――Have you been involved with art since you were a child?
It may be easy to understand, but my mother was a professional painter. She held private exhibitions at galleries and department stores in Ginza, and had a studio at home. I started painting from a young age, and I went to painting classes that she held in the community, as well as other teachers. I loved painting and was devoted to it. I won many prizes in various competitions. But when I started club activities in junior high school, I stopped painting. In high school, I was debating whether or not to apply to art school, but my mother told me that it would be a tough path if my talent was halfway there.
My father was an engineer, and we lived in a house where blueprints were also spread out. I also liked science from a young age, and in high school I went on to chemistry, a field in close proximity to life science, which was attracting a lot of attention.
But I was still left with a kind of love for art. I continued on to graduate school, but I felt that a life of experimentation in the sciences, far from social applications, was not really suited for me. I did get a master’s degree, but later, while studying media art in a different department, I came into contact with computer graphics and the early days of the Internet, which directly led to what I have done at Shiseido’s Advertising Department and Sony.
――You are such a valuable resource.
Shiseido was also in the midst of an ice age for hiring, so we had to reduce the number of recruits from 200 to 19. I think people were interested in me because I was a newcomer who understood chemistry, media art, and the Internet. My focus remained the same throughout, and I spent a total of 30 years exploring new forms of expression using cutting-edge technology, as well as the online business of movies and animation at a time when Internet distribution was still in its infancy, and other areas that had not yet been explored.
――What an amazing career! You are a valuable person who understands both science and humanities. There may be an increase in the number of such people nowadays, but the number of female students going into the sciences is also very low.
When I was a student, society still seemed to be in an era of gender distinctions. I thought I had to thoroughly detach myself from the classical image of women, and I wanted to escape its gravity. That is also why I went to graduate school. Once you get to that point, people think you can’t help it and leave you alone. I also thought that a life completely absorbed in the corporate world was probably not for me. I am the kind of person who always looks in a slightly different direction rather than working side by side with others. Because of that, I knew that if I didn’t do what I wanted to do, I would definitely quit. Looking back, it may have been a life of many detours, but I have absolutely no regrets now. There were many new fields that had not yet been explored, so there was no gender discrimination there, and I think I was blessed with the environment and people that I was able to do what I did until I was about 50 years old without being conscious of female advancement or the like. Later, I was in the R&D department as management, and I was surprised to find that it was like a boys’ school in a time machine, even though I knew what I was getting into. After joining Sony, when I was in the entertainment business, such as the Japanese subsidiary of Sony Pictures and the start-up period of Aniplex, women were naturally in key positions in their own right. But in Sony, especially in the R&D department, there are no female leaders or managers. In Europe, there were two women who were heads of laboratories, and I was good friends with them. In Japan, if there were 50 department heads, there would be one or two women. It was an overwhelming minority.
――There are data showing that the rate at which women give up their jobs is high. What were the working hours like back then?
Don’t imitate me. Shiseido, where I spent my 20s, was located in Ginza 7-chome, and I never went home because I enjoyed my work so much, so I stayed twice a week at the Nikko Hotel, which was about a 100-meter walk away and was the cheapest hotel I could afford. At that time, the Internet was in its early stages of commercialization, and the more you did, the more fun you had. I got to the point where I didn’t have to pay rent on hotel bills, so I rented an old apartment and did it there to the best of my ability. I think I worked a lot of hours. This may not be very helpful, especially since I was often involved in new projects, and this was true all the way up until I was about 45 years old.
――How involved were you with animation?
After joining Sony, I spent most of my 30s at Sony Pictures and Aniplex. I was invited to join these companies because it was the dawn of the distribution business and there were no specialists who could start up a distribution business. At Sony Pictures, we launched a site for movies and animation exclusively for cell phones. This is where I learned the baptism of foreign capital and the structure of the IP business.
The cell phone business was up and running in about a year, and once the service was up and running and the management team was in place, I returned to the head office, and next I was assigned to Aniplex. For example, the copyright for “Spider-Man” was not held by Sony Pictures but by Marvel, so it was quite difficult to obtain a license for digital products that were still new at the time. Although Aniplex was still a new company, we were able to handle copyrights and handle everything from marketing to distribution and digital products in a 360 degree manner. Of course, nowadays it is nothing special, but we also distributed videos online.
