A hundred years later, “by the way, there was a disease, wasn’t it ? “

You can trace every sickness, every disease, and every ailment to a mineral deficiency.

Linus Pauling

In 2011, the year of the earthquake, I first encountered hot spring therapy at Tamagawa Onsen in Akita. Something was clearly different from the hot springs I had been to in the past. I think I was in a unique situation mentally at that time. But something was clearly different. Even though I had been in many hot springs, this was the first time I realized the existence of hot springs. I learned that the secret was minerals, and from the minerals I learned about Dr. Pauling’s legacy, and my heart was shot out of my chest.
I believe that the greatest “gaiatsu” on earth for mankind is disease. I want to eliminate as much as possible from this world this disease that easily robs people of their freedom to “live through”. We have no intention of coexisting with it.
The only weapon we have is our craft, Onsen. It may sound reckless, but if we prove Linus’ words right, the society will naturally come to us. There is nothing complicated about it. All we have to do is take a hot bath.

Naoki Mita


The story of the birth of Craft Onsen

VOL 0
From Oil to Onsen

 If no one knocks, let’s build a new door.

Milton Berle.

Earthquake Disaster and ‘Uncomfortable’ in the Energy Business

On March 11, 2011, I was working for a financial institution in the U.S. at the time and was attending a meeting in Nagoya on a business trip. I was having a late lunch before my next meeting when I felt a tremor. At the time, I only felt the shaking for a very long time, but all subsequent meetings were cancelled.

It was the Great East Japan Earthquake.

The international commodity market division I was in charge of at the time was a free market with a futures market in addition to the cash market, and the oil market was actively trading with ample liquidity provided by speculators and other participants in addition to actual consumers. The Great East Japan Earthquake of March 11, 2011, was also a factor in the market fluctuation, and active trading was taking place.
In conclusion, the trading team I belonged to made a large profit from the earthquake. As a professional market participant, it was a natural result, or so it should have been.
Later, I would realize that it was “discomfort” with the business I was engaged in, but at that time, only a blur remained. The reality is that we are using the disaster as an “event” as a material for business transactions while many people are suffering from the disaster right in front of our eyes. I had always used wars and disasters as “materials” for business transactions. I have been turning away from the inconvenient truth.

What on earth am I working for?

In the spring of 2011, when all of Japan was literally in darkness, including myself, I had a fateful encounter that would determine the rest of my life.

It was an encounter with “TOJI”.

VOL1
Welcome to TŌJI

 Hot springs have special powers for peace and healing. So don’t bring any disputes to the sacred hot springs.

Northern California Indian Tribes

[Let’s go to a hot spring.]

At the time, I was very tired after the earthquake, and the thought of a hot spring just popped into my head. For me at the time, hot springs were a means of relaxation.
After doing some research, I learned that there was a type of onsen called a “TOJI” (hot spring cure). I thought it sounded a little different from “onsen,” but it had some kind of power.
Then I learned of “Tamagawa Onsen” in Akita Prefecture.
I immediately contacted them and was astonished to learn that there was already a one-and-a-half year waiting list for reservations. I was surprised to learn that there was already a one-and-a-half year waiting list for reservations.
The spa, located deep in the mountains, was honestly a completely different place from what I had imagined. Although there is an indoor hot spring bath (available only to guests), the main purpose of this bath is to take a steam bath heated by geothermal heat. I went in immediately.

I’m so blown away!

What in the world was this hot spring all about? After this day, hot springs became something different in my mind. I think this is what they call a paradigm shift. I became interested in “hot spring cures,” and, being a geek by nature, I thoroughly researched all the hot spring cures in Japan, compiling a database of their ingredients from one side to the other. Then one day, I realized.

Hot springs are a natural resource!

Craft Onsen Project

VOL2
Birth of Craft Onsen

Hot springs will become oil in a few tens of thousands of years.

