# Tokoyo Labs (常世)

> Tokoyo Labs is our product lab. We are a tiny, lean team that builds each product with AI and iterates quickly until it is useful and a joy to use. The first is Forge: Iterate on hardware like code. Forge designs hardware from parts you can order, and simulates it before you build it.

A product lab.

## About

Tokoyo Labs is our product lab. We are a tiny, lean team that builds each product with AI and iterates quickly until it is useful and a joy to use.

## Products

- [Forge](https://forge.tokoyo.app/): Iterate on hardware like code. Forge designs hardware from parts you can order, and simulates it before you build it.

## The name

Tokoyo is the everlasting land beyond the sea in Japan's oldest myths, the place where good things come from.

常世（とこよ）は、古事記や万葉集に描かれた、海のかなたにある永遠の国です。

Emperor Suinin sent Tajimamori over the sea to Tokoyo for a fruit that stays fragrant in every season. Ten years later he came back with the tachibana.

## Questions

### What is Tokoyo Labs?

Our product lab. We are a tiny, lean team that builds each product with AI and iterates quickly until it is useful and a joy to use. The first is Forge.

### What is Forge?

Forge is the first Tokoyo Labs product. Forge designs hardware from parts you can order, and simulates it before you build it. It is at forge.tokoyo.app.

### What does Tokoyo mean?

Tokoyo (常世), in full Tokoyo no Kuni (常世の国), is the everlasting land beyond the sea in early Japanese texts such as the Kojiki and the Nihon Shoki. Read literally, it means the unchanging world.

### Who is Tajimamori?

A figure in the Kojiki and the Nihon Shoki. Emperor Suinin sent him to Tokoyo to find a fruit that stays fragrant in every season. He brought it back, and it is now called the tachibana.

### Is it related to Tokyo?

No. Tokyo (東京) is the capital city. Tokoyo (常世), read to-ko-yo, is a much older word for the land across the sea, written with different characters.

## Sources

- [Kotobank, 常世の国](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E5%B8%B8%E4%B8%96%E3%81%AE%E5%9B%BD-105033)
- [Kotobank, 常世国](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E5%B8%B8%E4%B8%96%E5%9B%BD-1189778)
- [Encyclopedia of Shinto, Tokoyo](https://d-museum.kokugakuin.ac.jp/eos/detail/id=8740)
- [Kojiki, Chamberlain translation, section LXXIV](https://sacred-texts.com/book/the-kojiki-2/section-lxxiv-emperor-sui-nin-part-vi-taji-mori-brings-back-the-orange-from-the-eternal-land)
- [Nihon Shoki, book 6 (Suinin)](https://seisaku.bz/nihonshoki/shoki_06.html)