Discover the aesthetic philosophy of incompletion, mikansei, and the impact it has had on Japanese art and crafts for countless centuries.

“True beauty is found only by those who can complete the incomplete in their hearts.”
— Kakuzo (Tenshin) Okakura, The Book of Tea (1906)

At first glance, the Japanese buildings appear complete: roof tiles ripple across temple eaves like dragon scales, gates gleam with ornate carvings, staircases ascend with quiet grandeur. But look again, and something is missing: a tile left unlaid, a pillar carved upside down, a step short of one hundred.

These are not accidents.

At the heart of traditional Japanese woodwork and design lies a quiet paradox: the deliberate embrace of “incompletion,” or mikansei. Why would master artisans, capable of exacting precision, leave their work intentionally unresolved?

To seek the answer is to step into a world where beauty lives not in perfection, but in restraint—where the unfinished becomes an invitation, asking the heart to complete what the hand has left open. This is a journey through the silent logic of Japanese craftsmanship, where incompletion is not a mistake but a quiet form of grace.

Emergence of Mikansei in Classical Thought

Mikansei is a compound word formed from mi, meaning “not yet,” and kansei, meaning “complete.” While often translated as “incomplete,” the nuance of kansei involves not merely the shape or appearance of something, but its state of having reached completion over time. In this sense, mikansei contains nuances of both “incomplete” and “unfinished,” where the former suggests something lacking in form, and the latter, something still in motion.

An appreciation for mikansei surfaces in Japanese literary and philosophical traditions as early as the Heian period (794–1185), where emotional resonance often stems from what remains unresolved. In The Tale of Genji, the unspoken longing and ambiguous fates of figures like Yugao and Lady Murasaki hint at a beauty that arises from emotional incompleteness. Waka poetry, too, favors the suggestive over the explicit, where what is left unsaid becomes the space for reflection.

This ideal of incompletion finds a more doctrinal foundation in Buddhist texts. One of the clearest early expressions appears in the “iroha uta,” a poem of unknown authorship from the tenth or eleventh century, long used for teaching the Japanese syllabary. Modeled on a four-line verse from the Nehan-gyo (Nirvana Sutra), the “iroha uta” encapsulates the Buddhist teaching of shogyo mujo, or the transience of all things, in its opening line:

いろはにほへど　ちりぬるを
Even the colors of fragrant flowers will fade and fall.

In this Buddhist framework, beauty lies not in permanence but in evanescence–an idea that echoes through other Japanese concepts like mono no aware (the pathos of things) and wabi-sabi (the beauty of imperfection).

Medieval literature continues this thread. In The Tale of the Heike, the fragility of grandeur is captured in one famous line:

沙羅双樹の花の色、盛者必衰の理をあらはす
The color of the sala flowers reveals the truth that the prosperous must decline.

Here, beauty is not found in the static height of blooming, but in the destined cycle of blooming and fading–ever-unfolding, never finished.

Yoshida Kenko articulates a similar sensibility in Tsurezuregusa (Essays in Idleness, c. 1330):

花は盛りに、月は隈なきをのみ見るものかは。
Are blossoms to be admired only at their peak, or the moon only when free of cloud?
雨にむかひて月を戀ひ、たれこめて春のゆくへ知らぬも、なほあはれに情ふかし。
To yearn for the moon through the rain, to stay shut away, not knowing where spring has gone–these, too, move the heart deeply.
咲きぬべきほどの梢、散りしをれたる庭などこそ見どころおほけれ。
A bud just before it opens, or a garden strewn with fallen, withering petals–such scenes are where beauty truly lies.

Rather than glorifying nature at its peak, Kenko invites us to savor the moment just before or just after, like a hazy moon or an unblossomed flower bud.

At the heart of this appreciation for mikansei is a spiritual reverence for incompletion: perfection belongs to the gods. To reach perfection was to cross into the sacred, a realm humans were forbidden to enter. Thus, mikansei is not merely an aesthetic preference but a philosophical stance, for to complete something too perfectly was to disrupt the natural or cosmic order. This way of thinking would come to shape not only literature but also material culture and craftsmanship, one being woodwork.

Mikansei in Japanese Woodwork

The beauty of mikansei is embedded in plain sight across some of Japan’s most iconic wooden structures. It is not an accident of form, but a way of thinking: that true longevity and beauty are found in what remains open-ended.

Consider the staircase at Meguro Gajoen, a lavish banquet hall in Tokyo. Though known as the “One Hundred Steps,” it famously stops at ninety-nine. This omission is an intentional gesture of restraint, that to complete something fully is to invite its decline. A similar principle appears at Chion-in Temple in Kyoto, where several roof tiles were intentionally left unlaid during the hall’s original construction, an architectural choice known as fukinokoshi no kawara, or “the tiles left unfinished.” Similarly, in Nikko Toshogu’s Yomeimon Gate, one of twelve carved pillars features an inverted design—a sakasa-bashira, or “reversed pillar” —transforming what was once considered inauspicious into a talisman of longevity. As a traditional saying goes, “A building begins to decay the moment it is completed.” The state of mikansei resists finality, allowing structures to remain spiritually and physically evolving.

