About 3rd-Party.jp
Who makes Kioku Kabegami, and how.
Kioku Kabegami turns old photos from the Meiji and Taisho eras and nishiki-e (Japanese color woodblock prints) from the Edo and Meiji eras into wallpapers for your phone or computer. All of them are published online by the National Diet Library of Japan. It started in 2026 as the first of 3rd-Party.jp's projects.
What is 3rd-Party.jp?
There's a lot of public information and material online that goes unnoticed. 3rd-Party.jp tidies it up so it's easy to find, easy to understand, and easy to use every day.
Being public isn't the same as being free to use. We show the difference, with the legal basis and the source. Kioku Kabegami does this too: every work page shows its source and notes that its copyright has expired (it's in the public domain).
Who makes it
Nakamu
Designer · Director · Marketing Ops
Kioku Kabegami is run by one person, who goes by the pen name Nakamu. By day, Nakamu works as a Designer and Director, and in Marketing Ops.
Old photos and prints show what today's towns used to look like and how people once lived. It seemed a shame to leave them sitting in an archive. I made Kioku Kabegami so you can enjoy them on the screen you look at every day.
How we choose photos and prints
- We only use items that the National Diet Library Digital Collections makes available online and whose copyright has expired (public domain).
- We go through photo albums and prints one by one, and pick the ones that look good as a wallpaper and have little damage or blur.
- The only changes we make to the original image are straightening it and tidying the margins. We never paint anything in or take anything out. When you make a wallpaper, it's cropped to fit your screen, and text such as the title is added.
- For photos that mainly show people, or anything that might not sit well by today's standards, the operator looks at each one and decides whether to include it.
Every work page shows the item's title and a link to the original in the National Diet Library Digital Collections.
How we write and check the descriptions
- Each description starts from what the item itself records, such as its title, the year it was taken or published, and the place.
- Facts like dates and where names come from are checked against official sources and reference works. If we can't confirm something, we leave it out.
- Writing and fact-checking are done separately (both by AI; see "Where we use AI" below). If anything doesn't match, the description is rewritten and checked again.
- The operator reads every description before it goes live.
Where we use AI
Kioku Kabegami uses AI for much of the work: suggesting photos, drafting descriptions, checking facts, translating into English, and building the site's code.
- AI writes a draft
- A second AI checks the facts
- The operator reads it and decides whether to publish
Anything written by AI is checked by a second AI, and then the operator reads it and decides whether to publish it. We never use AI to create photos or prints, or to change what's in them.
Updates and corrections
- New works are added a few at a time, once they've been checked.
- We keep reviewing descriptions after they're published, and fix any mistakes we find.
- If you spot a mistake or anything that seems off, please let us know through the contact form.