# 同じ中高に通った二人の学生時代の限界突破

- Show: 限界突破ライフハック
- Published: 2026-09-21
- Canonical: https://podc.club/en/episode/1866434136_b9d25e41f9b8.html
- Audio: https://anchor.fm/s/10d527f20/podcast/play/125914506/https%3A%2F%2Fd3ctxlq1ktw2nl.cloudfront.net%2Fstaging%2F2026-8-18%2F432138089-44100-2-6a13d24dfe163.mp3
- Source: Edited from a machine transcript of the first 30 minutes of the episode. Not an official summary.

Higuchi and Fukai (樋口・深井) attended the same middle and high school near Waseda in Tokyo and reunite on mic to trade memories of their 1990s adolescence — from flashlight expeditions through apartment-complex drainage tunnels to miso-soup budgeting schemes that funded a weekly CD habit. The episode closes with a thoroughly modern problem: how do you set a reunion entrance fee when your 44-year-old classmates range from CEOs to parents on allowances?

## What this episode answers

### What were the rules of the drainage-tunnel exploration game Fukai played as a child, and why did it become so addictive?

The rules were to lift certain drain covers and push as deep as possible into the drainage channel connecting the housing blocks using two flashlights, tracking progress block by block; it became addictive because of the thrill of never knowing whether the exit cover would open.

### What specific money-saving method did Higuchi use in middle school to buy one CD every week?

He ate only ten-yen bowls of miso soup for lunch (eight bowls for eighty yen), pocketing the four to five hundred yen he saved daily, which added up to about 3,000 yen a week — exactly enough for one CD.

### What does Higuchi mean when he says setting a reunion admission price is 'harder than Fermat's Last Theorem'?

He means that fairly pricing admission is nearly unsolvable because the same graduating class, at age 44, spans business owners and parents living on a fixed household allowance, making it almost impossible to set a fee that feels fair to everyone.

### What happened during the high school Okinawa school trip involving a member of Da Pump's family?

A classmate struck up a conversation with the younger sister of Shinobu, a Da Pump dancer, during the Naha leg of the trip, then secretly left the accommodation that night to take her to karaoke.

### What activities did the pair get up to at their regular after-school hangout, Takadanobaba Big Box?

They went bowling (with a rule that anyone missing a strike got a knuckle rap from the others), plus karaoke and billiards as their default circuit.

## Article

## Flashlight Expeditions Through the Apartment-Block Drainage Tunnels

Fukai's opening memory comes from the large housing complex where he lived before starting school. The development ran to about ten numbered blocks, and beneath them ran a drainage channel that connected the common rooms of each building. One day the kids discovered that certain drain covers could be lifted — and that was all the invitation they needed. Armed with two flashlights, they pushed deeper each time, tracking progress in terms of blocks: "Today we made it from Block 6 to Block 8." The real thrill, Fukai explains, was never knowing whether the cover on the exit end would open. He hadn't thought about the episode in 35 years; Higuchi's reaction was an amused wince — "We'd absolutely get in trouble for that today."

Both men also share a memory of jumping from heights. Fukai tried using an open umbrella as a parachute to leap from a second-floor balcony; the umbrella failed to do anything useful and the landing hurt badly. Higuchi had heard a similar story about himself from his own parents. The two agreed that testing one's own courage is apparently a universal compulsion for boys of a certain age.

## Ten-Yen Miso Soup, Eight Bowls: A Middle-Schooler's CD Budget

Once Higuchi entered middle school his passion for music exploded outward across rock, metal, classical, and jazz. The Tower Records and HMV on his commute route became daily stops; chatting up the staff became the way he learned about indie releases. The obstacle was money. The school cafeteria charged ten yen per bowl of miso soup, so Higuchi made that his entire lunch — eight bowls, eighty yen — and pocketed the four or five hundred yen he saved each day. By the end of the week that came to roughly 3,000 yen: exactly enough for one CD. He kept the habit going every week. Fukai, for his part, revealed that he worked a part-time job at a fishmonger's back room during summer vacation, though he has completely forgotten what prompted him to take it.

## Natsumezaka and the Oedo Line: A Principal's Lament

The school the two attended sits at an awkward midpoint between Waseda Station on the Tokyo Metro Tozai Line and Akebonobashi Station on the Toei Shinjuku Line — a fifteen-minute walk from either. Coming from the Waseda side meant climbing Natsumezaka (夏目坂), a steep hill steep enough that students slid back down on snowy days. Sprinting up it against the clock was everyday life. When Higuchi visited the school about six months ago, the principal told him that former students used to have noticeably stronger legs and cores — a direct consequence of running that slope every morning. Since the Oedo Line opened a station two minutes from campus, the principal said, the students' fitness has dropped sharply.

## School-Trip Legends: A Temple Bell and a Da Pump Connection in Okinawa

The middle-school trip to Kyoto and Osaka produced at least one infamous incident: a classmate rang a temple's bonshō (梵鐘) bell with full force in August — a bell that is not meant to be rung in that season — and the head priest came sprinting out to deliver a furious dressing-down.

The high-school trip went to Okinawa, structured so that students could mix and match time on the main island with stays on Kume-jima, Miyako-jima, and other outer islands. During the Naha leg, one classmate struck up a conversation with the younger sister of Shinobu, a dancer in Da Pump (ダパンプ), then slipped out of the accommodation that night and took her to karaoke. Fukai wasn't part of the group, but he remembers being struck by how casually the classmate recounted it afterward, as if it were nothing. Given that Da Pump and SPEED — both Okinawa acts — were at the peak of their popularity at the time, the story landed with an extra layer of credibility.

## Big Box, Katapan Knuckles, and the Sega Arcade Holy Ground

After school the standard meeting point was Big Box in Takadanobaba, where bowling, karaoke, and billiards formed the default circuit. Bowling came with a house rule: anyone who failed to score a strike took a knuckle rap — katapan (カタパン) — from every other player. Hit enough of them and the arm went numb, which only meant the punishment stopped hurting, not that it stopped happening. Karaoke pricing was a live debate: the nearby Utahiro charged 180 yen an hour versus 350 yen inside Big Box itself. For the arcade fix, Spot 21 (スポット21) in Shinjuku was the destination for Virtua Fighter 2, where top-ranked players could be challenged — though running a long win streak risked someone suggesting they settle it "for real."

## The Reunion Pricing Problem: Harder Than Fermat's Last Theorem

Higuchi started hosting small reunions in his mid-forties, growing the gatherings over three or four years until last year's edition filled a hotel banquet room with a hundred people, teachers and the current principal included. Yet every single time, the entrance fee defeats him. At 44, the same graduating class contains business owners and parents living on a fixed household allowance, and the economic spread makes it nearly impossible to price an event that feels fair to everyone. The practical result, Higuchi observes, is that the venue ends up being the kind of izakaya that serves takoyaki and watery beer. His best working theory: if someone speaks up first and says "I'll cover it," others follow and it naturally evens out into a reasonable split. He calls the whole dilemma "harder than Fermat's Last Theorem" — and leaves it unsolved.

## Takeaways

- As a child, Fukai would crawl through his housing complex's underground drainage tunnels with two flashlights, measuring success by how many blocks he could travel before the unknown exit cover stopped him.
- To fund a one-CD-per-week habit at Tower Records, Higuchi ate eight ten-yen bowls of miso soup for lunch every day in middle school, saving roughly 3,000 yen a week.
- Higuchi argues that setting a reunion admission price for 44-year-olds with wildly different incomes is effectively unsolvable — and that someone volunteering to pay first is the only thing that ever breaks the deadlock.