This series is a fictional podcast program where writer Hagiwara (who met them at #WednesdayBudozakaTraining) interviews three people (Nishioka, Yoshida, and Haruka) about all things milestone, delving deep into their stories.

Summer has begun, and it's getting hot. So, what's new this month?



・August 1st is Independence Day.



Nishioka (hereafter, Nishi): There's no news about new products this month. Instead, I'd like to talk about "Milestone Day."

Omori (hereafter, Haruka): We did "milestone's week" last year, right?

Nishi: So, "weekly" milestone?

Yoshida (hereafter, Yoshi): That's confusing (laughs). The podcast is "Weekly" Milestone.com. This year, it's just one day.

Nishi: August 1st happens to be a Saturday. As you can see on the product tags, "81" is a special number for milestone.Actually, we're shedding our skin.

Hagiwara (hereafter, Hagi): Shedding your skin?!

Nishi: We're becoming independent from Fuji Toki Co., Ltd. on August 1st. Currently, we operate as the milestone division, but this time we will become a separate company, "milestone81 Co., Ltd." This has been something I've been considering for two or three years. Nothing will change for our customers, though (laughs).

Yoshi: Since we're doing this, why don't we celebrate or hold an event here at milestone TERADACHO?

Haruka: A "milestone" Independence Day event!

Nishi: The main event will be a coin game. We have a large water tank that we used when we exhibited at fishing shows and other events in the past. We'll fill it with water and drop milestone coins into it. They'll sway through the water and fall towards a small glass at the bottom. If a coin goes into the glass...?

Haruka:Oh! That's a surprise for when you come!

Nishi:It's a really great offer, anyway. We'll give you three coins for purchases of 5,500 yen (including tax) or more.

Haruka: Even if all three coins are misses, we'll still give you a participation prize.

Hagi: This sounds like a pretty rare opportunity.

Yoshi: We'll also be doing a live recording of the podcast.Registrations are currently open on e-moshicom.

Nishi: I've never done it before, but it was something I wanted to try. And thanks to our growing number of listeners, I think it's worth a shot.

Haruka: On the day, we plan to read some of the messages we collected during registration! Also, I'm looking forward to the tacos.

Nishi: That's right. ADO, a famous taco shop from Neyagawa, will be joining us. They catered the opening reception for milestone TERADACHO three years ago, so it's been a while since then, I guess. Since it's a festival, I've booked my favorite DJ, DJ $ERA, a professional DJ in his twenties.

Yoshi: Since we're doing this, it's like, "Why don't you come celebrate with us?"

Nishi: It's our anniversary festival, isn't it? I started the brand in 2014, and I never thought we'd become independent. I ran it by myself for about eight years, then Yoshi joined, and then Haruka joined, and I think we've formed a good team with everyone having their own roles. I'm also turning 50 this year, so it feels like a good milestone. It's the 12th year since the brand started, the third year for milestone TERADACHO, and we're starting our first year as a company.



・What has changed



Yoshi: If anything changes, it will be internal. Since we were just one division until now, we didn't have to deal with accounting or HR. Those tasks will increase, so we'll become more "energetic" (laughs).

Nishi: I'll be the one doing those things first, but it's a bit unfathomable. I'll have to try it out.

Yoshi: After trying it out, we'll assign people where they're best suited. I mean, it would be weird if I became the DJ (laughs). Will we need another person, or will we need to outsource?

Nishi: Will it get busy?

Yoshi: The paperwork will definitely increase. It wouldn't be good if we had to cut down on sleep or couldn't handle our current tasks. So let's share the load and help each other out.

Nishi: My philosophy is to try everything myself first, and if we can do it ourselves, I want to. I'm more excited than anxious.

Yoshi: The downside is that miscellaneous tasks will increase, but the upside is that we'll have more freedom to do what we want. It's been that way until now, though.

Nishi: For example, on active rest Wednesdays, I might go to the mountains in the morning, sweat a lot, and then go to the bath in the afternoon. But if I'm getting results, I think that's okay. I can't be "on" all the time, so it's important to switch between "on" and "off." And when I'm "on," I have to be serious about it.

Yoshi: This might make it easier for Haruka to go to UTMB. If you go, how about two weeks?

Nishi: You can go for a month (laughs).

Haruka: Thank you!

Yoshi: This will be in writing, you know. I won't be responsible if you say later, "Why did I say that?" (laughs)

Nishi: Haruka! Please, come back! I might say that (laughs).

Haruka: I'll be running, so I can't come back right away.

Nishi: Well, the fact that the offices are separate now has given us a lot more freedom. Working in shorts and a hat isn't normal, is it (laughs)?

