LEAF, a deorbit device that drags dead small satellites out of orbit, was finished by space startup cosmobloom and Katsuragawa Seira, a Tokyo screw maker in business since 1938. How a town factory's eye ended up on a film thinner than kitchen wrap.
The only machine on Earth that cuts pumpkins into deliberately irregular 'rangiri' pieces. How Hokkaido's Synthemec cracked the paradox, then brought its parts in-house to win on precision and lead time, against an industry built for uniform cuts.
Kuroda Precision holds about 30% of the global market for EV drive motor-core dies. The 100-year-old firm now bets on amorphous alloy and cobalt-heavy permendur, and on a supply chain shaped by geopolitics.
The industrial blowers that quietly keep fabs, tunnels and power stations running. Inside a 40-person Osaka maker's 60-year 'one product, one form' philosophy, and how it survives in a market ruled by German and US giants.