wire braking system.
• Electronic control unit (ECU) — In the early 1970s, the Japanese electronics industry began producing integrated circuits and microcontrollers for controlling vehicle engines.
  • Transmission control unit (TCU) — Transmission control was introduced by Toyota in 1970.
  • Fuel injection control — Introduced by Toyota and Nissan in 1971.
  • Engine control unit (ECU) — Toshiba developed the Electronic Engine Control (EEC) for Ford Motor Company. The core Toshiba TLCS-12 microprocessor CPU was developed from 1971 to 1973. The EEC system entered production in 1974.
  • Electronic Diesel Control — In August 1982, Toyota introduced a microprocessor-based engine control system for diesel engines.
  • Electronically-controlled automated manual transmission (AMT) — Introduced with Isuzu Aska's NAVi5 in 1985.
• Electronically controlled continuously variable transmission (ECVT) — In early 1987, Subaru launched the Justy in Tokyo with an ECVT developed by Fuji Heavy Industries, which owns Subaru.
  • Toroidal continuously variable transmission (toroidal CVT) – Introduced in 1999 with Nissan's Extroid CVT for the Nissan Cedric (Y34) and Nissan Gloria.
• Electronic stability control (ESC) – The 1971 Toyota Crown introduced Electronic Skid Control (ESC).
  • Traction control system (TCS) — Toyota introduced TCS for the Toyota Crown (1987) and improved it for the Lexus LS400 (1989).
• Laser cut car key — Toyota's 1990 Lexus LS400 was the first major car with a laser-cut key.
• Pedestrian detection — In 2004, Honda introduced Intelligent Night Vision, the first system with pedestrian detection, on the Honda Legend.
  • Active pedestrian avoidance with steering correction – Introduced in 2013 on Toyota's Lexus LS XF40.
• Synchronized down shift rev-matching system (SynchroRev Match) — Invented by Nissan in 2008 for use on the Nissan 370Z and Fairlady Z.

Motorcycles

Honda CB750 (1969), the first superbike.

• Air bag vest — Honda introduced the first motorcycle airbag system in 2005.
• Double cradle frame — The Honda CB750, released in 1969, was the first mass-production motorcycle with a double cradle motorcycle frame.
  • Four mufflers — The Honda CB750 (1969) was the first mass-production motorcycle with four mufflers.
  • Straight-four SOHC — The Honda CB750 (1969) was the first mass-produced motorcycle with a parallel four-cylinder single overhead camshaft (SOHC) motorcycle engine.
  • Superbike — The Honda CB750 (1969) was the first superbike.
• Front disc brake — The Honda CB750 (1969) was the first mass-production motorcycle with front disc brake.
  • Hydraulic disc brakes — Honda CB750 (1969) was the first production motorcycle with hydraulic disc brakes.
  • Combined braking system (CBS) — The first CBS was introduced with the Honda RCB1000 in 1976.
• Motorcycle dual-clutch transmission (DCT) — The 2009 Honda VFR1200F is the first motorcycle to use DCT.
• Motorcycle traction control system (TCS) — Introduced with the Honda ST1100 in 1992.
• Oval piston engine — A piston engine utilizing oval cylinders, it was developed by Honda and introduced with the Honda NR500 in 1979.
  • 8-valve engine — Introduced with Honda's oval piston engine for the Honda NR500 in 1979.
• Universal Japanese Motorcycle (UJM) — The term was coined in the 1970s to describe a proliferation of similar Japanese standard motorcycles that became commonplace following Honda's 1969 introduction of its successful CB750.

Navigation

A Japanese taxi equipped with GPS navigation (2004).

