Posted on Friday 12 November 2004

Yumihiki Doji or "Archer Boy" is considered the pinnacle of Karakuri, mechanical automata from Edo period Japan. This is a reproduction built in 1998 by Tamaya Shobei, a Karakuri master but its famous prototype was built in the 1850's by Tanaka Hisashige, founder of the Toshiba Corporation.

The archer sits on a stand about 30cm high which contains the mechanism. He picks up an arrow and shoots it at a target, repeating this 4 times. One out of every ten arrows misses its target, which is intentional, to create an element of suspense for the audience¹.

Much more on Karakuri may be found here and a larger version of the animation here (1.7 MB).

^{1 - In other words, it's a feature not a bug.}