OSAKA - The second button that once carried a message from the heart may no longer make it to graduation events, as Japanese schools shift to blazers and students focus on social media-friendly memories.
The origins of the tradition -- giving the second button of a stand-up collar jacket to someone special -- remain unclear.
Kanko Gakuseifuku, a major school uniform retailer in the western Japan city of Okayama, says one theory traces it to soldiers giving away the second button of their military uniform before leaving for war.
Another sees it as a symbol of "winning the other person's heart," with the button positioned close to the heart, symbolically linking it to affection and connection.
But the ritual is fading as school uniforms change.
From next month, the Wakayama City Board of Education will replace stand-up collars for boys, and sailor-collar and skirt uniforms for girls with blazers at all 18 municipal junior high schools and nine-year compulsory education schools.
Students of all genders can choose slacks or skirts, giving them greater flexibility and comfort than in the past.
A survey of students and parents showed majority support for the change. Some cited functionality, saying sailor uniforms are hard to adjust for temperature changes. Others emphasized convenience, noting that the new materials would be washable at home, unlike the traditional fabrics, which required careful handling.
Kanko Gakuseifuku says unisex blazer uniforms are spreading nationwide in consideration of diversity.
A 2022 survey by Kanko Gakuseifuku shows the decline of the traditional stand-up collar: 99 percent of men in their 60s and 84 percent of men in their 40s wore it in junior high, compared with 63 percent of men in their 20s.
The shift reflects a broader move toward modernized, practical, and inclusive school uniforms across Japan.
The design also matters for the button ritual. Stand-up collar buttons attach with hooks and can be removed easily. Blazer buttons, by contrast, are sewn into the fabric, making them harder to hand over. That difference makes the practice of giving a second button increasingly impractical, even for students who wish to continue the tradition.
Graduation priorities are changing too. A Shibuya Trend Research survey of around 100 high school students found that the second button ranked ninth in 2024 among "events to look forward to at graduation." By 2025, it had fallen out of the top 10. In the same survey, "taking photos with friends" ranked first, while "taking TikTok videos" came fifth, highlighting how digital documentation now dominates student priorities.
Professor Yohei Harada of the Shibaura Institute of Technology, an expert on youth culture, says social media is reshaping how students value school memories.
"Giving second buttons does not look good in photos and is not suited to students who are used to posting on social media," he said.
The shift, according to Harada, reflects a broader cultural change: students increasingly prioritize showing their experiences, rather than simply preserving them for themselves.
As a result, visually striking graduation customs such as colorful balloon bouquets, photo sessions, or coordinated group pictures may gain wider acceptance, Harada said, offering more photogenic ways to mark the end of school life.
As uniforms evolve and students curate memories for the camera, one of Japan's most sentimental graduation rituals -- giving the second button -- may quietly disappear, marking the end of an era in Japanese school culture.