• Automotive navigation system — In 1973, MITI and Fuji sponsored CATC (Comprehensive Automobile Traffic Control). In 1980, the Toyota Crown introduced the Electronic Auto Compass.
  • Automotive dead reckoning — The first automotive navigation systems relied on dead reckoning, including Honda's Electro Gyrocator (1981).
  • Car navigation system — Honda, Nissan and Toyota released car navigation systems in 1981.
  • Navigation system with map display — Honda's Electro Gyrocator (1981) was the first car navigation system with a map display, using a small CRT display.
  • Navigation system with high resolution display and disk storage — In 1987, the Toyota Crown featured the first car navigation system using a high resolution CRT display and a CD‑ROM optical disc drive.
• Backup camera (rear-view camera) — First production automobile with a backup camera was the Toyota Crown in 1987.
  • Smart camera — Nissan's Rear View Monitor was a smart camera projecting on-screen parking guidelines onto the navigation system screen, introduced for the Infiniti Q45 in 2000.
  • Surround-view system — Introduced in 2007, with Nissan's Around View Monitor (AVM) for the Elgrand and Infiniti EX35, and Mitsubishi's "Multi-around monitor system" for the Delica.
• Blue LED traffic light — In 1994, Nichia initially commercialized blue LED technology for traffic lights.
• Satellite navigation (Satnav)
  • GPS navigation — In 1990, Pioneer Corporation's AVIC-1 was the first GPS car Satnav system. The same year, Mazda's Eunos Cosmo was the first production car with a built-in GPS Satnav system.
  • Voice assisted GPS navigation — In 1992, the world's first voice assisted GPS navigation system was introduced for the Toyota Celsior.
  • Satnav panoramic view — In 1995, Nissan introduced BirdView, the first satnav with 3D over-the-shoulder panorama view. BirdView used a 32-bit CPU and Nissan image processor. Its map view became the standard for satnav devices.
  • Differential GPS (DGPS) — In 1997, a navigation system using differential GPS was developed as a factory-installed option on the Toyota Prius.
• Tactile paving — The original tactile paving was developed by Seiichi Miyake in 1965. The paving was first introduced in a street in Okayama city, Japan, in 1967. Its use gradually spread in Japan and then around the world.
• Wireless navigation system — In 1961, Hidetsugu Yagi designed the first wireless navigation system for military use.

Other technology

See also: Science and technology in Japan, History of science and technology in Japan, and Electronics industry in Japan

• Advanced boiling water reactor (ABWR) — Developed by Toshiba, Hitachi and GE. In 1996, the first ABWR entered commercial operation in Japan.
• Artificial snowflake — The first artificial snowflake was created by Ukichiro Nakaya in 1936, three years after his first attempt.
• Automatic door with infrared sensor — OPTEX, a Japanese company founded by Toru Kobayashi, invented the first automatic door using infrared sensor technology in 1980. It was developed using far infrared technology.
• Double-coil bulb — In 1921, Junichi Miura created the first double-coil bulb using a coiled coil tungsten filament while working for Hakunetsusha (a predecessor of Toshiba). At the time, machinery to mass-produce coiled coil filaments did not exist. Hakunetsusha developed a method to mass-produce coiled coil filaments by 1936.
  • Compact fluorescent bulb — Toshiba began development after the 1973 oil crisis and had a trial run in 1978, before commercially releasing it as the "Neo Ball" in 1980.
• KS steel — Magnetic resistant steel that is three times more resistant than tungsten steel, invented by Kotaro Honda. It was developed in 1917.
  • MKM steel — MKM steel, an alloy containing nickel and aluminum, was developed in 1931 by the Japanese metallurgist Tokuhichi Mishima.
  • Neodymium magnet — Neodymium magnets were invented independently in 1982 by General Motors (GM) and Sumitomo Special Metals.
• Mechatronics — The term "mechatronics" was coined and defined by Tetsuro Mori, an engineer from Yaskawa Electric Corporation, in 1969.

QR code for the URL of the English Wikipedia mobile main page

• QR code — The QR code, a type of matrix barcode, was invented by Denso Wave in 1994.
• Uninterruptible power supply (UPS) — In the early 1950s, Fuji Electric developed an early UPS, demonstrated in 1954. Between 1964 and 1967, Toshiba developed the first large-scale UPS.
  • Vector-control inverter — Introduced by Toshiba in 1979.
  • Microprocessor-based numerical relay — Introduced by Toshiba in 1980.
• Washi — By the 7th century, paper had been introduced to Japan from Korea. The washi papermaking technique was developed in Japan during the Heian period around 805 to 809.

Batteries

A lithium-ion battery pack for a laptop computer.

