ANONYMOUS EMBODIMENT
This article was originally published in a brochure distributed for the 2025 anniversary. We have now decided to publish it on our website so that those who do not yet have a copy can also read it.
January 1, 2026
Introduction
Starting last year, I undertook an initiative to articulate my brand philosophy from an academic perspective. While I had previously documented my thoughts, I was intrigued to see how they would be perceived objectively. Through a friend's introduction, I commissioned Ryunosuke Murokoshi, a writer. Mr. Murokoshi specialized in anthropology and conducted fieldwork in places like Cuba. As I personally had an interest in cultural anthropology, I had a certain expectation when I asked Mr. Murokoshi to apply anthropological methods to my own work—what insights would emerge?
First, Mr. Murokoshi conducted an interview with me. The initial day, including the interview and dinner afterward, extended to over eight hours. Later, he interviewed the founding members of blueover, and we had several follow-up meetings. The results were more than satisfactory. The total word count was over 10,000 characters. Having my thoughts organized in this manner felt peculiar, yet it also allowed me to visualize aspects I hadn't noticed myself.
According to Mr. Murokoshi, the structure of the text blends "Japanese and French logical argumentation, bringing a 'concrete world' thesis to the 'abstract world' thesis, making it dialectical." He added, "(Perhaps it could have been written more deeply as a counter-thesis...) The way it concludes with a change by entering the 'concrete world' seems to be the Japanese part." Indeed, by developing economic rationality and its corresponding irrationality in contemporary society as a dialectic, and seeking possibilities beyond that, I was able to realize things I hadn't noticed myself, which profoundly influenced the future direction of the brand.
The resulting articulated text was completed at the end of 2024. The timing was perfect, so the essay titled "anonymous embodiment" was included in the brochure distributed at this pop-up store. This is the brochure you are now holding.
blueover is a very small Japanese sneaker brand. However, its sneakers contain something special that goes beyond mere functional value for the wearer. I believe many of you are discovering blueover for the first time. For these individuals, this brochure also includes the brand's basic philosophy, and I would be delighted if this serves as an opportunity for you to learn that such a sneaker brand exists in Japan.
February 28, 2025
anonymous embodiment
Ryunosuke Murokoshi
The Question of blueover
blueover shoes are a quietly placed question to our society.
When I say "our society," there are four things imagined within it.
First, being global. Today, we live with a network of commodities stretched across the entire planet. When we eat sushi, it uses tuna caught in the Indian Ocean, trout (salmon) farmed in Chile, and octopus landed in Mozambique. Cotton cultivated in Pakistan becomes fabric in India, sewn in Vietnam, and arrives in our hands as clothing. We use smartphones designed in California, with parts produced in Taiwan, and assembled in China. We are connected to the entire world through commodities.
Second, being industrial. This also means mass production. In response to enormous demand, commodities are mass-produced. Machines make mass production possible. Using machines requires standardizing materials, parts, and products. Factories can produce an seemingly infinite number of identical products down to the last detail. And standardized products can be bought anywhere. You can drink Coca-Cola in Osaka or Tokyo. You can drink it in Russia or Cuba. You can always get something roughly similar, without being restricted by location or time.
Third, being mainstream. And having a system of values centered on the mainstream. We share a common understanding of what is valuable and what is not. To value something means not to value something else. Therefore, considering "something good" creates a hierarchy. Furthermore, if "everyone considers something good," a hierarchy of values centered on what "everyone considers good" emerges within society. For example, if it's transient, we might call it a trend. But if everyone considers it good over a relatively long period, a mainstream appears, creating a hierarchy of values.
Fourth, being abstract. In society, we are rarely treated as concrete individuals. We are treated as employees in a company, or as parents or children in a family. When we consume, we are treated more as targets for selling commodities than as discerning, choosing subjects. Not as ourselves, but as men or women, or people in their 30s or 40s, or those with an urban lifestyle, or outdoor enthusiasts. We are treated as consumers rather than as ourselves. We live in a concrete world, yet we perceive the world abstractly.
blueover exists as a resistance to these four imaginaries.
It is local, not global; artisanal, not industrial; unique, not mainstream; and concrete, not abstract.
Now, let's explore how blueover responds to these four imaginaries.
Considering "Exchange"
In the blueover brand story, designer Hitoshi Watari writes, "While taking on product design work, I began to question the product development and consumption cycle."
