After only a dozen years in business, he turned a supermarket that was about to go bankrupt into the current Seibu Distribution Group. However, he made a decision that went against his ancestors and withdrew from the business circle to devote himself to literary creation.
Tsujii Kyo.
A writer with profound thoughts.
His criticism of materialism is deep-rooted. When he was in college, he was an idol-level writer for many people. He was also very prolific and won many literary awards around the world.
If a person can achieve such an achievement in any field, it is enough to leave a mark in history.
However, these people are actually the same person!
After holding the videotape with the BGM inserted in it and finding out that Seiji Tsutsumi was currently in Tokyo, Nagano Nao became hesitant.
Seiji Tsutsumi spent the first half of his life betraying his ancestors. Every word in the books he wrote was filled with dissatisfaction and criticism of this capitalist country, and hatred and disgust for materialistic consumption.
To use a metaphor, Tsujii Kyo is a bit like the contemporary Japanese Lu Xun.
It can be seen from works such as "Criticism of Consumerism" that a lot of the content is sarcastic and criticizes the evil trend of materialism, which has caused the moral decline of the Yamato nation and made society unfair.
Keio! It has always been a base of materialism, a nursery for the rich, a Japanese Jewish gathering place, and the source of capitalism.
A big part of the reason for the political confrontation between the University of Tokyo and Keio University is due to different ideologies. It is very strange to visit someone with a completely different ideology and ask him to deal with your family.
Bang! Nagano Nao slapped himself.
What are you afraid of?
Inherit the glorious traditions of our revolutionary predecessors, love our motherland and our people,
The bright red scarf fluttered on the chest, fearless of difficulties, fearless of enemies, tenacious study, resolute struggle, bravely marching towards victory Humming a song.
Nagano Nao felt that he had found strength and courage, but he was troubled when he thought about how to greet Seiji Tsutsumi when he visited him.
Call him Master Di? Mr. Di?
Your Excellency? Or should I call him Comrade?
at the same time.
Tokyo.
Seibu Distribution Group headquarters.
As it is the end of the month again, a coordination meeting for this month is held.
More than a hundred companies including Seibu Department Store, Seiyu Supermarket, PARCO, MUJI, etc. gathered together and surrounded by four layers of people, causing the carbon dioxide emissions in the air to exceed the standard.
As per usual.
Each company reported its total sales and profit for the month.
During the consumption bubble era, performance reports and total sales were naturally quite good. Companies of all sizes performed very well, and there was a good upward momentum.
Seibu Department Store earned 20 billion, Journey to the West Supermarket earned 12 billion, and the presidents of PARCO reported their companies' profits with rosy and happy faces, but few people noticed that Seiji Tsutsumi, who was in the chief position, was not happy.
After the monthly meeting.
Several old colleagues and good friends who had accompanied Seiji Tsutsumi for more than ten years stayed.
Seiji Tsutsumi said, "Mina-san, let's gather at my house tonight."
"That's great. Come to think of it, I haven't had a drink with Tsutsumi-kun in a while since I've been so busy with work!"
“.”
that's all.
Get off work in the evening.
The group filed to Seiji Tsutsumi's home.
There is Yves Saint Laurent, who left Dior 20 years ago and developed with Seiji Tsutsumi, there is Issey Miyake, who is very famous today, and there is Kazuko Koike, who is not well-known but is hailed as a genius in the publicity department of department stores.
Since they were all old friends, Tsutsumi Seiji didn't hold back and asked everyone to take a seat. Then they sat together to eat and drink.
After three rounds of wine and five dishes, it is the turn of middle-aged men to complain about society.
Tsutsumi Seiji said with a drunken look on his face: "Have you noticed that the sales curve of department stores shows that the situation in society is getting worse and worse."
"Is it the increase in MUJI's sales?" Issey Miyake took over the conversation and asked. MUJI has always been following the low-end, label-free, popular, high-quality, cheap and frugal route, but MUJI's sales continue to rise, which in this bubble economy era means that people's consumption power is declining.
Seiji Tsutsumi nodded and said, "Yes! Young people's consumption concept has not changed, but MUJI's sales have increased rapidly. This can only mean that their consumption potential has been greatly overdrawn, so they have no choice but to go to MUJI."
"Isn't this great? We founded MUJI in the hope of getting rid of the concept of branding. Isn't it what you, Tsutsumi-kun, wanted to see when we achieved this scale?"
In the 1970s, with the rapid economic development, Western consumerism began to spread, manifested in the unnecessary and frequent replacement of goods and the casual discarding of items that still had value.
The long-standing tradition of frugality was abandoned, with rice being eaten one bowl at a time and thrown away the next, and only the middle part of the fish being eaten, with the head and tail thrown away.
Blind worship of famous European luxury brands, gaudy packaging, advance overdrafts, advance consumption... In order to attract consumers' attention, manufacturers rack their brains and spend a lot of resources and energy on packaging, advertising and design, but in fact they do not bring real value and benefits to customers.
Brands like Chanel, Louis Vuitton and others would first rent stores in his supermarkets for trial operation, and would open exclusive stores after confirming the business model. However, the price of a product that is obviously OEM-produced would increase by hundreds of times after it was slapped with a logo, yet countless people would pay for it.
