No.00 Second part

“I’m increasingly told that it’s hard to find anything our products are similar to. That is the best compliment I could get.” In the late 90s, the age of sampling was in full swing in music. Right at that time, I had the opportunity to be a studio assistant for the recordings of one of Japan’s most famous bands. And a musician there said “You don’t need to think about making new music anymore. Today’s music is made by taking bits of past songs and cobbling them together.” This felt incredibly alien to me. That’s a coordinator or DJ’s job, not something a musician should do. When I was involved in music, I always wanted to compete on originality. But the Beatles had their chord progressions, Eric Clapton had his guitar chords, and the reality was that most of the original methods that were possible in songwriting seemed to have already been done. There hadn’t really been any new instruments since the electric guitar and synthesizer either. Looking back now, the way musicians composed their songs, including their decisions about what instruments to use in performances, possibly amounted to sampling too. I’d say fashion is another area where it’s become more difficult to create something fresh and innovative. The majority of today’s fashion is an arrangement or homage to past trends. At times I’ve thought that because that’s the age we’re in now, our manufacturing is going down the same path, but lately I’ve been thinking that this is a little different from the limitations I talked about in the first part. What led me to think that way was people telling me that it’s hard to find any competitors’ products that our products are similar to. I’m increasingly told that it’s hard to compare our products, including our OSAJI cosmetics brand, to anyone else’s. That is the best compliment I could get; they are effectively saying that our products are original. The majority of cosmetics products out there are made in comparison to existing European or American brands—their whole thing is about being modeled on this or similar to that. Japanese brands are no exception. With the way things are, it really boosts my confidence to be told that it’s hard to liken our brand’s worldview or the ingredients we use to other brands. I’m convinced that the reason we occupy this position is because I plowed in without any knowledge. The first pamphlet I made for OSAJI cost 200,000 yen (about US$1,300)! (laughs) But having no budget is a limitation in itself, and it forced me to make a lot of effort to make the pamphlet look cool and stylish. The end result was something that couldn’t be compared to the brands with deep pockets. It’s not something I would have chosen, but looking back, this way of doing things was very worthwhile. “Having that excellent sense is a license to make a living from creative work.” These days, people in creative jobs seem to really like having a framework. They’re all working from a catch-all system. That certainly makes things easy and the statements they make are persuasive in their way, but there’s no escaping the fact that what they produce…there are no surprises? In any case, it all ends up being similar. If you ask me whether I’m moved by something that comes out of a framework, I’m not. If you’re going to do something, what’s important is how much it departs from that common framework. In order to do that, you have to listen to your intuition and instincts. When your intuition and instincts speak to you and tell you to make a statement, you need to trust that more. When that inspiration hits depends on the person. Your typical artists will create things at totally random times, while some people will get an idea just from watching a film. As for me, I think I get a lot of my inspirations when I’m arguing with someone. I’ve actually been doing training lately to get my intuition and instincts to kick in more easily. When I drive, I try to avoid relying on GPS as much as possible, and follow my intuition based on the information that was drummed into me before. Things like that. Not eating until I’m actually hungry is another part of that training. The instinct to eat comes after you get hungry, so I wait until then. It’s little things like that. I’ve always been interested in ancient medicine, and even OSAJI’s brand name comes from the doctors in the Edo Period [1603-1868]. The doctors in the Edo Period, and the periods before it, had to examine patients without X-rays. I admire the way they were able to practice medicine under those limitations. Doctors back then detected what was wrong with the patient by what they could feel with their hands. It was the ultimate in palpation. Their senses had to be extremely sharp in order to do it. I think design is a world where you have to have excellent sense. I think having that excellent sense is a license to make a living from creative work. So much wears out as we get older, but as someone who doesn’t have that bank of knowledge, the thing I’d be most lost without is senses like my intuition. The truth is, as I get older, that sense gets sharper. My view of things is getting sharper and sharper. That’s certainly happened with my perceptions of people. The moment I’m face to face with someone, I can tell what they’re thinking and what kind of personality they have. People ask “how did you know?” and I say “it’s intuition!” “I want to make people happy by sharing my knowledge and techniques with them, whether it’s my children, the people around me, or my customers.” I think that when you succeed in business or the like, one of the perks is that you get more opportunities to be in the room with people you admire and talk with them. In my case, as I’ve grown older, I’ve had more opportunities to meet musicians I respect. But meeting those people is less important to me than going and listening to music by kids riffing in live venues in Shimokitazawa. To me, that time is more important than you might think. I’d say I want to internalize information through immersion rather than in an intellectual way. If you don’t do that, whether you’re in manufacturing or something else, you quickly fall into complacency. At the end of the day, I want to make things that help people who are struggling. I don’t want to be like “I made this so stop quibbling and just use it!” There’s nothing appealing about that kind of manufacturing. My ideal is to make things that are useful to people who are struggling with something. I think we can all agree that when you give people what they want, they’re happy. But I think buying someone whatever they want just to make them happy isn’t the same thing. I particularly firmly believe this when it comes to children. I don’t want to just buy them things; I want to make people happy by sharing my knowledge and techniques with them, whether it’s my children, the people around me, or my customers. The