Within the capitalist system, maximizing profit tends to become the paramount objective. And rationality based on profit is exercised. To increase profit, it is necessary to encourage consumers to consume more. To do so, new products must be introduced to stimulate consumers. Therefore, it becomes rational to develop products, shorten the consumption cycle, and produce large quantities of products within that short period. Watari questioned the "speed" of this cycle.
That question is understandable. Rationality based on profit seems to be our only ethic, but when we look broadly at human societies, we realize that it is actually a unique, in some ways special, way of thinking specific to our society.
For example, Marcel Mauss, in his book *The Gift*, argued that exchange through gifting (gift exchange) was a more common means for humans to acquire things than the buying and selling (exchange) we engage in.
According to Mauss, in many societies, there is an obligation to give gifts, an obligation to receive them, and an obligation to reciprocate. Obligations create dynamics within society. Though largely faded, Japan also has customs of gift-giving like O-chugen and O-seibo. O-chugen and O-seibo were probably partly forced, i.e., obligations, as expressions of gratitude to those who had helped them. And it's probably a common understanding that refusing a gift offered as a token of gratitude would be rude. And if a gift is received, one must in turn reciprocate with a gift.
As the decline of the O-chugen custom in our society shows, gift-giving is troublesome. One must receive unwanted items and incur costs to give. As a result, we gain nothing.
But Mauss argued that we actually gain something else through gifts besides the gift items themselves. That is human relationships. If you give gifts, you can become friendly with the recipient. In other words, human relationships are formed. The exchange of objects has the power to connect people. It is not always a positive connection. Among indigenous North Americans, there was a custom where if one could not reciprocate a gift, they would become a slave. The exchange of objects can also connect people in such ways.
Karl Polanyi did not divide exchange into two categories, gift and exchange, but rather into three: "reciprocity," "redistribution," and "exchange." Reciprocity creates a relationship of mutual aid through mutual giving; redistribution creates a power structure of center and periphery through obligatory payments to a central authority and refunds from that center. Exchange is similar to buying and selling in our society—the movement of goods and services in the market.
What's interesting is that while reciprocity tends to create relatively egalitarian relationships and redistribution relatively hierarchical ones, exchange is seen as capable of settling human relationships as momentary transactions.
In fact, Ruth Benedict, author of *The Chrysanthemum and the Sword*, which studied the cultural characteristics of the Japanese, said something similar. According to Benedict, Japanese transactions of things consist of three types: "giri" (obligation), "on" (indebtedness), and "exchange." Giri corresponds to reciprocity, on to redistribution, and exchange to exchange.
Considering these theories, the decline of O-chugen and O-seibo seems to indicate that we are moving from a world of *giri* and *on* to a world of pure exchange.
In a world of pure exchange, countless abstract, anonymous individuals are mediated only by the exchange of objects with countless other abstract, anonymous individuals.
In our daily lives, we don't usually care where a commodity came from. Nor who made it, or who designed it. We perceive people and things as functions, and we don't ponder their specific individuality. Things obtained through exchange are designed so that we don't have to think about such matters.
Therefore, "questioning the consumption cycle" can also be interpreted as questioning a world where transactions connect consumers, and no concrete human beings exist anywhere. And this question can lead to recalling a gifting aspect in market transactions.
A gifted item cannot be obtained elsewhere. If a rose bought from a florist withers, you can simply buy another from the same or a different florist. However, if a rose given by a lover withers, it cannot be replaced by another rose. This is because "a rose from a lover" is imbued with special meaning born from the relationship between the lover and oneself.
In other words, if the act of buying a certain commodity can create special meaning by connecting one person with another, then a merely replaceable commodity becomes a unique, concrete object. In that case, the act of "buying from someone" can become a special behavior that creates individual value.
Therefore, it would be something like this:
Normally, for consumers, both brand and shoes are merely interchangeable, selectable commodities. There is no special relationship connecting consumers to commodities or consumers to brands. Therefore, if consumers receive a stronger stimulus, they quickly replace their shoes. If new designs, new functions, or new added values are presented, consumers react to them.
However, blueover's shoes do not seem to be presented in this way.
When buying blueover shoes, the purchaser is expected to form a unique relationship with them. This might be a relationship with Harada, the manager of the direct store struct, or with other staff members, or perhaps with the designer, Watari. Or perhaps the message embedded within the shoes themselves makes the purchaser feel a concrete connection.
