Japan is famous for its group of elementary school students walking to school on their own, all dressed in distinctive school clothes with distinctive backpacks. For some reason, people love to mention that these bags cost the equivalent of around a thousand dollars. According to social media, Japan can be summed up in spotless surfaces, konbini egg sandwiches, yogurt lids where the yogurt slides right off, and quirky school uniforms.
For some reason the bookbags hooked my attention, even though I don’t really care about school supplies for other people’s children in another country. It just seems like a silly claim. I find it hard to believe that the majority of parents in Japan are shelling out a thousand dollars for every child’s backpack.
Alas, I made the mistake of hoovering too long on a video inserted into my feed, so now I was inundated with more videos about the boxy leather randoseru backpacks used by elementary school students. They’re so expensive because they’re so well made! They have an amazing warranty! And they have safety features!
Growing up in the US, plenty of my classmates got a monogrammed LL Bean backpack which they continued to use until they graduated university. LL Bean offered a lifetime warranty, which is apparently no longer a thing, but other brands and stores like REI continue to stand behind the quality of their products. The classic LL Bean bag is huge, waterproof, comes in a bunch of colors, and certainly would still last for six years. The classic LL Bean bag costs $40.
I gave in to my curiosity to try to understand why reasonable parents would spend so much money on a child’s bag.
Randoseru safety features
Plenty of American expats say they left the US because they worried about the safety of their children, particularly while they were in school. Why would Japanese bookbags have all sorts of safety features while kids in the US are okay with a bare bones Jansport? When I looked into them, the safety features are underwhelming and make me wonder about what childhood in Japan is like.
- The bulky bag can act as a floatation device! A few bags are now marketed as being usable in a tsunami, it doesn’t seem that the bags are actually rated as a floatation device. They’re just big and super waterproof, which makes them float, but doesn’t mean they’re a replacement for safety equipment. No one is giving their kids a randoseru instead of a lifevest.
- If a child falls backwards, the boxy shape will protect their head! It’s a “roll cage.” I am unaware of this being a common way children sustain traumatic brain injuries.
- If a child gets caught in a car or elevator door, the straps break off like the safety collars cats wear! Once again, I’m not aware that children are frequently sustaining dragging injuries from getting their backpack straps caught in doors.
- If you’re a US parent worried about school violence, sorry, but they’re not bulletproof. The “Ballistic Nylon” versions are scratch resistant, not bullet resistant.
- The rigid bags act like an earthquake shield. Children are trained to hold the bags over their head like a helmet. Unless they’re in school, in which case they should crouch under their desks. It does seem reasonable that a rigid bag would be an asset, although the children only use the bags to walk to and from school. If this was a critical safety feature, Japanese children would keep these bags with them all the time, but I’ve only seen them when the children are wearing their school uniform.
- They have reflective tape. So does just about every bag that costs less than $1000, including the LL Bean bag. Reflective tape is cheap. I didn’t actually see any randoseru with reflective tape during my month in Tokyo, I only saw reflective covers on top of them.
Randoseru craftsmanship
Perhaps the price tag is justified because these are luxury goods. I don’t wonder why a Birkin bag costs as much as it costs. Status goods are a thing. I understand why ultra wealthy Japanese families would spend a ton of money on a bag for a child, but I struggle to believe that people working at a konbini are saving to pay $1,000 for a bag.
Supposedly these are highly complex works of artistry and craftsmanship. The typical randoseru consists of over 100 or over 200 parts — depending on who you ask — and takes hundreds of steps to assemble. They’re completely waterproof, never lose their shape, and are practically indestructible. They come with a six year repair guarantee. The manufacturer will not only fix it for free, they’ll also give you a loaner bag to use while it’s being repaired. The Japanese just appreciate craftsmanship in a way that Westerners, particularly us Americans, do not.
Only Japanese adults don’t use fancy leather backpacks. I just went on an exhaustive, year long search for the perfect backpack, so I am confident that the adults I saw in Tokyo were almost exclusively wearing bags available for purchase in the US. The Uniqlo backpack and things from The North Face are super popular. Peak Design is also way more common here than in the US. Notably absent was anything boxy or made of leather. So, apparently Japanese kindergartners appreciate fine craftsmanship while Japanese adults don’t?
The one group of adults that might wear a randoseru is tourists. There are special adult sized randoseru available.
The randoseru looked like leather to me from the distance I maintain between myself and stranger’s unaccompanied children, but it turns out that over 70% of these bags are made from a polyester/polyurethane blend. It’s even harder to imagine spending $1,000 for a pleather bag. This is, of course, fancy high tech Japanese Clarino synthetic leather and not old fashioned naugahyde or cheap American-style pleather.
