A Message from our Representative
I would be glad if, alongside these nostalgic photographs from five years ago, I could share some of the gratitude I do not often have the chance to express.
On 20 August 2020, SPACE Inc. was born.
Through the children I met at Todai ROCKET, I felt how their individual strength—to break through and take flight—could move society. At the same time, I struggled with the knowledge that individual strength alone could not break through the great walls before us. From that experience, I wanted to create a world in which the value of each child’s existence could be accepted without being denied. As a vessel to encourage a transformation in people’s consciousness itself, I launched SPACE: the world that takes flight from ROCKET and expands beyond it.
In practice, we built third places such as ‘Kamakura ULTLA’ and ‘God Hands’, and developed and shared assessments. Beneath these concrete actions, however, there was always
‘Where have we come from, and where are we going? Can we live together happily while carrying our differences?’
We kept this fundamental question at the heart of what learning means.
Looking back, five years ago I was a complete novice in the world of business (I still struggle desperately and do not manage it particularly well). After spending so long in research and a period of moratorium, I was able to set out in the vessel of a company thanks to Taku Miyake, who invited me to take on the challenge together, and Yu Kaneko, who taught me how to move forwards. I remain full of gratitude: without the courage and tools those two gave me to take the first step, SPACE would never have come into being.
Our advisers—Yuichi Kudo, Sakae Suzuki and Shinnosuke Honjo—supported my heart like protective charms as I tried to enter unknown territory. I was also able to keep moving along the path I believed in because colleagues and family built that chaotic, unfamiliar field with me, through all our struggles. I have come to feel that the many people we met through our projects were the great energy supporting this transformation of consciousness.
It was the greatest gift to witness countless consciousnesses meet, resonate and create a trembling sense of wonder in a place we could experience together with the children.
After SPACE began its journey, strange and precious connections continued to join together as if carried by a current. Through them, I felt how small acts of inner love can spread like ripples, beginning with forgiving and cherishing oneself. The reverse is also true. This time was a process of profound self-transformation: a time spent reconnecting with nature while facing karma and fixed ideas.
Now I have begun a life that brings me halfway back to my hometown of Himeji. As the transformation of my consciousness connects with and integrates the earth at the level of body and soul, I have entered a phase of practising how to face life.
During this transition, on 7 July 2025, I established the non-profit General Incorporated Association EARTH. It is an incomparable joy to build a path towards the awakening of the Earth’s love together with Yuki Imoto and Rika Saionji, whom I respect from the bottom of my heart.
I hope each child will savour their own life fully and recognise that they are living as a being of love. I sincerely hope that this realisation will spread across the Earth and that the awakening of love will open towards world peace.
Our age is shifting from principles of masculine and paternal force towards the fusion and harmony of the feminine and the maternal. I believe the future we hope for will arrive as EARTH—the vessel born in that interval—is nurtured with love at its foundation.
Five years since SPACE was founded. The child who was fifteen when they were at ROCKET has now grown into a young adult of twenty-six. Their presence has grown greatly, becoming something dependable. I am moved by how much fruit time can bring.
Even so, humanity as a whole remains wounded, living within a wounded Earth. I hope we can spend our lives walking the journey of every living thing on Earth regenerating together with the planet.
The journey ahead will carry more gravity. Whereas SPACE centred on ‘consciousness’, EARTH is a physical object—a ‘place’. It has material weight and may not always move as we wish. Yet I am convinced that this is precisely a realm finite life can reach, and one that will remain deeply meaningful in the age of AI, encouraging the evolution of the soul itself.
Even while speaking of the vastness of the Earth and the universe, I am still a small person who was brought low this morning by something caused by my own immature soul. I look forward wholeheartedly to creating a new world together with all of you whom I have had the good fortune to meet in this age—things that cannot be done alone.
The stories that have risen through ROCKET and SPACE are, one by one, irreplaceable treasures to me. These days, I hope that I might share them little by little while I am alive.
This has become a long message, but at this milestone of five years since SPACE was born, I offer my gratitude to everyone who has walked alongside us.
I hope you will continue to share the time ahead with us.
Text by FUKUMOTO, Rie