I went to AIU (Akita International University) @ Akita.

■ I went to AIU (Akita International University) @ Akita.

I went to AIU (Akita International University) in Akita.

With Yoshimoto Kogyo Chairman Osaki Hiroshi and bright first-year student Sugiyama Kotaro.

Founded in 2004, this global liberal arts university is

Once enrolled, all students live in the dormitory for one year.

All classes are in English. Students study in English. All students have studied abroad for one year. 60% of teachers are foreigners.

70% of students are female.

It is highly regarded by the industry and has one of the highest academic achievement scores.

The employment situation is excellent, but it seems that the enthusiasm for starting a business is also on the rise.

It is a miraculous rural public school.

iU 's landmarks.

library.

As soon as I stepped in,

Ah! It's the same as the recently opened Ishikawa Prefectural Library!

I heard that both were designed by Senda Mitsuru.

Recently, I was proudly introducing the Kanazawa library, saying, "Kanazawa's library is amazing," but this one was here first. How embarrassing.

It operates 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, and students apparently study there in the middle of the night.

That's nice

The first president of the university was Nakajima Mineo.

He went from the 1960 Security Treaty protests to Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, and then founded AIU. He was a fighter.

Having opened the school and served as its president, I understand this.

This university would not have been possible without tremendous conviction, strength, fighting spirit, and trust.

Moreover, they must be academics with a proven track record.

It's a great achievement. A great man. I wish I could have met him.

If you get an A from AIU, you're already in iU . The number of students is almost the same as iU . We also aim to be global.

AIU is liberal arts, iU is IT business.

AIU is in the countryside surrounded by nature, while iU is in urban Tokyo.

They are similar, but different. That's why I want to work together. I know it's a bit rude, but...

President Monte Cassim is a gentleman from Sri Lanka, and was also a fighter when he worked with AIU to oppose the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology when he was president of APU (Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University).

The current APU President, Deguchi, was also a participant in the 1970 Security Treaty protests.

I was also fighting when I recently visited Sanjo City University and was impressed by its president, Shahriar Shahriar (from Bangladesh).

President Kasem and the AIU staff about collaborating in student entrepreneurship support, education and research. It would be interesting to connect with APU, Kindai University, and other cutting-edge universities with which Yoshimoto Kogyo is affiliated. We would also like to involve the University of Tokyo, Tokyo University of the Arts, Kyoto University, and even friendly cutting-edge universities overseas.

in 20 years, iU will be like AIU.

The only souvenir I bought was a Namahage doll.

I'll come back later.

Toppinparari no Puu

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iU President Gachon, Mr.Oji Hiroi

■iU President Gachon, Mr.Oji Hiroi

legend who created "Sakura Wars". He is currently the general director of the girls' troupe "Mimozane". A punk, unconventional senior. If you want to learn about "creation", this is the person for you.

https://bit.ly/3Ip8Jse

What we are currently focusing on

takt op. An anime called Destiny has started. I'll be out of the game soon. It's been 4 years so far. 3-4 years for one project.

I continue making products when I'm asked to; I've never initiated any sales myself.

◆ What inspired me to create this

I create things as a solo activity. I drew pictures on the edge of a notebook to make flipbook animations, cut out magazines, wrote articles and made books, and even filmed movies. I just played in my own playground. Self-contained.

When I was painting rocks and selling them on the street in Harajuku, a Lotte distributor saw me and gave me his business card. I went to hang out with them and ended up working on making freebies for Lotte. It became a hit and I went professional.

The family was well-off and there was no problem with food. I thought I would never have to work. Many of the husbands were hairdressers. The rules were of the downtown area. It was a close-knit community. We all participated in festivals together.

◆Working overseas

in Taiwan . Because of language barriers and cultural differences, I was a foreign customer for the first six months. Even if I told them to do something, they wouldn't do it. I had the 50 people who were in charge at first bring their families over, hold picnics once a month, and communicate with them. After about a year, they started doing their jobs. I think the environment in which they were born and raised plays a big role.

