OSINT in Japan (日本) —Street OSINT Part 1
‘OSINT in Japan’ will be a blog series focused on visual identifiers specific to Japan and resources used primarily to aid investigations/research in this country. Geoguessr has made it possible for me to structure my findings and motivate me to learn as much as I could about geolocation in Japan.
I have been gathering resources and findings with every map, as need came along. This technique has made this journey a lot more fun and more able to categorise my blogs. Thanks to Geoguessr for feeding my passion for Japan.
This is for anyone interested in knowing more about identifying Japan in general, geolocating images in Japan and OSINT resources used in this country. I cannot guarantee that these visual clues/identifiers will be exclusive to Japan or them being found somewhere else in the world. These are my personal observations based on a lot of research and many map challenges. Updates to each blog likely to happen as I learn more.
VISUAL STREET CLUES AND RESOURCES
In Geoguessr ‘Play by Map’ challenge you will be dropped off somewhere in Japan where you have to guess exactly where you are. I will move around the map and for the purpose of learning I will and have used the Internet to help locate myself.
Traffic
Japan drives on the left side of the road so that might be the first thing to look out for when dropped on a road (when playing a world challenge for example). That coupled up with more findings can give a clear idea where in the world we are. Here is a list of all countries that drive on the left hand side of the road. This will become more evident the more we dig into the article.
Road reflecting mirror convex mirrors and Google car
Road reflecting mirrors are almost everywhere, they cover blind spots on the road, especially on narrow streets. You will definitely see these a lot and they look like the below. The mirrors are usually orange and are either round in shape or square. We can also see the Google car reflecting in the mirror which I found it to be mostly blue and white but also green.
On the mirror column you will likely see this message below in Kanji (Japanese characters). This says ‘note’, note the mirror in this case.
注 意 = note
A full list of mirror types can be found below with extensive detail on how they work, especially in bad weather. A screenshot from page 76 and 77 is below showing more mirror types around the city. List of reflecting mirrors convex mirrors can be found here.
Vending machines
Japan is known to have a lot of vending machines. They can be found at almost every corner and they sell hot and cold drinks, alcohol, clothes, cigarettes and even ice cream. Watch out for some of them, especially in big cities which sell clothes or limited edition drinks/items. If visible, the limited edition drinks can give you an idea what time of the year this was recorded in. For example, limited edition cherry blossom drinks in Japan would be out starting end of February until early April.
The vending machines can look like below and can be found on the side of the road, by a grocery store or in residential areas. This article is a great guide on the variety of vending machines Japan has as it contains a thorough list of types of vending machines around the city, from fruit vending machines to vending machines that sell umbrellas.
Traffic lights
Most if not all traffic lights in Japan are horizontally hung overhead. They carry a lot of information with them, mostly a street name, a destination or a speed sign. Don’t be surprised if some of the ‘go’ signals are more blue than green, that is because a long time ago there was no word for green so they were using the same word for blue and green. Street signs will be covered in more depth in the next blog.
Stop signs
As obvious as this might be, the stop sign is an inverted red triangle with 止まれ on it. 止まれ means Stop! This is written in Kanji and Hiragana. However, this can also be seen below in Katakana. All are part of the Japanese alphabet.
Therefore, Stop! can be seen paved on the ground as either 止まれ or 止マレ.
Electricity columns and bollards
Warning safety stripes can be vertical black and orange or diagonal orange, black and white stripes. These are also everywhere but these alone will not confirm we are in Japan. As with other countries, the black and orange stripes come in other forms and can be seen almost everywhere.
Bollards around the country can be predominantly orange, in different shapes and sizes but these can also appear as red and white such as the pictures on the right hand side. A list of line-of-sight guidance products can be seen here. Just translate it to English or the language of your choice.
This was just a short visual guide on some of the most common street identifiers in Japan, there are of course many more and much more detail for each of them but I will cover a few more types in the next few blogs. If you think something is incorrect or you disagree please drop me a message.
Are you playing a world challenge? Then try geotips.net for tips and tricks on every country on Geoguessr.
