The big jars are thrown on a lathe worked lying down. Ōtani ware is known for its large storage jars, and they are thrown on a nerorokuro — a wheel kicked round by somebody lying flat on their back beside it, looking up at the work. A jar of that size cannot be reached across from a seated position, so the work is done by two people: one lying down to turn the wheel, the other standing to throw the clay.

The district is said to date from 1780, and what characterises it is large-scale ceramics together with the climbing kilns needed to fire objects of that size, which are correspondingly large themselves. It is the only ceramic ware in Tokushima designated a national traditional craft, which in a prefecture with this much clay is a narrower distinction than it sounds. Several kilns — Motoyama-gama, Mori-gama, Ōnishi-gama among them — offer sessions where visitors can try the work. Naruto's town centre is about fifteen minutes away by car, and Kobe is roughly an hour and a half by express bus, which puts the kilns within reach of a large city without their being absorbed by one.

With very large vessels, the method has to be settled before anything else. Once the object exceeds the reach of a person's arms, one worker cannot make it at all, and the only available response is to change the tools, the posture and the number of people involved. Nobody would invent a wheel operated from a lying position for any other reason than necessity, and nobody did. The strangeness of the equipment in this district is a direct consequence of the size of the jars it exists to produce.