At school

At first I thought it was stupid. I was being bullied, so I gave out money to solve the problem. As I continued to do this, I was able to communicate with the people around me, so I no longer needed the money.

I was writing a script for the elementary school drama festival. I was not good at schoolwork, but my teacher had entrusted me with it.

I was expelled three times in junior high school. But the pastor said it was just a suspension. I continued to clean the church from 6:00 for a month. During that time, the pastor prayed for me every time. On my last day, he told me, "God loves a useless kid like you." Those words had a big impact on me, and I thought, "God loves me. Yay! I'll be okay in the future."

My high school was far away. I was tired on Wednesdays, so I took the day off. I was in the film studies club, so I told my school that I was going to see a movie to challenge Kurosawa and Mizoguchi, so I was taking the day off on Wednesdays. My teacher told me that was fine, but that I had to explain the movie I had seen in front of the other students in homeroom on Thursday. This was a great learning experience. I needed to be able to talk and organize what I had seen.

When I was skipping class, the pastor came and asked me, "What movie should we watch now?" I answered, "Strawberry White Paper." The pastor was impressed, and the whole school started going to see it. The Bible test that year was "Describe the love in Strawberry White Paper." That's what makes a school interesting.

He was filming a record of club activities at the request of a classmate who found out he was filming.

The importance of being recognized

The most important thing is that I am recognized. I have been told since high school that "Hirai is a genius!" I went to Leo (Morimoto) when I was about 18. He kept me by his side for about five years. He disciplined me strictly. That's how I was able to have contact with society. Until then, I was arrogant. It was Leo who broke my arrogant nose and told me that I was fine with that.

Do what is asked of you

I have a sponsor, and the process of creating what they want is a never-ending process. I create things that make the person who places the order happy. And 20-30% of that is fun for me. I find it within the order. If the person who places the order is happy, and the customer at the other end is happy, then it's a great success. I look at the client rather than the customer. If the client is happy, then the customer is happy, so I've started looking one step further ahead.

Sometimes I fight with the client because I think the client might not be happy. But if the client says it's okay, I only look at the client. Sometimes I fail. But I think it's okay because I'm making what the client wants.

◆Message for you guys

Fail a lot. I hope we can become a society that accepts failure. Failure is what helps us move forward.

★Postscript

I cut a lot of the video. That's a crime. He talks like that. I want to be a person like him. His family home is a brothel in Mukojima, Sumida, where iU is located, so I asked him to be a super visiting professor, but he's the son of a pretty dangerous brothel. Because he was involved with Yoshimoto Kogyo, we both started playing golf around the same time, and it's thrilling to hear Prince's stories on the way to the golf course. He was so well liked by director Yoji Yamada that he was glued to the set, and the director was 90 years old and Prince was 68 years old, so the film industry seems to think he's a secret child. He's so cool.

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Cool Japan: Bags

 2025/4/13

■ Cool Japan: Bags

NHK Cool Japan: "Bags" edition.

I love bags, and my room is full of them. I'm always looking for a bag that goes well with my Japanese clothes.

A bag is not just a useful tool, but a fashion statement that expresses a person's lifestyle.

"Female, male."

The secret to making a Kabuki female impersonator's movements look feminine is to keep their arms close to their sides and not raise them.

Women's kimonos have a slit on the side called a mihattsuguchi, and it is considered indecent to show what is underneath. This is the same reason why many Japanese women wear their watches on the inside.

This may be one of the reasons why people have started carrying their bags on their elbows.

The reason why bags are important to men is that they often use public transportation and rarely travel by car, meaning they have no place to put their belongings. It may also be a difference between foreign countries, where people do not bring work home with them, and Japanese people, who are used to working at home 24 hours a day.