same was true when I announced OSAJI’s perfumes. We made them because I wanted there to be something for people who were concerned about hormone imbalances. I didn’t release them just for the artistic value of fragrances. So I don’t market them to appeal to people’s sense of luxury with expensive ingredients. Once you do that, the next products have to be even more luxurious, and you just go around in circles. We position ourselves as the “fourth generation” of Japanese cosmetics brands. The first generation is the top companies, the industry leaders, and the second generation is the brands that have branched out from online cosmetics sales to nutritional supplements. The third generation is the brands that get involved with people’s whole lifestyle, and then we’re the next step. A marketing representative for an overseas cosmetics company once said “Cosmetics marketing is shifting from aspiration—what people want to become—to autonomy—people being themselves.” In the days when aspirational marketing was at its peak, TV commercials starred actresses and models. They showed something to aspire to and said “you can be like that too.” When the focus shifted to autonomy, the messaging changed to something like “cherish who you are” and the figures to look to now are people close to home—your makeup artists and stylists. But in both cases, consumers are being given figures to look to, and ultimately everyone up to the third generation has relied on that same marketing method. In that sense, I think we as the fourth generation are aiming for true autonomy. Autonomy is often interpreted as “being yourself,” but I think it’s about reaching a point where you’re not comparing yourself to anyone, and the comfort that comes from that. I want OSAJI as a cosmetics brand to be a comfortable presence in those people’s lives. A ubiquitous presence that is never swayed by anyone else’s words. I think that’s what it means to be the fourth generation. Obviously we don’t need to do the impossible in the name of comfort, but there are various levels of comfort. It’s not something you dedicate yourself to searching for and eventually find. Rather, the ideal is that people who are not really interested in cosmetics try our products and they’re just right. It’s not “this is perfect;” it’s “this will do.” The relationship I want consumers to have with our products is one where they happen across our products, try them out and enjoy them more than they ever thought possible. “When you refine your technique and push it to the limit, that’s when you get art.” The way brands and consumers interact has changed a lot. Brands used to be aspirational and people didn’t pay much attention to brands for things in their immediate spheres. But in future, I think people won’t pay for the value of items; they’ll pay for concepts and activities that resonate with them—it will be about what they support. Crowdfunding is a great example of that. I want our cosmetics to be the same way; rather than consumers asking how much each product costs relative to its value, I want them to interact with this brand’s culture and the staff who work for us and spend money because they support our brand or agree with it, like “that’s great, I like it, I want to see what these people can do.” I want our cosmetics to be a gift of gratitude for that. A friend of mine opened a restaurant right before COVID-19 hit. Just when we came out of it and he thought the restaurant was starting to get busy, something else happened—he himself burned out. He was a chef who valued communication with each customer, so it really stressed him out to be too busy to have a good conversation with the customers who came in and then see them off. I told him “why not have a pay-what-you-want day? Even if it’s just once.” On that day, no prices would be printed on the menu. Instead, customers would come in, eat and drink, and then when they left, they’d pay an amount that expressed their satisfaction. When I was in the music industry, I played in a surprise concert for a professional musician where people paid what they wanted, and I found that we made much more than we did by selling individual tickets. I had the feeling that this style would go down well at a restaurant too, and above all, I wanted to make customers think about how much satisfaction they had gotten from the time they spent their—the meals, the drinks, the service, everything—instead of robotically calculating the price of each meal. The restaurant, too, would see how much money they had been given and instantly see how much support they had received. And if he doesn’t get much, that means the restaurant isn’t desirable. It would be difficult to do it every day, but he could do it once a month or so to connect with his customers. Next time, I’m going to talk with a crowdfunding host on this site. I think the way his platform gives a hand up to creative activities like films and music is unique. This crowdfunding isn’t advance sales of a product. If this kind of system takes hold in Japan, it might get rid of the problem we have where when startups and small and medium businesses want to try something new, they have trouble getting funds. Japanese manufacturing can’t compete on the world stage simply by being sturdy and cheap like it did before. As our population declines and the people involved in manufacturing shrinks with it, businesses and companies will probably only survive if they can come up with added value that’s different from before and improve their value. So what will added value look like in future? The creator’s passion? The design? Or the functionality? They say we’re post-materialism and people are becoming more interested in ecology and sharing, so since added value used to be largely about the desire to own something, the definition of added value is changing. I hope that through this site I’ll be able to grasp the outlines of new added value. With that said, I myself am quite attached to the industries and manufacturing of the era of Japan’s high economic growth—I often jokingly say that that I want to be a traditional industrialist. I don’t call myself a traditional artisan, partly because I’m not an artist, but mainly because I think Japan’s industrial technology is the best in the world and I’m proud of that. The construction of our shrines and temples is a good example—the materials are assembled without a single nail and I think anyone in the world can see how beautiful they are. When you refine your technique and push it to the limit, that’s when you get art. I’d say that’s a strength of Japan’s, and one form of added value that enables us to compete globally. The key to this is figuring out how to build up our intuitive creativity. I hope that this site will provide hints for a new age of creations that we can’t picture yet—neo-creations, if you will. Text：Masahiro Kamijyo