SENDAI, Japan—It’s a blustery day and I’m standing on a giant concrete seawall, staring over the water.

The seawall, as you might imagine, is a tall, sloped structure intended to keep the sea and the land somewhat apart. It stops the waves from beating down on the shore, whether during a gales of a tsunami or the daily lap of erosion. But the wall itself holds less interest to me than its supporting cast members a few hundred yards out into the water.

A stone’s throw off the coastline, dozens of gigantic, 10-ton concrete structures known as Tetrapods form a long row and look—if we’re being honest—as if a giant dumped a behemoth box of jacks into the sea. It is simultaneously majestic and odd.

“After the earthquake and tsunami hit [in 2011], we’ve been rebuilding everything, but a lot hasn’t come back yet,” Yoshinori Okuyama, Director General of the Sendai Bay South Coast Office, noted. He gestured to a scrubby patch of trees where a veritable forest once stood. The landscape here has the underpinnings of recovery but still feels largely decimated: housing foundations lay bare while weeds and wildflowers grow chest-high. A nearby elementary school has been abandoned and converted into a future emergency shelter, just in case.

But the first step of recovery from the 2011 tragedy has been heaping up a stronger defense for the region—starting with protections from the sea. This has manifested, in large part, in the re-installation of these Tetrapods (and all of their concrete kissing cousins, like seawalls) along the most vulnerable coasts. And with the earthquake that occurred this week in Fukushima—an aftershock of 2011, experts believe—this effort seems more pressing than ever.

A Tetrapod (which, Japanese engineers are quick to remind you, is a proper name, even if it has become a generic catchall) is a four-footed, porous, concrete “breakwater barrier” used to prevent erosion and water damage by dissipating waves. And boy, aren’t they popular. Originally created in France in the late 1940s, they’ve found a real home in Japan thanks to their mother company, Fudo Tetra. Today, the structures have an almost omnipresence anywhere land meets the sea.

Always appearing in flocks, the Tetrapods’ interlocking design feels like an upgraded version of piling up rocks to stop water from eroding the coast. Whereas rocks would, eventually, wash away, the weight and puzzle-piece styling of the Tetrapod allows them to stand firm against the elements, come what may. These structures work to force the water around and through their wonky, unnatural forms, dispersing the crash of the waves instead of simply blocking them. And while breakwater barriers also can be found in places like England, Morocco, and—yes—the US, Japan seems to have most readily embraced their functionality. Appearances, be damned: this country believes Tetrapods work in the fight against erosion.

In fact, Tetrapods have become such an ingrained part of the Japanese landscape that they’ve even gained some footing as a pop culture touchstone. The founder and mastermind behind the company Maniapparel—who asked that his name and likeness not revealed due to a strict day job—has made it his off-the-clock mission to make the Tetrapod feel accessible to the masses. For the past seven years, he has marketed a stuffed Tetrapod made out of nubby grey felt, allowing people to bring a little piece of the concrete seaside into their own home.

“I wanted a Tetrapod in my bedroom, but the real one is too big, and if I hit it in the night, it would hurt,” he laughed, noting that he has a personal taste that favors non-organic materials and sterilized design. “It is an industrial product, but it is still cute. It is able to be beautiful and effective at the same time.”

Today, the Maniapparel founder boasts over 50 stuffed Tetrapods of various sizes inside his own home, and clearly he’s onto something. More than 1,000 of these Tetrapods cushions have been sold at shops across Japan since the company’s quest began, and happy plushy owners include former Tetrapod engineers and coastal workers looking for a kawaii (read: twee) way to honor their profession.

The Maniapparel founder’s passion is palpable as he speaks about the structures, getting a little misty-eyed about the time he was able to watch workers pour the concrete into the mold as a Tetrapod “was be born.”

“Just like someone had to decide to make a shark or lion something cute by making it plush, I’m doing the same thing with the Tetrapod,” he mused. “It may look sharp, but you can actually hug it. I’m changing the way people see it.”

In addition to stuffed Tetrapods, the company also sells a range of Tetrapod-themed t-shirts, including one that plays on the “iPod” font. (Tetrapod, iPod, get it?) What’s more, other companies have caught on, with things like Tetrapod-shaped ice molds now available for purchase.









Tetrapods everywhere

Given their effectiveness and mass-marketing appeal, why do Tetrapods and other breakwater barriers not show up more often in the United States? It all comes down to geology.