"school bag"

Some say that school bags are a symbol of uniform education, but they have also become a part of Japanese culture, with grandparents giving them as gifts to celebrate a child starting school.

They're now available in a wide variety of over 100 colors, which I think is great and fashionable.

When I was a kid, there were only black and red, and there was a strong feeling that black was for boys.

I really wanted red, but I wasn't allowed to.

That kind of atmosphere doesn't exist anymore, which is a shame.

However, from now on, children will study using computers instead of paper.

This will then lead to the development of school bags and other backpacks that are suitable for these children.

I wonder if school bags will also change.

"Toyooka, Hyogo Prefecture, the city of bags"

It's amazing that the culture of willow wicker has been passed down since the Heian period.

Regional revitalization and revitalization is not just about tourism; creating a brand through manufacturing and promoting it to the whole country and the world is a very effective means.

In the future, we will likely see an increase in initiatives that transcend corporate boundaries and foster horizontal collaboration in local communities.

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iU President Gachon . Mr.Kengo Kuma

 ■iU President Gachon . Mr.Kengo Kuma

Shohei Otani, Ichiro, Naoya Inoue, Yuzuru Hanyu, Naomi Osaka, Akira Toriyama, Eiichiro Oda, Hayao Miyazaki, Yoshiharu Tsuge, Shigeru Miyamoto, Yoko Ono, Yohji Yamamoto, Haruki Murakami... As a world-famous Japanese person, this person will also be ranked high.

What we are focusing on now

We are trying a different way of working in our office. In addition to Tokyo, we have offices in Paris, Beijing, and Shanghai, but Tokyo is still the center of our work. We have been working by cramming people into a big box in a big city. We need to break out of that.

He will create several satellites in the regions and live between them himself and his staff. It's a kind of modern-day alternate attendance system. It would be nice to be able to experience the seasonal climate and food at the satellites. Higashikawa in Hokkaido. The water is clean. He built a wooden satellite called "Furniture House" and started work in April 2022. The office is a renovated building located down from Kokusai Street in Okinawa to the market. There is a wine and sausage shop below. A building in the mountains in Maniwa, Okayama Prefecture, one of the centers of Japan's lumber industry, has been renovated into a satellite office. It is scheduled to open in 2022.

By connecting several satellite offices, we are not only dispersing the people in our Tokyo office, but also trying to create a base for interaction between young designers and students in the regions. We are most interested in trying out a new network-based, mobile working style in this way.

About the school

My view of school changed drastically when I studied architecture. Until then, I thought there was a correct answer and that school was the place to teach it. The architecture department is a little different, and if you give the same answer as others, you'll be ridiculed. You have to give an answer that's different from others. I realized that there is no correct answer.

When I submitted my work, various teachers would give me completely different comments about it, and in some cases the teachers would argue with each other. Teachers do not represent one correct answer, each has a different idea and represents a different philosophy. I learned in the Department of Architecture that the world is a place of struggle between people with different ideas, different philosophies, and different interests.

I wanted to deny the actions I had taken at school up until then, which was to pursue the right answer. When I studied abroad in the United States, I saw that American teachers were more diverse than in Japan, and teachers argued heatedly with each other. Seeing this, I realized that Japanese architecture departments were still too lenient. A change in outlook on life. To what extent can I deny the right answer? In a sense, it was school that taught me this. I was able to see the diversity of people at school, which allowed me to embark on a different path. I hope that young people will make good use of school in this way.

◆Message for you guys

What I would most like to recommend is traveling. When I was in university, I realized that there was no right answer, so I gave up on the designs that were considered mainstream in the world of architecture at the time (such as Arata Isozaki) and went to investigate a village in the Sahara Desert in Africa. During my travels, I was able to communicate with local people and meet people who lived in a place with different values than I had before. Being able to come back from that trip also gave me confidence in my physical strength. Traveling is the best chance to train yourself. I would like to tell young people to try traveling that no one else does.

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