We interviewed Takaki Takehana about his career and the truth behind the controversy! We thoroughly investigated his life abroad, his business, and his current situation.
There are many articles filled with suspicions and speculations about Takaki Takehana, and the current situation is unclear.
After this article was published, we asked Mr. Takehana himself to verify the facts and obtained his consent, so it contains the truth and is not mere speculation.
"What does Takehana Takaki really like?"
"I want to know the truth about Takaki Takehana"
If you are thinking this, please read this article to the end.
Around the end of October 2020, Takehana Takaki came under fire from the YouTube channels of Prince Aojiru and Tabata Shintaro for allegedly falsifying his resume and colluding with politicians.
I don't think many people know exactly what kind of background Takehana Takaki actually has, what he does, and whether the things that caused the controversy are true.
In fact, there are probably some people who are unaware that he donated 101 million yen to his hometown of Higashimurayama City, and that on April 27, 2022, in the Official Gazette No. 729 , he was awarded the Order of the Sacred Treasure and a Trophy by the Emperor and Prime Minister Kishida for donating a large amount of his personal assets for the public good.
So in this article,
What I will explain this time
- Biography of Takaki Takehana
- MUP, launched by Takaki Takehana
- Fact-finding on Takaki Takehana's alleged scandal
- Takaki Takehana's current situation
We will explain in detail about this. Although a lot of speculative information has been released, this media will only state the facts based on information from third-party organizations.
Who is Takaki Takehana? A look at his career so far
Let's take a deeper look at Takaki Takehana's career, following the timeline below.
Past career
- Takaki Takehana's profile
- Study abroad in Hawaii and improve your English skills
- The trigger for the big uproar: the experience of being outsourced to Google
- Experience working overseas in the Philippines
- Joined Recruit
- His side job became his main job and he founded Lim
- Instagram tools made by Instagram lovers
- MUP College started as a training program for employees
I will explain each one!
Takaki Takehana’s profile
Takaki Takehana's career and titles are diverse, as follows:
Biography of Takaki Takehana
- Google Inc. Outsourcing
- SMS Philippine New Business Development (Initial Outsourcing)
- Recruit Home Company New Business Development Department
- Recruit Holdings Strategic Planning Office
- Former Representative Lim
- Former Representative of MDS (Hong Kong)
- Representative of MDS (Singapore)
- MDS FUND LLC (Representative)
- Representatives of 12 other companies
After studying globally and broadly, the Instagram business he started as a side job while working at Recruit grew, and before he knew it, the side job had become his main job and he became independent, also achieving success there.
Rather than becoming complacent, we established a business school called MUP College, which produces many talented people with the skills to earn a lot of money.
MUP College was merged into UR-U (Your Uni) in February 2021 and its name changed, and is still in operation today.
Study abroad in Hawaii and improve your English skills
Since my first year of junior high school until college, I have studied abroad in Mexico and Hawaii to improve my English skills.
It is clear that the source of his ability to understand and communicate in English lies in his study abroad experience.
The trigger for the big uproar: the experience of being outsourced to Google
After that, I was stationed at Google as a "contract worker."
The description "former Google" caused confusion, but the company later corrected this to say it was a contracted business.
In fact, more than half of the people working at Google are contract workers. America is originally a freelance society, and many people work as contract employees.
The number of freelancers is increasing in Japan, and currently about 40% of the working population works as freelancers.
Freelancers also play an important role in society, and although Takehana Takaki may have been incorrect in his expression, it may not be possible to say that just because they are contracted workers is bad.
Google's number of non-regular employees exceeds that of regular employees
The company had 102,000 full-time employees worldwide, but a much larger group of workers included 121,000 temporary and contract employees.
Experience working overseas in the Philippines
After working as a contract worker for Google, he was stationed in the Philippines for a company called SMS.
SMS Co., Ltd. is a listed company with an overwhelming share of the market in the nursing care and medical related human resources business.
