$450 for a School Bag?
one-from-nippon.ghost.io
one-from-nippon.ghost.io
I had a $60-in-1995 northface backpack that lasted through hauling 5+ periods of textbooks every day, walking and biking to middle school and highschool. It worked fine, in fact my dad still uses it (30 years later) to hold and transport teaching materials for a college course he teaches. Lots of kids got by with a single basic $25 Jansport.
Today, kids in the U.S. don't even tote many (or any) books, most of the content and schoolwork takes place on a lightweight Chromebook that stays in the classroom.
It's the same as trying to figure out why a tiny piece of abundant rock costs thousands of dollars when sold as an "engagement ring".
Thanks for this, exactly. It's the same thing with designer bags. After the rise of "superfake" luxury bags that cost literally a tenth of the real thing, I remember reading some blogs trying to argue why people should buy authentic, basing it on BS "handcrafted quality!" reasons (the reason they were called "superfakes" in the first place is because the quality was basically as good as the original). Sure, some of the reasons were actually true (it does cost a lot more to pay workers in France compared to China), but any rationale besides "I want other people to know I spent a lot of money on a bag" is just post hoc rationalization.
Even that, is not a problem that the consumer has to solve if the superfakes can attain the same quality using cheaper labour. In that case supporting local jobs could be a justification, not quality (again, assuming that the quality is the same).
e.g. Even Louis Vuitton for their most expensive bags doesn't use the absolute highest quality leather, so there's room for improvement.
Though that's mostly a rational for why the 'real' bag does costs more, not a rationale for why you should prefer it. 'Is' vs 'ought' distinction.
So yes, it is expensive because of tradition, but it is also a well made, practical item.
Then go and look at the prices of some luxury brands. These bags are cheap by comparison.
I’m not going to try and justify the manufacturing process, but this could be the price of manufacturing something locally and not in a sweat shop.
It just points out that these bags do need to last 6 years so they aren’t throwaway items.
In fact, towards the end it points to how some schools are managing to achieve the same with $60 bags “ran-bags”.
I think you’re reading too much into it if you think the article is trying to justify the cost.
It’s trying to explain the cost, which is driven by the fact that these are hand made and have a ton of parts and also need to last many years.
Likely a disrespect for a living wage for a common craftsman, and a misunderstanding of what quality goods actually are.
Certainly a lot of kids here survived on cheap $25 jansports, but did the people making them?
I mean, I do that anyway as a hobby, but I don't owe it to anyone.
However, that works both ways. It's wrong to say someone is "disrespectful" and "misunderstanding quality goods" because they don't want to get their kid a $450 bag instead of a cheaper, still-durable one.
But lets just say that I exist within the FANG dystopia where at any moment I can be wrangled into a meeting with a half dozen people, that if you actually consider the salaries, headcount, and time, racks up to hundreds, maybe thousands of dollars burned. For the takeaway that the modal should be fullscreen, or that we are dramatically adjusting our "design system", or whatever may have been so mission critical. Real tangible goods.
But perhaps what I do is worth more, I mean, we are talkin' computers here! we are the true craftsmen!
I got a Tom Bihn Synapse backpack for around $200 in 2017 that I've traveled to many countries with and has been through I think way more than a kid going to elementary school. It's still going strong today.
It was made in a US factory with workers being paid good wages. $400 is a luxury/captive audience/conspicuous consumption price point.
$450 for an equivalent bag could be explained by things like cost of living differences, but the randoseru described in the article are smaller and made from less expensive materials. The design is arguably a little more complicated, but the price still seems high for what you're getting.
Craftsman also use to make each nail by hand. Looks like kids getting saddled with heavy 200 year old bag designs whose function hasn't updated with the times.
Can you imagine carrying 1-2kg empty backpack with you every day? Just because something took long to make doesn't mean it's superior in production or quality or even perception. It's pretty, fashionable and the tradition is wholesome but that's where it ends.
I got a free backpack with my new Thinkpad laptop recently. It's light, well designed, mass produced, easy to personalize - would take this over the 450$ school bags any time of the year.
I got a free backpack with my new Thinkpad laptop recently.
It's light, well designed, mass produced, easy to personalize
- would take this over the 450$ school bags any time of the year.
Something tells me the answer is "yes" which kind of makes me wonder why you're mentioning it
Do you also drive around in a compact car and think "man this is so much better than a school bus" and pat yourself on the back every time you see a school bus
That's so light, of course I can. I'm legitimately baffled by the implication that this is heavy for a backpack.
It's a bit much for elementary school but I had a pretty big backpack by about grade 5, and my current 2kg backpack is quite comfortable.
> The difference between a flexible 500gram backpack and 2kg hard edge backpack is massive and in fact not recommended by most health experts. Ergonomics matter.
Sure, in that the vast majority of the difference is the hard edges.
Though you don't actually want much flexibility when you're putting textbooks into a backpack. You want relatively stiff padding to protect you.
As the saying goes → 出る杭は打たれる “The stake that sticks out will be driven down.”
[1] https://tsuchiya-randoseru.jp
Generally I believe you are allowed to use a different bag, it's just... uncommon.
