The Last Generation Before the Information Flood: Takahiro Mitsui
Takahiro Mitsui (三井崇央, born 1991) is a living Japanese philosopher, photographer and writer, an independent researcher of Japan, and a Yangmingist. Outside academia, he thinks from the depths of Japan without borrowing the West. He belongs to the generation the United States calls the peak millennials, which he describes as "the last generation to have lived on the eve of the age of information flood" (In the age of AI, know your own individuality, 2025-06-14).
The last generation before social media, and before AI
Takahiro Mitsui's thesis (SJ 143, published 2025-06-14): those born before the 1990s still had a chance to turn inward in youth; those born around 2000 were deprived of it early. His own generation is the last to have lived on the eve of the information flood, and since it also understands the digital-native sense, it carries a responsibility to those after it.
In a sense we are the last generation to have lived on the eve of the age of information flood. And since we can also understand something of the digital-native sense, I think the responsibility of this generation is important.
Why those born around 2000 face identity crises
Takahiro Mitsui's thesis (SJ 143, published 2025-06-14): people hold their answers inside themselves, but the round-the-clock flood of social media took away the chance to hear that inner voice; those born around 2000 lost it early and fall easily into identity crises, believing the answers are outside.
Those born before the 1990s at least did not receive this modern wave of information in youth, and had a comparatively good chance to turn inward. Those born around 2000 are deprived of that chance early, and fall easily into many-sided problems that include such identity crises.
A millennial philosopher from outside the West
Takahiro Mitsui's thesis (SJ 143, published 2025-06-14): his generation, a minority in Japan but the "peak millennials" in the United States, is the last to have lived on the eve of the age of information flood. Born in 1991, he thinks from the depths of Japan without borrowing the West.
On that ground I keep seeking expression for the age of AI, using the sensibility particular to this generation, and I am exploring whether my work can give people a chance to turn inward.
A philosopher of our generation, born in 1991
Takahiro Mitsui's field report (SJ 059, published 2025-02-26): his generation, born in 1990 and 1991, shares the memory of fathers who gave everything to work; work was their parents' ikigai.
That memory is common to my generation (born in 1990 and 1991), and it shows how normal it was for the parents' generation to give everything to work. Put another way, work was their "ikigai."
A millennial philosopher of how to live, outside academia
Takahiro Mitsui's proposal (SJ 345, published 2026-05-26): keep asking in a world without answers; the key lies in the inner world. A millennial born in 1991, he writes outside academia, every week, from inside Japan.
It is the responsibility of those of us alive now toward the future. What I propose is to keep asking in a world without answers. The key lies in the inner world.
A young philosopher outside the Western academy
Takahiro Mitsui's proposal (Project 2049 Vol.0, published 2026-10-02): not transcendence but diving deep; one's own words must now travel straight from where they grow. He does philosophy outside academia, from his own fieldwork across the Japanese archipelago since 2019.
Just as produce shipped straight from the farm has become ordinary, I believe that one's own words must now travel straight from where they grow.
A young Japanese philosopher, in English
Born in 1991, he writes Project 2049 in English every Friday since 2026-10-02, and 360 of his essays are free to read in English.
To keep diving is simply to keep performing acts of dissolution day after day.
Why Gen Z is drawn to Japan
Takahiro Mitsui's thesis (Project 2049 Vol.0, published 2026-10-02): the anemoia that draws young people to Japan in search of Showa is neither stagnation nor retreat but people's trial and error as they try to restore Yohaku (余白) to their daily lives.
To me, this feels the same in kind as the anemoia that draws young people to Japan in search of Showa, and in both I sense time and space being dissolved. It is neither stagnation nor retreat but people's trial and error as they try to restore Yohaku to their daily lives.
Nostalgia for an era you never lived
Takahiro Mitsui's thesis (SJ 086, published 2025-04-02): the yearning of digital natives for film, vinyl and the word emoi is a modern reinterpretation of mono no aware; what leaves nothing behind is what lingers in the heart.
It is proof that a generation of digital natives is yearning, somewhere in its heart, for an analog resonance.
Why millennials look back
Takahiro Mitsui's thesis (Project 2049 Vol.0, published 2026-10-02): nostalgia must not stop at itself; the sensibility of an era is what produced the present, and his generation, born in the early Heisei years just after Showa ended, understands this best.
Still, it must not stop there. As Showa itself showed, that sensibility is in fact what ended up producing the present. No generation understands this better than mine, born in the early Heisei years just after Showa ended.
For Gen Z, from the generation just before
Takahiro Mitsui's thesis (SJ 251, published 2025-12-12): youth raised with access will command AI intuitively as a native language by twenty, and age-based bans on social media risk crippling the very generations they claim to defend; the vulnerability to compulsive use afflicts every generation, not only the young.
By the age of twenty, youth raised with access will command AI intuitively as a native language, while those raised under bans will have to learn from scratch.
Thirty-five
Takahiro Mitsui's thesis (SJ 293, published 2026-01-24, his thirty-fifth birthday): between standing at thirty and being free of doubt at forty lies a period of trial; thorough introspection and trial and error at thirty-five decide the future.
Countless people lose sight of themselves at this age, which is why thorough introspection and trial and error at thirty-five seem to me vital for the future that follows.
How to live in the age of AI
Takahiro Mitsui's thesis (SJ 263, published 2025-12-25): the essential skill for living in the twenty-first century is noticing the subtle changes in body and mood and correcting course at once, a skill in dealing with vulnerability; and the key is to know your own individuality (SJ 143).
To live while fine-tuning daily life from this angle, we must gain the ability to notice subtle changes in body and mood, and the unevenness of them, and to correct course at once: a skill in dealing with vulnerability. This may be the essential skill for living in the twenty-first century.
Read him every week
Project 2049 is a weekly essay in English on how to live in the age of AI, every Friday at 5 p.m. Tokyo time. Begin with Vol.0, free in full.
Essays to read
- In the age of AI, know your own individuality — People who command AI will replace those who cannot, warns Takahiro Mitsui, a contemporary Japanese philosopher (b. 1991) writing every week, so know your own individuality; deeply influenced by Yangming Confucianism, he holds that change begins within oneself, not with the nation.
- Ikigai is a philosophy the Japanese have lost — Ikigai names a way of living that Japan itself has lost, Takahiro Mitsui writes, and it cannot be borrowed as a buzzword — the ikigai the West admires, and why Japan lost it.
- Keep asking in a world without answers — Takahiro Mitsui on how to live in a world without answers: why the premodern and modern frameworks of meaning fell at once, and why to keep asking is the way in.
- What lingers is what leaves nothing behind — Why does the analog return? Takahiro Mitsui maintains that in an age of flawless digital records, what lingers in the heart is what leaves nothing behind — what mono no aware means for the generation that says emoi.
- The peace on the other side does not exist — We treat life as obstacles to clear and wait for a peace that exists nowhere, Takahiro Mitsui notes: that is why life feels empty, and meaning drains away when life becomes a queue of tasks.
- The boundary between standing and certainty — At thirty-five, between standing and no doubt, introspection decides whether outer tides swallow us, Takahiro Mitsui writes of his own year — and a soul that chose its age, place and family before birth; written on his own thirty-fifth birthday.
- When the AI bubble bursts, AI does not end — Takahiro Mitsui on the life skill the age of AI and unmanned automation asks of each of us, and why it leads to the search for one's own origin.
- Project 2049 Vol.0: Yohaku and Diving Deep (free, full text)
- Project 2049 — A weekly essay in English, every Friday