Bringing a taste of Japanese camping flair and fashion to the United States, the Grayhus tent from Tokyo Crafts is a fantastically geometric wilderness abode that elevates the outdoor experience, whether you're inside or viewing from afar its juxtaposition against the organic flow of its natural surrounds. The tent smartly adapts to the situation at hand, serving as spacious open-air canopy, insect-free screen room, and guyed-out, battened-down four-person glamping shelter tested to 55 mph (85 km/h).
We've long been quite enamored with Japanese camping gear, from the furniture that looks meticulously primped enough to make the cover of Better Homes & Gardens to ingeniously packaged tiny campers. And let's not forget the massive multi-room indoor/outdoor base camp tents that feel quite paradoxical parked just down the path from those impossibly miniature RVs.
We were quite excited, then, to stumble on Kōrogi, a young Portland, Oregon-based curator and retailer of camping and outdoor gear. The company doesn't limit its global reach to Japan, but introducing Japanese outdoor wares to the US market has definitely served as one of its driving focuses early on.
Kōrogi was founded in 2024 and opened its HQ in Portland earlier this year. Beyond selling gear from familiar Japanese names like Snow Peak and Toyo Steel, the company has launched a number of Japanese brands and creators on the US market for the first time ever, including Tokyo Crafts, Asomatous and Shim.Craft.
If we're honest, we had never heard of Tokyo Crafts prior to discovering it on Kōrogi. In fact, we discovered both brands at the same time thanks to a picture of the Grayhus tent that yanked our eyes over to Kōrogi's website during an entirely unrelated Google hunt. We're quite glad it did.
A youthful, spirited brand founded in 2020, Tokyo Crafts builds a variety of camping gear that injects tightly focused, premium design and reimagined beauty into age-old recreation. It introduced the Grayhus tent in Japan in 2024, aiming to offer campers a roomier dome tent alternative with a compact footprint and extra-voluminous living area. The tent is meant to provide a more portable form of glamping compared to thick, bulky canvas safari tents.
In developing a tent that could join the vehicle carrying it comfortably within what it identifies as a standard camping plot (10 x 10 m, 33 x 33 feet), Tokyo Crafts sought to further develop the half-sphere form of the classic dome tent into a fuller sphere, thereby shrinking the floor area on the ground without ceding away any interior volume.
Growing a half-sphere into a full(er) sphere that can stand stably on natural terrain is, of course, much easier on paper, where you don't have to deal with the realities of physics. You can only bend solid aluminum or composite poles so far, and the dramatic oversized U-bends that would be required to craft a full-on orb tent frame are likely to blow well past that limit.
Instead, Tokyo Crafts turns to a geodesic construction meant to emulate the size and flow of a sphere. It turns rounded surfaces into sideways pentagonal pyramids that flare the ends of the tent wide and deep. The two flared pyramids are connected by an extended dual-peak central body that houses the tall, wide roll-up doors.
Each doorway includes both a full mesh panel and a waterproof outer door, allowing campers to enjoy al fresco lounging when the weather and local fauna cooperate, mesh the open doorway over to keep out swarming pests, or close them up completely to guard against threatening weather.
Optional transparent TPU panels are available to deliver big views without giving up full weather protection during wet or cold conditions. The optional awning kit, meanwhile, repurposes the weatherproof door fabric into a large awning, further growing the shaded base camp footprint.
The Grayhus ships without a floor as standard, setting up atop the bare earth. Interestingly, though, it has an inner and outer roof, the latter helping to filter out morning light while also cutting the condensation for which single-wall tent fabrics are notorious.
An optional 13.7 x 12.7-foot (4.2 x 3.9-m) 210D polyester floor is available, and while it doesn't zip or otherwise secure to the body fabric, it does feature a raised tub construction meant to keep out flowing water and insects. The main Grayhus tent includes skirted edges that rest on the ground to further protect against unwanted intrusions.
The Grayhus is designed to sleep up to four people and features a peak height of 8.5 feet (2.6 m) for plenty of standing room. A series of 14 interior hanging points allows campers to hang lamps, clothes and other items. Tokyo Crafts says it has tested the aluminum-framed 75D polyester-bodied tent to wind speeds up to 55 mph (85 km/h).
While it's quite large at camp, the entire Grayhus body and frame pack into a carry bag measuring 28 x 14 x 14 in (71 x 36 x 36 cm). While the 44-lb (20-kg) package certainly isn't lightweight, it can be easily carried by a single person.
Don't expect the Grayhus to set up too quickly. Tokyo Crafts' own setup video takes two people close to five minutes ... and that's inside, where they aren't actually staking or guying it out. That said, this one serves more like a big safari tent as opposed to a fast-pitching dome tent, so a longer setup time comes with the territory.
Kōrogi launched the Grayhus in the US in August as part of its greater Tokyo Crafts rollout. It's available now for a base price of $1,200. The optional floor costs $150, the transparent TPU door panels $220/pair.
Sources: Kōrogi and Tokyo Crafts