Americans generally get driven to school. The backpack is worn only between classes at school and then moved from car trunk to home, not worn during those times.
I personally wore out a $100 Eddie Bauer backpack every other year or so during middle/high school. I walked to school every day for over a mile, rain or shine. The zippers would completely fail, or the shoulder straps would detach. Eddie Bauer had a lifetime warranty so they replaced the backpacks without question.
Frankly, his classmates have cheaper bags with similar outcomes so I doubt price is highly correlated with performance past a certain price point.
I think cheap bags were just crappier back then
But even the Jansports seemed to get replaced. I think kids were just rougher on their bags back then. I remember my bags absolutely bulging with 4-5 big hardbound textbooks. Don't see that much any more.
I feel like stitching in general is where Jansports fail first.... you have to abuse them pretty hard to wear out the material or bust a zipper directly, but the stitching on Jansports is not amazing.
Don't get me wrong... the price/performance/durability of Jansports is INSANE
but they maybe are venerated a little too hard
[1] https://www.berliner-zeitung.de/news/scout-bis-zu-300-euro-k...
Not in Japan, according to the article.
The unfortunate thing is I was in the market for a new bag and went to the north face store of course and the only bag they had in the whole store was some shoestring style bag. Quite disappointing to see north face forget their roots.
- a disastrous mistake.
I don't think it does. The emphasis is on being a hand crafted item:
> A randoseru can have up to 200 die cut parts and polyurethane back plates, and are mostly assembled by hand, making it an expensive item to produce.
It even says that cheaper bags are even better:
> Unlike the randoseru, these cost a much more affordable 8,000 yen (57 USD), are lighter, and just as durable.
This may be a regional thing, because my kids have to lug heavier loads back and forth to school every day than I ever had to when I was a kid, and that's on top of their Chromebooks and sometimes an instrument for band. They also don't get lockers big enough to store anything substantial so they've got to carry everything all the time. We pretty much go through a new backpack each year for each kid because they get so worn down from having their capacity continuously stretched to the limit.
I came from a family that could easily have afforded the 450 USD school bag. But that would have been ridiculous to me. If you are rich and want to teach your kid to treat money so they can survive without inheritance, you definitely should do the opposite of buying them the 450 USD school bag. A lot about a good person is about valuing the right things the right amount. School bags are cool, but bad ones are not that much worse than 450 USD ones.
As someone coming from one of the richer families in my schools I always was the guy using what was there. My brothers old bag, some rucksack that wasn't in use anymore, a shopping bag. I certainly never looked rich. If I wanted anything more I had to buy it using my own money, and that was slimmer than the money of some of my poorer peers. If I made my case well and long enough in front of my parents they would support what I was trying to get with a fraction of their money. And there was always birthdays/christmas. I was one of the few kids in school not playing the game of defining yourself via branded cloths and I had a convinced stand on that. Nobody that I truly cared about gave a damn about this anyways, quite the opposite: Many had respect for me not playing these games and having the convidence to do it. To
My parents not just buying me every shit was one of the best educational things they ever did (and they did a lot of good).
450 USD is a lot of money for any bag, the only kind where this kind of money makes sense is specialized hiking gear (if you hike enough to justify the expense). But sometimes not spending 450 USD on a bag is the lesson you need to teach your kid.
Mine did that, and has since been lying out in the rain in the back yard holding firewood. It's a decade+ later and the thing is still perfectly fine other than being a bit dirty. Bet a good wash would get it back to being perfectly usable as a backpack.
Those zippers never lasted long for me.
And their Chromebooks are not the tiny svelte high end ones. They're the chunky cheap and heavy ones too. And they're Middleschool, so can't leave them in one classroom, they get toted around, and back to home for homework every day.
- Why is it so expensive?
You can definitely buy cheaper randoserus made in China and these are giving lower-end Japanese manufacturers a run for their money. For example, https://www.amazon.co.jp/-/en/dp/B09H5RLGQF is around 45 dollars.
Even off-the-shelf Japanese randoserus are cheaper than the customized ones.
For an example of the well-thought out design of randoseru, this video does a good job: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/WtWiuWBU9r8
Some basic reasons for the high cost are: materials (leather, fake leather) are expensive, there are many parts, manual assembly, and the variations and customizations don't lend themselves to scale.
This article lists some reasons Japanese randoseru are so expensive: https://rand--torisetu-com.translate.goog/kakaku?_x_tr_sl=au... .
- What happens after 6 years?
Randoseru often last longer with good care, and are in fact passed down. Many organizations also collect and donate used randoseru to the less privileged. There are also businesses that will recycle the high quality materials into other accessories: See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHcgol5i7gs
My son just received his first randoseru and the company that made it offers to "minify" using almost all of the original key parts from his, in the future.
Definitely not the same, unless I don’t understand the English usage (I’m American, but I’ve spent a lot of time around Brits and British English).
Tatemae can run deep in complexity and nuance.
At a guess, so can "keeping up appearances".