Shoes with an established concrete relationship cease to be interchangeable, selectable commodities.
They cannot be replaced.
The buyer has no choice but to develop a relationship with those shoes.
Just as once a gift is received, one must reciprocate and then receive another gift.
And the more the relationship between the buyer and the shoes develops, the slower the purchasing cycle becomes.
This would then bring about changes in the product development and production cycles.
Such an endeavor might be at play.
It seems discernible even through blueover's shoes.
So, next, let's consider design.
"Beauty of Use" and Anonymous Shoes
The first shoe created by blueover, the "Mikey," has a shape that could be described as the very image of a shoe. Watari called its design "anonymous." Being anonymous. It seems important that "it is unknown who made the product."
This concept is also connected to the idea of *mingei* (folk craft) and the "beauty of use," which influenced Watari.
Designs rooted in the land, born from the handicrafts of nameless artisans working in that region. And designs that are perfectly suited to the way the tool is used, without excess or deficiency.
The Mikey indeed has such a form.
Looking at Mikey reminds me of a story about a logger's saw.
I heard this story directly from Professor Yoichiro Katsuki, a folklorist, so my recollection of the details might be inaccurate. Retrieving vague memories, the story goes like this:
Professor Katsuki's team was collecting logging saws from various regions. As the forestry industry was industrialized and chainsaws were introduced, they gathered and preserved folk tools (everyday tools used by local people) to prevent them from being scattered. Hundreds of saws were collected, so they asked an old logger to help classify them. The old logger picked up a saw and said, "The owner of this saw probably did not live a happy life."
Professor Katsuki, curious, asked why he thought so.
The logger replied, "This saw is well-maintained. Its owner must have been a skilled craftsman. But it's old, yet the blade isn't very worn. Someone so meticulous, who cared for details like this, must have had difficulty getting along with others and frequently changed jobs. That's why, despite his skill, the blade isn't very worn."
Every object has a history. A discerning eye can discern that history.
The old logger didn't know the face or name of the saw's owner, but he understood what kind of person he was.
In other words, he discerned the concrete human involved from an anonymous object.
Now, just as the old logger looked at the saw, let's look at the Mikey.
The brand was born in the basement of the Meriyasu Kaikan in Fukushima, Osaka City.
The brand's launch team emerged from Watari's network of relationships in Osaka, where he grew up. Watari used to invite people to his space to play games since he was young. He formed the team with these gaming friends and colleagues he had worked with.
He didn't recruit from an infinite pool of human resources.
The team Watari built was from his own personal relationships.
No matter how transaction-oriented society may be, we don't live our daily lives as abstract individuals. We have parents, siblings, and friends. There are accidental encounters and partings. Specific individuals meet specific individuals.
A designer doesn't meet a retail store manager. An entrepreneur doesn't meet an employee. That's not how the team was formed. The team was born from a gaming room, from colleagues.
What Watari aimed to create was shoes.
And they were "100% domestically produced" shoes.
I hear that the brand name blueover also contains the meaning of "from Japan across the ocean to the world."
Domestically produced shoes would, after all, be considered a peculiar idea from the perspective of capitalist rationality.
It would be cheaper and faster to produce them abroad. If they had worked with overseas factories accustomed to negotiation and mass production, they surely could have produced rational commodities more quickly.
The mainstream of society moved in that direction. During the recession of the 2000s, many shoe manufacturers shifted their production bases to Asia. The cost-cutting competition accelerated, and small factories that remained in Japan were driven into increasingly difficult situations.
The launch in 2011 was an attempt to respond to this situation. As a product designer involved in manufacturing, he aimed to keep Japan's shoe industry operational.
Behind this endeavor were, once again, Watari's personal connections from working as a freelance designer visiting various factories. Mikey was born as a product to support "Watari's personal network of Japanese manufacturing."
For both the brand's launch team and the supply chain, there must have been options to choose the best from across Japan or even the world. In other words, they could have selected marketers, production managers, sales staff, and factories based on the premise of a business selling "shoes Watari wanted to make."
However, "shoes Watari wanted to make" seems to have acted more like a catalyst, revealing networks of people, rather than being a precondition that dictated everything.
Watari's human relationships first existed, and by launching the project "shoes Watari wanted to make," people who participated emerged from that network.