I noticed that kids carrying a randoseru often also carry big leather (not-leather?) tote bags. This turns out to be because the randoseru only holds school books. There’s no space for a change of clothes or anything else a kid might need. So they need a second bag to carry additional items. The randoseru doesn’t sound super practical, since its internal frame means it can weigh 3 lbs or more empty. Lightweight versions come in at just over 2 lbs. As an adult who can carry much more than an elementary school student, I searched around until I found a bag that met my needs and weighs less than that because heavy bags are uncomfortable. The LL Bean bags weighs 1 lb. Any regular nylon backpack would weigh far less, hold more, be more comfortable, and could still be waterproof. Somehow they work for young children in other countries and Japanese people over the age of 12.
Supposedly the new trend is the landnap — a nylon randoseru. They use polyester instead of leatheresque materials, creating a much lighter, cheaper bag while retaining the boxy shape. Many schools do not allow these, though. The Japanese seem to love having kids carry as much as they can. With the ubiquity of tablets, there could be a set of physical books in the classroom and digital workbooks for homework. Instead, those big, heavy randoseru have been updated with tablet sleeves so they can carry them in addition to all their physical books.
I remain confused by how impressed everyone is by the warranty. Don’t they have Costco in Japan? Credit cards that extend warranties? But I’m told that in Japan there’s usually a standard one year warranty, so a six year warranty is very exciting. I associate craftsmanship with brands standing behind their products through a warranty, so I’m surprised by this. There are plenty of other well made products in Japan that I assumed would come with guarantees.
It’s true that you can spend $1,000 or $1,500 on a randoseru. You can also buy one at AEON or Nitori for $150. Or you can buy a used bag for $50. Since they’re indestructable (and can be repaired for free up until that six year deadline) a used bag you buy or get as a hand me down will look practically the same as a new one. But obviously some people really are spending a grand on a luxury backpack for children.
Who is paying $1,000 for a child’s backpack?
I have a hunch that kids aren’t choosing these bags for themselves. Sure, if everyone else has a bag like this, plenty of kids want to fit in. Kids too young to go to school are eager to look like the “big kids” who go to school. I’m sure it’s super exciting to unwrap a randoseru. But the kids who aren’t in uniform have normal backpacks with cartoons on them and older kids use normal backpacks for school, too. Besides taking this to mean it’s fine for a 12 year old to be crushed in an earthquake or swept away in a tsunami, it also suggests that maybe these boxy leather bags aren’t super cool.
The explanation I was given was: grandparents. It’s not the parents who are buying these weird bags for kids, it’s the out of touch grandparents. This is a once in a lifetime gift to mark a major milestone, so they’re eager to splurge on a premium bag. Supposedly grandparents will even start saving up money for the randoseru as soon as a child is born. With Japan’s low birth rate, several grandparents are often available to concentrate their funds on a single child. Gifting a small child a piece of luxury, handcrafted luggage is a rite of passage. Which they will immediately stop using the day they turn 12.
Why not spend that money on a violin? Tutoring? A university fund? A sports camp? Because the randoseru is the symbol of leaving childhood behind and beginning the transition to a life of responsibility. Which is why kids don’t use them outside of school. A child carrying a randoseru is like a businessman carrying a briefcase. When grandparents buy a kid a super fancy randoseru, they’re both bragging to the whole neighborhood about how successful they are and putting on the pressure for that kid to live up to their expectations. This is how a bag is an investment in their education. An American family sending their kid to school in super expensive and hard to find sneakers can send the message about success, but it doesn’t encourage their kid to study.
Buying a fancy randoseru really is like trying to get a Birkin bag. Families start strategizing a year or more in advance. There’s a whole backpack hierarchy, naturally. Those in the know can spot a used backpack or cheap knockoff a mile away. Still, only a tiny minority of families are laying out a grand for their kids backpacks. Most are paying under $300, which is still a lot more than American families pay for bookbags.
This still doesn’t explain why families care so much about these bags. I was tired of things that are clearly post hoc explanations, so I fired up my teeny tiny knowledge of Japanese history.
The origins of the randoseru
People fuss about how Japanese school children wear Victorian era school uniforms, so I suspected the backpacks were also Victorian. They are not Victorian if you mean from Queen Victoria’s England. They do date from the same period, a time when Japan was picking up aspects of Western culture and adapting it to their vision of the future. In 1872, Japan introduced a compulsory six year education program inspired by the Prussian system. Children began school at six and graduated at the age of 12, which is the period kids today use the randoseru.
I’m told the randoseru is the Japanese version of the Dutch ransel. The ransel was a square, rigid rucksack used by infantry soldiers. Japan adopted this style of bags for their own infantry. At the time, elite children had servants follow them to school, carrying their books. In 1885, Gakushuin, an elite school for the children of Japanese nobility, began requiring children to carry their own books. In 1887, Future Emperor Taisho started first grade there. Prime Minister Ito Hirobumi gave him a bag modeled on the Japanese military bags but fit for a future Emperor: the randoseru.