Pacific Northwest notwithstanding, the majority of the United States’ coastline doesn’t run along any major faults. That means domestic areas aren’t as prone to the type of seismic activity that propagate earthquakes and tsunamis. Japan, on the other hand, has what Fuminori Kato of the National Institute for Land and Infrastructure Management describes as “steep” coasts, where mountains run directly into the sea and tectonic plates meet nearby. This makes the areas extremely vulnerable.

“Conditions are so different, it’s almost impossible to compare the two places,” Kato says.

For example: in the US, beach nourishment—where sand from outside locations is used to fill in eroding beaches—has long been a popular plan of attack for coastal defense schemes. In Japan, this technique can be found in some locations, but the severity and frequency of natural disaster means that it simply can’t provide enough support to be used as a primary means of protection.

It’s not as if, Kato laughs, America doesn’t have the know-how or technology to go a more structurally-based route. He plops a big packet in front of me written in dueling English and Japanese about the challenge and benefits of various breakwater barriers—sea walls, concrete headlands, Tetrapods, and the like. Naturally, the document was published by the US Government in the mid-2000s. One can only imagine, though, the hackles that would rise if a large percentage of our coasts were suddenly aesthetically shackled with concrete blockades. (While the Institute says that somewhere between 8-10 percent of Japanese coastlines are covered by concrete armoring, other outlets have estimated it may be upwards of 50 percent.)

Kato visited New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina to help assess damage. And when I ask about the Gulf Coast’s current problem with erosion (a complex situation encompassing massive tasks like sediment management), Kato says that, unlike in Japan, the interior of the US seems to be working against the coast as much, if not more, than the ocean. In his eyes, the Mississippi River’s flow into the Gulf (largely polluted with fertilizers and contaminants) is destroying the ecosystem’s resilience at an annual clip. That puts things in a tenuous position when a hurricane or other natural disaster arrives as a one-off tool for destruction.

“The seas around Japan are deep, while those around the Gulf Coast aren’t as much,” Kato says, also noting that Japan loses 1.6 square kilometers of beach a year to erosion. “When the balance breaks down between the sand flowing in and out, that’s when the erosion starts—and the waters in the Gulf are already shallow.”

Aesthetics

On the topic of whether or not some people believe that the addition of concrete is ruining the visual beauty of the beachfront in Japan, Kato quickly notes that those people living in impacted coastal regions (about 130 million of them) are far more concerned about their safety than any picturesque view—especially in the wake of 2011’s devastation and continued threats.

“We have some national parks where we’re trying not to use the concrete sea walls or anything like that in order to preserve the scenery. Instead, we’re building a good number of [underwater] artificial reefs that break the waves in order to preserve the view while still preventing things like erosion,” Kato explains.

This, of course, hasn’t stopped some people from lamenting about the jarring nature of the visually bleak coastal additions.

“Tetrapods and other types of [concrete] armoring can cause more damage than they prevent, because they alter ocean currents and disrupt the natural cycles of erosion and deposition that form and reshape coasts,” Stephen Hesse argues in a 2007 Japan Times article. “Concrete coastal installations can also be lethally dangerous to swimmers and surfers, as well to shipping and recreational boaters. But probably the greatest cost Japan pays for its years of prodigal concrete use is the loss of priceless coastal scenery.”

There are other concerns about breakwater barriers, too, like whether or not they have the potential to slowly increase sediment deposits by washing down the coast bit-by-bit, in turn actually increasing erosion. Plus, no manmade structure is completely immune from destruction in the wake of a tsunami.

The Japanese know all this too well. In places like Sendai, coastal engineers are creating more holistic systems to help fend off environmental threats, incorporating various layers of breakwater barriers—Tetrapod clusters a few miles out to sea, sturdier sea walls lined with native trees and vegetation—in order to provide multiple stop gaps against the tempests of wind and water. Their attitude is one that feels more practical, and bleak, than anything ever expressed in the US when it comes to natural disaster prevention.

“We’re not trying to completely stop the waves from coming in a tsunami, that’s impossible,” says Okuyama. “Instead, we want to build armor that gives people another 10 seconds to escape. That’s what can mean the difference between life and death.”

Sarah Baird is a writer and editor based in New Orleans. She is currently serving as a US-Japan Fellow with the International Center for Journalists. Follow along with her on Twitter: @scbaird.