CEO Message

On April 1, 2026, MEDIA DO marked the 30th anniversary of its founding. We are once again deeply grateful to everyone who has supported us, both within the company and beyond. This milestone was made possible entirely by your support.

Looking back, many things have happened over the past thirty years. There were times when we faced financial difficulties, but with the support of so many people, we were able to go public. Overall, I feel that these thirty years have been a meaningful and fulfilling chapter.

I founded the company on April 1, 1996, and not even six months later, my father passed away suddenly. In November of that same year, I began sending our business partners Kito Yuzu, a signature product of my hometown that my father had long cultivated with great care. Last year marked the 30th consecutive year that I had continued sending them each year without fail.

Looking back on our company's journey, it is impossible to speak of MEDIA DO as it is today without Kito Yuzu, my hometown of Kito in Tokushima Prefecture and my family.

Our move into the Palaceside Building, which I love dearly and where our headquarters is located, and our acquisition of the industry's leading company in 2017 were both made possible by the hard work of our employees, past and present. But those achievements were not the result of their efforts alone. I have always felt that we were supported by my hometown, and that because people understood that background, we were able to take on many challenges and make them a reality.

Even in today's world of advancing technology, things still move forward when people meet and come to understand one another. The people of the present exist because of the past, and we in the present are here for the future. In other words, I believe relationships between people are not limited to this moment alone. They are shaped by the past and built by our thoughts for the future.

I have always made a conscious point of speaking about the past as well when discussing the present or the future.

Not only in Japan but around the world, human civilization has been passed down from the past to the future through images and the written word. One of the greatest examples of this is the book. MEDIA DO is entrusted with books that publishers and authors have created over decades, and in some cases more than a century, and our role is to distribute them digitally with great care.

In that sense, our work is to weave the past into the future through technology.

I believe each of us serves as a bridge in the present, connecting the past to the future.

The same thinking also lies at the heart of our SC (Sustainability Creation) business, which we began pursuing in earnest last year. We have moved from an age when material goods and information were scarce to one in which they are abundant. If we think of the regions that create value and resources as upstream, and the cities where people continue to gather and benefit from them as downstream, then it is no longer enough to think of upstream simply as existing for downstream. Rather, I believe we have entered an age in which upstream regions themselves must think proactively about how they want to live and how they will sustain their communities, and act on that thinking.

What this way of thinking and acting requires is not simply the provision of materials or labor. It requires cultivating and exercising an entrepreneurial mindset by learning how society is structured, understanding it from a broader perspective, and then taking on challenges.

At a time when we are surrounded by discouraging trends like population and regional decline, I believe that by gaining this understanding and taking on challenges, we can find a way forward and develop the strength to protect our regions and hometowns.

The initiatives we pursue include our eBook Distribution business in Japan, our business of bringing Japanese books to the world, especially to the U.S., in print as well as digital formats, and our SC business, which fosters entrepreneurship in local communities. All of these are efforts through which we in the present weave the past into the future.

Our mission is to carry into the future the values of Japanese culture and civilization, as well as the values of regional and local communities that have been sustained across generations, and to help people not only in Japan but around the world come to know and understand them. To do so, we are committed to deepening our understanding of the past with respect, continuing to take on new challenges each day while keeping that mindset, and contributing not only to the publishing industry but to Japan as a whole, especially its regions and local communities. We believe that MEDIA DO's future transformative growth will arise from the steady accumulation of such challenges and contributions.

The assets we have built together over the past thirty years with everyone who has supported us, both within and beyond MEDIA DO, are an unshakable foundation. Building on that foundation, and believing in the potential of the next generation and entrusting the future to them, all of us at MEDIA DO will continue to make every effort to ensure that MEDIA DO's history continues to be embraced by society over the next thirty years.