Wikipedia

Hot springs are based on high-quality natural water, which is heated by geothermal heat from an ancient mineral soup created by the dissolution of minerals contained in the soil over a long period of time. In other words, they are created by the climate.
Japan is a volcanic country with fertile soil and abundant water resources from undersea uplift, making it the richest country in the world in terms of hot spring resources. As evidence of this, nearly 90% of the world’s total number of confirmed hot springs is concentrated in Japan.
In fact, the structure of hot springs is very similar to that of petroleum. Realizing this, I thought that it might be possible to enhance the composition of hot spring water by going through the opposite process of refining petroleum, i.e., crude refining. I scribbled an image of a manufacturing plant on a piece of kitchen paper in a family restaurant. I still keep it as the starting point of my idea.

In hot springs, local soil components, or minerals, are ionized, or dissolved, to form hot spring components, but in fact, more than 99% of the components of a hot spring are water. In other words, it can be said that just a few tenths of a percent of the ingredients have the tremendous potential to have an “effect” on the human body in that way.
Crude oil is called “crude oil” in English, and is produced as crude oil, which is then refined into gasoline, kerosene, and other products. The “craft hot spring” is the result of repeated refining to increase the “roughness” of the hot spring. The effect of increasing the concentration of the ingredients through this process is beyond imagination, and we have succeeded in increasing the concentration by several thousand times.
The next step was more difficult than imagined, but in any case, about two and a half years after the earthquake, the Kraft Onsen hot-spring cure facility “Le FUro Nishiazabu” was born.

Craft Onsen Project

VOL3
I’d bite the bullet if I had to…

Talent is the ability to sustain passion

Hayao Miyazaki

I think I looked like a pretty bad person when I suddenly quit my job as an office worker and renovated my garage to start a hot-spring cure facility.
At the time, I wanted to recreate the excitement of Tamagawa Onsen and share it with everyone in the world as soon as possible, so I forgot about eating and sleeping and immersed myself in the development of craft onsen.
A good hot spring is found in good soil. I traveled to hot spring resorts all over the country, facing the mountains and rocky surfaces, and tasted the stones and soil there. As I looked at, ate, touched, and licked soil all over Japan, I began to understand the ingredients contained in the soil. If it lacks minerals, it is dry, but if it is rich in minerals, it is heavy, but has a unique richness in its bitterness. If it is clayey and has a sour taste, it makes my heart beat faster. Yes, good hot springs dwell in good soil.
Living organisms on the earth came into being through the medium of minerals lying in the earth. Life is a series of cell division, which is mediated by minerals. The richest source of these minerals on earth is neither food nor supplements, but hot springs. The fact that most of them exist in Japan made me tremble.
Japan’s hot spring resources have the power to change the world. Having analyzed the history of oil and gas in detail, I can vividly picture hot springs following the same path.

Having analyzed the history of oil and gas in detail, I can clearly picture hot springs following the same path. In fact, I believe that the resource value of hot springs is much higher than that of petroleum because of the abundance of applications and evidence. Craft Onsen has given hot springs the value of “transportation” and “storage,” which are necessary for turning them into resources.
Once the value as a resource becomes apparent, a large market will be created.

Final Chapter – Beyond the Craft Onsen

Craft Onsen Project

VOL4
Japanese TŌJI
to the world

Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.

Steve Jobs

When my childhood best friend suddenly died of a brain hemorrhage on New Year’s Day in my first year of junior high school, and I lost my New Year’s Eve and New Year’s visit, which I had promised to do, I was saddened and realized that we are all lucky to be alive at all. Then, let’s make the best of the life we have been given. Life is too short to do anything.

I quit my job in 2013 and started a craft spa business. It wasn’t because I didn’t want to be a salaryman, nor did I dream of getting rich. I started the business because I thought that Touji was so amazing that if it became a worldwide lifestyle, it would dramatically advance the world.
When Japanese Touji becomes the TOJI of the world, we will surely have a body that can survive until the end of our life. As Dr. Pauling said.

It may sound absurd to say that Japan will become a resource-rich country, but I am very serious. This is where the romantic and the realist come together.

When the world changes, it happens in an instant. A paradigm shift is a dramatic change in the way we see and think about things that were taken for granted at the time, and it occurs when everyone in the world thinks “it would be better to have that,” and it is “easy” to change. It is an amazingly instantaneous and irreversible change.

Hot springs are great!

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