Two generations of thread,
one belief in names.

At the 94th Tokyo International Gift Show (Autumn 2022), where our exhibit received the Jury's Special Award.

Hello — I'm Akimitsu Shigemi, founder of SLOWSTUDIO.

I was born and raised in Imabari, the towel capital of Japan, where looms have hummed for over a century. My family's company, Towa Shoji, has done business here since 1976 — I grew up surrounded by cloth, thread, and the people who devote their lives to both.

In 2026 I founded SLOWSTUDIO Inc. to carry that heritage somewhere new. Abroad, I kept meeting people who loved kanji — and wore characters whose meaning had gone quietly wrong. It was never their fault. The wish to carry kanji is a beautiful one; they simply had no way to be sure.

Japan has an old belief called kotodama — that words and names hold a spirit. Our oldest anthology, the Man'yōshū, calls this “the land where the spirit of words brings good fortune.” Kotodama Name exists to read your name with that much care: real, readable kanji chosen for your sound and your story, then embroidered by an Imabari atelier with 47 years of craft, on towels woven here at home.

Every order is stitched to order, checked by human eyes, and shipped from Imabari with tracking. If anything is not right, we make it right — a remake or a full refund, your choice. That is how business is done in a small town where your name is on everything.