"Takaki Takehana was one of the original members stationed in the Philippines, and because the local company had not yet been established, the SMS was also a contract for outsourcing at first," he said. Personally, I don't think there's anything wrong with being a contract for outsourcing, just like with Google.
Takehana was apparently launching a new advertising business related to nursing care and medical care here, and there he gained a full range of business skills, from launching new businesses to monetizing them.
He had previously spoken about his time being stationed in the Philippines on Instagram Live and other occasions, saying that at the time he was starting a new business without knowing what to do, and that there were many things he was doing for the first time, so difficult that he even cried.
Joined Recruit
After that, I joined Recruit.
After joining Recruit, he was assigned to the New Business Development Department of the Recruit Home Company, a company that handles the Suumo-related housing business that many of you may have used at least once.
You will then move to Recruit Holdings' Strategic Planning Department.
At the time, Takehana was listed as working in Recruit's Strategy Office, and suspicions of misrepresentation arose that "there is no such thing as a Strategy Office in the media!" However, Takehana's tweet to his colleague Tabata and blog posts corrected the statement to "Strategic Planning Office" and simply missing the word "planning."
(This is my personal opinion, but I don't understand what the problem is with not just including the word "planning").
A business card that someone may have received from Takehana in the past was also made public on social media during the controversy.
According to Takehana, the Strategic Planning Office was a small department of about 20 people who were carefully selected from among the tens of thousands of employees at Recruit, and the team was based overseas and acquired companies around the world. Because the work was highly confidential, there were only a few people in the company who were involved and he didn't know many people, but he was definitely working there as a full-time employee.
Of course, being selected for such a department means that he must be excellent.
After that, while still working at Recruit, he started an Instagram-related business as a side job.
His side job became his main job and he founded Lim
When I was working at Recruit, I was living in Kamakura and working on a side job during my commute to work.
Since he couldn't work on a crowded train, he used the Shinkansen to ensure he had time to work.
The business of introducing Instagrammers, which started as a side job, expanded, and before he knew it, what started as a side job had become his main business and he founded Lim Co., Ltd.
In the video below, Takaki Takehana talks about his thoughts when he founded the company.
Instagram tools made by Instagram lovers
While Instagram was not yet attracting much attention, Takehana felt that it would become a lifestyle app that would permeate society, and developed an automated Instagram operation service.
Their foresight paid off, and their Instagram operations became a huge hit!
The company has grown significantly thanks to Instagram tools.
Although the company has changed, Instagram management services are still provided by MDS Co., Ltd., a group company of Takaki Takehana.
Award from His Majesty the Emperor
Since then, Mr. Takehana has steadily expanded his business and made many contributions to society. Specifically, he has:
- June 2020: 101 million yen donated to Higashimurayama City. The youngest and largest donor in Japan (26 years old at the time).
- September 2021: Received the Citizen Merit Award from Mayor Watanabe
- May 2022: Received the Dark Blue Ribbon Medal and the Award Trophy from the Emperor and Prime Minister Kishida in the Official Gazette, Issue No. 729.
MUP College started as a training program for employees
The Instagram tool became a hit, and the company decided to expand and hire employees.
However, since there would not be enough time to educate each employee one by one, he came up with the idea of recording employee training videos and having employees watch them before joining the company so that they could acquire certain business skills.
This became popular on YouTube and other sites, and the distribution was made into an app. In just a year, the number of paid subscribers paying 10,000 yen per month exceeded 30,000, making it one of the largest business schools in Japan.
Doing business in Dubai
Currently, Takehana has moved his headquarters to Dubai and is running one of the largest businesses in the UAE, supporting Japanese companies in expanding overseas.
As someone who has spent most of his time abroad, there is no doubt that he has a fundamentally global mindset.
Takaki Takehana’s career fraud allegations spark outrage
MUP College continued to grow day by day, and before we knew it, the number of paid members had reached approximately 30,000.
At the time, Takaki Takehana was a pioneer of business influencers and enjoyed overwhelming popularity.
However, in October 2020, Shintaro Tabata's YouTube channel questioned whether Takaki Takehana's description of himself as a Google employee was a false statement, which immediately sparked outrage.