Yoshi: You weren't working in sandals. When you first joined, you wore slacks, a dress shirt tucked in, and a wool cardigan to work.

Haruka: Eh?! What about Nishioka-san's attire?

Yoshi: Your shirt was untucked, right?

Nishi: I was trying to loosen up little by little. My beard too (laughs). But in my mind, I didn't think I should be judged by my appearance. I always made sure to do my work properly.

Haruka: It's hard to imagine now. T-shirts and shorts are the norm.

Nishi: I think it was good. We're free to relax now that the office is separate, and I can even say, "I'm a little sleepy, so I'm going to take a nap" (laughs).

Yoshi: That was the day after you ran a 100-mile race. Not recently, though.

Nishi: It's totally fine to sleep then. Because that's the kind of work we do. Before, we had morning exercises at 8:30 on Mondays, so you had to be back in time for that, attend the morning meeting, and then start work. That's tough, right? So it's good that we can be flexible now.

Haruka: I'm grateful.

Nishi: I do trail running and outdoor activities, so I understand both the hardship and the fun of it. I get how it is. If I hadn't done it, people would be like, "Did you play all weekend? Sleeping at work?" (laughs) That's a big difference. When it's time to play, we play, and when it's time to work, we work. We jokingly call ourselves a "diamond black company," but even though there are tough parts, I think our company has some good points too.



・Theきっかけは (Trigger/Opportunity)



Yoshi: First of all. Why did you start milestone? You weren't even doing mountain climbing, Nishioka-san, were you?

 Nishi: Not at all. I didn't even know the first thing about mountain climbing (laughs). Our family business was making headlamps mainly for fishing, so I thought, if they can be used at sea, they can probably be used in the mountains too. 

Hagi: Was there a specific trigger?

Nishi: My sister and her husband took me camping once. It was my first proper camping experience. About fifteen families rented out a whole campsite. There must have been twenty or thirty children alone. It was like a family gathering with one tent per family. That camping trip was incredibly fun.

Hagi: That sounds like something both adults and children would definitely enjoy.

Nishi: Food tastes better outdoors, drinks taste better, and you can play music as much as you want. They taught me the joy of camping. I had the know-how from working with the ZEXUS brand, so I thought, why not adapt it for camping? 

Yoshi: So it was more for general outdoor use than specifically for mountain climbing.

Nishi: That's right, broadly. The milestone brand started in 2014, with five types of headlamps.At first, with the wholesaler, we visited all the shops nationwide, from north to south, about a hundred stores, literally two of us. What we did was set up the sales floor. We'd install fixtures, place demo units, and neatly arrange the packages below them.

Nishi: From there, people who did mountain climbing gradually started to learn about the brand, I guess. But even then, I wasn't doing any mountain climbing at all, and of course, no trail running either. So I was about 10 kilos heavier than now, and I had a bit of a potbelly. I was just an old man who loved camping, drinking, and music (laughs).

Yoshi: That was when you were in your thirties, right?

Nishi: Even back then, I was putting a lot of effort into catalogs and promotional videos. I guess I incorporated a lot of cultural elements.

Hagi: You're still following the same catalog concept now, aren't you?

Nishi: There was a pop-up event at Grand Front Osaka in Umeda, which also served as a headlamp workshop. I explained why incandescent light is good. There were about ten customers, I think. At that time, Sayaka Kokubu, dressed in running gear, happened to walk by. She said she was going to run a race called "Cannonball" (on the Rokko Full Mountain Traverse). I didn't know much about trail running back then, so I was like, "Really?" We had a headlamp called MS-E1, and I said, "This might be the easiest to use. If you like, please try it." We exchanged contact information. Later, she messaged me saying, "It was good, but a bit heavy." She also said that if I was interested in trail running, she had a friend named "Doi-chan" she'd like to introduce me to.

Haruka: Was Doi-san (Takashi Doi) already "World's Doi-san" back then? 

Nishi: He had finished 11th in UTMB (Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc) in 2015. So, we started developing the MS-F1: Trailmaster headlamp together, specifically for trail running. That was in 2016.

Yoshi: That really was the turning point, wasn't it?

Hagi:I heard about the development of the Trailmaster in detail in the first episode of "Oshimai".

Nishi: It was a headlamp I made with confidence, thinking it would definitely sell, but sales weren't as good as expected. My older brother, who is the president, put pressure on me, saying, "What are you going to do about this?" and I felt like I was in trouble. Because of that, I also thought I might have to start trail running myself.

Hagi: If things had gone smoothly, you might not have started running.