This ethos extends to hyogu—the traditional craft of mounting paper onto fabric, paper, or wooden frameworks. Instead of modern adhesives that bond too tightly, often damaging both frame and paper over time, master artisans use wheat starch glue that naturally softens and deteriorates. Its impermanence is intentional, allowing future hands to lift, repair, and continue the work. Here, deterioration is anticipated, embraced as part of a masterpiece’s longer lifecycle.

No group embodies this philosophy more deeply than the miyadaiku—temple and shrine carpenters who inherit centuries of artistic tradition. Among them, Tsunekazu Nishioka, a renowned 20th-century master, recalls his grandfather’s teaching: a true carpenter must read the tree’s life and use each piece according to how it grew, honoring its grain, form, and spirit. For the miyadaiku, architecture is not a matter of style, but of ethical intimacy with material—especially hinoki (Japanese cypress), revered for its fragrance and remarkable longevity. “Because we had hinoki,” Nishioka explains, “we could build wooden architecture and preserve it.” Even after felling, hinoki gains strength with age, continuing to "live" for centuries. Thus, for the miyadaiku, construction is only the beginning of a tree’s second life.

Through these gestures—missing steps, loose tiles, reverence for hinoki—Japanese woodwork expresses mikansei as a living philosophy. It is a worldview that honors resignation to nature over human control.

Finding Appreciation for Mikansei

What relevance does mikansei hold for contemporary architects, carpenters, or people like us who move through their buildings each day? Isn't this philosophy, rooted in wood and spirituality, outdated in an age of technology and metal?

Perhaps so, if judged by speed or utility. But what if we consider the designs and architectures surrounding us less as function-driven machines and more like gardens to appreciate, shaped gradually by time and care? Mikansei offers this gentler way of seeing—one that values the trace of a human hand over flawless symmetry.

Nowhere is this clearer than in the chashitsu, or traditional tea room. As Kakuzo (Tenshin) Okakura explains in The Book of Tea, the tea room, built from earth and wood, is intentionally off-balance in its design, reflecting Taoist and Zen beliefs that perfection lies not in completion but in the process of becoming. Here, beauty is not presented whole, but left slightly open, so that the viewer must engage, imagine, and complete it in their mind. In this way, symmetry is not just avoided; it is feared. “Uniformity of design,” writes Okakura, “is fatal to the freshness of imagination.” Appreciation for mikansei, then, is not a rejection of refinement, but an invitation to a deeper, more enduring kind of beauty that grows through time, and through us.

Architect Kiyoshi Takeyama once reflected that Japan’s cultural embrace of asymmetry may be rooted in its land—a terrain of jagged coastlines, sloping mountains, scattered basins, and earthquake-bound and ever-shifting terrain. In such a place, straight lines and perfect symmetries were not just difficult to build, but felt untrue to life itself. To build with impermanent materials like wood and paper was not simply a matter of tradition. It was a quiet acceptance that nothing lasts forever, and that beauty can live within that truth.

Thus, to understand a craft’s philosophy is to glimpse the soul of its people. What, then, do the buildings we inhabit today reveal about us? Are we content with the values they reflect, or is there something we still seek, something we might learn from the ethos of Japanese woodwork? This is the final offering of understanding mikansei: its quiet vision of incompletion speaks not only to how we build, but to how we live.

We find a hint in Fushi kaden, the foundational treatise on Noh theatre, in which Zeami draws a subtle distinction between two forms of beauty: jibun no hana and makoto no hana. Jibun no hana, the “flower of the moment,” is the brilliance of youth—effortless, vivid, but transient like a spring blossom that fades with the passing season. In contrast, Makoto no hana, the “true flower,” blooms slowly. It is not given by nature, but cultivated through time, discipline, and human sincerity. This flower is quiet and enduring, its beauty not in surface charm but in the deep roots it lies beneath. It is never fully attained, only approached through a lifetime of honest pursuit. And in that pursuit, Zeami suggests, beauty finds its truest form.

Mikansei echoes this quiet lesson: that what is incomplete is not broken, but alive. It invites us to see the unfinished not as failure, but as infinite possibility—a space where time and mindfulness continue to shape what we are becoming. In a world that rushes toward resolution, mikansei reminds us to honor the pause, the uncertainty, and the imperfect lines still in motion. Our lives, too, are filled with such incomplete chapters–unanswered dreams, shifting paths, parts of ourselves still unfolding. And it is there, in those spaces of becoming, that beauty quietly and enduringly takes root.

About the Author: Tamaki Hoshi is a scholar and aspiring novelist with a passion for both Japanese women's history and intellectual history. She is currently researching the effects of modernization on Japanese women and the collective memory of motherhood in prewar and wartime Japan at Waseda University. Through her research and writing, she strives to illuminate the untold stories of women in Japanese history.