The randoseru didn’t become commonplace, never mind compulsory for every student for a long time after they were introduced. Working class children couldn’t afford a fancy bag. Kids wanted a randoseru (or their parents and grandparents wanted them to have one) because that’s what the wealthy had. During Japan’s economic miracle suddenly families could afford one. Sending your kid to school with a randoseru was proof that your family had made it.
School desks and lockers are built to the dimensions of a randoseru, so if you showed up with a floppy normal backpack it would not look tidy in the classroom. And a tidy classroom is important. A randoseru is part of the uniform of elementary school students in Japan. Old trends die hard.
Japanese children don’t long for the high craftmanship of a randoseru rather than a nylon superhero bag. Now it’s essentially required, even in schools that don’t officially require them. A briefcase doesn’t have to be cool or desirable, it’s just part of the professional uniform for certain types of office workers. A randoseru similarly is just part of the uniform for kids in their first six years of school. American families spend less on backpacks, but they spend plenty of money on other required-even-when-they’re-not-officially-required rights of passage for their kids.
Even if the randoseru isn’t cool to kids past their first year of school, they don’t seem to hate them. Kids are eager to grow up, so the randoseru needs to be traded up once they graduate elementary school. The bags are a symbol for a certain time of childhood, with ties to a kids first experience of both responsibility and independence.
The military doesn’t give soldiers $1,000 bags
Perhaps you’ve also noted that the Dutch military probably did not issue super expensive pleather bags to their infantrymen. Once again, the story I’ve been given doesn’t add up, because the Dutch ransel doesn’t look anything like the randoseru. The Dutch ransel was a floppy bag made of canvas and leather. By WW2, the Japanese military had also adopted similar canvas bags.
It was the Prussian tornister that was a simple wooden frame covered in an untanned cowhide, typically with the fur still on it. Soldiers needed to bring their own hide. These were wrapped around a wooden frame and paired with mass produced parts to make a cheap, sturdy, waterproof bag. Ranzen is the German word for satchel, which sounds as much like randoseru as ransel does.
Japan was impressed by the Prussian military during the Franco-Prussian War. For the record, the French also used the tornister, but it was Prussia that Japan wanted to model its new modern systems on. In 1885, the Japanese government invited a Prussian military officer to serve as a foreign advisor. He encouraged Japan to focus on establishing rail lines. Japan copied Prussian uniforms, rifles, and cannons. As you’ll recall, the education system introduced at this time was based on the Prussian system. Prussia had a strong monarchy that was successfully holding back the choatic tides of democracy. A key goal of the educational system in Japan was to ensure students were loyal to the Emperor and had a national identity.
So why does everyone say the term evolved from the Dutch? The Tokugawa Shogunate did look to the Dutch military for inspiration in the 1850s. Perhaps the Dutch term was adopted first. Or perhaps Prussia betrayed Japan in 1895 when it sided with Russia and France to demand Japan give up the Liaodong Peninusla. Right after saving China from colonization by Japan, Germany and Russia then went ahead and captured Kiautschou Bay and the Liaodong Peninsula for themselves. Germany then bought several island chains in the Pacific from Spain. By 1902, Japan was allying itself with Britain, giving us girl’s uniforms modeled on those of the British Navy.
None of this had happened yet when the randoseru was created in 1887. Gakushuin wanted their elite students to survive the school day without their servants in order to build grit. Carrying a heavy load of books would make them stronger, both physically and emotionally. If Japan was going to compete with Western powers, their future leaders needed to be self reliant. Students were encouraged to use military style bags to inspire them to be dedicated and hardworking. The future Emperor couldn’t have a canvas bag like an infantryman. Hence, he was given a special version created just for him, made of black leather. Today, the vast majority of boys use black leather or leatheresque bags just like his.
Dutch children used to use ransels and other military bags to carry their school books, since they were cheap and readily available. Today they use satchels or normal backpacks. Spending a lot of money on a flashy bag for your kindergartener to show off would be considered wasteful and weird.
Like Japan, Germany loves boxy backpacks for elementary students. They also pull out the stops and buy the best for their kids. That doesn’t mean the equivalent of a thousand dollars, though. German families spend something like $250 to $400 on a schulranzen, which is still a lot more than American parents. The price of a schulranzen is in line with a fancy hiking pack, which makes sense given that they incorporate fancy hiking features to protect spinal health. Of course, I’ve had my hiking pack for a lot longer than four years, which is how long kids in Germany use their schulranzen. Then they switch to normal backpacks.
Today, administrators and families in Japan want a bag that looks neat and crisp. They want the textbooks to remain in pristine condition, held firmly in a bag where they would never be bent or squished. A soft backpack doesn’t cut it. The randoseru is a little filing cabinet that keeps their textbooks and papers organized. It’s also adorable to have little kids look so grown up. While typical Japanese families do pay more than typical American families for school bookbags, few are spending $1,000 and I doubt they’re imagining their kids as future soldiers.
