From Cool Japan to Cooled Japan
It was the late 1980s and the Japanese yen was supercharged. Japanese corporations opened up factories and offices all over the world. Thousands of Japanese managers and engineers, many of whom had little foreign language capability or overseas experience, were sent packing to New York and Singapore, Bangkok and Hong Kong, Frankfurt and London.
I ran bootcamps for Japanese management and engineers, doing my best to prepare them for their initial culture shock of working in a new environment, putting them through simulations in English that included 1:1 meetings with uncooperative subordinates, group discussions with feuding teammates, and strategy presentations to local leadership.
These were the go-go years, and the Japanese were go-going. Globalization was the hot word. And I truly believed that the tens of thousands of journeymen Japanese, who relocated with their spouses, would through their children create a generation of multi-lingual, multi-cultural adults, transforming Japan into a truly global country in the 21st century.
And yet, here we are at the end of Q1 of the 21st century…and I am…disappointed.
Aggregate English capability in Japan is getting worse. Japanese studying overseas has plummeted since its mid-2000s peak. Even overseas travel for Japanese has been depressed since Covid.
And based on conversations I have had in Tokyo, non-Japanese have to work considerably hard to manage the culture of Japanese corporations, while managers in global multinationals have to work considerably hard to source bi-cultural or multi-cultural talent.
The oohs and aahs of the cool technology that foreign visitors once reserved for Tokyo are now heard more commonly in Shanghai and Shenzhen. Japanese companies which oncemdominated the list of largest in the world have tumbled down the leader charts.
I simply haven’t seen the transformation.
Start Up Japan Heating Up
But there is hope.
The Japanese government is actively positioning Tokyo as a gateway for global innovation, an effort championed by SusHi Tech Tokyo, one of Asia’s largest innovation conferences designed to directly connect international startups with major corporations and investors.
“At SusHi Tech Tokyo 2026, we are selecting startups that are aiming globally and inviting them to exhibit,” said Kazunori Maebayashi, director of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Startup Promotion HQ. “Since many overseas VCs, as well as reps from other countries and regions around the world will also be exhibiting and attending SusHi Tech, we want those startups to be seen, using that opportunity to leap overseas and become globally active.”
However, Maebayashi admitted to me that “a global perspective (by Japanese) is still somewhat lacking.”
Fortunately, role models do exist.
On Day 2 of SusHi Tech (which ran from April 27-29), four Japanese entrepreneurs took the stage to talk about their experiences overseas in a session entitle “Mindset for Taking on Challenges in the World.” Their stories were fascinating, exciting and powerful examples of Japanese exercising agency by finding opportunities outside of Japan, and leveraging those opportunities into tremendous growth opportunities.
These four role models share common characteristics:
- They did not wait to perfect their English.
- They did not have elite international backgrounds.
- They started businesses not through deep market analysis, but through chance, curiosity, fandom and personal frustration.
- They took action.
- Let me repeat – they took action.
Four Japanese Who Crossed the Line
Masamichi Tanaka is an entrepreneur based in Seoul who built businesses around housing support for Japanese students and companies in Korea, as well as K-Pop and travel related services. At 24, he went to Korea as a tourist, but since he wanted to stay longer, he decided to form a company, essentially to secure a visa for himself. Once there, he noticed how difficult it was for Japanese students and companies to find housing in Seoul, so he built Seoul Heya Navi. Today, his solution of a personal problem has turned into a thriving business serving about 800 students and renters a year.
“I felt that getting a visa in Korea was inconvenient, so I created a site to help others,” said the CEO of Seoul Japan Media LLC. “I did not understand quotations and invoices, but I dealt with senior executives from Japanese companies and learned everything on the ground.”
Takashi Kitao is a thriving venture capitalist today, but when he was a 22-year-old university student, he decided to take leave from university and live in Mexico. He ended up in a business contest, and somehow won. He built the business and transferred it to his Mexican partner, an experience that emphasized the importance of taking risks overseas, a quality he looks for in backing Japanese founders.
“There was really no logic (to starting the business),” said Kitao, general partner of Theta Times Ventures. “But I don’t think Mexico was a waste. My experience doing business in Mexico and Southeast Asia comes through when I speak with entrepreneurs.”
Yuki Nakanishi is Executive Officer of GO Inc, which is the most used taxi app in Japan. When Nakanishi graduated from high school, he spoke no English and had no overseas experience. “I was a high school graduate, had zero English ability, and had never been overseas,” Nakanishi recalled. In fact, he said he had never really been outside of his hometown of Osaka. And yet, on a whim, he took off for the Philippines to study English. As he took up lessons in Cebu, he thought to himself that there were better ways to run a language school. So he built his own school. A hundred employees and four years later, he sold the business. As Nakanishi said, “If you act, things will work out somehow.”
Shuji Tanaka is the former president and current chairman of OWNDAYS, a once struggling domestic eyewear retailer, and now a company with a larger overseas footprint than a Japanese one. In 2008, OWNDAYS was close to collapsing under a billion yen of debt. Ony 30, with no background in eyewear, Tanaka bought the company. He thought this was one of those few ways a young entrepreneur without much money could leverage into a big business.
Instead of fighting established Japanese brands like JINS and Zoff, he looked for places where his competitors were absent, first in the edges of Japan, and then, Singapore. The first Singapore store succeeded immediately, proving his fast-fashion eyewear model traveled beyond Japan. He spoke little English, but admitted that if you have the will, you can make yourself understood.
“It’s true that there is a foreigner complex, especially for Japanese who can’t speak English,” Tanaka said. “But fortunately, I don’t have a foreigner complex. So even though I can’t speak English, I push forward anyway.”
Changing the Mindset of Generation Next
Yurina Yamada was responsible for coordinating over 800 student volunteers at SusHi Tech Tokyo, which was held from April 27-29. Yamada is a Waseda University student, not an entrepreneur, but she is standing at the threshold. She wants Tokyo to become more like Silicon Valley, wants Japanese students to study abroad, and wants young people to learn English.
But she didn’t realize that until she studied abroad at the University of California Berkeley, an experience that impacted her deeply.
“I feel that young Japanese students feel Japan is not as strong as it used to be,” said Yamada. “After studying abroad, I realized Japan is really valued by other countries’ people for our culture. So I want Japan to be stronger. Younger people should study English, which helps them communicate with other countries’ people, and gives them an international mindset.”
I personally don’t believe Japan lacks global potential, but it currently lacks enough people who treat the world as an opportunity to study, sell, build, fail, succeed and begin again.
The lesson from the Japanese adventurers who became thriving leaders is that Japanese do not need to become less Japanese or more non-Japanese to succeed. Instead, they need to play to their strengths, and understand that their existing qualities become more valuable if they take action outside of Japan.
If they take action.
As Masamichi Tanaka said, “action becomes the first step in changing your mindset.”
