Nothing changes while you wait for someone else to act.

Start with how you first heard of TEIGEN JP.

A close friend from high school was running the forerunner, TEIGEN at Fifteen.

And what made you decide to join yourself?

He asked me — and beyond that, I had a feeling that here I might meet a version of myself I didn't know yet, and get the chance to change.

What were you aiming at when you joined?

To be an English teacher. I worked mainly on the education side.

I hear you now want to start a business. Was there a moment that changed it?

A conversation on LinkedIn, which I only started because of TEIGEN JP, with someone already working. They said: choose your work by reasoning backward from the state of things you eventually want to bring about.

That one line mattered, then.

It made me think about my future again, and I came to want to start something. I think being able to change direction that far also had a lot to do with having become more confident through the work here.

Where did cleaning as a subject come from?

Something I saw while studying in New Zealand. Gum stuck under the chairs and desks, and bread stuffed into the school toilets.

Not a common sight in a Japanese school.

No. So I was startled — why is it this dirty? — and at the same time started wondering the other way round: why is Japan relatively clean?

Where did you think the difference came from?

In Japan the children clean the school themselves; abroad it is usually left to staff. I thought that whether or not you have ever cleaned the place you use might affect how you treat public space generally.

Though Japan isn't clean everywhere either.

No. There are parts of Shibuya and other busy districts where the litter is obvious. If the sense that cleaning is your business keeps fading, the streets here will get dirtier too. That is why I wanted to reread cleaning not as a chore but as education — as something that builds a way of treating shared space.

Plenty of people notice something like that; not many turn it into a program.

Because I felt that nothing changes while you wait for someone else to act. If nobody did anything, the clean streets I love here might be lost bit by bit. So I decided to go first.

So what was the very first thing you did?

I wrote the proposal.

So you didn't start from what the class would contain.

No. First we went deep with the others on why we were doing this at all. We worked through how things stand around cleaning and what is underneath that, and sorted out what the program was for.

With no precedent, don't you lose your way partway through?

I did. There were times I had no idea what to do next. When that happened I made myself stop being caught up in the task in front of me and go back to what the program was for — then reason backward from the state I ultimately wanted, and work out what was needed now.

What was hard about working with companies and schools?

Being extremely careful with every message that went outside. I had barely used Gmail before and had never been taught business manners, so I learned the wording and the mechanics of sending an email one piece at a time, by feel.

So enthusiasm alone doesn't get through.

I decided that conveying what we felt and how much we cared was not enough to make anyone comfortable working with us. I went over and over what, from their side, would actually be acceptable. Not just what it would mean for them, but whether the thing could be done, whether it was safe, and what its educational value was.

Did you get things wrong?

Yes. Hitting reply instead of forward, using wording that wasn't right —

What did that teach you?

That trust with people outside is built not by enthusiasm but by exchanges that are accurate and careful.

In those two years, when was the worst of it?

When university entrance exams, school tests and preparing to deliver the class all landed at once.

None of which can wait.

I was permanently behind. The stress wrecked my skin, and there were moments of why am I this busy, and maybe I can't do this. Honestly, there were times I wanted to quit.

That sounds like a serious stretch. What kept you going?

Being responsible as manager, and more than that, the sheer enjoyment of building the thing. I had always cared about education, and every time I faced something hard I could feel myself growing a little. That feeling was the reason to keep going a bit longer.

And how did it end up?

I got into university, and we delivered the class.

Did you change how you worked?

I talked to Horii, our director. Talking it through, I realised I had to hand work to the others rather than carry all of it. I put revision first and moved the work forward in the gaps — on the way to school and so on.

Until then you couldn't hand it over.

It was my first time being a manager, and relying on people wasn't really an idea I had. And because the program started from something that bothered me, I think I felt strongly that I had to carry it to the end myself.

How do you see it now?

Handing work to someone is not letting go of responsibility; it is part of what a manager does so the team can move the thing together. Now I try not to push it forward alone — everyone has a role, and when I am stuck I lean on the people around me.

From that first class, what stayed with you most?

The third class of the day.

Why that one?

The children talked a lot and it was hard to hold together, but working from the running order and the division of roles we had prepared, we finished on time with only our own members — the teacher never had to step in. Knowing that the class we had built actually held up in a real school was a huge thing.

Was anything different from what you expected?

How much the atmosphere and the children's reactions differ from class to class within the same year. Some listened quietly; others talked and got excited, and needed a firmer hand on the running.

Anything that didn't go well?

The introductions got so lively they ran over. And when we demonstrated how to use a cloth, I was standing badly, so some children couldn't see what I was doing.

Is there a way of thinking you hold to day to day?

Reasoning backward from the state you want to bring about.

Where do you actually use that?

Preparing the class, I worked out what class I wanted to end up with and then sorted out what had to be prepared and who would do it. The 2026 schedule too: we decided what state we wanted the division to be in at year end and worked back to what each period needed. When I am unsure, I don't stay stuck on the task in front of me; I check the goal first. It is my main test now.

Compared with before you joined, what changed most?

That I can get an idea into action. When I joined I was looking for something that would change me; through starting the cleanup program I got to take one thing that bothered me, turn it into a proposal and a class, and bring companies, schools and other members along with it.

Where do you want to take the cleanup program?

I want it to run every year, not to be a class that happened once.

What does that need?

Not just more partner schools, but working with them early enough that the class goes into their annual curriculum and calendar. And getting the content and the preparation written down, so that it holds a certain quality even when the members running it change. Eventually I want this in schools across the country.

Last question. What is TEIGEN JP, to you?

The place where something that bothered me stopped being a thought and became a form that reached society. The cleanup program began as one small question of mine. Through arguing it out with the others and working with companies and schools, it arrived in front of children as an actual class. It gave me the ability to turn a thought into action, and the confidence to see it through.