HATENKO

HATENKO (破天荒) is a perfume brand born in 2025 and based in Asakusa, Tokyo. It comes from Kyara Innovate, a company that spent 18 years making scented products with other makers and shops before it started a perfume brand of its own. It works with Japanese craftspeople and aims to carry Japanese culture abroad through scent.

Each scent starts from a woodblock print. Hanabi comes from Hiroshige's fireworks at Ryogoku, Isonami from Hokusai's Great Wave off Kanagawa, and Sakura Fubuki from Hiroshige's cherry trees in Yoshiwara. The wooden caps are Kiso cypress from Gifu, decorated with Kaga Yuzen handwork. Each bottle comes wrapped in an ukiyo-e print, the way prints once travelled to the West as packing paper. The brand suggests layering two or more scents, a nod to kodo, the Japanese art of listening to incense.

In Tokyo, the maker's own shop, inimu Asakusa at 2-1-5 Asakusa, Taito-ku, sells the range. The newest scent, Asakusa, came out in September 2026. It pairs one flower or fruit for each season (daphne, gardenia, osmanthus and yuzu) with sandalwood and fragrant wood, and 50 ml costs ¥23,650. A discovery set of five 5 ml bottles costs ¥17,050. Try Asakusa first, since it was made for the neighbourhood you are standing in.