TOKYO - Ranmaru Kishitani, a 24-year-old education entrepreneur and member of Generation Z who has built a public profile by speaking widely on politics, economics and current affairs, says young people in Japan are becoming more conscious of politics as social media brings elections into everyday life and creates a sense that individual votes can still change outcomes.
Born in 2001, Kishitani graduated from the junior high division of Waseda Jitsugyo School before moving to New York for high school. He was accepted to Fordham University in the United States but chose to spend a year preparing again for university entrance exams, later enrolling at a prestigious university in Italy. During that year as a ronin student, he began posting on social media, a move that eventually led to work as a commentator and media personality.
Kishitani said he did not start posting online with a clear ambition to become a public figure. Rather, he said he began using social media casually with friends because he had too much free time while studying in Japan and felt he needed to find a way to support himself outside a conventional organization. He said he had never been able to imagine himself wearing a suit and fitting smoothly into a company, and believed that in the modern era, anyone who could sell something and gather people online would be able to survive.
His first major response came on TikTok around 2021, when he noticed users replying to comments through short videos and decided he could do the same by simply talking. He said his first video gained traction immediately. While his YouTube channel had only attracted about 3,000 subscribers after two years, TikTok proved to be a better platform for his personality and format. His posts covered university life, study techniques, current affairs and music recommendations, and he said his desire to talk and be listened to was a major part of the appeal.
Kishitani also founded an online cram school in 2023 specializing in entrance preparation for overseas universities, bringing new attention to the education sector while continuing to speak publicly on a wide range of social and political issues.
Asked what defines Generation Z, generally described as people born from the mid-1990s to around 2010 and raised in an era shaped by the internet, smartphones and social media, Kishitani said he still does not know how to answer despite having been asked the question countless times. He suggested that younger people may not be fundamentally different from previous generations, but are often treated as special because their numbers are relatively small and their value in the labor market has risen.
He pushed back against the idea that Generation Z is uniquely obsessed with cost performance, time performance or avoiding unnecessary effort. Kishitani said young people today may appear less willing to endure inefficient customs because society no longer forces them to do so. In his view, if young workers can obtain jobs without going to drinking parties or following old workplace rituals, they have little incentive to participate. "The society we live in created us," he said.
He also commented on the spread of new workplace terms such as "white harassment," a phrase used to describe excessive consideration by bosses or senior employees that may deprive younger workers of challenges or opportunities. Kishitani treated such expressions with skepticism, arguing that many buzzwords appear to be created because media outlets need fresh topics to discuss. He also referred to terms such as "NISA poverty," saying media cycles often produce catchy phrases and then build debates around them.
Kishitani said the current age rewards those who create words. In his view, the ability to invent a phrase that spreads through social media and is then picked up by major business media has become a form of influence. The question, he said, is how to make language run on its own, especially through social media.
On current affairs, Kishitani said his strongest interest is in the United States and the wider global situation, including international politics, rising prices, the weak yen and the impact of U.S. actions on Japan’s economy. Having spent time in the United States, he said America appears to be a country built on the belief that it must produce the next Elon Musk or Steve Jobs, repeatedly taking what he called an "innovation lottery" in the hope that the next breakthrough will save the country before its social problems become too severe.
He said the United States remains the world leader in fields such as artificial intelligence, pointing to the emergence of major AI companies and technologies, but also argued that the country represents capitalism pushed to an extreme. He described American competition as overwhelmingly intense and said he effectively "retired" from that race after high school because the four years he spent there were the hardest-working period of his life.
Kishitani said competition in American high schools was fierce, including racial competition that may not always be visible on the surface but becomes clear once one takes part. As an Asian student, he said he felt he had to fight for his own rights in an environment where everyone was competing for limited seats. He said he came away with admiration for those who can endure that pressure, while also understanding why Americans can become exhausted or broken by it.
By contrast, he described Japan as peaceful in a positive sense, saying the country has a tendency to decline together rather than compete aggressively. He suggested that Japan’s strength may lie in endurance rather than attack, arguing that as the world becomes increasingly unstable, Japan may have a rare capacity to avoid collapse. "Japan is a country that has endured and endured," he said, adding that if Japan can continue to withstand global turmoil, it may eventually regain relative strength.
Kishitani also said political awareness among younger people is clearly rising. He recalled attending what he described as a trivial drinking party where, near the end of the second gathering, an intoxicated young woman began talking about recent political developments. He said the fact that politics came up in such a casual setting felt symbolic.
He identified the 2024 Tokyo gubernatorial election as a turning point, saying the campaign brought politics into Instagram Stories, one of the social media spaces most closely tied to everyday life. He said he began seeing ordinary friends post messages supporting Shinji Ishimaru or arguing in favor of Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike, making him feel that politics had entered daily life rather than remaining separate from it.
Kishitani said the election gave younger voters a kind of success experience, not because Koike won or because Ishimaru lost, but because voting appeared to change the result. Ishimaru, who had been widely unknown nationally, finished second, while Renho was pushed into third place. Although Koike won decisively, Kishitani said the outcome showed that individual voting behavior could move politics in a visible way.
He said that experience may have encouraged people to take part again in later political contests, including the Liberal Democratic Party leadership race in which Sanae Takaichi drew strong support. Kishitani said many people appeared to believe their votes could help keep a preferred politician in power, though he also expressed unease about voters casting ballots for unfamiliar LDP members under the influence of a larger political wave.
Looking ahead, Kishitani said he would like more people from younger generations to run for office, and added that he himself hopes to enter politics someday. While stressing that he still has much to study, he said he would like one day to stand as a candidate and work for society.
Source: 日経CNBC 公式チャンネル