As the number of Aniplex productions increased, production committees were formed for more than 20 productions per year, and I was in charge of online promotion and digital distribution for each production. It started out with just myself and a staff member who was familiar with anime, but once the organization was established and the people had grown and stabilized, I returned to Sony’s headquarters.
It’s not like I’m back, it’s more like I’ve reentered. That’s how I felt. From there, I stayed at the head office for 15 years. I was the manager of the CSR Department for the first five years, and at the timing of strengthening the social contribution business by utilizing the company’s assets, I established the CSR Innovation Department and traveled to various sites around the world where there were environmental and social issues, such as Africa, South America, and remote areas in Southeast Asia, and worked with the UN and international NGOs on programs, This was a completely new experience for me, and it was a time when I was able to open up new horizons of experience.
This was a time that opened up a whole new horizon of experience for me. I felt that if we were only on the research side, we would never get over the valley to realization. If you can’t show a path that leads to monetization, you can’t continue, especially in the case of corporate R&D. This is where my background in media arts, computer graphics, the Internet, and other cutting-edge technologies and expressions from my student days really came into play.
――I believe that Sony is the only company that has the foresight to utilize its technology in various entertainment fields, while other Japanese manufacturers, such as Panasonic and its competitors, have failed to get into the content business. Your background is at the forefront of this.
Sony is losing the “Bacam war” (Note 1) to Panasonic. In fact, that frustration is the basis for our emphasis on software. Based on the reflection of losing the Bacam war, we realized that even if the technology was good, if it did not combine with the experience, people would not use it, and it would not be good for business. It was the strategy office for promoting Blu-ray discs, 4K, and HDR. Then in 2015, when VR resurfaced, I was invited to join this department. They originally said it was because I was a science major, had new business experience in video and animation, specialized in media arts, and could do anything, but it also motivated me to create an internal team to prototype other R&D themes while also working on VR.
(Note 1. BETACAM is the common name for a cassette-type VCR with analog component recording developed by Sony. It refers to the battle between the VHS announced by JVC and Betacam by Sony.)
――Was it a company that allowed you to do what you wanted to do?
If it’s worth it, they will entrust it to you. If it is not competitive, it will be a hobby, and if they can articulate what kind of bite they have for the current business, they will be nice and let us have the responsibility and budget. If it goes a little better, it will increase the head count and become like a bonfire that keeps burning. If it did several rounds for about three years and didn’t work out so well, it could eat dissolution of the company because it is a fast decision making company. That’s what I thought was a waste of time when I went to the R&D department. If you can’t prove the value of your work and you are forced to suspend what you have been doing for years, your life will fly away. To get an idea of how to install the value of the research you are doing in the world, first find out what the features are, get the pressure points, and then make them and test them. If something seemed promising, we would repeat the process several times, and the result would become a product or service.
If you ask me if my time as a department head was interesting, I would say that I did what I had to do. You can’t say whether it was interesting or not, or whether “I don’t like this injury a bit…” when you are bombarded with the difficult task of urgent care [to use a hospital analogy]. I think it was like that in management. The number of people you influence has increased, and your actions and judgments are more severe.
――I think that as your career progresses, you will have more work to do in another area than just producing numbers when it comes to managing and developing people in a large organization with a variety of people.
The entertainment field is relatively merit-based, and in Sony’s case, gender did not matter as long as it was accompanied by results. In the animation field, the head of the marketing department was a woman, and the head of the film division was also a woman. Also, at Sony Pictures U.S. headquarters, the vice presidents and CSR officers were women. In this context, Aniplex was also a new business at that time within the Sony Music Group, so I don’t think we selected people in that way. There were a lot of women working at Aniplex, and they didn’t care about gender at all. When I said, “I can do something like this on the Internet, but I won’t do it,” the female producers were the ones who said, “Let’s try it first. I showed them small successes, and as I did so, I gradually got the feeling that everyone was relying on me. In a way, that is how I made friends with all the producers in the company. It has been 15 years since I graduated from Aniplex, but we still talk about how hard we worked back then. I was helped a lot by female producers my junior and senior, and there were also women on the board of directors, so we would often go out for drinks and they would vent to me, so I was blessed there. When I returned to the head office, I found that many women who were fluent in English were also working in the head quarter. In this way, there was not much distinction between men and women, but rather emphasis was placed on ability.
――There were not many people who dragged you down or were sarcastic?
