I started a business at twenty-six.

I tried many things and failed many times. Before long, almost none of the money I had started with remained.

Then someone in the T-shirt equipment business said something that changed my direction.

"T-shirts can offer a strong margin."

I could not design. I could not use Illustrator. But I could type words.

I remembered the message T-shirts I had once seen in souvenir shops, and I made myself a promise.

"I will build Japan's most passionate T-shirt brand for words."

While browsing Amazon, I realized something simple.

Do not make what you think will sell.
Make what someone is already searching for.

If I could create ten thousand different designs and each one found one person, that would be ten thousand shirts.

It sounds simple now. But that simple idea became the beginning of ORERYU SOUHONKE.

So I created new words every day: words that stay close to someone's life, words that push someone forward, and words that make someone laugh.

I did not chase phrases that merely looked marketable. I kept making the words someone out there was trying to find.

And I made one more promise to myself.

"If a product cannot encourage me, it will never reach anyone else."

Because I had failed so many times, the first words had to be words that could lift me back up.

The first person I encouraged was not a customer. It was myself.

Then I chose the name.

ORERYU SOUHONKE.

ORERYU means living in your own way. SOUHONKE carries a dream: one day, to become the original home of this world of words.

I used that name before I had become anyone at all.

When does a brand become a brand?
The moment you decide to believe in it as one.

That is why ORERYU SOUHONKE was a brand from the very beginning. And that belief has never changed.