Who Makes the Window Rooms' Teacups? A Third-Generation Potter in Tokoname — 'The Only Cups Whose Breakage Gets Reported Back'
The teacups that sit in the Dimensional Survey Division's window rooms — frequent props in the window keepers' column, 'Window Keeper's Log' — are made by Shuzo Sakakibara, 59, a third-generation potter in Tokoname, this paper has learned through interviews. He supplies the same design to all five windows, and jokes, "These are the only cups I make where I even hear back when one chips or breaks."
All five of the Dimensional Survey Division's window rooms hold the same style of teacup. They appear again and again in the column "Window Keeper's Log," and the newsroom has even fielded reader inquiries asking where the cups come from. Tracing the matter led to Shuzo Sakakibara, 59, a third-generation potter in Tokoname who makes every one of them himself.
Sakakibara said the division first approached him before Window 1 went into service in 2024, asking for cups "thick enough to feel comfortable in the hand through a night of sitting watch." He has supplied the same design to all five windows on a regular basis ever since. "The purchase orders come through properly, bureaucratic as ever," he said, "but this was the first time in all my years running this kiln that a reason line read, 'so the night-shift staff's hands don't get cold.'"
When a cup he supplied chips or breaks, he said, the division dutifully reports it back. "No other client I have ever does that. Sometimes the reason given is something like 'my hand slipped when the window opened,' so every report feels like hearing a small story." He added that he learned of the "Window Keeper's Log" passage describing a keeper setting out "one more cup than usual" on a long night from a reader who pointed it out to him. "Knowing something I fired has become a small tool that gets someone else through a night — for a potter, there's no better news than that."