I don’t know what they say behind my back. I didn’t ask them in the first place. When I entered a place where men were in the majority, I realized that there was tremendous competition among men, and I was always the “other” among them. So I don’t even ride the wave. I’m factionless and I’m not anyone’s apprentice, so I felt like it was a neutral position to talk to anyone because I’m from a rare entertainment business. If I had joined the competition I would have felt bad.
――I think women have the advantage of not being part of the majority circle, but they also have the advantage of looking at things from the outside.
I worked for the CTO (Chief Technology Officer) as a staff member in the R&D department, and the CTO was like a god who looked after the entire R&D organization. I was also responsible for assisting in communications, so I saw things from the side, and I know that healthy competition is necessary in R&D. I was the one who was in charge of communications, and I was the one who was in charge of the whole thing. I also had to design the communication of what was happening throughout the entire project, considering how it would be conveyed from the outside. So it was a valuable experience to touch the whole thing, albeit indirectly.
It’s quite objective; it’s like watching a soccer game from the bleachers. I think I got along well with everyone. It’s no use competing with me if I’m not walking the main line. I only do what I think is the best professional work at the time.
――How do you maintain your motivation?
CSR is a field where the standards are more stringent for companies competing in the global marketplace, and working with NGOs to address social issues requires skills that are more akin to those of a business. It was around 2010, so interest in CSR and sustainability was not as high as it is now, and to put it coolly, it was too new and not yet valued, so it was a great experience to be involved at a time when many people were not facing these issues. It was a valuable opportunity to meet people from all over the world who really wanted to do it and who had aspirations, and to learn how to see the world in a way that really mattered.
-It was like you were there as an interface between the company and the outside world.
We also keep a high sensitivity as an interface with the outside world, and incorporate the next trend into our business at the right time so that our organization is not hit by a meteorite or a black ship from the outside. I was involved in the establishment of the business from 2000 to 2010, when digital distribution was in its infancy. At that time, Netflix and Spotify did not have much of a presence. When the management felt the need to do something and was looking for someone who could do it, I somehow stumbled upon them, and it was like a coincidence attracting another coincidence.
――Were you chosen by fate?
Was I chosen? It’s not a very friendly company, and it’s like, “This woman is sturdy, so she’ll be fine. If it had been “this woman is good,” I think they would have kept me at headquarters. It was more like, “The next battlefield is over there, and the next battlefield is over here. But it suited me better, because I am the kind of person who can’t learn unless I am physically in there.
It was like I was always walking on the edge, and then the next thing that caught my attention would come along. It was like running into someone. When I was transferred to CSR, I was surprised because it was an area that was not an extension of my previous experience, but the head of CSR at the time came to Aniplex and asked me if I wanted to come. I was surprised because it was an area that was not an extension of my previous experience! I thought, “Why me?” But what I could imagine was so small. I am glad I went, and encounters and coincidences are great. I was glad that I went, and encounters and coincidences are a big part of life. I am not walking on the so-called elite road.
――But from the outside looking in, it seems like you are on the cutting edge of the main fad.
When you become a fad, you don’t become great there because you are moving on to the next thing. When you are about to become the king of the mountain, you don’t stay there for long and hand it over to the next people. I believe that things should be handed down from one generation to the next, so the timing of the handover is also important.
――Please tell us about your childhood. What kind of media experiences did you have, such as books and movies?
My mother ran a local art class in her studio, and about 20 children would come every day. She also taught high school students who were applying to art school, so people kept coming and going in the house. There were a lot of art books and paintings, so in terms of media experience, I think I was immersed in painting. Also, I would be taken to the teachers in the painting world and they would be quiet on the side talking about their work. If it were now, I would have been given a smart phone or tablet, but I watched the painting teachers quietly warbling among themselves on the side. I thought the artist-teachers were quite interesting. It was like the adults were talking about something. That kind of environment probably had an influence on me.
When I entered elementary school, I was quite shy and stayed in the library all the time. After lunch, everyone would play dodgeball. I would read science fiction books alone in the library. I was the student who read all the science fiction books in the elementary school library at that time and asked for a new one to be put in. I would read the whole thing from end to end twice and memorize it. I still remember the sense of immersion in the story world that I developed there. Also, the first LP he bought me was “Tong Poo” (1978) by YMO. I think the things I bought at home were probably a little different.
Also, I was lonely. It was very lonely, in a good way. Not lonely solitude, but I like to be alone. I read books all the time. Books were more important than food, I guess.
――You didn’t watch much TV or video at home then.
