Question to Outside Director
From the 27th Annual General Meeting of Shareholders
At the 27th Annual General Meeting of Shareholders, which was held on June 29, 2015, a shareholder posed the following question to Outside Director Shigesato Itoi. His response is provided below.
At the 27th Annual General Meeting of Shareholders (held on June 29, 2015)
Question from Shareholder
Mr. Itoi, what was it about Fields that you found appealing enough to want to become an outside director?
Outside Director Itoi’s Response
A long period of my past was spent working freelance, and I therefore found myself on a path unrelated to overseeing organizations or participating in management. However, I was later awakened to the potential for companies and other organizations to give form to dreams and to influence and shape society. It was Chairman Yamamoto and Fields itself that made me aware of this potential.
Fields is currently developing a business that is centered on intellectual properties, or IP. I first heard of this “IP business” over a decade ago, before the word “IP” became part of the social lexicon. This was when Chairman Yamamoto explained to me that Fields was preparing to launch a new business model in which the Company would link its various characters to pachinko machines, establishing this model as its brand and subsequently expanding its customer base. At the time, I was unable to properly understand what all this entailed. Later, Fields launched a pachinko machine that revolved around Evangelion, a TV anime series that had finished its broadcast run a number of years prior. This machine soon proved to be a massive hit. Chairman Yamamoto had accomplished exactly what he had proposed, the establishment of a brand founded on pachinko and IP. Today, anyone in Japan is well aware of the heights the popularity of Evangelion rose to after this IP was rekindled by this pachinko machine. I do not think anyone could have imagined characters from this popular anime that had stopped being broadcast years ago would be used in a pachinko machine. Nor could they have expected that this would lead to this anime once again being featured in movie theaters in the form of animated contents. This accomplishment by Fields convinced me of the Company’s ability to predict future trends and create new value.
Fields has given birth to numerous new ideas that are unrestrained by common conventions or practices, and being involved in this environment fills me with a sense of wonder. Of course, not all new ideas come to fruition, but the process of making an idea into a reality is an undertaking with the potential to influence and shape society. It was Fields that made me aware of this fact. I feel very privileged to be in a position in which I am able to gain this sense of wonder, and I believe this is a major appeal of Fields. As an outside director, I am taking advantage of my outside position, performing my duties with the aim of responding to this sense of wonder with opinions that similarly exist beyond the scope of the normal. I hope that Fields’ stakeholders will look to the Company with the same high expectations that I do, and I am working to my fullest to ensure Fields continues to be a company worthy of this level of anticipation.