From there, numerous suspicions began to grow, which resulted in a sudden increase in the number of people leaving MUP.
However, as the facts have been conveyed sincerely, correct information begins to spread and the outrage gradually dies down.
The details of the fire are explained in detail in the article below, so please take a look if you would like to know more about the fire.
Was it triggered by the backlash? MUP merged into UR-U
Following the backlash, MUP was renovated in February 2021 and merged into the current UR-U (Your Uni).
Experts from various industries gather around Takaki Takehana and continue to deliver useful content every day.
For more details about UR-U , please see the article below. If you are interested in UR-U (Your Uni), run by Takehana Takaki.
Is the allegation that Takaki Takehana is under fire true? A deep look into three allegations
The following three suspicions were raised regarding the controversy surrounding Takaki Takehana:
Biography of Takaki Takehana
- Former Googler's remarks spark outrage
- What about collusion with politicians?
- Did you really want to buy a mansion in Bali?
- Is it true that 100 million yen was donated to the local town of Higashimurayama?
- Dark Blue Ribbon Medal and Trophy
I will explain based on the facts.
Former Googler’s remarks spark outrage
The first former Google allegation was that Takaki Takehana was stationed at Google on a "contract basis."
The fact that he was listed as a former Google employee made him appear to be an employee, which led to an outrage.
However, as mentioned above, America is a freelance society, and it is said that about half of the people at Google are non-regular employees.
Therefore, the culture of saying "it's all about being a contract worker" is unique to Japan, and it can be said that the weight of the work is by no means small.
Collusion with politicians? Secret funds?
There were various suspicions raised about whether big-name politicians visiting his home and making huge donations were bribery, but he himself explained that "that is absolutely not the case."
Prime Ministerial candidate Shigeru Ishiba has also interacted with Takehana, including visiting his home, but no evidence of bribery has been confirmed.
Takehana Foundation Activities
This is a video about a school that Takaki Takehana's foundation is supposedly running in the Philippines, and you can see "Coledio Sagrado Corazon de Jesus" written on a student's neck strap, but it's actually a completely unrelated school in Spain. What a disgusting guy. https://t.co/QiO0mwLxl9 pic.twitter.com/Th5E4hQIEo — Yukipiyo (@yukipyo77) October 27, 2020
At the time, the website stated that the foundation was "operating a school," but suspicions were raised about this. The reason was that the school on the strap was the name of a school in Spain, and so suspicions were raised that it did not exist in the Philippines. However, since the Philippines was originally a Spanish territory, there are many sister schools run by Christians, and it was later revealed that the school does exist.
In addition, the criticism that the word "support" should have been used has been corrected, since overseas corporations cannot operate without a license.
Takehana himself stated in his YouTube videos that "The foundation's activities have been carried out as a contribution to society without any falsehoods, and all of the funding is self-funded, so there is no reason for others to say anything about it. It's really annoying."
Suspension over Takehana’s arrest
There are suspicions about Takehana's criminal record and past. However, these are just excerpts from a parody video released on April Fool's Day.
About Bali Mansions
The second suspicion started when he posted a villa on social media that he didn't actually own it as if it were his own.
Regarding this matter, Takehana himself said in a collaborative video with Misaki Yuta, "Although I hadn't actually purchased it, I had reached an agreement to purchase it," but he was forced to return to Japan from Bali due to the lockdown in March 2020, and at the end, he was unable to sign the contract.
Composite photo of site employees
Regarding the commotion over the photos of Takehana's company's employees used on his website being fake and free material, Takehana himself said, "It would be better to have a beautiful woman in the inquiry section. Isn't that what the free material is for?"
If you think about it, it's natural for many companies to use free material on their websites, and that's the intended use of free material in the first place, so I don't understand what the problem is, but I can guess that they were just desperate to find fault with Takehana.
