The Surprising Story Of Japan’s Glowing Licence Plates

License plates are pretty similar wherever you go, either in the US or abroad. The vast majority are manufactured out of stamped steel with raised letters painted in a contrasting color. Travel to Japan, however, walk around at night, and you might spot something altogether more special. Over there, you can run backlit, illuminated plates on your vehicle that are totally legal.

These are referred to as jikō-shiki plates, which translates to “character-glowing type.” These plates are available from Japanese municipal authorities, with characters and numbers designed to be illuminated from behind.

At night, the effect is striking. Instead of seeing numbers and letters dimly lit by a weak exterior bulb, the characters glows green, bright, and sharply defined. These plates are assembled using translucent green plastic for the lettering and numbers.

Illuminated plates are also available for Kei vehicles, but they work a little differently. Privately owned Kei cars typically have black characters on a yellow background. The opaque black letters can’t be illuminated, so instead, a gap between the black lettering and the yellow surround is left transparent for light to shine through, giving the black letters a glowing outline  at night.

To use the jikō-shiki properly, an illuminated frame must be installed to shine light through the plate from behind. While the plates are issued by the usual authorities, the illuminated frame has to be purchased separately by the vehicle owner. Today, these frames are manufactured using white LEDs and can be wired into a vehicle’s 12-volt or 24-volt electrical system.

This wasn’t always the case. We can infer this from the fact that backlit plates were first released in November of 1970. White LEDs didn’t exist back then, and the LEDs that did were far too dim to be used for any sort of vehicle illumination. Instead, incandescent bulbs were used – and that’s actually a hint as to why these plates were developed in the first place.

You see, Japan didn’t invent backlit plates just because they’re awesome. The light-up plates were developed because regular license plates would often become obscured in Japan’s snowy regions during winter. Thus, a company called Hokuyo Musen developed a plate with an incandescent bulb that illuminated the letters from behind. The visibility-enhancing trick wasn’t so much that the light made the letters glow. It was the warm bulb’s ability to melt the character-obscuring snow.

Modern LED-lit versions don’t achieve this same feat, as LEDs operate with far less heat than glowing filaments in glass bulbs. But what they lack in snow-melting heat, they make up for in brightness and still improve visibility over regular painted plates.

Outside of Japan, the plates are little-known. However, they are prized by some JDM fans as a way to dress up their vehicle in a way that is authentic to its country of origin. In some US states without front plate requirements, an illuminated plate, either real or a replica, can be installed for what this writer thinks is a pretty sick look.

It’s not the first time I’ve found out about a weird light-up automotive accessory, but I’ll level with you. I crave this one more than most. The only thing holding me back is that Australia is absolutely Draconian when it comes to plate laws and I’d never get away with running one on the street. I might just have to settle for the official JDM knockoff plates that are endorsed by the state. I guess I’ll make do, because they’re pretty cool as well.

Image credits: TOM’S, Amazon, eBay, balbowskie187443 via YouTube screenshot, Asahi Kasei