Renewing driver’s license in Japan, Saitama style
In Japan, a driver’s license is usually valid for five years. That means, every five years, we have to go through the renewal process, with the deadline set on the license holder’s fifth birthday.
A few days ago, I received the renewal notice from Saitama Prefectural Police.
When I flipped the postcard over and saw the map on the back, I felt a small jolt of fear. According to it, I might have to go all the way to the main “licensing center” in Kōnosu City, in Saitama Prefecture.
Typically, each prefecture has only one such “licensing center.” If you live far from it, that can easily mean an hour or more of travel each way just to renew your license. Kōnosu sits more or less in the geographic center of Saitama, but for those of us living in the southern part of the prefecture, it feels quite far away. Since most people in Saitama live in the south, largely because of its proximity to central Tokyo, going to Kōnosu inevitably turns into a bit of a journey.
It’s pretty unreasonable. But at the same time, it may also function as a kind of “soft law”: behave yourself for five years and you’re rewarded with the convenience of renewing your license at a nearby police station. Get caught committing an infraction, and you’re sent to the distant central facility.
I was fairly sure I hadn’t been caught doing anything over the past five years… so I opened the postcard, slightly nervously…
…and discovered that I can renew my license at my local station. Relief.
These days, it’s also possible to merge your driver’s license with Japan’s My Number (“Myna”) card. In theory, that sounds modern and convenient. In practice, though, the benefits seem minimal. The fee is a bit cheaper, but the process takes longer than simply having a conventional license card printed. Which basically means spending extra time sitting around at a police station, not exactly everyone’s idea of efficiency.
Anyway, I’m glad I don’t have to make the long trip to Kōnosu, more than an hour away from home. Still, part of me thinks that a day trip to the northern part of the prefecture might not have been so bad… a bowl of local udon noodle, a change of scenery, and a short break from the usual busy routine.
2026/01/10 9:39 PM - Tweet
Japan-made electric buses in a world that has already moved on
A local bus company in Fukushima Prefecture has begun introducing 30 electric buses as part of an “experimental” project subsidized by the national government. According to a news report, three of the vehicles are already in operation.
福島交通がEVバス導入 大槻営業所を専用運行拠点に:福島ニュース:福島民友新聞社
One point the article seems to emphasize is that these buses are “made in Japan” (kokusan).
This emphasis is understandable. Last year, several China-made electric buses caused a number of problems, particularly around the Osaka Expo site, and they gained a somewhat notorious reputation as a result. In that context, the “made in Japan” label may help ease passengers’ concerns.
The buses appear to be Isuzu’s Erga EV.
Based on information available on the manufacturer’s website, the vehicle has a stated range of about 360 km, though this figure assumes a constant speed of 30 km/h, which is not exactly realistic for daily urban operations. In terms of size and exterior design, the bus looks fairly conventional. Charging is supported via a plug-in connector with a maximum output of 50 kW.
When compared with electric buses already in service in other cities, particularly in Europe, this does not feel especially impressive. Many European systems have moved toward faster and more flexible charging solutions. According to the Fukushima report, these buses need to be charged overnight to cover a day’s operation. In practical terms, that likely limits each vehicle to well under 300 km per day.
To be clear, I am not arguing that China-made buses are better. Still, it is a bit disappointing to see that Japanese-made electric buses do not stand out more in terms of technological ambition or innovation. Another experiment reported in Kawasaki is expected to introduce pantograph-based super-charging systems, but even those have already been deployed at scale in other countries.
I sincerely hope that Japanese bus manufacturers will take a further step: one that truly surprises the world, rather than merely catching up with what has already become standard elsewhere.
2026/01/08 9:24 AM - Tweet
Soba-gara: Sustainability Woven into Every Night
Lately, I’ve been waking up with an unfamiliar pain in my neck. After a few mornings of the same discomfort, it turns out that the pain was triggered by my pillow which had lost its height. What had once provided firm support had gradually flattened, no longer keeping my neck in a comfortable position through the night.
The pillow in question is filled with soba-gara (in Japanese), meaning buckwheat seed shells. Historically, this was the most conventional pillow material in Japan. Today, however, soba-gara pillows are becoming old-fashioned in an era dominated by memory foam and synthetic fibers.
Soba-gara is a byproduct of food production. When buckwheat is processed to make our soba noodles, the hard outer shells must be removed before milling. Rather than discarding this material, Japanese households have long reused it as pillow filling. Long before terms like “upcycling” or “circular economy” became popular, this was simply an ordinary way of making practical use of what was available.
