"Japan's Top Inventions"

The behind-the-scenes tales of hit products and creations from Japan.

This is "Japan's Top Inventions."

On today's show...

it looks like a little paper house with a red roof.

But it's actually a trap for cockroaches.

We tell the story behind this clever product.

Just look at all of these.

Your company made them all?

Later on the show... Maps.

Take a closer look at the building outlines,

and you'll see who's living where.

Oh! I found it!

We introduce some detailed maps found in Japan.

Hello, welcome to "Japan's Top Inventions."

I'm your host, Jason Danielson.

In the first half of our show, we take you "Behind the Creation."

Today's topic is this. Cockroach traps.

These traps contain an adhesive sheet and bait.

Set one up in a problem area and let it work,

trapping the critters inside.

Then, just toss the whole thing out, roaches and all.

These handy traps are being used in over 30 countries and regions worldwide.

Development took place 50 years ago.

At the time, mosquito coils had already been invented in Japan.

Cockroaches were the next target.

The factory of

a household products manufacturer in Hyogo Prefecture.

Inside the facility are machines for making cockroach traps.

The assembly line is one-of-a-kind,

creating products for use around the world.

That's the adhesive.

A key part of the company's traps is this special adhesive.

We were shown just how sticky it is.

One of our sticky sheets has been attached to this handle.

The sheet is pressed onto a metal drum which weighs 15 kilograms.

As you can see,

the adhesive is strong enough to bear the entire weight of the drum.

The adhesive is specially formulated, and we've kept improving it.

Now it can hold about 30 kilograms.

Our story begins back in the 1970s.

During the summer, it was common to light a mosquito coil.

The coils were invented in Japan,

and many companies had their own versions.

Competition was fierce.

This company was also fighting for their share.

But having entered the market late,

they weren't making much of a splash.

Could they innovate on the mosquito coil?

The company investigated the possibilities,

but nothing seemed promising.

At this rate, the company was in danger of going under.

But what about something brand new?

The company started looking into it.

Cockroaches were another obvious target.

Concrete residences had become common.

These stored more heat than traditional homes.

Cockroaches weak to cold winter weather now had places to hide.

More households were dealing with the pests.

But... there wasn't much people could do other than roll up a newspaper.

Working in the company's insecticide division is Nakayama Toru.

Here's what he heard about those times.

You could roll up a newspaper,

but that wasn't really enough to get the job done.

And there wasn't much competition in the field.

We thought we could create a better way.

The company decided to become the go-to brand for cockroaches,

rather than mosquitoes.

And with that, a new project was underway.

The team wasted no time getting started.

One day, after development had begun,

the company found out that a rival had put out their own trap first.

It was a plastic box with bait inside,

designed to catch the cockroach alive.

One-way flaps let cockroaches crawl in, but not out.

You would put a bit of food or something for the cockroaches inside,

and they would crawl in from the ends.

The flaps they passed through only opened one way,

so the cockroaches would get trapped inside.

It was an interesting product.

Could the company compete with this?

As the team evaluated the trap, something stood out to them.

With this design,

you could see the roaches inside through the clear plastic.

Once trapped, you had to get rid of the live cockroaches yourself.

The trapped cockroaches were still alive.

You could try and flood the trap with water,

or cook the bugs in sunlight,

and then dispose of them.

It was a lot to ask of the customer.

What about a product which didn't require you to face the bugs?

The team started working in this direction.

One hot summer day, inspiration struck.

A developer was out riding the bus.

Feeling the heat, he opened a window.

The loud call of cicadas in Japanese summer filled the bus.

The developer recalled his days catching bugs as a child.

He would use a stick or branch covered in birdlime,

a sticky substance made from holly bark.

It was the height of summer, and the cicadas were extremely loud.

That noise reminded the staff member of

when he used to catch cicadas with birdlime.

You would mash up tree bark until it was sticky,

then cover a branch or something with it, and use that to catch them.

The birdlime was effective for trapping cicadas.

Would something similar work for cockroaches?

First, the team did tests with strips of fly paper.

The strips had a sticky substance on them.

When cockroaches went on that,

it didn't matter if they were big or small, they were stuck.

Seeing how effective the sticky trap was made us realize

that this was the best method.

That led the team to come up with a new design.

A paper box with adhesive inside it.

You could throw away the whole thing after using it.

That way, you didn't have to look at the roaches when getting rid of them.

The team whipped up a prototype straight away.

They placed the trap in a bucket with cockroaches, and watched.

Cockroaches are easily frightened.

They always try to hide somewhere dark.

