Machikoba no Techo 1 November 2026

To everyone,

November. Autumn has deepened, and little by little the sea has begun to show the first signs of winter.

Thank you, as always, for using KeyStone Corporation's products.

On 1 November 2026, thanks to you, our company reached the 27th anniversary of its founding.

We owe this entirely to our customers, our business partners, and the many people who have supported us. To all of you, my heartfelt thanks.

Since our founding in November 1999, we have been making egi in a small machine shop in Saga Prefecture.

Looking back, the road has been anything but smooth.

In 2011 we went through a historically strong yen, at 75.32 to the dollar. Now, in 2026, we find ourselves in an age of weak yen approaching 160 to the dollar.

In only about 15 years, the yen has lost close to half its value against the dollar.

The Great East Japan Earthquake, shifts in the global economy, soaring raw material prices. Each time the era changed, the conditions around manufacturers changed greatly with it.

When the yen was strong, we struggled to compete on price with overseas products. When the yen was weak, we faced rising costs for materials and energy. Each period had its own hardships.

Our company once centred on OEM manufacturing, and then made a major turn towards making and selling under our own brand.

Changing a way of working built up over many years is never easy. But we wanted to put products we believed in out into the world under our own name. That wish has carried us to this day.

However much the business environment has changed, there is one thing we have kept unchanged.

It is our commitment to making things with our own hands, in our own factory in Japan.

And yet our work is by no means completed inside the factory alone.

There are the testers and monitors who try our products in the field all over the country and sometimes give us severe opinions. There are the many people who support our work from their various positions.

KeyStone's products have been born and refined by adding the experience and wisdom of those people to the skill and passion of our colleagues in the factory.

Pride in being made in Japan is not simply a matter of where something is manufactured. To me it means putting the thoughts and the responsibility of each person involved into a single product.

The environment around the internet has also changed greatly in the last few years.

In fact, several years ago we had already confirmed that a great many suspicious accesses and attempted attacks were reaching our servers, and we were keenly aware of the danger even then.

In light of this, several years ago we had already rewritten all of the PHP programs used on our website in alternative code.

I should say, to avoid misunderstanding, that the PHP programming language itself is not to blame. The language has been improved over many years, and mechanisms for writing safe programs have been put in place.

The problem, as I see it, is that one can write code that may create vulnerabilities without making full use of those mechanisms, and that such code goes on being used without being reviewed.

For example, a basic technique for preventing SQL injection is the "placeholder". It is a mechanism that clearly separates the instructions given to a database from data entered from outside.

Yet there is also code that does not use such mechanisms and joins the entered text directly into the SQL statement.

Even as a language evolves, safety cannot be secured unless the knowledge and awareness of the people who handle it keep up.

And even now, accesses attempting the attack known as SQL injection are being seen almost every day on the servers we run.

I feel that the sense of crisis we had several years ago was by no means groundless.

Of course, changing the programming language does not make every threat disappear. There is no such thing as absolute security, and daily monitoring and continuous improvement are essential.

Facing our manufacturing day by day, while also examining server logs and taking security measures. This is work I never imagined when we founded the company 27 years ago.

But protecting the quality of our products and protecting an information environment our customers can use with confidence are equally responsibilities a company must fulfil.

While the progress of technology enriches our lives, it can also be used with malice.

In the end, technology itself is neither good nor evil. What is being asked about is how we are, as the human beings who use it.

It was just as I was thinking about these things, on 28 October 2026, that Sir Patrick Stewart, who played Captain Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek: The Next Generation, a series I have been fond of since I was young, passed away at the age of 86.

The news of his death came a mere four days before our 27th anniversary.

He had no small influence on my outlook on life, and I feel a deep sadness.

There are many words in this series that I still cannot forget.

One is the scene in which Captain Picard tells the young Wesley Crusher that learning the skill of piloting a starship is not enough, and speaks of the importance of studying history, art and philosophy.

He also encouraged Data, the android who dreams of becoming human, to learn what it is to be human by performing Shakespeare's Henry V.

Human emotions and contradictions, courage and inner conflict. Even for Data, with his enormous knowledge, knowledge alone is not enough to understand human beings. I think there was a deep insight into humanity there, one that does not change however far science and technology advance.

Come to think of it, had I not met Captain Picard, I would probably never have taken even a modest interest in the literary world of Shakespeare.

A science fiction drama depicting the far future led me to literature several centuries old.

And when I recall Captain Picard's words, I see in them the figure of my father, the late Genzo Kanagawa, the founder of our company.

My father was an engineer to the core. While pouring his passion into the pursuit of technology, he also took a strong interest in history, literature and philosophy.

At first glance, technology and the humanities may seem to be different worlds. But for my father, perhaps both were indispensable for understanding the essence of things.

And above all, there was his almost stubborn way of holding to his beliefs, and his firm, unshakeable principles. In this respect, my father and Captain Picard seem to me surprisingly alike.

Choosing the path one believes to be right, even at the cost of clashing with those around one. It may not be a deft way to live. But in it there was a firm conviction that does not move by calculation of gain and loss alone.

One, my father, pursued technology in a small machine shop in Saga. The other, a captain in the universe of the far future, held human intellect and dignity dear.

The two lived in entirely different worlds, yet in my mind they overlap to a strange degree.

Refining one's skill, and understanding human beings. And never losing sight of one's beliefs, whatever happens.

I feel that I learned the importance of these things from the two of them.

In the 24th-century world where Captain Picard lives, the accumulation of wealth is no longer the purpose of life. People work to better themselves and the whole of humanity.

And Mr Stewart himself, who played him, was someone who valued social justice and human rights and who confronted inequality in society.

While free competition supports economic development, I believe that education and social welfare should not be left to the principle of competition alone.

A society where everyone has the chance to learn and can live with human dignity. That ideal overlaps with the future Captain Picard embodied.

Today, with the rapid evolution of AI, the future once depicted in science fiction is little by little becoming reality.

But the progress of technology and the maturing of human society are not necessarily the same thing.

However excellent the technology we hold, what will we use it for? What will we protect, and what will we leave to the next generation?

I feel anew today the importance of knowing history, studying philosophy, and coming into contact with literature and art.

For 27 years, we have never been a large company.

Even so, we have believed there are things only we can make, and have gone on through trial and error.

Taking in new technology is important. But the experience and intuition built up over many years, and the attitude of facing the product in front of us in earnest, cannot easily be replaced.

However far AI and digital technology advance, I believe that what is finally asked of us is the wisdom and judgment of the people who use them, and what it is they wish to achieve.

We will go on learning new technology and taking on challenges, without fearing the changes of the times.

At the same time, I want to cherish the passion for making things that I inherited from my father, the technology built up over 27 years, and our pride in Japanese manufacturing.

A single egi that we make becomes part of someone's fishing memories. That joy is the greatest driving force for going on making things.

In our 28th year too, we will keep delivering products that are truly ours, from a small machine shop in Saga.

I ask for your continued goodwill towards KeyStone Corporation.

And lastly, to the great captain who had no small influence on my life.

Rest in peace, Captain.