The motif of the “thousand cranes” not only lends its name to the novel’s title but features prominently through the course of the narrative. The first time that Mitani Kikuji sees Inamura Yukiko, he is struck by the kerchief that she carries—pink crepe with a white thousand-crane pattern. Thereafter Kawabata continually associates Yukiko with the motif of the thousand cranes; Kikuji refers to her as “the girl with the thousand-crane kerchief” (11), and repeatedly envisaging the thousand-crane pattern.

The thousand cranes references a Japanese superstition that if someone folds 1,000 origami cranes, they will be granted a wish. Seriously ill people are often gifted a thousand origami cranes strung into garlands to symbolize well-wishes for their health and recovery from friends and colleagues. The motif of a thousand origami cranes is therefore associated with good luck, hope, and new beginnings. In this way, the motif represents the freshness and positivity that Kikuji associates with the character Yukiko and the hope that a match between them would be a fresh start, healing and breaking away from the “poison” and twisted emotions of the past.