This is the opposite of a certain ideal plan, such as planning products with the goal of profit pursuit, efficient production, and the allocation of personnel for that purpose.
First, human relationships exist, and into them, the motivation for a project is thrown. Then, people mobilize what they can do within those relationships to create a product, and that product reaches the buyer as a concrete object, ultimately generating profit.
Most of the production process, being local, aligns with a chain of concrete human relationships.
In Japanese, the act of buying and selling is called "akinai." There are various theories about the origin of this word, but some suggest it evolved from "aku," meaning to mediate, while others suggest it came from "aku," meaning satisfaction or fulfillment for both parties.
In that sense, blueover's work can truly be called *akinai* in that it stands between people through shoes, foresees those connections, and distributes profits.
Just as the personality of a craftsman resided in the saw blade, blueover's shoes carry the feel of a vast number of concrete individuals mediated by Watari. And there is an anonymity that means one doesn't particularly need to be conscious of it.
(Ir)rational Choice
Watari considers this business model "irrational." He apparently receives such criticisms from others.
Today, in our society, "profit seeking" is often the ultimate goal, and other decisions tend to become subservient items toward that goal. All subservient decisions are streamlined to align with the purpose of profit seeking. This is why humans become abstracted in a market economy. Only by treating humans as "labor power" or "purchasing power" that can be quantitatively analyzed and manipulated does a series of actions aimed at profit seeking become decidable.
Consider a specific individual: their body shape is unique, as is the combination of their upbringing, political ideology, food preferences, occupation, age, and health. No two people are the same. For example, when targeting "men in their 40s to 50s," only an imagined "men in their 40s to 50s" as conceived by those doing the targeting appears. Actual "men in their 40s to 50s" would be far more diverse and disparate than that imagination, and they would be people for whom it would be almost impossible to extract the same group based on characteristics other than "men in their 40s to 50s." Nevertheless, further assumptions are made about the behavior of the imagined target.
The act of stacking one prejudice upon another is justified because it requires a foundation to underpin the rationality of "profit seeking." In my opinion, rationality does not emerge without such prejudiced assumptions.
We generally tend to think of "rationality" as a universal fact. Even if diverse people hold diverse perspectives, we believe that an objective and rational perspective exists that is different from those. Rationality, in this sense, becomes a privileged perspective.
In other words, being rational can be the only correct answer. From this viewpoint, being irrational becomes incorrect, and one inevitably falls into the situation of having to consider people who hold such viewpoints as "foolish."
However, blueover's endeavor, while not entirely aligned with the mainstream of the times, strangely continues without collapse.
This means that it is not "wrong" as an economic activity under capitalism.
How should we interpret this?
In cultural anthropology, we consider the rationality of others.
In the early days of this discipline, people living in different cultures were considered "primitive" or "savage," and it was believed that all humans would eventually become "civilized" like Westerners. Colonialism was justified under the guise of bringing civilization and education to inferior peoples. The idea that superior people should rule over inferior people was taken for granted.
Franz Boas, born in Germany and who conducted research in America, challenged this idea.
Until Boas's time, many anthropologists analyzed various materials sent by colonial administrators and explorers dispatched to colonies and built theories. Unlike these "armchair" researchers, Boas conducted fieldwork in North America, studying Native Americans and directly interacting with local people.
From the raw experiences he gained firsthand, Boas came to realize that "primitive" peoples were different from the West, but not inferior or backward. Each culture was shaped by its own unique rationality based on its historical background.
Rationality is not singular, nor does it hold a privileged position.
If the premise is changed, another rationality emerges.
Considering this, the rationality based on "profit seeking" can also be relativized.
In "profit seeking," humans are abstracted and categorized, imagined as objects that can be manipulated. This imaginative capacity enables efficiency. For "efficiency" calculated backward from an uncertain future to be established, the imagination that "humans are objects that can be manipulated" is indispensable.
Such an assumption might function when consuming large quantities of mass-produced commodities. But, for example, when buying a painting, would we engage in such purchasing behavior? Not just paintings. When choosing antiques or crafts, we are not trying to consume objects. We try to form new relationships with objects, beyond their functions.