Regarding resignation of attorney
[Breaking News] We have received a fax from Hiroyuki Kimura, the attorney representing Lim Co., Ltd., of Yodoyabashi Yamagami Joint Law Firm, stating that he is "resigning as the attorney." ↓ This is the case of the threat from #TakakiTakehana 's account. The attorney's attorney was the first to fall. pic.twitter.com/Khel7MTiYt
— Ebisu - Web marketing, production, customer acquisition, writing, and design (pop, flyers, posters). (@ebyan2013) November 2, 2020
Yodoyabashi Yamagami Law Office is one of the largest law firms in the Kansai region, but Takehana said in one of his videos, "I simply drew the case from him because it was too much of a hassle to take on such small, inconsequential litigation cases, but I am not resigning from the advisory contract itself. What is your misunderstanding?" This suggests that he is resigning from the case, and not from Takehana's position as an advisor.
Is it true that 100 million yen was donated to the local town of Higashimurayama?
Takaki Takehana spent his childhood in Higashimurayama, Tokyo, a place that feels like his hometown to him.
Amid the outrage, suspicions also arose that the 101 million yen donation to Higashimurayama City may have been forged.
However, on July 14, 2020, Higashimurayama City's website posted a donation of 101 million yen, verifying that the donation was genuine.
The Higashimurayama side said that they will purchase one tablet device for each student in the city's elementary and junior high schools.
Dark Blue Ribbon Medal and Trophy
Furthermore, on April 27, 2022, in the Official Gazette No. 729 , it was announced that Mr. Ikeda had donated a large amount of his personal assets for the public good, and that he had been awarded the Order of the Sacred Treasure and Cup by the Emperor.
The Dark Blue Ribbon Medal is one of Japan's honors, and is awarded to individuals who donate more than 5 million yen to public institutions or public interest corporations, and to organizations that donate more than 10 million yen.
The donation of 101 million yen to Higashimurayama City was, in fact, officially awarded by the national government.
Millions of yen in aid for Pakistani orphanages
It was announced in February 2023 by Pakistan's nationally recognized non-profit organization Al Mustafa that MDS, a Dubai corporation owned by Takaki Takehana, has agreed to donate 40,000,000 JPY between 2023 and 2028.
These donations will support a total of 7,500,000 medical patients, as well as student facilities run by more than 20,000 organizations. For more details, please see
the article here .
In addition, the details of the fire are explained in detail in the article below, so please take a look if you would like to know more about the fire.
Amex Black Card Fake?
When the controversy erupted, there was a lot of talk about Takehana, who was 27 years old at the time, saying, "There's no way he could have a black card at that age."
It is true that the black card is invitation-only and cannot be held unless you have assets of over several billion yen.
However, after the controversy erupted, many card enthusiasts began asking, "Is this the real thing?" which became a hot topic, and it was eventually revealed that it was real.
Later, Takehana released a video titled "The Black Card is Real," proving that he is an American Express Centurion card member.
Of course, being a cardholder at 27 years old means that he is the youngest in Japan, but personally I think this is only natural given Takehana's career history and annual income.
Mr. Takehana's annual sales and income are all explained in this blog, " List of Influencer Annual Income Proof."
Current status of Takaki Takehana
What is Takehana Takaki, who has been accused of causing a scandal, doing now?
We will keep you updated with the latest information.
Relaunch in Dubai
In 2021, Takaki Takehana moved his base of operations to Dubai.
When asked why he went to Dubai, he said that he "felt small-minded doing business only in Japan," and so he moved his base overseas with the desire to start a business from scratch again overseas.
Takaki Takehana started his business in Dubai from scratch, with no acquaintances or connections, and within a few months he began to increase sales, demonstrating his incredible business acumen.
In Dubai, he is involved in real estate and IT-related businesses, and you can see what his daily life is like on his official Instagram account.
The company is currently based in Dubai and is acquiring various businesses around the world.
It has already been discovered that Takehana has also bought a restaurant called La Letizia in Dubai Marina, Dubai's most luxurious area (added April 2012).