That practicality, however, comes with a trade-off. Buckwheat shells are durable but not permanent. Night after night, the weight of one’s head slowly crushes them into smaller fragments. Over time, the pillow compresses, losing volume and support.
Today, I refilled the pillow with fresh soba-gara. Replacement shells are still sold, though they are a bit hard to find. I eventually located them at a local Super Viva-Home, a large Japanese home-improvement store comparable to Home Depot. The act of refilling is a reminder that some household items are meant to be maintained, rather than replaced.
The pillow itself was purchased at Nitori, a major Japanese home-furnishing chain. This one has four separate compartments, each filled with soba-gara. The design allows an adjustment of height and shape, accommodating individual sleeping preferences.
With the pillow refilled, I’m hoping tomorrow morning will be gentler on my neck, thanks to this traditional and entirely natural way of keeping my head supported.
2026/01/05 2:03 PM - Tweet
Maybe it’s time to restart
I’ve hardly published anything in English on this blog. I have written a few pieces on the Japanese side of my website, but almost nothing in English.
I used to enjoy writing stupid stuff about my life, along with more serious things from my research. But over the past few years, I’ve wasted way too much time on Twitter, just tossing out whatever happened to cross my mind.
During this long New Year holiday in Japan, I ended up reworking a large part of my website. So much of it was outdated. Even many of the links still started with “http://” instead of “https://”, which pretty much shows how long I’d neglected these pages.
When I first started my own website about a quarter of a century ago, back when I was a student at MIT, simply having a webpage meant something. Now the internet feels like a massive clutter—not just of junk, but of fake stuff as well.
Maybe what we need is a space where we can slow down a bit, be mindful, and spend time reading things that are actually worth reading.
So, as a New Year’s resolution, I’m ditching the X app and getting back to this old-fashioned, but still solid, web-based space for writing.
2026/01/03 4:03 PM - Tweet
Climate assemblies meet transition management: experimental applications in Japan
Below is the abstract for my presentation at the International Sustainability Transition 2025 Conference (June 24-26, Lisbon, Portugal):
Climate assemblies have emerged as a key mechanism for public participation in climate policymaking. National governments and municipalities, particularly in Europe, have increasingly adopted this deliberative model to incorporate citizen voices into climate strategies (Elstub et al., 2021). These assemblies convene randomly selected citizens to discuss and propose recommendations for climate action. While they represent a step toward participatory governance, they often overlook how to engage citizens in broader socio-technical transitions. Climate policy requires not only policy shifts but also changes in public attitudes and behaviors. Strategies that facilitate such shifts are crucial for ensuring that climate assemblies contribute meaningfully to sustainability transitions.
Despite the importance of transition-oriented approaches, strategies rooted in “transition management” (TM) have been largely absent from climate assemblies. Transition management, as conceptualized by Loorbach (2010), provides a governance framework that steers societal transitions through participatory and reflexive processes. One of its key tools, the X-curve, visualizes phases of decline and emergence in socio-technical systems (Loorbach et al., 2017). Although widely applied in sustainability governance, TM has not been systematically incorporated into climate assemblies, presenting an opportunity for experimentation and innovation.
In response, an experimental application of TM was undertaken in municipal climate assemblies in Matsudo and Setagaya, Japan. These initiatives represent one of the first known efforts to integrate TM principles into climate assemblies. This study explores the motives, implementation, and outcomes of these experiments, drawing on the author’s direct involvement. The objectives were: (1) to assess whether TM tools could enhance citizen deliberation on long-term climate strategies, (2) to examine their impact on the outputs generated, and (3) to evaluate whether they foster more profound engagement with transformative climate governance.
Transition management elements were embedded in the assemblies as part of a half-day-long session on transition thinking. The X-curve was introduced to help participants conceptualize societal shifts needed for climate action. Instead of focusing solely on current policy gaps, participants envisioned declining and emerging elements of a sustainable future. Participants were asked to deliberate on the kinds of transition strategies, including identifying existing niches in their townships and exploring the ways of scaling them up.
The integration of TM yielded several insights. The X-curve provided a structured yet flexible framework for participants to navigate the complexity of climate transitions. Discussions moved beyond policy recommendations to consider systemic change, trade-offs with incumbents, and long-term feasibility. Additionally, incorporating behavioral and attitudinal change discussions increased participants’ sense of agency in shaping climate futures beyond government actions. The iterative TM approach also led to more nuanced recommendations as participants refined their proposals in response to evolving discussions.