I usually watched TV. As for video games, when I was in the fourth grade, I asked my friends to buy me a Nintendo Game Boy because they had one. I had to have it to be able to enter conversations.
I also borrowed manga from my friends. Like Moto Hagio. I was close with the kids in the manga club.
――Did you have any rebellious periods in your school life?
Yes, there was a rebellious period! But my mother is an artist, so she was stronger (laughs). My father was not in Japan much for work. He was a plant design engineer and went to Algeria, Russia, and other places around the world as a site supervisor, so he was in Japan about half a year. I respect my father, but he was a working warrior during the high-growth period.
When I went to high school, I didn’t fit in, so I left with the shortest attendance and decided to go to college as soon as possible. I was also involved in club activities, but it was like, “let’s skip class and take a day off.” I would skip classes in the park or go to places like Shibuya with what little money I had.
I used to dream that I was taking attendance in each subject by myself with positive letters and trying to graduate with just barely enough attendance, but what I see in my dreams is, “I made a mistake in my calculation, I’m going to stay in school one year!” And I woke up with a gulp. And it was a dream. I don’t want to gush too much to the teachers, but I’m thinking thank them for letting me graduate even though I was like this.
From the results, it looks very successful, and people think it’s a career where I’m doing whatever I want, but I don’t know what it is, I’m not walking in the way I wanted to. There were some painful parts.
――What did you feel was not as you wanted it to be?
It’s like every time is like a game that’s not continuous, and you have to focus on getting the best results every time. It was like the reward for work is work. There is a career theory called Planned Happenstance, which is a theory of planned contingency, but I was more guided by chance and encounters to flow than what I had envisioned. I think that is what led to the unexpected breadth of my career. I think that is what led to the unexpected breadth of my work.
―― I guess you could say that men and women have to play the game differently if there are no women as far as the eye can see.
I think the most difficult thing for women is to have a drinking party. When you are young, it is still fine, but when you are in a position, you have to be careful. It is impossible to say to a male colleague, “Let’s go out for a drink.” The same goes for subordinates. I think I could do it, but I can’t do it too often. In the entertainment and art worlds, you have to get to know people deeply, so when a man and a woman have a drink together, no one thinks anything of it. On the other hand, in a more formal workplace, I think you had to be very careful. Yes, that’s right. So I had no choice but to produce original results through ideas and the power of realization.
――What are some of your achievements that are representative of your work?
It was a web project called “Hanatsubaki Express,” which I launched in 1997 as a Paris Collection website while at Shiseido. Shiseido had long contributed to the makeup of models for the Paris Collection, so I wanted to make use of that asset. At the time, articles about the Paris Collection appeared in magazines such as VOGUE and ELLE three or four months later. For “Hanatsubaki Express,” I would have the editor-in-chief of Hanatsubaki blow up a draft onto tape after the runway that day, transcribe it by the next morning, and send it to Tokyo via ISDN using a fax line rented from a hotel in Paris. I don’t think it was specifically recorded, but by all accounts it was the world’s fastest and first Paris Collection online site.
Also, the release of Shiseido’s official mobile site was the first in the cosmetics industry and was featured on the front page of the Nikkei Newspaper. A little further down the road, Aniplex recently announced that director Mamoru Oshii will be directing the new “Armored Trooper Votoms,” and they have invited director Ryosuke Takahashi to produce an original online video “Flag” of TV animation quality, which was planned by Masuo Ueda, former producer of Gundam First at Sunrise. I was also involved in the online distribution of the video. It is common nowadays to distribute TV-quality videos exclusively, but at the time, 2006, this was the first time in Japan for a series of 13 videos. At that time, it was a drunken thing not to put a work on TV. Also, when I was in charge of “BLOOD➕“, a production of Production I.G., in the 6:00 p.m. Sunday slot of MBS, the same slot that broadcasts “Fullmetal Alchemist“, I did a broadcast-linked distribution service. This was a measure that included a standby delivery that coincided with the airing of the program. Since we didn’t have enough bandwidth to broadcast the video yet, we gave out a password to the broadcast, and the “BLOOD➕” standby screen was available for downloading. We also created the web for “BLOOD➕. Since it was an original work, I had a lot of freedom to do it. I also loved “Ghost in the Shell,” so I would work on it without sleeping. I stayed over at the office and worked around the clock. I was allowed to work as hard as I could.
――Thank you very much for your valuable talk today.