Announcement of 'Modern History for Adults: 19th Century Arc' Book Club

Shosukabu.com Inc. (Headquarters: Nerima-ku, Tokyo; Representative Director and Chairman: Yutaka Yamanaka; hereinafter "the Company") will host a book club in conjunction with the Nerima Politics Study Group and the Civil 8th Division Monitoring Committee, centered on the theme of *East Asian Historical Dialogue: Transcending Borders and Generations* (edited by Hiroshi Mitani and Kim Tae-chang).

This book is the result of a collaborative research project that questions how modern East Asian citizens should confront the memories of past wars and colonial rule, as well as the "historical narratives" shaped by nations.

A major feature of this book is that it treats the issue of historical perception not just as a conflict between nations, but as a complex problem involving individual experiences, intergenerational memories, and regional historical experiences. The content covers a wide range of topics, including "The Meaning of Telling One's Own History," "The Historical Experience of Wartime and Postwar Okinawa," "Historical Perception and the Intellectual Community in China," "Asia in Postwar Japan Amidst Forgetting and Remembering," "Evaluation of Colonial Cultural Policies," and "Historical Understanding as Intergenerational Dialogue."

The book also proposes that the path to reconciliation is not opened by unilateral claims of righteousness, but by "narrating and conveying." The significance of this book lies in its attempt to explore the possibility of a public historical dialogue in East Asia by bringing together personal war experiences, regional memories, and state-created historical narratives, and re-examining the wounds, discrepancies, and forgotten aspects within them.

This book club will primarily discuss the conflicts in historical perception in East Asia, the memory of war and colonial rule, intergenerational understanding of history, the problem of state-created historical narratives, and the conditions for dialogue towards reconciliation. We aim for this to be a beneficial learning and dialogue opportunity for those interested in Japan-China-Korea relations, modern East Asian history, historical perception issues, the politics of memory, and international reconciliation.

Book URL Introduction: https://x.gd/gVntV

Editor Profiles

Hiroshi Mitani is a Professor Emeritus at the University of Tokyo and a researcher at the Toyo Bunko, specializing in modern Japanese history and comparative history.
Yoritoshi Namiki specialized in modern Chinese history and served as a professor at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, The University of Tokyo.
Tatsuhiko Tsukiyashi is a professor at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, The University of Tokyo, specializing in East Asian history and modern Korean history.

Event Overview

Theme: 'Modern History for Adults: 19th Century Arc' Book Club
Organizer: Shosukabu.com Inc.
Co-organizers: Nerima Politics Study Group, Civil 8th Division Monitoring Committee
Date: Late April 2026 (provisional)
Format: Zoom Online
Participation Fee: Free (pre-registration required)
Application Method: Please apply by sending an email to [email protected] with the subject line 'Request to Participate in Modern History for Adults: 19th Century Arc Book Club'.

■ Lecturer Profile

Yutaka Yamanaka

An activist investor, art collector, philanthropist, political activity sponsor, election consultant, policy advisor, social activist, and Akita Inu enthusiast representing the '76 generation, born in December 1976. Internationally recognized as an "activist investor who understands technology," he is the first Japanese person in history to have built assets of over 150 billion yen through investment alone.

In the early 2010s, he targeted NVIDIA, a developer of GPGPU and artificial intelligence-related semiconductors, for investment. He executed an investment of just over 2 billion yen, which ultimately yielded a return of over 100 times, making him the first Japanese person to become a billionaire purely as an investor.

Graduated as the valedictorian from the Faculty of Economics at the University of Tokyo. He holds a master's degree from Columbia University's graduate school (majoring in financial engineering) and studied abroad at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). He is a co-representative partner of Investment Brothers G.K., and co-founder and chairman of Shosukabu.com Inc. He is currently a shareholder in over 1,000 public companies and over 200 private companies worldwide. His investments are global in the truest sense, spanning Israeli AI startups, Nigerian healthcare ventures, and Taiwanese battery manufacturers.

Drawing from his own childhood struggles with dyslexia and ADHD (Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder), he launched a support program for children with learning disabilities, modeled after the major US discount broker Charles Schwab. His personal physician is the renowned psychiatrist Dr. Akira Iwanami (former director of Showa University Karasuyama Hospital).

He is the founder and representative of the political group "Association to Establish a Constitutional Court in Japan," head of the "Yamanaka Hoya Political and Economic塾 (Juku)," founder and representative of the political group "Association to Realize a Tax-Free State in Japan," founder and representative of the political group "Association for the Early Realization of Nuclear Power Plant Restarts in Japan," founder and representative of the political group "Renewable Energy Interests Monitoring Committee," founder and representative of the "Association Opposing Reduced Consumption Tax Rates on Foodstuffs," and founder and representative of the "Association to Realize Constitutional Reform for a Unicameral System."