However, challenges emerged. One difficulty was the absence of frontrunners among the participants. They were randomly selected citizens in order to form the arena as “mini-publics.” Thus, the guiding principle of TM, which selectively invites future-oriented innovators to its transition arena, was somewhat incongruent with the setup of climate assemblies. Also, ensuring that TM-integrated assemblies effectively influence policymaking remains an ongoing challenge. While being enthusiastic about emerging practices, these randomly selected participants were reluctant to depict the incumbents with negative connotations.
Overall, the experimental application of transition management in Matsudo and Setagaya suggests that transition-oriented tools can enrich deliberative processes and enhance citizen engagement in climate governance. Findings indicate that a more explicit TM perspective in climate assemblies can help shape societal transitions toward sustainability. As climate assemblies evolve, embedding transition-oriented strategies may provide a crucial mechanism for fostering more profound and transformative engagement in climate action.
References:
– Elstub, S., Carrick, J., Farrell, D. M., & Mockler, P. (2021). “The scope of climate assemblies: lessons from the Climate Assembly UK,” Sustainability, 13(20), 11272.
– Loorbach, D. (2010). “Transition management for sustainable development: A prescriptive, complexity-based governance framework,” Governance, 23(1), 161-183.
– Loorbach, D., Frantzeskaki, N., & Avelino, F. (2017). “Sustainability transitions research: Transforming science and practice for societal change,” Annual Review of Environment and Resources, 42(1), 599-626.
2025/06/24 1:00 PM - Tweet
Engaging Communities in Sustainability Transitions: Insights from Misono Climate Assembly in Saitama, Japan
Below is an abstract for my presentation at Urban Transition 2024 Conference (Nov 5-7, Barcelona, Spain):
The need for systemic transitions to achieve sustainability has become increasingly evident, necessitating bottom-up solutions that address real local needs and incorporate citizen participation within the framework of current democratic regimes where citizens enjoy freedom of choice. One innovative approach to this challenge is climate assemblies, which have gained traction in countries like France and the UK, and are now spreading to cities globally. These assemblies, characterized by the random selection of citizens to create “minipublics” that can effectively capture citizens’ perspectives on climate change through deliberation.
These assemblies, however, has been adopted at the nation-wide and city-wide levels. In exploring community-level solutions for climate change, the framework of climate assemblies may also be useful to encourage behavioral changes. This study focuses on a climate assembly at the Urawa-Misono neighborhood in Saitama, Japan, a suburban area developed since 2007 and notable for its predominantly young family demographic. To represent the community accurately, 18 individuals were selected based on age, gender, and home address balance. Over the course of three meetings, participants received inputs from experts and deliberated on local solutions for mitigation and adaptation.
The primary outcome of this initiative was the promotion of practical solutions to integrate the climate agenda within the community through methods such as gamification. These solutions were mostly pragmatic rather than technically complex, aiming to nudge residents towards more sustainable behaviors. The presentation will also include an analysis of the similarities and differences between this initiative and other climate assemblies in Japan, alongside a survey of participant post-meeting feedbacks.
By examining this case study, the presentation aims to shed light on how local, community-driven climate assembly can be effectively implemented and sustained, contributing to the broader goal of achieving systemic sustainability transitions through participatory democracy.
2024/11/05 1:00 PM - Tweet
Transitions accelerated by the COVID-19 spread
I contributed an original Japanese version of this piece to my school’s special short article series on COVID-19: https://www.meiji.ac.jp/mugs2/journal/serial-article-covid19/article07.html
1. About transition studies
I have been focusing on “transition” as a study of policy processes. In the Japanese language, it is sometimes translated as henkaku or ikou. Transition is a concept developed by researchers and practitioners mostly in Europe, especially in the Netherlands, and it begins with depicting the society using a three-layer structure.
Long-term trends (e.g., global warming, population decline, and aging population) are placed in the top layer, various social systems (e.g., legal system, culture/norm, and infrastructure) are placed in the middle, and individual persons are placed in the bottom layer. Individuals act by being constrained by social systems, and social systems cannot be sustainable unless they fit with the long-term trends. On the other hand, individuals collaborate for improving the social systems, and the social systems may influence the long-term trends.
If this “interaction” between these layers is occurring continuously, a balanced society in equilibrium can be achieved.
