Tokyo Engineer Quits Rat Race to Renovate Cursed 10-Year-Abandoned Building
KEY POINTS
- •Koyo Murata left Tokyo in August 2025 to renovate his hometown’s abandoned community center into Villa ASO guesthouse.
- •He secured about 20 million yen in loans, hired pros for 70% of the work, then DIYed the last 30% with friends.
- •Villa ASO opened in December 2025, hosting local tourists and one foreign group, aiming to boost Taiki’s shrinking economy.
Koyo Murata, the 25-year-old Tokyo escapee and electrical engineering grad, pulled a full ‘U-Turn’ last August when he ditched neon-lit cram-packed trains for rural Taiki — a town so small three elementary schools make a full choir. Armed with two loans — one family, one government, totaling $124,000 — he saved a 10-year-abandoned community center from demolition. What awaited? A 70% pro-renovation job plus 30% pure DIY chaos with friends, zero experience, and all the YouTube tutorials in the world. Now he runs Villa ASO, hosting multigenerational clans and the rare foreign pilgrim for $179-$208 a night, promising handmade sauna vibes and free hot springs, hoping to stop his town’s slow fade into merger oblivion.
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(1 of 3)When your career peak is convincing friends to wield power tools on a decade-dead community center funded by brotherly loans and gov cash—welcome to Japan’s Australian Rules of Rural Renovation.
Only in Japan: graduating as an electrical engineer to become a part-time sauna whisperer and full-time village hospice.
Nothing screams adulthood like leveraging $124K to fix a burned-out community center and calling it a startup.
Source: Businessinsider | Published: 7/12/2026 | Author: Kat Joplin
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