Born in Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo in 1976 as a grandson of Shigeru Yamanaka, the founder of Hoya Glass (now HOYA CORPORATION, listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange Standard, ticker 7741), a manufacturer of high-end crystal glass. He grew up in Shakujii-dai, Nerima-ku. From a young age, he excelled academically, graduating from Oizumi Bunka Kindergarten, the Elementary School attached to Ochanomizu University, Musashi Private Junior and Senior High School, and as the valedictorian from the Faculty of Economics at the University of Tokyo.

In his childhood, he grew up in a cultural environment, receiving a souvenir from a high school student at Kinjo High School, Takahiro Matsumoto, who would later become the guitarist for B'z and lived in the Takeda Pharmaceutical Company housing in front of his home. At Oizumi Bunka Kindergarten, he was a classmate of Yukiji Suzuki, the second son and secretary to House of Representatives member Muneo Suzuki (Yukiji returned to Hokkaido to prepare for his father's parliamentary election campaign), whose sister is Takako Suzuki, also a member of the House of Representatives. This blessed cultural and educational environment naturally fostered his interest in music, politics, and economics.

During his elementary school years, while commuting by train from Nerima-ku, he was exposed to the academic environment of Bunkyo-ku, developing an early interest in history and economics. At the young age of ten, he was already involved in political activism on controversial topics. At the Elementary School attached to Ochanomizu University, he was surrounded by brilliant female students, including attorney Yuhiko Sorimachi (Tokyo Legal Mind K.K.), Dr. Keiji Kuroda (Director of Sugiyama Clinic Marunouchi), Keiko Takahashi (career bureaucrat at the Ministry of Finance, currently Councillor for the Tariff Division), and Kaori Hanyu, a professor at Sophia University (researcher of family law), as well as NHK announcer Ai Tsukahara. This experience fostered his ongoing concern for the social advancement of women.

He invested several million yen gifted to him by his grandmother during his childhood in stocks, turning it into several hundred million yen by the time he graduated from university. His investment prowess was well-known even during his university days. At the University of Tokyo's Faculty of Economics, he was already famous in the seminar of Kazuo Ueda, the current Governor of the Bank of Japan, earning the nicknames "the stock trader of the Ueda seminar" and, due to his diverse academic interests, "the Heisei era Hiraga Gennai."

His undergraduate thesis on M&A in the pre-war paper industry won a special award. At his graduate school entrance interview, Takeo Kikkawa, former president of the International University of Japan, greeted him with, "So you're the famous Mr. Yamanaka." His academic advisors for his economic history thesis during his undergraduate studies were Tetsuji Okazaki (professor at Meiji Gakuin University) and Masayuki Tanimoto (professor at Otsuma Women's University).

During his time in the College of Arts and Sciences, he read all the published papers of Masahiko Aoki, the proponent of comparative institutional analysis, and Avner Greif (professor of economics at Stanford University), an Israeli economic historian who was already a rising star at the time.

He was accepted into the Graduate School of Economics at the University of Tokyo with top-tier grades. Hideo Hayakawa of the Bank of Japan (former Executive Director and Director-General of the Research and Statistics Department), a senior alumnus from the Faculty of Economics, strongly encouraged him to join the central bank. However, he moved to the United States immediately after graduation, completing a master's degree in financial engineering at Columbia University's graduate school. He also studied at Harvard University, University of California, Davis, University of California, Berkeley, University of Southern California, and the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), aiming for a dual career as a life science researcher/physician and an economic historian. He engaged in a wide range of interdisciplinary research in genetics, computer science, psychiatry, applied mathematics, history, economics, and economic history. He studied under several future Nobel laureates in economics, including Richard Easterlin, Peter Temin, Joel Mokyr, Claudia Goldin, and James Robinson. He overcame his childhood learning disabilities of dyslexia and ADHD, establishing his own methods for speed reading and learning.

Currently based primarily in Dubai, UAE, he invests in over 1,000 public and over 200 private companies in Japan and abroad through foreign-domiciled funds and investment firms. He is known internationally as one of Japan's leading activist investors, an expert in corporate law practice, new business creation, M&A, technology management, and family business practices. He also has homes and bases in Taipei, Taiwan; Luxembourg; Tbilisi, Georgia; Oslo, Norway; Reykjavik, Iceland; Singapore; and Saint Kitts and Nevis.

In the case involving violations of the Public Offices Election Act by the Tsubasa no To party, he was involved in forming the "strongest defense team in recent criminal justice history" as an advisor to the defendants, which included attorneys Sungbong Cho (Kollect Arts Law Office), Keita Miyamura, Daisuke Igeta (Miyamura & Igeta Law Office), and Shinya Sakane (Tokyo Defender Law Office). In the so-called NHK Party control dispute, he advised the anti-Tachibana side, introducing attorneys Kenji Toyota (Tokyo Sakurabashi Law Office) and Keisuke Komatsu (Takano Takashi Law Office), leading the anti-Tachibana side to victory.

