While we may not think of it in our daily lives as we use them, every single product has a story behind it. The things we buy and use are made by people, and every person who makes things must have a reason for making their particular thing, and therein lies a story.
Today’s story is about shoes, specifically the Asics shoe brand of Japan that has brought the world a huge variety of popular styles from the classic Onitsuka Tiger to the sophisticated Asics Gel Nimbus 9 of today. Asics is one of the world’s most beloved shoe brands, so what is their story? Who invented them?
The genius behind the Asics shoe line was a man from Japan named Kihachiro Onitsuka. As a young man he began his life working as a salaryman in the years directly following WWII. He quickly grew dissatisfied with the compromises and self interest his corporate employers engaged in and decided that he had to find a way to become his own man, managing his own business.
As he was contemplating his future, Onitsuka happened across some advice from Christian philosophy that stated “If you are going to pray for something, you should first pray for a sound body and sound mind.” Those words resonated with him, and he asked himself how they might be applied to his own life and goals.
After the war, Japanese society was trying to find a new path toward growth and healing. One of the most popular methods to promote those positive objectives was through the practise of sports. What better way to develop a sound body and mind? It was obvious that sports were helping the people of Japan to recover from the physical and mental damage the war had inflicted upon them.
This new inspiration led Onitsuka to wonder what he could do to help promote and improve the sports that were proving so important to the nation’s recovery, while also making a living for himself. After much careful consideration, he landed upon shoes.
Until that point, young athletes were playing their sports wearing simple slippers or socks that were wholly inadequate for demanding physical activities, and often resulted in injuries! Onitsuka realized that if the athletes had access to proper footwear designed for such exertions that they would not only be better protected from injury, but better equipped to perform at their very best!
Not being much of an athlete himself, Onitsuka began his quest to make great athletic shoes by asking a high school basketball coach for some advice. The coach was only too happy to help, and told Onitsuka about the unique problems his players faced that a proper shoe could alleviate. Onitsuka now had his course set, and went to work on developing the world’s very first basketball shoe.
Onitsuka spent hours watching basketball games and taking notes, then went back to his workshop where he worked late into the night experimenting with different materials and designs. No one had ever made a shoe like this before, so there was nothing to do but experiment! After several weeks of hard work Onitsuka brought a prototype shoe to the gym to give to the coach for testing.
New things seldom work out right from the start, and so it was no surprise that his first attempt was a flop, quite literally so in that they flopped around the court like a pair of straw sandals would. Even so, Onitsuka observed carefully to mark where he had gone wrong and how to improve on his design. New improvements were made and tested out, and the goal of creating a great basketball shoe drew nearer, but there was still one major problem- how to make the shoes grip the court’s smooth floor without sliding.
As so with so many wonderful things, the answer to the problem came from a very unexpected source! Onitsuka happened to be watching his mother prepare a pickled octopus dish for their dinner and he noticed the way the tentacle’s suction cups stuck to the smooth sides of the ceramic bowl. This turned out to be his “Eureka!” moment! Onitsuka began to ponder how he could make the principle apply to basketball shoes so they would stick to the floor instead of sliding.
Onitsuka next model featured suction cups, and from there the design evolved into one that would stick with us to this very day!