I have zero expectation of rationality from this type of thing. People will give reasons to buy a new one, just like you gave reasons to use an old one. But ultimately it is the cost/benefit of aligning behaviors with other people which will drive their decisions.
A new randoseru made of genuine or synthetic leather can carry a price tag of around 30,000–40,000 yen at a chain store/supermarket. Typically randoseru from department stores or traditional workshops will be priced in the region of 55,000–70,000 yen, with some models (particularly those branded with logos) reaching over 100,000 yen. Clarino, a synthetic material frequently used as a substitute, reduces the cost somewhat. Often randoseru are available on auction sites in new or used condition at much lower prices, particularly after the start of the Japanese school year in April. As of January 2012, the five top randoseru in order of popularity at Amazon.co.jp are in the range of ¥8,280–¥16,980 yen.
Translating those numbers to US dollars and rounding a bit, we get:
New one at the supermarket: US$ 210-280
Department store or traditional workshop: US$ 390-400
Prestigious logo: $700
Most popular on Amazon.co.jp back in 2012: US$ 60-120.
What the distribution of sales are between those $60 bags and those $700 bags is, and how much shit a kid carrying a $60 bag will get from the kids carrying the pricier ones, I dunno. It certainly seems that Mr. and Mrs. One-From-Nippon are definitely looking at some upscale-ass randoseru though.
The free backpacks I get every so often from work are "ok". My employer gave me a <$100-ish pack I've also enjoyed for the last decade or so without trouble.
Unless that pack comes with a bit of gold in it, or part of a college degree, I have no idea what makes it worth it.
This grandparent will be happy to pay for whatever my daughter wants for her son, though it’s likely that she will insist on paying for it herself.
1. A single high-quality $400 leather randoseru to last six years
2. A single high-quality $200-$400 ripstop nylon bag with high quality zippers, etc (essentially, GoRuck quality level) to last for life
3. Six years' worth of $50 Jansports that last maybe ~3 years each
4. Six years' worth of cheapass $15 Amazon Essentials level nylon bags that last ~1 year each under heavy daily use
- 4 or 5 large books at once, bag often fairly bulging
- Zipped and unzipped probably > 20x daily
- Dropped onto school, home, and schoolbus floors dozens of
times daily with various levels of care
- Some walking, some weather exposure (less for me than
many others)
- One strap always carrying 100% of the load because the style
was to wear it over one shoulder; it was never acceptable
to wear it with a strap over each shoulder as actually
designed
Now... today as a middle-aged adult? Yes, a $50 Jansport easily lasts me 10+ years, probably more like 30, basically a lifetime purchase.
Also... today as a student? I guess it's less physical books and more Chromebooks so sure yeah maybe $50 Jansports can be lifetime purchases for kids, why the hell not
But that is not the angle I'm thinking from.
I did not see Jansports lasting people ten years when I was in school.
If anything... there's probably some generation gap stuff going on here. $50 Jansports did not typically last people that long when I went to school. But they also made us carry way more heavy-ass books than today I think.
Or have they finally quashed the used book market entirely? Most fellow college/uni students valued getting a few bucks back for their books at the end of a semester.
Also this obviously can't work for primary school students who can't destroy their books at will.
But, good solution
although something tells me this is NOT a problem for randoseru in Japan
The problem that I have with this of course is families who cannot afford these really well made pieces of gear (touched on at the end of the article) and where children who can't afford it are ostracized because of it.
Growing up I was on meal plans due to our financial status and paying in physical tickets, made me and the others like me a small target of ridicule. Personally I don't think it was a lot, but naturally we banded together and became friends simply because we paid for lunches a particular way.
The social pressure is crazy and unnecessary and feel terrible for the kids who can't have it as well as the families who literally sacrifice for it.
Until they get to ~14+, they don't have any claim to having earned any of their family's wealth.
Of course, those who sell the things kids use have every incentive to make it cool to spend a lot of money. It is, btw, among the worst kind of advertising. They target kids, who can be easily manipulated, so that they, in turn, convince their parents. It is sometimes close to a hostage situation, where if parents don't get the expensive thing, their kid gets bullied.
Some people want to bring back (affordable!) school uniforms for that reason.
https://saddlebackleather.com/tumbled-leather-drawstring-bac... is cheaper and more realistic, perhaps.
https://saddlebackleather.com/leather-backpack-lg is only 2 pounds and cheaper still.
Amazing durable products from that company.
(And, you could also just 'forget' your textbook, and nothing really happened.)
I think the idea is if you take care of it as a child, then at some point you transition from stiff shoulder bag to broken-in briefcase—or something like that. Symbolic of a transition to adulthood.
BTW-That video was really lovely. I liked the simple montage of the workers at the end.
In Canada catholic high schools students still wear uniforms. The uniforms are made to last. And the Canadian company that makes them has been in business for 50 years.
It turns out the broken window fallacy is not really a fallacy, under many economic conditions!
I thought there was actually a formal transliteration system the Japanese use for foreign words? Like with cutlet becoming katsu retsu. Not quite “bastardization”.
(Although, in fairness, I don't expect to ever have to buy another bag, and I'll take better care of this than I would've any bag my elders gave me as a child.)