Bickering in the ward office bike lot.

First, a brief introduction, if you would.

I’m Yuna Yokoyama. I’m a first-cohort member, one of the founders, and these days I’m involved with TEIGEN JP as one of the Legacy Fellows. I’d been doing civic work outside school since my third year of junior high, and along the way, through an event, I met Horii, who is now our president.

You were already interested in Adachi and citizenship education back then, right?

Honestly, no, I wasn’t. When I first met Horii, my field of interest was Japan’s national security. What started it was that I wanted to create a space where I could talk about politics with friends my own age.

So you were the one who reached out.

Yes. When I asked Horii, “Why don’t we start some kind of political project?”, he said, “Actually, there’s something I’ve been wanting to do,” and told me about a mock ward mayoral election. That was the beginning of everything that is TEIGEN JP today.

Where did the idea for the mock election originally come from?

The first Mock Ward Mayoral Election was originally meant to put into practice the presentation that won the top prize at the first Policy Koshien, organized by the Junior Chamber International Japan — by a team of four, including Horii, who went to Adachi Ward Daiyon Junior High School. So I joined those four, as someone with a lot of extracurricular experience, and we worked out the event plan together. That’s how it went back then.

Doing it in your hometown must have mattered too.

I did feel that meant a lot — that we could do this project in my hometown of Adachi, with members from Adachi. I thought: there are such wonderful people here in Adachi, where I was born and raised. It made me happy.

Where did you first take the idea to the ward?

Our first contact skipped right past the election commission and the assembly secretariat — it went through a teacher Horii was close to. Looking back, there’s something green about that headlong rush that didn’t follow the steps, right? We got it all the way to an actual event because the chair of the election commission at the time was very generous and gave us lots of advice. We were reckless, but I think that was another kind of fate.

You were fifteen and pitching to the government. Weren’t you nervous?

Not really nervous, I think. Excited, looking forward to it, sensing it could get interesting — that kind of thing.

So no worry about being treated like kids, either.

I understood how siloed government is, so there was a chance we’d be brushed off, but… the teacher who had been advising Horii listened to us so positively that I didn’t really worry about that. If anything, I went in thinking, “This is what the residents want — so listen up!” I’m strong-willed like that.

What was the hardest part of putting on the first one?

Me — I can’t keep task deadlines. I just can’t. Back then I was a “pathologically lazy, hopeless case,” so I got told off again and again.

Were there other walls besides deadlines?

What was really serious was the “I don’t know what to do” problem.

You couldn’t see what needed doing.

There are things you absolutely have to do. You can tell this probably isn’t going to work as it is, but you’ve “already done everything necessary.” We knew what we wanted the day to be, but the participants didn’t know anything. So what should we do to help them understand? What should we submit to the ward office, and what should we hand the assembly members? (But we have a plan, and a request letter, and Horii’s making the slides for the day right now…) — there were times I truly didn’t know what to do. And then, right before the event, it turns into “I have to do this, I have to do that.”

Speaking of deadlines — how was Horii?

In the end, Horii can’t keep deadlines either (laughs). Without the slides we couldn’t plan how people would move through the day, so we needed the slides and the outline of the program early or we couldn’t move — and yet the slides were finished the day before, if I remember right. Even when we said we’d make them, Horii absolutely wouldn’t let go (laughs).

And that lesson carried over to the next one, right?

At the first one, we didn’t understand how important the slides were, we hadn’t properly agreed on the flow of the day in advance, and we hadn’t fully communicated it to the ward office either. That became a real lesson, and it was put to use in the second one.

You founding members must have clashed a lot.

Horii and I were both natural leaders, and Horii in particular is a one-man show — he wants everything to go the way he thinks, with himself at the center (or rather, I think he probably can’t settle down otherwise). So we clashed many times. There were times I agonized over how to get him to understand that this was a team, not a personal project.

Did you tell him that?

“You’re only Horii because of everyone!” — I think we said that many times, just the two of us and with the whole team.

What role do you think you played on the team?

Hmm, what would it be. Maybe the mood-maker? I’d been very active in extracurricular activities, so I passed the network I’d built there on to TEIGEN.

The group that started with four is now an organization of nearly forty. How do you see that?

Honestly, Horii’s drive and his ability to bring people in turned out to be far greater than I expected. I never imagined he’d grow and run the organization this properly, so I think it’s amazing. And I also see real value in the fact that this many people want to follow this organization. Let’s all do what we want to do~.

As a Legacy Fellow, you’re now handing the group on to younger members. Is there anything you want to tell them?

Don’t let adults exploit you. Turn even the ambitions of dirty adults into your own strength, and do what this organization should do — that’s how I feel.

Last question. What is TEIGEN JP to you?

Something like Grandma’s house.