Less is more as Japanese minimalist movement grows

TOKYO - Fumio Sasaki's one-room Tokyo apartment is so stark friends liken it to an interrogation room. He owns three shirts, four pairs of trousers, four pairs of socks and a meager scattering of various other items.

Money isn't the issue. The 36-year-old editor has made a conscious lifestyle choice, joining a growing number of Japanese deciding that less is more.

Influenced by the spare aesthetic of Japan's traditional Zen Buddhism, these minimalists buck the norm in a fervently consumerist society by dramatically paring back their possessions.

The bathroom of minimalist Fumio Sasaki is seen in Tokyo, Japan, February 19, 2016. REUTERS/Thomas Peter

Sasaki, once a passionate collector of books, CDs and DVDs, became tired of keeping up with trends two years ago.

"I kept thinking about what I did not own, what was missing," he said.

He spent the next year selling possessions or giving them to friends.

"Spending less time on cleaning or shopping means I have more time to spend with friends, go out, or travel on my days off. I have become a lot more active," he said.

Others welcome the chance to own only things they truly like—a philosophy also applied by Mari Kondo, a consultant whose "KonMari" organizational methods have swept the United States.

"It's not that I had more things than the average person, but that didn't mean that I valued or liked everything I owned," said Katsuya Toyoda, an online publication editor who has only one table and one futon in his 22-square-meter apartment.

"I became a minimalist so I could let things I truly liked surface in my life."

Minimalist Katsuya Toyoda demonstrates how he sleeps in his room in Tokyo, Japan, March 5, 2016. REUTERS/Thomas Peter

Inspiration for Japan's minimalists came from the United States, where early adherents included Steve Jobs.

Definitions vary, because the goal is not just decluttering but re-evaluating what possession mean, to gain something else—in Sasaki's case, time to travel.

Just how many there are is unclear, but Sasaki and others believe there are thousands of hard-core minimalists, with possibly thousands more interested.

Some say minimalism is actually not foreign but a natural outgrowth of Zen Buddhism and its stripped-down world view.

"In the west, making a space complete means placing something there," said Naoki Numahata, 41, a freelance writer.

"But with tea ceremonies, or Zen, things are left incomplete on purpose to let the person's imagination make that space complete."

Minimalist Naoki Numahata talks to his two-and-a-half year old daughter Ei in their living-room in Tokyo, Japan, March 4, 2016. REUTERS/Thomas Peter

Minimalists also argue that having fewer possessions is eminently practical in Japan, which is regularly shaken by earthquakes.

In 2011, a 9.0 magnitude quake and tsunami killed nearly 20,000 people and led to many re-evaluating possessions, Sasaki said.

"Thirty to 50 percent of earthquake injuries occur through falling objects," he said, gesturing around his apartment.

"But in this room, you don't have that concern." — Reuters