Saki Akiyama
SAKI AKIYAMA
Manager, Civic Education Division | Third cohort, joined 2025 | First year, Department of Political Science, Faculty of Law, Keio University
7 min read
She saw a poster at a cram school she was trying out. A high school student with almost no interest in politics was organizing the event a year later, and now leads the whole program. We asked about carrying it alongside her entrance exams, the hesitation before she said yes, and how she came to think that getting through things alone is not the only virtue.
On the time before taking part
First, a brief introduction, if you would.
I'm Saki Akiyama. I took part in the Mock Ward Mayoral Election 2025 as a participant, then joined in the third cohort, and I now manage the Civic Education Division. I'm a first-year student in the Department of Political Science, Faculty of Law, Keio University.
Where did you first come across the Mock Ward Mayoral Election?
What brought the Mock Ward Mayoral Election to my attention was a poster for the 2025 edition, which I saw at a cram school I was visiting for a trial lesson.
Was politics a distant thing to you then?
Yes, quite. At the time I had almost no interest in politics. It felt distant from me, hard to approach. I think I also carried a vague sense of powerlessness — that nothing would change whatever one person did about politics or society.
So what made you decide to take part?
What decided it was something fairly simple (laughs): I wanted a range of experiences, and I wanted to take on something new. At the time I was troubled by the fact that even when there was something I wanted to do, I could rarely turn it into action. Taking part in the Mock Ward Mayoral Election was, I think, the first thing that got that version of me to take a step.
Even as a student, if you move of your own accord, you can bring about something this large.
On the election, seen as a participant
What stayed with you most from taking part?
What struck me most was that it was not only the participants — the members running the event were not much older than I was either. Students my own age were at the center of building an event for forty people, working with the ward office and with adults. It struck me hard. Even as a student, if you move of your own accord, you can bring about something this large. That was the moment the common sense I had been carrying shifted.
Still, it was all new to you.
Exactly. On the other hand, I did not know enough about politics, so I struggled with things I was doing for the first time — writing an election bulletin, making slides. I was overwhelmed by how much the other participants knew and how deeply they had thought about it, and I was left frustrated that I could not put my own thinking properly into words or into a form. But I think it was precisely that frustration that produced the wish to know more, and to be able to put my own thinking across properly next time.
On crossing to the organizing side
So you saw the call for organizers and applied straight away.
When TEIGEN JP opened recruitment I was in my final year of high school with university entrance exams ahead of me. So at first I had no intention of applying.
Honestly — you went back and forth quite a bit.
Yes — right up to the end. No. On one side was the prospect of joining the organizing team I had looked up to; on the other, the worry of whether I could carry the work and my entrance exams at once. I went back and forth about applying right up to the end.
So what made you send it in anyway?
Having been through the Mock Ward Mayoral Election as a participant, there were places where I had thought it could be done differently — and I wanted to give that a form from the organizing side this time. That feeling grew stronger.
On the walls of organizing
Once you were in, where did you first trip up?
The first difficulty was building a single event, mostly over video calls, with members I had barely met. We had to divide the roles while gradually building a relationship, from a state where we did not really know how each other thought or what each of us was good at. That was hard.
There must have been unglamorous, grinding parts too.
Finding participants was the other big one. Right up to the day, I was out handing flyers with our director and the other members, still asking people to come (laughs).
Did the gripes you had as a participant make it into the plan?
It did — what I had felt as a participant went into it: that there was not enough time, and that it should be something a middle school student who knows nothing about politics can still enjoy. But you cannot simply put everything in. What to keep and what to cut, within the time you have. I only learned how hard that judgment is once I was on the organizing side.
On entrance exams and the work
Your university applications went through comprehensive selection, I gather.
I was applying through comprehensive selection, so there was no objective way to tell where I stood. For a long stretch I had no idea how much effort was enough, or what exactly I should be working on and how.
That sounds rough.
Keeping up the effort with no clear right answer was harder than I had imagined, and there were times I nearly lost confidence.
Wasn't the work a burden in that period?
If anything, it was the reverse. In that period, TEIGEN JP became an important place where I could switch out of exam mode for a while. I had finished with my school club and was not attending a cram school, so seeing members my own age working toward their own goals was a real spur.
On becoming manager
When the manager role came up, were you simply pleased?
To be honest, I could not simply be glad. When our director approached me about it, I felt the gratitude — and, at the same time, a real inner struggle.
What was snagging on you?
First of all, because what I like is being on the ground with people. I thought a manager's role — supporting each project from behind — might not suit me. Even as an organizing member, I was less the one out front pulling everyone along than the one a step back, taking in the whole and working out what was needed. I agonized over whether I was really the right person.
What made you take it on anyway?
What I remembered then was myself the year before, hesitating over whether to join the organizing team. I had been anxious then too, and taking it on changed what I could see, and changed me. So this time too, I would take it on first and see. That is how I decided to accept.
Getting through everything alone is not the only right way.
On hardship, and the team
When was the hardest of it so far?
Looking back, I have hardly ever carried something alone to the point of thinking I cannot do this, or that I cannot fill this role. I think it is because there was somewhere to take it to the team before it became unbearable.
And what did that teach you?
What that taught me is that getting through everything alone is not the only virtue. Asking for help before a problem grows, saying plainly that you need advice when you judge you cannot do it by yourself, and holding each other up — I have come to see those as capabilities a team cannot achieve anything without.
On young people and politics
Akiyama, the distance between you and politics has closed a great deal over these two years, hasn’t it?
I used to think politics was something distant, something adults carried, something a student like me could not easily be part of. Then I had what I felt taken seriously, and went through the process of giving it a form as an actual program — and I came to feel that I can act on society too.
People often say young people aren't interested in politics.
My view is that it is not that young people have no interest in politics, but that a great many of them do not know how they are supposed to engage with it.
You're studying politics at university now, I gather.
Studying politics has given me more occasions to think about the structures that keep young people's voices from reaching politics, and about why younger generations struggle to feel that taking part is real. Which is exactly why I would rather believe in the possibility than start from the assumption that young people are not interested.
Who do you most want it to reach?
The ones who feel the same distance from politics that I once did, and the ones who cannot yet trust their own opinion. I want to make occasions where they come away feeling that they too can engage with society, and that their voice counts for something.
Finally — your question is: what does it take for a teenager to leave the audience and speak as someone with a stake in it? What kind of place is TEIGEN JP for that question?
For me, TEIGEN JP is not a place where I only think about that question. It is a place where I can form a hypothesis, actually test it, work with people, and give the answer a shape out in society. Which is why what I want to produce next is that first step — the one where more teenagers leave the audience and begin engaging with society in their own words.
Saki Akiyama. Third cohort, joined 2025. Took part in Mock Ward Mayoral Election 2025 as a participant, then planned and ran the 2026 edition from the operations section. Manager of the Civic Education Division since June 2026. First year, Department of Political Science, Faculty of Law, Keio University.