I hate this kind of blind materialistic consumption, and I also hate the payment of this IQ tax.
"It doesn't make sense for products of the same quality to be much cheaper just because they don't have a brand. For example, if there is a gap in the cap of a matsutake mushroom or the neck is not straight, it is considered defective, substandard, and cheaply processed, but the soup is no different from that of a high-priced matsutake mushroom."
At that time, when Seiji Tsutsumi was discussing with Saeko Saegusa, the famous editor-in-chief of "Jojo Koron" and later the director of "Institute of Product Science", how to develop new products such as "Housewives' Eyes" and "Hometown Famous Products" and how to have the Seiyu supermarket chain provide sales venues, the four words "MUJI" suddenly popped up.
That is – a brand without a brand.
We sent people to visit customers and conduct social surveys. We found that most consumers believe that agricultural and sideline products are not for viewing but for eating. There is no need to require them to be of the same size, thickness, and length. As long as the quality is good, it is sufficient to indicate the place of origin and farm.
The same goes for other products, which should be of good quality and low price, and should not be put the cart before the horse or wasteful. After repeated discussions and multiple demonstrations, he finally decided to name this type of anti-brand and anti-trend product, which pursues simplicity, long-lasting durability and reasonable price as "MUJI".
It is different from commodities where the product comes first and the brand comes later. It is where the concept comes first and the product comes later. Moreover, all products must follow a unified design concept and embody the spirit of natural simplicity and rusticity.
So nine years ago, a promotional poster designed by Ikko Tanaka titled "The Reason Why It's Cheap" was placed in newspapers and distributed to people: "The whole body of a salmon is salmon. In the past, canned salmon removed the head and tail, leaving only the most beautiful belly in the middle. MUJI's canned salmon uses the whole fish as raw material, emphasizing no waste and maximizing utilization."
Nine years have passed.
MUJI has grown to more than one hundred stores.
However, Seiji Tsutsumi tossed and turned, unable to sleep all night, feeling very unhappy seeing the hundreds of millions of yen coming in every day.
As an economist and the god of Japan's retail industry, he has already sensed a huge crisis.
Listening to his friends' words of comfort, Seiji Tsutsumi picked up his wine glass and took a sip. He blushed and said dejectedly, "Midori-san says that I have a big business, but you don't know how painful it is for me to earn every yen!"
I'm not interested in money?
The happiest time of my life was when I was a university teacher.
It's a bad thing for Seiji Tsutsumi. The company earns billions of yen every day, but every yen he earns is painful.
If someone else said this, they would definitely ask you to give me this pain!
But the people present looked at each other with helplessness.
Mr. Tsutsumi is sick again! Just as Seiji Tsutsumi said in his reply to Ikeda Hayato, as a politician, my moral standards are still too high. I will tell you when my heart becomes as hard as stone and my conscience is gone.
However, since then, Ikeda Hayato has become the Prime Minister, but Seiji Tsutsumi has never returned to politics, because he is often condemned by his conscience and is not a qualified politician.
"Every yen the company earns, I am an accomplice of this consumerist society. Look, Minasan, this society is really getting worse with each generation, with consumption to death and material desires running rampant.
As long as something has a big brand logo, you don’t have to worry about no one spending a lot of money to buy it.
I tell you, if you print the CHANEL logo on toilet paper today, young people in Shibuya will start worshipping toilet paper tomorrow.
Now, they buy cheap goods from MUJI, but they are looking into the future, using credit cards to spend their next 20 or 30 years, pursuing brands. Don’t these young people have brains?”
"Yes! The average person has six credit cards, and the national debt ratio is 600,000 yen per person. It's a scary number!"
“This cannot be attributed entirely to young people’s consumption. To be honest, the debt ratio is more due to the loan amount for purchasing real estate.”
"Xiao Chi, you are drunk!"
Issey Miyake quickly interrupted Koike.
The biggest reason why Seiji Tsutsumi did not accept the Seibu Group was that he knew the consequences of real estate monopoly. You know, as the heir apparent, he has huge political influence. If he was not unwilling, Yoshiaki Tsutsumi, a bastard with no fame, would never have been able to inherit the Seibu Group.
But it is not convenient for outsiders to talk about the affairs of the Di family, even if they are friends of more than ten years.
What's more, today one-sixth of the land is still in the hands of the Tsutsumi family. Tsutsumi Seiji, who carries the bloodline and is a communist thinker, must be very uncomfortable with his family turning Japan into what it is today.
After everyone had eaten and drunk their fill, the party gradually ended with the nagging and complaints of Seiji Tsutsumi, who was almost an old man.
Just wait for the surroundings to gradually quiet down.
However, Seiji Tsutsumi tossed and turned, staring at the ceiling, and couldn't fall asleep.
Having studied Marxist economics in junior high school, he knew very well that every pore of capital was filled with filth and blood.
But now he has become the kind of person he hates the most.
Maybe it was because of the drunkenness.
The comrades from my youth flashed before my eyes one by one.
Even though many years have passed, he still can't forget the moment he was kicked out of the organization.
"Yokohama Ikuo, you are a scab hiding in the organization."
“.”
(End of this chapter)
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