JAPAN MINIMALISTS from Megumi Lim on Vimeo.
Fumio Sasaki's one-room Tokyo apartment is so stark, friends liken it to an interrogation room. He owns three shirts, four trousers, four pairs of socks and only 150 things in total.
Money isn't the issue. The 36-year-old editor has made a conscious lifestyle choice, joining a growing number of Japanese deciding that less is definitely more.
Influenced by the spare aesthetic of Japan's traditional Zen Buddhism and worry about falling objects in one of the world's most earthquake-prone nations, these "minimalists" buck the norm in their sharply consumerist society by dramatically paring back their possessions.
Sasaki, once a passionate collector of books, CDs and DVDs, became tired of keeping up with trends two years ago.
"It's not as though you feel satisfied after collecting a certain amount of stuff. Instead, you keep thinking about what you're missing. Now, I feel contented with what I have," he said. Sasaki spent the next year selling his possessions or giving them to friends.
Others welcome the chance to own only things they truly like - a philosophy also applied by Mari Kondo, whose "KonMari" organizational methods have swept the United States.
"It's not that I had more things than the average person, but that didn't mean that I valued or liked everything I owned. That became quite unsettling for me," said Katsuya Toyoda, an online publication editor who has only one table and one futon in his 22-square metre apartment.
Some minimalists, such as former shopaholic, Saeko Kushibiki, found herself minimizing her circle of friends after taking on the new lifestyle.
"My female friends would look at a cute product and go 'kawaii! (cute!)' and buy them. I don't have the same reaction any more, these products just look like junk to me. I feel a distance there."she said.
Inspiration for Japan's minimalists came from the United States, where early adherents included Apple founder Steve Jobs. Definitions vary, because the goal isn't just cutting down on possessions but re-evaluating what they mean to gain something else - in Sasaki's case, time to travel.
Just how big their numbers are is unclear, but Sasaki and others estimate that hard-core minimalists, like them, are in the thousands. If aspiring minimalists are included, this may climb to tens of thousands.
Some say minimalism is not foreign but actually a natural outgrowth of Zen Buddhism.
Forty-one-year-old freelance writer, Naoki Numahata says he also keeps sound minimal by doing things slowly and carefully.
"When my daughter is asleep, I become a 'sound minimalist.' My movement becomes more graceful and pleasant, something similar to what you would learn at a tea ceremony or flower arrangement class. I think these things are all connected," he said.
Numahata said while it was liberating to get rid of his possessions, he and his wife did not throw away their daughter's things as they did not want to force her into it. Though they no longer visit toy stores to buy more toys.
Cutting down on unnecessary movements is a teaching within the tea ceremony, a zen discipline that puts emphasis on expressing beauty through simplicity.
Minimalists also argue that fewer possessions serves an eminently practical purpose in Japan, which is regularly shaken by earthquakes. Fewer household items mean being less prone to being injured by falling objects. In 2011, a 9.0 quake and tsunami left nearly 20,000 dead - and caused many people to take a new look at material things, Sasaki said.
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