My heartfelt thanks for the great deal of support given to the crowdfunding campaign.
Only three days since the start, and the connections between people have already given me real strength —
I have nothing but gratitude.

There is still the road to the challenge, now just a year away.
I still need your help.
Thank you for staying with me, going forward.
· · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · ·A true friend of mine left these words.

The reason I am asking for thisis to make happen, whatever it takes, her literal “challenge staked on a life” —for what?The person I am backing

is the alien living in Tokyo ✨ Komochan ✨.Born with a congenital condition,
told by doctors she might not live to adulthood,in and out of hospital, missing the ordinary things other children got to experience — and when she finally became an adult, she said: “Everything from here is a bonus life 😆” and flipped how she saw and thought about things, positively ✨.
That was the turning point for a life that changed completely 😆😆.
Try what you want to try ✨.Reflect, but never regret ✨.

When something isn’t working, think about how to make it work ✨.Running not just the country but the whole world,
scattering a smile and a spark of energy over everyone — that is Komochan ✨.And last year Komochan was handed a test from the gods: a malignant tumour, cancer.

A punishing test on top of a lifelong condition that was already slowly progressing.
What Komochan chose, faced with that, was …not crying, and not becoming the heroine of a tragedy.

No surgery, no chemotherapy, no radiation!
Instead, she chose to coexist with the cancer by burning her life doing what she wants to do, with a smile — making real her dream of becoming the first Japanese woman to take on the punishing Peking to Paris car rally.

Exactly as the words say,

“a challenge staked on a life.”Half the circumference of the earth, in 37 days.A challenge that would be punishing even in perfect health, and Komochan’s own words on

“what for” —please read them in her own crowdfunding page first 🙏.
As for what it is for, for me,

it is that because she has cancer, because she is a woman,there is a view only she will see at the far end of this challenge, and I want to see it too, through the shape of supporting her ✨.And I want everyone connected to us to taste that view together 🙏🙏.It helps to hear the words “hang in there”, but what I really want is for you to join the campaign and back her for real.

Eighty per cent of it, carried on other people’s passion

I myself was not prepared for how this campaign has gone.
Because as of today, day three,
eighty per cent of the support has come through my true friends sharing their own feelings about it.

People I have never actually met, people who did not even know who I was, have sent heartfelt messages along with their support.

Thank you, truly.



I can only quote a few of the messages here, but the connection and the support from people I had not yet met has moved me, and I am full of gratitude that the flame of this challenge has been carried forward like a relay baton.

Proof of who that person is

This support, I feel, is not down to my own strength — it is proof of the trust my true friends have built through how they have lived.

A great many dear friends are pushing this challenge forward, and this time I want to introduce one true friend among them.

From Yamaguchi: “Jenifa”, the smile-guiding-ist, Hisayo Hotta.

I met her about seven years ago, and even then she was, exactly as now, someone who threw everything she had into supporting other people. Bright and full of energy — I think hers is a life that has taken on challenges every bit as much as mine.

Yamaguchi and Tokyo are far apart, but her energy for action is extraordinary, and she has built connections all across the country. I have watched her take on challenge after challenge over the years, and watching her has taught me how much a life can change — and given me strength.

A part-timer working at a convenience store (laughs).She hosted the internet radio show “FM Gig Happiness Broadcasting: Everything OK!” for four and a half years and graduated from it in 2020. Just when you thought she could talk, next —

a complete amateur, in February 2017 she became a stage actress! No experience whatsoever in singing, dance or acting, and she appeared in the musical “Live On, You!”

In December 2017, with no experience as an instructor, she won the Fujisankei Business i Prize at the eighth national instructor audition. Her fans, drawn to her story, have grown nationwide.
That was her debut as a speaker across the country.

She now runs her own beauty salon.

Meeting a friend this deeply connected to me, as an adult, is a treasure I would not trade for anything. It is precisely because she too has kept taking things on, laughing and crying by turns, that she backs this challenge of mine with everything she has.

Someone who acts more than she talks

Meeting a friend this deeply connected to me, as an adult, is a treasure I would not trade for anything. It is precisely because she too has kept taking things on, laughing and crying by turns, that she backs this challenge of mine with everything she has.

She is above all someone who can act. And, more than anything, honest. “Got it — I’ll try it.” Always that instant action — though the road of a challenge is not always smooth, and she has been low and hurt and in tears, and even so she has never given up.

So I will not give up either. I want to answer that feeling and see the view from this challenge together with her.

Someone who always finds something to be grateful for

“Wasshoi, wasshoi — if we’re fools either way, let’s be fools together! The reverse of the big turnip story —
let’s all enjoy the festival of life! I’ll carry the shrine too!”

That is what she tells me.

Reading her daily reports, I can see she has thrown herself into this as though it were her own challenge. And something she put into words has stayed with me.

“Thank you for showing me this huge challenge, right now. Because you took this on, I get to light a flame in the people who matter to me, every day — and I have nothing but gratitude for that.”

I want everyone to know a person this wonderful exists.

A message from Jenifa

Jenifa used to be, by her own account, “a genius at smashing the stone bridge and then finding an excuse not to cross it”, and her catchphrase was “I’m only me, after all.”

Bullied through primary, middle and high school, with nothing about herself that felt special, she was always envious of others and could not love herself.

The turning point came twelve years ago, when her second son was suddenly diagnosed with a developmental delay. “What can I do for him?” — grasping at anything, feeling her way blindly, what her hand caught was a meeting with the teacher who opened the door to learning for her.

What he taught was: value the connections you have with people.
With no particular talent of her own, holding onto nothing but honesty and empathy, she followed his teaching to value her connections — and one after another,

unbelievable, wonderful connections came her way. Before she knew it, she was in a position to tell people that even an ordinary woman could bring about a “miracle” — and through that, help more shining, energised adults come into being, and through them, more shining children.

How does an unremarkable Jenifa face herself and keep taking things on, right now? Not a success story but Jenifa in the present tense, still growing — I want you to feel that, and grow together with me. If even one person reads this and decides to live a life that is fun and full of anticipation, I will use my life for that 🙏.