Furthermore, in Makati, Philippines (similar to Marunouchi in Japan), the business is expanding at a frightening speed, turning an entire building into a club. (Added as of May 2012)
In fact, we were able to understand the astonishing business growth from the financial statements of his company that Mr. Takehana released. Therefore, I have posted a separate article that describes his current business, annual income, business details, etc. This is a must-read! (To be honest, it was a pretty outrageous amount...)
In addition, the current situation is sometimes updated on Takaki Takehana's MDS Group blog, so if you're interested, be sure to check it out!
A forbidden collaboration with Prince of Green Juice (Yuta Misaki) has been realized
Yuta Misaki is an indispensable figure in the controversy surrounding Takehana. The collaboration began when Takehana's partner, Kazuki Sagi, appeared on Yuta Misaki's YouTube channel as a special guest.
As a result of this appearance, and as they are both on the same business channel, their first interview and collaboration on YouTube finally took place.
In the video on Misaki's channel, Misaki asks Takehana some in-depth questions about the controversy that everyone is wondering about, and Takehana answers honestly. Takehana is surprisingly honest in his responses, admitting to everything from false resumes to his vacation home and synthetic images.
After the interview, their relationship was good and the respect they had for each other was clear.
I was impressed when I had dinner with Takehana for the first time. He gave me a gift as a thank you for the meal.
on the way home, for some reason, my driver was also carrying the same gift. When I asked him what happened, he came running up to me as he was leaving, and apparently he gave me words of appreciation and a gift. I thought he was a wonderful person who was considerate of those around him. https://t.co/IgRgL24lM7— Yuta Misaki (@misakism13) September 12, 2021
In addition, in November 2021, Misaki invited Takehana to participate in his regular host project, and the two worked as hosts in Kabukicho.
The first day of hosting, a completely different world, but I had no choice but to do it because I would be a failure if I gave up on the challenge.
I had no confidence, but there were people who requested me even though I liked this, and I was given a lot of champagne. I want to give back to the people who support me and to Kabukicho. pic.twitter.com/6Jpz0F8Vcq — This is Takaki Takehana. (@takaki_takehana) November 25, 2021
Through their talks and hosting projects, they came to respect and support each other.
The two have amicably reconciled, but it will be interesting to keep an eye on future collaborations and projects between these two big-name business YouTubers.
If you would like to know more about the collaborative conversation between Takehana and Misaki, please read the article below.
A dialogue collaboration with Shintaro Tabata, who started the controversy
Tabata Shintaro is the person who started the controversy over Takehana in the first place.
The collaboration was made possible when Tabata Shintaro came to meet Takehana, who was working as a host for a collaborative project with Prince Aojiru.
Although the two were thinking about being at odds with each other, they were smiling throughout the conversation.
In the collaborative video, they both candidly spoke about how the controversy occurred and how they felt at the time, and after seeing Takehana's attitude throughout the conversation, Tabata tweeted comments such as, "I want to support him in the future," and "I'm in support of Takehana!", showing his support for Takehana.
I'm also in support of Takehana-san! https://t.co/cphAVcBb44— Tabata @ Activist Individual Investor YouTuber (@tabbata) September 11, 2021
Tabata was the one who started the controversy, but after seeing Takehana collaborating with Prince Aojiru and answering the allegations one by one, he thought, "He's responding sincerely, so I'll support him."
If you would like to know more about the collaborative conversation between Takehana and Tabata, please read the article below.
summary
We have explained Takehana Takaki's background, the online school he started, and the facts behind the controversy.
It is true that Takaki Takehana made incorrect statements and made inaccurate statements, but it is also true that he has supported many people in improving their skills.
He has also made peace with big business influencers such as Misaki Yuta and Tabata Shintaro, and now they respect each other.
Also, this news was written when he was 26 years old, so several years have passed since then, and it seems that the business and the actual company structure have changed considerably (objectively speaking, it no longer has a startup feel, but has the more solid feel of a large corporation).
Please also check out the article below which explains the details of UR-U (Your Uni), presided over by Takaki Takehana.