• Lithium-ion battery — Akira Yoshino invented the modern li-ion battery in 1985. In 1991, Sony and Asahi Kasei released the first commercial lithium-ion battery using Yoshino's design.
• Dry cell — The world's first dry-battery was invented in Japan during the Meiji Era. The inventor was Sakizou Yai. The company Yai founded no longer exists

Chindōgu

Main article: Chindōgu

Chindōgu is the Japanese art of inventing ingenious everyday gadgets that, on the face of it, seem like an ideal solution to a particular problem. However, Chindōgu has a distinctive feature: anyone actually attempting to use one of these inventions would find that it causes so many new problems, or such significant social embarrassment, that effectively it has no utility whatsoever. Thus, Chindōgu are sometimes described as "unuseless" – that is, they cannot be regarded as 'useless' in an absolute sense, since they do actually solve a problem; however, in practical terms, they cannot positively be called "useful". The term "Chindōgu" was coined by Kenji Kawakami.

Domestic appliances

See also: Electronics industry in Japan

Electric rice cooker

• Bladeless fan — The first bladeless fan was patented by Toshiba in 1981.
• Bread machine — The bread machine was developed and released in Japan in 1986 by the Matsushita Electric Industrial Company.
• Electric rice cooker — Invented by designers at the Toshiba Corporation in the late 1940s.
• RFIQin — An automatic cooking device, invented by Mamoru Imura and patented in 2007.
• Ductless air conditioner (AC) — In 1961, the first ductless AC was a mini-split AC sold by Toshiba. In 1968, the first wall-mounted mini‑split AC was sold by Mitsubishi.
  • Cross-flow fan — In 1968, Mitsubishi's mini-split AC was the first air conditioner with a cross-flow fan.
  • Ductless multi-split AC — Multi-zone ductless systems were invented by Daikin in 1973. It was first sold in Japan.
  • Variable refrigerant flow (VRF) — VRF systems (which can be thought of as larger multi-split systems) were invented by Daikin in 1982. It was first sold in Japan.
• Dual flush toilet — The system was developed by Japanese sanitary product manufacturer Toto in 1960.
  • Washlet — Toto began development in 1978. In 1980, Toto introduced the Washlet G, which debuted with three functions: rear cleansing, dryer, and a heated seat.
  • Smart toilet — Invented by Toto in the 1980s.
• Individual quick freezing (IQF) — A quick freezer for whipped cream was developed by Norio Owada of Abi in the 1970s.
  • Dual-swing refrigerator — In 1989, Sharp Corporation introduced the first dual-swing refrigerator, with doors that opened from both the left and right.
  • Cells Alive System (CAS) — Refrigeration technology developed by Norio Owada of Abi from 1992 to 1998.
• Inverter air conditioner (AC) — Created by Toshiba in 1981 as an alternative to the standard home window air conditioner. With the difference being in the compressor that is able to cool or warm a room to the intended temperature as quickly as possible while efficiently maintaining the desired temperature unlike standard AC units in which the compressor frequently turns off. Inverter AC units do not turn off only operating at a certain consistent speed while also being able to adjust its regularity.
• Japanese kitchen knife
  • Santoku — A general-purpose kitchen knife originating in Japan. This knife was created in the 1940s, known as the santoku bōchō.
• Microwave oven with turntable — Between 1964 and 1966, Sharp Corporation introduced the first microwave oven with a turntable, an alternative means to promote more even heating of food.
  • Sensor microwave oven — In 1979, Sharp introduced the first microwave oven incorporating sensor and microcomputer technology.
  • Smart microwave oven — In 1999, Sharp introduced the RE-M210, the first Internet-capable microwave oven. It allowed users to download recipes and heating instructions from the Internet.
• Plasma air purifier — Sharp's Plasmacluster, developed between 1998 and 2000, was the first plasma air purifier.
• Stainless steel vacuum bottle — Nippon Sanso and Honda invented the first stainless steel vacuum flask with a double-layer structure and without glass. The product was launched in 1978.

