For those who want more: my story
What I want to support
is you, the one who chose
What I truly want to support isn’t something you can hold in your hands.
It’s the people who, even while unsure, decided to choose for themselves.
And a new culture, where choosing how you work becomes something ordinary.
“You’re a girl, so no. You can’t.”
That’s what I was raised on.
Not worry, not something softened. Flatly denied.
When I was nine, I was given a computer, and I touched the internet for the first time.
There was a wider world beyond my family’s “right answer.”
Once I knew that, I couldn’t go back.
At 16 I left home, with nowhere to go,
moving between friends’ places while I paid my own tuition.
At 20, I rented a room of my own for the first time.
That cold key was my answer to “you can’t.”
There were nights I couldn’t sleep,
mornings my heart pounded with worry.
Days I wanted to cry, but sealed it away
and made myself keep going.
But the one thing I never stopped doing was choosing.
Traveling the world, I noticed something.
Not one of the people around me denies who I am.
They cheer for whatever I decide to try.
When I told a friend I was starting a company, she said:
I’m proud of you.
I couldn’t believe it.
What was missing in that house, I found out here.
Little by little, the small “I did it”s grew louder than “you can’t.”
These days, I run my own company.
“Sales aren’t growing.” “The business won’t move forward.”
We take those problems and move them forward, with customer data and the systems built on it.
I built it because I didn’t want the freedom to choose to be mine alone.
I wanted to build a place where women and mothers can work in a way that fits their own lives.
My whole team is remote.
Hiring, mentoring, paying salaries, carrying the responsibility.
Honestly, it isn’t easy, and plenty of things go wrong.
But by employing someone, I can add one more choice to their life.
That feeling is what keeps me standing here.
“I found a way to work that lets me pursue what I want, without sacrificing what matters most to me.”Yui, my teammate
Living abroad, I realized something.
So many people around the world admire Japan.
And yet, in this blessed country,
the people inside it somehow can’t believe in themselves.
“I can’t.” “Nothing will change anyway.”
Their faces look just like mine used to.
So through my work, I connect Japan’s value with the world’s possibilities.
And through how I live, I try to show that your life is yours to choose.
These are the two things I want to pass on.
A rich, beautiful country. And yet the trains in Tokyo are full of tired, downcast faces.
And still, people take their own lives.
Is what’s missing hope?
No.
It’s the felt sense that your life is yours to choose, and yours to move.
That can’t be handed over in words.
“You can’t.” “Nothing will change.” Those voices don’t yield to logic.
Only the number of “I did it”s can quiet them.
That’s how it was for me.
On August 1, 2026, I stood on the Tokyo stage.
I was given the Grand Prix in the Fashion category, an award judged on whether you’re expressing who you really are, and whether there’s a strategy behind how you present yourself.
GenesisAsset, one of the event’s sponsors, gave me their award as well, and I earned a place in the Japan Finals.
Ten years from now.
Five hundred people around me
lifting their heads and saying, “I’m allowed to choose too.”
I will be the first light they see.
My voice is small, but if it reaches even one person, that’s enough.
With that hope in my heart, on November 12, I’ll stand on the Beauty Japan Finals stage.
Please, support this challenge.
