About
Okurimono Japan is run by one person: a designer in Japan who chooses Japanese things worth giving, and explains them for people ordering from abroad.
The Curator
Hi, I'm Kotaro.
I've worked as a designer in Tochigi, Japan, for more than twenty years. My job is deciding what looks right and what doesn't — the weight of a line, the space around a word, whether something feels made with care.
Okurimono (贈り物) means a gift — and in Japanese it carries the sense of something sent to a person, with thought. That's what this site is for.
Why I started this
Japan makes a great many things worth giving: knives, watches, pens, cut glass, porcelain, fishing reels. But most of what I found about them in English was either a catalogue or an advertisement — long lists of products, very little about who each one is actually for.
I wanted to write the version I'd want to read: one thing at a time, explained from here, starting with the person you're buying for.
What I use myself
I don't pretend to have tested everything on this site. Where I write from experience, I say so. My first G-SHOCK was a present in high school. I cook with Japanese kitchen knives at home, and fountain pens and art supplies are part of my working day as a designer. For everything else, I rely on the maker's own specifications and say where they came from.
How I choose
- Would I give it? Nothing goes on the site that I wouldn't send to someone I like.
- Specs come from the maker. Sizes, materials and movements are taken from the maker's official pages or manuals, not from reseller listings where I can avoid it.
- Prices come from the shop, with a date. Prices are the shop's own, in yen, on the date I checked them, with an approximate US dollar figure. They change; the live price is always behind "Check Price".
- No invented claims. I don't write "Japan-only" without evidence, and I don't promise delivery dates I can't know.
- Illustrations are labelled. Images marked "Illustrative image" are illustrations of how a gift might be used — not photographs of the product. Product photos are marked with their source.
How the site makes money
Okurimono Japan is supported by affiliate links. When you buy through a link here, the shop may pay me a small commission, at no extra cost to you. The shops I currently link to are Discovery Japan Mall and Hocho Knife. I don't sell anything myself, and your order is placed with — and handled by — the shop.
No maker or shop pays to appear on this site, and I don't accept free products in exchange for coverage. If that ever changes for a particular article, the article will say so at the top.
Get in touch
If you're stuck on a gift for someone, write to me and tell me who it's for: hello@okurimonojapan.com. I also post short notes about Japanese gift-giving — and the occasional ukiyo-e joke — on X at @okurimono_japan.