Printing

Timelapse of a three-dimensional printer in action

• 3D printing — In 1981, Hideo Kodama of Nagoya Municipal Industrial Research Institute invented two additive methods for fabricating three-dimensional plastic models with photo-hardening thermoset polymer, where the UV exposure area is controlled by a mask pattern or a scanning fiber transmitter.
• Automatic photo print washer — In 1951, Noritsu founder Kan'ichi Nishimoto invented an automatic photo print washer by applying the principles behind a water wheel.
  • Film processor — Noritsu's RF−20E (1961) black-and-white film processor automated the black-and-white film development process for the first time.
• Compact copier — The Fuji Xerox 2200 (1973) by Fujifilm was the first compact copier.
• Desktop laser printer — Japanese company Canon developed in 1979 the Canon LBP-10, a low-cost desktop laser printer. Canon then began work on a much-improved print engine, the Canon CX, resulting in the LBP-CX printer.
• Digital printing — The first compact, lightweight digital printer was the EP-101, invented by Japanese company Epson and released in 1968.
• Hydrographics — Hydrographics, also known variously as immersion printing, water transfer printing, water transfer imaging, hydro dipping, or cubic printing has an somewhat fuzzy history. Three different Japanese companies are given credit for its invention. Taica Corporation claims to have invented cubic printing in 1974. However, the earliest hydrographic patent was filed by Motoyasu Nakanishi of Kabushiki Kaisha Cubic Engineering in 1982.
• Inkjet printing — Inkjet printing technology was first extensively developed in the early 1950s. While working at Canon in Japan, Ichiro Endo suggested the idea for a "bubble jet" printer.
• Ise katagami — The use of stencils was known by the Nara period, as is evident from objects in the Shōsōin. Later paper stencils developed alongside kimono. The technique is known as ise katagami.
  • Screen printing — Screen printing originates from Japanese Ise katagami, in turn influenced by block printing from China.
• Minilab — The first minilab, the QSS-1 (Quick Service System 1), was introduced by Noritsu in 1976.
  • Digital minilab — Fujifilm's Frontier (1996) was the first digital minilab.
• Printer tracking dots — Developed in the mid-1980s by Fujifilm, Xerox and Canon Inc.
• Purikura — Conceived in 1994 by Sasaki Miho for Atlus, who released the first purikira arcade machine with Sega as Print Club in 1995.
• Serial impact dot matrix printer — In 1968, Oki introduced the first serial impact dot matrix printer (SIDM), the Oki Wiredot. It supported a character generator for 128 characters with a print matrix of 7 × 5.

Robotics

See also: Japanese robotics

DER-01, a Japanese actroid (an android intended to be very visually similar to humans)

