A randoseru is a type of sturdy backpack used by elementary school children in Japan.
Its origin goes back to the end of the Edo period.
Japan introduced a Western-style military system from the Netherlands, which imported cloth backpacks as well. These backpacks were called ‘ransel’ in Dutch, which eventually gave rise to the word ‘randoseru’, meaning a bag carried on the back, which in turn came to mean a bag carried on the back for school. The term ‘randoseru’ was coined to mean a bag carried on the back.
After about 20 years, to celebrate the entrance of the prince of that era into elementary school, the Prime Minister at the time made special adjustments and presented him with a leather, box-shaped backpack "randoseru", which is became the prototype for today's school bags.
Aound 1930, with the shift to western-style school uniforms for children, the use of randoseru began mainly among boys in urban clusters, and eventually spread to girls.
Around 1955, with the increase in the volume of study materials and homework assignments, school bags became indispensable for elementary school children as a convenient storage and transport device, and spread rapidly throughout Japan.
For a long time afterwards, school bags were coloured black for boys and red for girls, but today a wide variety of colours are available for children to choose from.
Also, at the beggining, randoseru were generally made of cowhide leather and weighed 1,600 g, despite being two sizes smaller than today's school bags. Today, capacities are larger but lighter.