Ichigo: This is a landscape from train window of "Yamabiko" super-express down for Yamagata prefecture. Very much different from that of Wakayama. Indeed, beautiful snowscape. I wonder how many Japanese people are actually aware of the beauty of country landscape of Japan. Being a photographer myself, I've been to a lot of different places, but some of the most beautiful landscapes were those of Japanese countryside.

Satoshi: You will never seen a landscape like this in Tokyo.

Ichigo: Fabric was being made in Wakayama and the next stage should be sewing, right? Are there a lot of sewing factories in northern part of Japan?

Satoshi: In the past, Factories were all in Tokyo. About 25 years ago, however, they started building factories in the country where the price of land was reasonable.

Ichigo: Fabric was being made in Wakayama and the next stage should be sewing, right? Are there a lot of sewing factories in northern part of Japan?

Satoshi: In the past, Factories were all in Tokyo. About 25 years ago, however, they started building factories in the country where the price of land was reasonable.

Ichigo: This is not exactly a city, but just 2 and a half hours by train from Tokyo, right?

Satoshi: Also the roads are superb, nothing to complain in terms of distribution.

Satoshi: Well, here we came to "Akayu-Hot Spring" station. In this town, we are visiting Yoshitake, who's sewing LOOPWHEELER products.

Ichigo: Fairly big factory, this is.

Satoshi: This factory is the one of top 5 in Japan. Again sweatshirts are being made by hands of human. Let's see the sewing machine.

Ichigo: This is very big for sewing machine.

Satoshi: This is a machine called "Flat Seamer", 4-needle-machine. Normal sewing machine would need a sewing margin, but this would not need it.
Strictly speaking, 5 ends of yarn go into the seam thus making it very durable.

Ichigo: I can indeed see 4 needles.

Satoshi: Normal sewing machine like 2-needle or 3-needle would make a seam very thick, because you have to make 4 layers of sewing margin. Flat Seamer doesn't need it, thus making seam very soft, easy to wear.

Ichigo: But I don't see many of this machine in this such a big factory.

Satoshi: Again, it's about speed and efficiency. Just like Loopwheel knitting machine, you can do very limited amount of work per day and this machine would never be the main stream of any sewing factory.

Ichigo: Everything you use seems like inefficient.

Satoshi: I'm afraid so. People love to scrap what's inefficient. But Ichigo, in your field of photography, there should also be something you can't throw away even if it's inefficient, right?

Ichigo: In my case, I develop all of my photo by my own hands using negative films. You can easily use positive films or ask someone elso to develop it to save my labour. But I can't express the full depth of photo by saving my own time and labour.

Satoshi: Just a little effort to add.......

Ichigo: No, no. It's much more than "a little effort"......

Satoshi: I'm relieved to know that I was not the only one to seek for inefficiency.