Nishi: I think it was good that I shifted to trail running from 2018. I realized that it's better to go narrow and deep rather than wide-ranging, like headlamps that can be used for casual outdoor activities. During the pandemic, there was a camping boom, which settled down after a while, and the industry had a tough time, I think, but we didn't really benefit much. We've been growing slowly but steadily. All the races were canceled, but Doi-san suggested, "Let's think about what trail runners can do," and offered to travel around the country to explain how to use the Trailmaster. It was a road trip; we visited four stores in Kanto, Fukuoka, Kumamoto, and Nagasaki in Kyushu. We couldn't make it to Shikoku, and in the Chugoku region, we went to Okayama and Hiroshima. Finally, on Christmas Day, we toured Kobe.

Yoshi: You started with wholesalers, and now you have a lot more direct communication with specialty stores. That must be because of the road trip, right?

Nishi: When Yoshi joined, Natty Shorts was already made, right? It was probably when the Onion Hoody was in its final stages.

Yoshi: Before I joined, I borrowed and tested the final prototype of the Onion on the Shinetsu Trail.If it weren't for the Trailmaster, I probably wouldn't have joined the company.

Nishi: Yes, meeting Doi-san was a huge turning point. If Doi-san hadn't gone to UTMB, I probably wouldn't have gone either.

Hagi: You got to see the world's top runners up close, didn't you? 

Nishi: That was at UTMB in 2019. At the first aid station, there wasn't much of a gap between the top runners and those around 50th place. Xavier and Pau Capell would just dash by. Their partners would support them, hug them, and then they'd quickly take off. I was so amazed, and while all that was happening, Jason Schlarb, an American runner wearing a Trailmaster, came in around tenth place, and a Chinese runner around twentieth place was also wearing a Trailmaster. I was like, "Wow!" I actually saw about four people wearing Trailmasters before Doi-san arrived. Four people out of fifty is a pretty good ratio, right? That gave me goosebumps. It was truly wonderful to see the headlamp I created being worn on the world's biggest stage.

Yoshi: It's like seeing your own spikes being worn by players in the FIFA World Cup, right?

Nishi: Exactly. I was so incredibly happy. I'm glad I delved deep into the world of trail running like this. There are things you can only understand when you go narrow and deep, right?

Nishi: And it's largely because Yoshi joined that he really pulled me into the world of trail running. Doi-san showed me the world of trails. Yoshi, on the other hand, brought me into it. I guess making the Trailmaster was the starting point for everything.

Haruka: So, you met Yoshida-san thanks to the Trailmaster too?

Nishi: I think TDT100 was the trigger. SAKU-san ran TDT wearing a Trailmaster, and I was invited to pace him for 60 kilometers, a distance I'd never run before. He wanted me to "feel the love for TDT."

Nishi: After that TDT, at the training session in Katano that I attended every Saturday, you called out to me, "You're Nishioka-san, right? You were at TDT." And you said, "I was at TDT too." You invited me to come to a training session at "Budozaka" on Wednesday evenings. I remember going to pay respects at Chogosonshi-ji Temple in Mt. Shigi with Akakon and others for the first time in the new year of 2020.

Hagi: The year before that, in December, there was the SUDT (Super Ultra Daitore) 100-mile event, right? I think I met Nishioka-san there too.

Nishi: Toyo-san (Mr. Toyoda of Nara Yosemite), who planned SUDT, told me to "come, some interesting people will be gathering." I only knew Yoshi and Norio, but I remember going as a photographer at the start. 

Nishi: So, I hope everyone can come on Saturday, August 1st. Let's break open a sake barrel and offer celebratory sake! Anything else we should do?

 Yoshi: Table tennis?

Nishi: Sorry, but I don't feel like I'd lose at table tennis. Also, arm wrestling and udon eating contest.

Yoshi: You're fast at udon (laughs).

Nishi: I drink my udon, you see (laughs). Well, let's skip that. That's all for now. Goodbye.

Yoshi: Goodbye.

Haruka & Hagi: Goodbye.


This time, we heard about milestone's independence as a company, its event, and traced back the brand's history.

During the pandemic, trail running races were canceled one after another, and it was a stifling time of avoiding crowds, wearing masks, and restricting daily life. Even so, it felt like people's attention shifted towards connecting with each other: "Let's go to the mountains instead of the city," "If no drinking parties, let's run together outside," "If no races, let's organize small informal races."

When you participate in a race, it becomes clear what works and what doesn't. There's so much to learn from mistakes, thinking you could have run better. You start to see what's missing.

By confronting the unevenness of the trail, the temperature differences, and the elevation changes of the mountains, you learn things.

People, the world, and brands all have their ups and downs, just like trail running. Saying that might be a bit too clever.

See you next month.


Text and Composition / Ken Hagiwara