In reality, however, because the social structures in the middle layer often resist change, a number of social problems emerge. For example, even if we know that it is necessary to deal with global warming (for example, the “decarbonization” of the Paris Agreement), our institutions that depend on fossil fuels, which has evolved since the time of the Industrial Revolution, are having difficulties in transforming themselves.
A “transition” is a change in social structure that goes along with the long-term trends. The focus of transition (management) research is the ways of accelerating societal transition in the right direction, especially in the context of global warming. In the past few years, I have also been conducting a few action research projects on transitions, such as the ones for promoting bicycle usage and sustainable city.
Nevertheless, societal structures do not change so quickly. There have been no visible transitions in my few years of practice. However, due to the current COVID-19 spread, we have experienced a few societal transitions in just a month or two.
2. COVID-19 spread and transition
1) COVID-19 as a trigger for a sudden, massive transition
In January, the news stories about local outbreaks in the People’s Republic of China was already there. However, in Japan, it was quite difficult to imagine that the infectious disease would make such a huge impact on us. When I was on a recreational fishing boat in Yokohama in the mid-February (BTW, caught 50 mackerels that day!) and saw the cruise ship, Diamond Princess, anchored to Daikoku Pier, I felt like that the threat was at the opposite side of the sea. However, in late February, the number of infected people started to rise, school closure was ordered out of the blue, and measures were rapidly expanded to “80% reduction in human contact.” In a blink of an eye, the structure of our society has changed.
This is a kind of transition. Our economy and “normal” social life all changed drastically. If the spread of COVID-19 is entirely temporary and our lifestyles will be completely restored in half a year or a year later, these changes may not be a real transition. But this COVID-19 spread may have brought about permanent changes to our society, rather than temporary effects.
2) Unexpected acceleration of our work style reform
For example, one of them is the so-called telework (remote work) introduction. Telework has been promoted in the last few years in order to release us from the “commuting hell” and to enhance productivity, but most businesses did not adopt it. Various reasons hindered telework‘s introduction, such as the management of employees based on the physical attendance in the office and the psychological discomfort with online communication. After the COVID-19 spread, however, almost all business entities in Tokyo were forced to adopt telework because the typical Japanese cramped office environment and the crowded commuter trains were identified as a potential cluster of infections.
With the introduction of telework, the way we work has changed dramatically over the past month. If you’re at home, it’s a waste of time just to sit in front of the PC without doing anything. It’s better to do something else to improve your productivity. In addition, since it is impossible to make decisions by using traditional Japanese stamps hanko, the demand for electronic signature systems is increasing rapidly. Furthermore, it seems that business meetings through video conferencing systems have become our new normal, and the ways of moderating the meetings and the conventional hierarchical relationships inside the companies are beginning to transform slowly.
Will these changes disappear when the COVID-19 subsides? For example, once the electronic signature mechanism has been adopted by a company, there is no need for it to return to the previous hanko-based system. Telework will probably be adopted by some companies several days a week, or for the whole week. In the face of the recession, it is also expected that everyone’s awareness of productivity will rise significantly. I don’t have a time machine, so I can’t say for sure about the future, but I suspect that our way of working in the post COVID-19 world is quite different from before February 2020. In other words, a certain degree of irreversibility is embedded in the suddenly accelerated work style transition.
3) The world after the COVID-19
In addition to the way of working, it seems that some areas experienced major transitions as a result of this COVID-19 spread. For example, in the medical field, the scope of online doctor’s visit using smartphones will likely be significantly expanded. In the field of education, in addition to improving the ICT infrastructures, legal instruments for using copyrighted materials in online lectures were implemented as a emergency response, and also most teachers have overcome the discomfort of giving lectures online and acquired ICT operation skills. Furthermore, in the near future, the tourism and transportation industries will have to face major transitions. Of course, in some areas, it is hoped that these impacts are temporary, and our “normal life” will be restored. However, if you can identify the transitions that were suddenly accelerated by the COVID-19, you should be able to envision a post COVID-19 world and be prepared for it
3. Conclusion
Although the COVID-19 spread has accelerated societal transitions, it is definitely better not to have the COVID-19 at all. There is no “good side” of COVID-19. Instead, the governance study researchers must identify the governance mechanisms that can identify much-needed sustainable transitions and accelerate these transitions during the regular times. In addition to pandemic risks, our societies have to respond to many other kinds of long-term trends, such as climate change and population decline. As a researcher, I intend to continue exploring such governance mechanisms through a number of field experiments.
2020/06/15 11:46 AM - Tweet