April marks the start of the new school year in Japan, celebrated with Nyugaku-shiki 入学式, the entrance ceremony.
For children beginning elementary school, it’s one of life’s biggest milestones—a moment when they step into a wider social world and begin learning the knowledge and skills that will guide them as they grow.
Pictured: Ichinen-sei: A first grader at Elementary School with their new randoseru (backpack) Credit: PhotoABC
Credit to Tsuchiya Kaban
The randoseru backpack itself is iconic: nearly one-third of the child’s height and weighing about 2.5 to 3 pounds. Its size and structure symbolize both the weight and the promise of this new beginning, capturing the excitement and responsibility of entering school for the first time.
Last year in Tokyo, I visited OHBA, a randoseru maker founded in 1935 and renowned for its meticulous craftsmanship.
The shop oversees every stage of production—from selecting materials to shaping, stitching, and finishing. Creating a single randoseru involves around 150 individual steps. Since children use the same backpack every day for all six years of elementary school—roughly 1,440 days—durability and construction quality are essential.
My own randoseru was bright red, the only color option available to girls at the time. Today, the choices are far more colorful.
According to the clerk at OHBA, boys still tend to choose black, while girls often select shades of red, pink, or light blue. Prices typically range from 30,000 to 100,000 yen, reflecting the fact that a randoseru is not just a school item but a long-term investment in a child’s daily life.
Japan’s choice of April as the start of both the school year and the hiring season for shinnyū shain 新入社員 dates back to 1873, when the Meiji government set the national fiscal year from April 1 to March 31.
And then there is a beautiful coincidence: sakura—cherry blossoms—bloom nationwide from late March through April, creating a natural celebration of new beginnings.
Their blossoms last only a week to ten days, and spring’s rain, wind, and sudden warm spells often shorten that window even more. Watching the petals fall, the Japanese came to see in sakura a reflection of life’s own impermanence—fleeting, beautiful, and deeply meaningful.
