Nagoya, Japan's manufacturing heartland, is building a new startup ecosystem. We interviewed Toshio Sumi, the first director of the Startup Support Division established five years ago, about initiatives to foster regional innovation.

In Tsukuba, a city of 250,000 residents known as one of the world's leading research and development hubs, 29 national research institutions operate alongside 20,000 researchers.

"Making weddings more free and expressive of who couples are."We spoke with founder Murata about the challenges in the wedding industry, his innovative approach, and his vision for the future.

At Fukuoka's startup support facility "Fukuoka Growth Next," the Global Business Support (GBS) team works towards attracting international startups and helping local startups expand overseas. We spoke with Mr. Ono, who serves as a startup support concierge while being an entrepreneur himself, about Fukuoka City's startup support ecosystem.

We spoke with Mr. Sakai from Sendai City about how the region's entrepreneurial support evolved after the earthquake, the growth of their unique startup ecosystem and their vision for the future.

We spoke with Kathy Liu, Head of the Osaka branch at Plug and Play Japan. Based in Silicon Valley, Plug and Play is a leading global accelerator and venture capital firm. The Osaka branch is actively collaborating with OIH on initiatives to revitalize Osaka, and we spoke to her about these efforts.

The blackbox editorial team visited Japan’s second-largest city, Osaka. They interviewed the “OIH,” an innovation creation center established by Osaka City in 2013.OIH is located in the Grand Front Osaka complex in Umeda and operates under the theme “From Osaka to the World.” It serves as a gathering place for entrepreneurs and technologists, supporting the creation of new businesses and their scale-up efforts. Through approximately 200 events and programs annually, OIH facilitates the exchange of diverse people and ideas, contributing to developing an innovation ecosystem in the Kansai region.For this interview, Nae Nakamura, the director of OIH’s Startup Support Division, discussed the organization’s activities and Osaka’s appeal.

Kobe City in Hyogo Prefecture has been on the front foot in its efforts to support startups in Japan. We invited Ms. Shiori Fukuda, an innovation specialist at the Life-Tech KOBE, a regional startup ecosystem who has been supporting local startups aiming to expand their business overseas as well as startups from other countries interested in developing their business in Japan, to talk about her background and the initiatives of Kobe City.

Antti Sonninen, who organizes and manages the startup conference Takeoff Tokyo, talked about the issues related to the startup scene in Japan and the uniqueness of his event.