When buying a certain painting, it probably wouldn't be the case that any painting would do. One wouldn't try to buy a painting unless one thought, "I want to buy this painting." The same goes for buying a plate. One wouldn't try to buy a plate in general. One would envision the food to be served on it, the season, the place, and then look for a suitable plate.
blueover's shoes, in this sense, seem like artisanal products. More precisely, blueover's shoes are products of manufacture. Unlike crafts handmade piece by piece, they are produced in sufficient quantities to be distributed. Nevertheless, what is intended there is "slow consumption." If consumption that aligns with the current profit-seeking consumption cycle is "fast consumption," then consumption that is connected by concrete relationships between things and people, and on a gentler consumption cycle, is "slow." In the endeavor of "slow consumption," buyers are expected to form their own relationships with the shoes.
In this sense, buying Mikey is close to buying a painting.
Now, let's return to the discussion of rationality.
Under capitalism, "profit seeking" and the pursuit of efficiency for that purpose were often considered the sole rationality. However, Franz Boas suggested the existence of other forms of rationality.
blueover, while considering "profit seeking" as a given condition in capitalism, does not place it as the starting point of its thought. The starting point of its thought is the "concrete relationship between things and people."
Considering this, wouldn't "rationality" begin to reverse?
In blueover, "profit seeking" is not an inevitable goal but a consequence that happens to result from intent. "Efficiency" is applied not to selling in large quantities, but to creating products that are worthy of purchasers forming a special relationship with them. In other words, rather than wholesaling large quantities to many retailers, repeatedly explaining what their products are through the direct store struct or website becomes a "rational" and "efficient" behavior.
Slowing down the consumption cycle is not an irrational decision that abandons profit seeking, but rather a rational consideration for the entire network of human relationships mediated by shoes.
Anonymous Embodiment
Now, let's return to the topic of shoes.
Shoes were created that were expected to be anonymous. Shoes that were hoped to be bought as if the company, brand, and designer had disappeared, arriving from somewhere unknown. Shoes sold there, without any authority, risking their very existence as mere objects.
Recall the logger's saw. The saw was anonymous. Yet, it strongly hinted at the owner's character.
blueover's shoes also remind the buyer of an unknown creator. This is because the shoes embody the creator's philosophy.
One English translation of "gutai-ka" (具体化) is "embody." "em-" represents "into," and "body" here refers to "matter." Thus, etymologically, it means to materialize, to actually perform an idea or concept.
What Watari envisioned has materialized as shoes. And through the shoes, they transform the behavior of the people they mediate and influence their perceptions.
Messages issued anonymously can also move people.
The anonymous pamphlet "What is the Third Estate?" published in 1789, greatly contributed to shaping public opinion leading up to the French Revolution.
Precisely because it was anonymous, its message stood out.
It became important not "who said it?" but "what is being said?"
This is a completely different approach from stimulating the brain's reward system through advertising to make people buy abstract products, which drives modern society.
When buying shoes, how many people are actually looking at the shoes? Aren't they looking at the logo pasted on the shoes? When buying shoes, how much are they looking at the salesperson? Aren't they just looking at the goods being exchanged?
blueover's shoes question our society, which operates in this way: "Is the world truly like that?"
In fact, we do not live abstractly.
Just like Watari's gaming room friends, we too have friends, and just like Watari's relationships with factories and craftsmen, we too have colleagues whose faces and names we know, and whose family structures, backgrounds, and food preferences we are familiar with.
The same goes for shoes. Shoes are not merely worn "to walk."
They are worn when walking a specific path, in a specific season, at a specific time.
blueover is modest.
It quietly poses a question.
You don't have to realize it's a question, and you don't have to answer it.
We can buy shoes as we like and wear them as we like.
However, at the same time, a philosophy is placed beyond the anonymity, and we are given the possibility to respond to the world through shoes.
When we wear blueover shoes, we are questioned about "wearing shoes."
What does wearing shoes mean to us?
When buying shoes, what kind of relationship can we form with the people who sell and make them?
Through owning shoes, what kind of world do we perceive?
When we wear blueover shoes, we can step into the web of concrete human relationships through objects.
Ryunosuke Murokoshi
Anthropologist, writer. Specializes in cultural anthropology. After completing the doctoral program (coursework only) at Kyushu University's Graduate School of Human-Environment Studies, he became independent after working at overseas diplomatic missions and venture companies. He presides over the private seminar "le Tonneau." Provides research for corporations and training/study groups for executives and consultants. Currently hosts the podcast programs "Norajio" and "New Japan Punning Association."
