Harvard University Lecture
Glass Award

Honestly, it would be better if a service like this didn't need to exist. A society where family can only be obtained through rental is broken in some way. But the reality is, today there is a child attending an enrollment ceremony without a father. Today there is an elderly person going to the hospital alone. I cannot look away from those people's "today." I don't have an ethically perfect answer. I simply choose to respond to the pain of the person in front of me.

That's the question I fear most. Children innocently call me "Daddy." Every time I hear that voice, I think about the day this lie will be revealed. Some cases have continued for over 8 years. That child is already a teenager. How they'll feel when they learn the truth — honestly, I don't know. But a child's world is different when they have memories of a father versus none at all. At the very least, I want to believe that even if those days were a lie, the sense of security the child felt was real.

I was originally doing odd-job work, like a handyman. One day, a single mother asked me to attend her child's enrollment ceremony as the father. That was the beginning. I never imagined it would grow this large. But the requests kept coming. If there's demand, it means society needs it. Even if I hadn't started it, someone else would have.

Actors have scripts, and there's an ending. When the director calls "cut," you can step out of the role. But rental family work has no script. The other person believes I'm their real father. There's no "cut." For a child I've been meeting monthly for 8 years, I am "Daddy." The moment I think of it as acting, everything falls apart. So rather than acting, I simply exist in that moment. Director Herzog told me, "Don't act, just be there" — that captures the essence of this work perfectly.

My own family relationships are complicated. By constantly playing someone else's family member, there are moments when I no longer understand what a "real relationship" is. The weight of perpetual deception grows heavier each year. But if I quit, those children would lose their "Daddy." That's a choice I cannot make.

After BBC covered us, inquiries started coming from around the world. At first, most of it was curiosity — "Japan is such a strange country." But after articles in The Atlantic and The New Yorker, the discussion shifted. The recognition spread that "this isn't just a Japan problem." I believe Werner Herzog made his film because he felt this was a universal human theme.

The era when only blood ties defined family is coming to an end. Chosen families, temporary families, functional families — the forms will diversify. That's not a bad thing. What matters is the fact that someone cares about someone else. Rental or not, I believe humans need to feel that "there is someone who cares about you."

The establishment of the Minister of Loneliness in 2021 was a step forward. But systems alone cannot solve loneliness. Loneliness can't be measured in numbers. The people suffering most are those who fall through the cracks of the system, those who can't ask for help. Many of our clients are people who don't qualify for public support. We need something to bridge the gap between systems and services.