The paper box should have been perfect,

but for some reason, as roaches approached the entrance,

they'd suddenly stop and turn around.

We'd made so much progress. Why wouldn't the bugs go in?

The team tried again and again with other cockroaches,

but none of them would go inside.

A sticky trap for cockroaches which could be easily disposed of.

It was a good idea, but the prototype failed to catch a single bug.

The cockroaches just wouldn't go in.

Luckily though, the team would soon have a breakthrough.

Why wouldn't the cockroaches enter the trap?

The team carefully observed the behavior of the critters.

Eventually, the developers noticed something

with the long antennae of the cockroaches.

The ones which approached the entrance

would touch the adhesive with their antennae.

Once that happened, they'd sense the threat, and then turn around.

What could the team do about that?

The developers explored their options.

One of them had an idea.

"The entrance to our trap is level right now.

What if we made it sloped?"

Cockroaches have feet which stick to surfaces.

They can climb up walls.

By putting a slope at the entrance,

their antennae would point upwards as they climbed,

preventing them from feeling the adhesive.

That way, they'd get trapped.

This slope just might do the trick.

That's what I thought.

The team added the slope to their prototype and started testing.

As they watched, a cockroach entered the trap.

Then another. And another. It was working.

However, there was yet another hurdle before they could start production.

The strength of the adhesive.

The company was still adjusting the formula.

Too weak, and the cockroaches would escape.

Too thick and strong, and it would be difficult to apply onto the trap.

At the time, we were planning on providing the adhesive in a tube.

The consistency couldn't be too thin or too thick.

Too thin, and the cockroaches could escape.

Too thick and you wouldn't be able to get it out of the tube.

That was the dilemma.

What was the right balance for the adhesive?

The developers created a test using a wooden plank and metal ball bearings.

As an easy way to test the adhesive, we took a wooden board,

set it at an angle, and applied different adhesives.

Then, we rolled bearings from the top

to see how far they would go before sticking.

By looking at that distance, you could tell how strong the adhesive was.

We did this test again and again

until we figured out the right balance for the adhesive.

And so, in 1973, two years after the start of the development,

the cockroach trap was complete.

Extra attention was paid to the decoration.

It was made to look like a little red house.

It even had cute drawings of cockroaches.

You might not expect a cockroach trap to look like this little red house.

But you know, cockroaches are unpleasant.

So we wanted the trap to be playful in contrast,

something that would be fun for people to use.

Before the product went on sale,

the company hosted a product reveal for clients.

The president of a wholesaler said something unexpected to them.

"We don't deal in toys."

It was too different.

They told us that they sold household products, not toys.

There was a bad mood in the room.

Cockroaches were becoming a real problem.

We were told to take things more seriously.

The team did their best to try and defend their product.

They suggested attendees try it for themselves, and handed out samples.

Two months later.

A client who had been testing the product was on the line.

If the trap wasn't working, their product would be branded a failure.

Nervously, the team member asked how it had gone.

The client replied, "Caught a whole lot of them."

They said there was nothing else out there that was this effective.

There was even someone who counted and said they caught 800 cockroaches.

It was extremely rewarding to learn how well our product was working.

And so, the company successfully got an order from a wholesaler.

Afterwards, the orders kept rolling in, and production struggled to keep up.

The cockroach traps soon became popular across Japan.

Afterwards, the cockroach traps also came to be used around the world.

How do experts view this invention?

We're joined by Hashimoto Tomoyuki to learn more.

Welcome to the show.

Thank you for having me.

What was groundbreaking about the cockroach traps?

When these sticky traps appeared,

people became able to get rid of those nasty critters

without needing to touch them.

The way you could throw out the whole thing was groundbreaking.

Currently, the traps are used in homes,

and by professional exterminators in restaurants and other buildings.

Many different places.

What kind of harm can cockroaches cause us?

Cockroaches move between homes and places which aren't clean.

When they do that,

they can bring along bacteria like E. coli or salmonella with them.

If they come in contact with our food, they can spread that bacteria.

It's a problem in the home, and all over the world.

What are some simple measures to keep cockroaches away?

Cockroaches most commonly invade from outside.

It's key to eliminate colonies around your home to prevent them from entering.

Cockroaches like to lay their eggs behind things like planters.

The best thing to do is not leave objects lying around outside.

How would you say Japan can help in the fight against pests around the world?

If we look at cockroaches,

they're creatures that crawl on the ground or floor.

These sticky traps work great for them.

Japanese companies make some of the best products in this category.