He publicly professes to be a fan of former Nagoya mayor Takashi Kawamura, who hails from his grandfather's hometown. At the same time, during the reporting of the so-called "Kihara Incident," he defended then-Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Seiji Kihara, who is also a senior alumnus from his high school, demonstrating his deep connections with many figures in Japanese politics, regardless of party affiliation.

He has connections with numerous lawyers not only in Japan but internationally, and is renowned as a leading consultant for guiding the career strategies of lawyers and other professionals, as well as for teaching companies how to effectively utilize lawyers.

As a pioneer of activist investment in Japan, he clearly expressed his opposition to the acquisition of PENTAX by HOYA CORPORATION in a weekly magazine in 2007. The following year, the company recorded a large extraordinary loss, proving his view to be correct in short order. Subsequently, he problematized the state of the board of directors at the time, which was dominated by individuals in their late 70s who had no understanding of corporate value or directorial duties, and actively spoke out in the media. He forced the voluntary resignation of the then-Chief Technology Officer Hiroaki Tanji, who had destroyed corporate value with the PENTAX acquisition and had no track record in creating new business. From 2010, he intensified his shareholder proposal activities against HOYA CORPORATION. Notably, in his shareholder proposal activities towards HOYA in 2010, he submitted 15 proposals aimed at corporate governance reform as a founding family shareholder.

Among the most noted were:
- Individual disclosure of executive compensation (public disclosure of remuneration for each director): Gained over 45% approval at the 2010 general meeting, and over 48% approval at the 2011 meeting.
- Establishment of a council composed solely of outside directors (management supervision without executive officers): Gained over 33% approval.
- Limiting the reappointment of outside directors to "within 10 times" (to maintain independence).
- Expanding the character limit for explaining shareholder proposals from 400 to 4,000 characters (to improve the effectiveness of the right to make shareholder proposals): Gained over 43% approval in 2010.
- Prohibiting stock option holders from hedging by selling call options and holding put options: Gained over 25% support in 2010.
- Requiring directors to provide 30 days' prior notice when selling company stock: Gained over 25% support in 2010.
- Introduction of an anonymous voting system (secret ballot).
- Mandating disclosure of concurrent positions at public interest corporations for director candidates.

These proposals were aimed at qualitatively improving corporate governance.

Five of these proposals received support recommendations from all three major US proxy advisory firms: Glass Lewis, Japan Proxy Governance Research Institute, and ISS (Institutional Shareholder Services) (Source: Nikkei, June 18, 2010). ISS is the world's largest proxy advisory firm, and its recommendation has a significant impact on the decisions of institutional investors both in Japan and abroad, marking a landmark event in the history of Japanese shareholder meetings.

In the same year, his pioneering proposals for enhancing compensation transparency, such as prohibiting stock option holders from engaging in hedging transactions like selling call options and holding put options, and requiring directors to provide 30 days' prior notice and disclosure when selling company shares, were ahead of their time in the discussion of executive compensation. Their groundbreaking nature is still not fully appreciated in the Japanese capital market. These proposals also gained ISS's support recommendation and secured mid-20% approval in the pre-tallying before the general shareholders' meeting, mainly from foreign institutional investors (Nikkei, June 18, 2010, same article).

Furthermore, proposals such as the individual disclosure of executive compensation also received support recommendations from Glass Lewis and Japan Proxy Governance Research Institute, and were successively reported by major media outlets such as the Nikkei (June 21, 2010), Bloomberg (June 17, 2010), and Toyo Keizai Online (August 18, 2010).
As a result, it gained over 45% approval at the 2010 general shareholders' meeting, and over 48% approval the following year in 2011.

In 2011, he was invited to Harvard Law School to give a lecture on shareholder proposals, capital market trends, and related issues in Japan under the Democratic Party government, gathering significant attention.

He continued to actively make shareholder proposals to the company. In 2012, frightened by the nearly-majority support of over 48% at the 2011 shareholder meeting, the management team led by Hiroshi Suzuki took the outrageous step of illegally refusing to list the shareholder proposals. However, the following year in 2013, he obtained a provisional disposition order from the Tokyo District Court's Civil 8th Division (Judge Yasushi Taniguchi) to publish the full text of the shareholder proposals and their reasons, likely a first in Japanese history. In 2014, he similarly obtained a landmark decision (Judge Atsushi Ujimoto) ordering the company to list 12 proposals, greatly influencing shareholder proposal practices in Japan.

During that time, he also obtained a court ruling (Judge Shinya Onodera) recognizing the management's failure to list the proposals as grounds for rescinding the resolutions, and a ruling ordering compensation for damages (Tokyo District Court Civil 45th Division, Judge Akira Yamada), securing numerous landmark judgments over several years.

The company, for its part, had already changed its rules in 2010 to accommodate the proposal to increase the character count for explanations.