I realized this post may sound a bit too juvenile for some of you, but seriously these remarkable wood toys hand-crafted by Takeji Nakagawa are, to me, nothing short of a true genius craftsman and artist.

Takeji Nakagawa hand-crafts his toys so meticulously piece by piece all by himself, just so that wooden materials’ true quality and beauty can shine through. He runs a small toy company with his wife, yes just him and his wife, in Japan. The Take-G toys are really a “toys” in the truest sense and it’s meant to be. In his own words, he shares his view about why he made these toys:

“I often get asked “Why do you make robots with wood?” I don’t really have an exact answer for it but I often relate my robots with ‘future’. 

What do you relate future with? Cities full of metals, glasses and plastics in a SF movie? What we really want is not that kind of future but one full of trees and something more natural. I don’t think humans can live without trees no matter what advances technology makes. 

When I think of ‘future’, I cannot help thinking of ‘past’ at the same time. Trees take long time (tens and hundreds years) to grow and show us their beauty (the product of their past). I think that I have responsibilities as a craftsman and an artist of breathing new life into these trees. I have a job to link 100 years in the past and 100 years in the future through my work. This is my values toward my work. 

I wish my work, which carries such values, can grab imaginations of children of the past, present and future.“ 

 

 

Unfortunately, the Take-G toys can’t be bought by any conventional means, not yet anyway. Take-G, however, only sells them at exhibitions and art galleries. I guess that would really make them all the more rare and valuable collectible items for anybody. Here, you can check out his website at Take-g.com. The english version Take-G website will be coming soon.