There are people living in places

where they're not able to produce traps like these locally.

Products from Japan could help improve quality of life

for the people living there.

That's what I think.

Thanks for your time today. Good speaking with you.

It was my pleasure.

Top Niche Creations.

Our next segment is "Top Niche Creations."

Today we're looking at these.

Map books.

But they aren't ordinary maps.

Let's take a closer look.

You can see there's writing on every building.

These maps serve an important role in Japan.

Just what are they used for? We sent our reporter to find out.

Hey everyone. This is Cyrus Nozomu Sethna.

Today, I'm right in the middle of Tokyo.

The company we're visiting today is in that building over there.

We're here at the Tokyo head office of a mapmaking company.

Hello there.

Welcome.

Thanks for having me.

Ito Takumi from the PR department is going to show us around.

As we enter the offices...

Wow.

Just look at all of these.

Your company made them all?

Yes, these are volumes of residential maps.

Residential maps, I see.

The company has maps for all 1,741 municipalities in Japan.

That's over 2,000 volumes of maps, an impressive number.

We were given a look inside one of them.

Alright let's see here.

Oh wow.

I see there's a lot of fine print on here. What's that for?

For detached houses, it's the name of who lives there.

For other buildings, it's the name of the building or business there.

I see.

Can I try to find my own home?

Of course, please.

Awesome.

On these shelves are the 62 volumes for Tokyo.

I track down my area's volume.

Yes, here we go.

That's my neighborhood.

Oh! I found it!

And all the buildings around me are on here too.

There was something I just had to ask after seeing all of this.

There's an incredible amount of detail in here.

How do you get all this data?

So we have about 70 locations across Japan

with staff walking the local area, gathering data.

Like, on foot?

Yes.

Here is some actual footage of someone gathering data.

The staff walk around the neighborhoods.

They're looking out for these. The address and nameplates.

For buildings, they also record their shapes

and the number of floors they have.

When a new building is found,

they use a tablet to draw the shape and fill in the information.

Even the location of the entrance is recorded.

All this information goes to the computers at the head office

and is compiled together into maps.

The data is updated regularly,

so they're able to stay on top of the current state of an area.

There's always construction going on in Tokyo.

Don't things change a lot?

They really do.

Some areas are totally different after just a year.

The staff get really sensitive to changes.

This company is the largest of its kind in Japan.

It was founded in 1948 in Beppu,

a city in Oita Prefecture famous for hot springs.

Its first product was a map of the city featuring the locations of hot springs.

Later, it came up with residential maps,

which recorded the nameplates of each home.

The company's area of coverage expanded across the whole country.

By 1980, it had produced residential maps for every prefecture in Japan.

The maps are mostly used by businesses, such as delivery companies.

Police, firefighters, and paramedics also use the maps

to help them quickly get to the scene.

These maps help ambulances and fire trucks get where they need to.

Also in the event of a large earthquake,

this archive of map data helps people

figure out the extent of what has happened.

We believe our maps are of value to society.

In the 90s, the company expanded into a new field.

Car navigation systems.

These let you easily find a road or building.

The company's data was used in the first car with GPS navigation.

Now, you can view residential maps

for every Japanese municipality on your smartphone.

It's extremely helpful for delivery professionals.

Near the end of our visit,

we asked what the company was doing next with its data.

Here we are.

A drone? Maps for drones?

We have information about how many floors a building has,

or the locations of rivers, bridges, and roads.

In order to fly a drone, you need to know how high a building is,

or whether there are any obstacles or homes underneath.

That's important information.

We hope our maps will help with piloting drones.

The company possesses map data covering all of Japan.

And drone delivery services that use this data

are starting to operate in the country.

This is footage of a package being delivered to a home in Nagano Prefecture.

The company's data helped determine a safe route over the river.

The drone made a ten-kilometer trip one-way to deliver some daily necessities.

Who would have thought those residential maps

would get tapped for drone deliveries. Wow!

That's all for this episode of "Japan's Top Inventions."

We'll leave you with what came next

for the cockroach traps from the first half of the show.

See you next time! And stay inventive.

(It's been 50 years since the cockroach traps were invented.)

(The company has created other products to deal with cockroaches.)

(This device fills a room with a special smoke.)

(And this trap is equipped with poisoned bait.)

(They're still finding new ways to deal with those pesky critters.)

There's still much we don't know about cockroaches.

What we do know is how quickly they multiply.

They're resilient and they eat anything.

Roaches are hard to get rid of, and they're going to keep on spreading,

so I think there's still plenty of room for us to keep working.