• Android — Waseda University initiated the WABOT project in 1967, and in 1972 completed the WABOT-1, the world's first full-scale humanoid intelligent robot. Its limb control system allowed it to walk with the lower limbs, and to grip and transport objects with hands, using tactile sensors. Its vision system allowed it to measure distances and directions to objects using external receptors, artificial eyes and ears. And its conversation system allowed it to communicate with a person in Japanese, with an artificial mouth. This made it the first android.
• Actroid — DER 01 was developed by a Japanese research group, The Intelligent Robotics Lab, directed by Hiroshi Ishiguro at Osaka University, and Kokoro Co., Ltd. The Actroid is a humanoid robot with strong visual human-likeness developed by Osaka University and manufactured by Kokoro Company Ltd. (the animatronics division of Sanrio). It was first unveiled at the 2003 International Robot Exposition in Tokyo, Japan. The Actroid woman is a pioneer example of a real machine similar to imagined machines called by the science fiction terms android or gynoid, so far used only for fictional robots. It can mimic such lifelike functions as blinking, speaking, and breathing. The "Repliee" models are interactive robots with the ability to recognise and process speech and respond in kind.
• Bipedal robot — Invented at University of Tokyo in 1967.
  • Quadrupedal robot — Invented by Shigeo Hirose in 1978.
• Climbing robot — Invented by Shigeo Hirose in 1979.
  • Wall running robot — Developed by Hitachi in 1986.
• Demining robot — Invented by Shigeo Hirose in 1997.
• Giant boarding robot — Kuratas, revealed in 2012, was described as the first giant boarding robot, modelled after the mechs from mecha anime and manga.
• Medical robot nurse — The first was RIBA (Robot for Interactive Body Assistance), developed by Riken and Tokai Rubber Industries (TRI) in 2009.
• Micro robot — NEC's ARMS-D, introduced in 1981, was the first industrial robot with micrometre level precision, enabled by NEC 8085 microprocessor technology.
  • Industrial robot with linear motor — NEC's ARMS-D (1981) was the first industrial robot to use linear motors.
• Mole robot — In 2001, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (NTT) developed the first non-soil discharge mole robot, used to install a conduit without excavation.
• Karakuri puppet — Karakuri puppets (からくり人形, karakuri ningyō) are traditional Japanese mechanized puppets or automata, originally made from the 17th century to the 19th century. The word karakuri means "mechanisms" or "trick". The dolls' gestures provided a form of entertainment. Three main types of karakuri exist. Butai karakuri (舞台からくり, stage karakuri) were used in theatre. Zashiki karakuri (座敷からくり, tatami room karakuri) were small and used in homes. Dashi karakuri (山車からくり, festival car karakuri) were used in religious festivals, where the puppets were used to perform reenactments of traditional myths and legends.
• Robotic exoskeleton for motion support (medicine) — The first HAL prototype was proposed by Yoshiyuki Sankai, a professor at Tsukuba University. Fascinated with robots since he was in the third grade, Sankai had striven to make a robotic suit in order "to support humans". In 1989, after receiving his Ph.D. in robotics, he began the development of HAL. Sankai spent three years, from 1990 to 1993, mapping out the neurons that govern leg movement. It took him and his team an additional four years to make a prototype of the hardware.
• Running humanoid robot — Sony's QRIO (2003) was the first humanoid robot capable of running.
  • Swimming humanoid robot — The first was Swumanoid, developed by Motomu Nakashima's team at the Tokyo Institute of Technology between 2007 and 2012.
• Snake robot — Invented by Shigeo Hirose in 1972.
  • Spider robot — Invented by Shigeo Hirose in 1976.
• Soft robotics — Shigeo Hirose invented the first soft robotic gripper in 1977.
• Toy robot arm — Tomy's Armatron, introduced in 1982, was the first toy robot arm, moved by dual analog control joysticks. It had a significant influence on the development of modern robotics and artificial intelligence.
  • Video game peripheral robot — Nintendo's R.O.B. (1985) was the first robot peripheral for a video game.
• Wind-up toy robot — Lilliput, a Japanese robot introduced in 1932, was the first wind-up toy robot.

Textiles

See also: Japanese craft

• Automatic power loom with non-stop shuttle-change motion — Sakichi Toyoda invented numerous weaving devices. His most famous invention was the automatic power loom in which he implemented the principle of Jidoka (autonomation or autonomous automation). It was the 1924 Toyoda Automatic Loom, Type G, a completely automatic high-speed loom featuring the ability to change shuttles without stopping and dozens of other innovations. At the time it was the world's most advanced loom, delivering a dramatic improvement in quality and a twenty-fold increase in productivity.This loom automatically stopped when it detected a problem such as thread breakage.
• Vinylon — The second man-made fiber to be invented, after nylon. It was first developed by Ichiro Sakurada, H. Kawakami, and Korean scientist Ri Sung-gi at the Takatsuki chemical research center in 1939 in Japan.

Writing

See also: Japanese writing system

Model B in Pink

• Correction tape — Correction tape was invented in 1989 by the Japanese product manufacturer Seed. It is an alternative to correction fluid.
• Gel pen — The gel pen was invented in 1984 by the Sakura Color Products Corporation of Osaka.
• Japanese typewriter — The first typewriter to be based on the Japanese writing system was invented by Kyota Sugimoto in 1929.
• Japanese writing touch tablet — In 1971, Hitachi's Hidekazu Terai and Kazuo Nakata invented a touch tablet with Japanese writing character recognition for computer use.
• Mail sorter with optical character recognition (OCR) — Developed by Toshiba between 1966 and 1967.
• Rollerball pen — The first rollerball pen was invented in 1963 by the Japanese company Ohto.
• Touch tablet word processor — In the 1970s, touch tablet input appeared in the Japanese word processor industry. In 1979, Sharp's Shoin WD‑3000 had touch tablet input with a touch pen. It was popular from 1980 to 1982.

See also

• History of science and technology in Japan
• History of typography in East Asia
• List of automotive superlatives
• List of Chinese inventions
• List of Chinese discoveries
• List of Korean inventions and discoveries
• List of Taiwanese inventions and discoveries
• Science and technology in Japan
• Ten Japanese Great Inventors

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