KYOTANABE, Kyoto — Every morning, the mother of Tomoka Takeishi performs a heartbreaking ritual: she prepares two rice balls and places them at the family’s Buddhist altar. For the 17-year-old student, those rice balls were a daily staple, a small comfort provided by her mother to sustain her through long school days. Now, seven months after Tomoka died in a tragic boating accident during a school field trip, the altar remains the only place her mother feels she can still care for her.
Tomoka, a bright and ambitious student at Doshisha International Senior High School, died on March 16 when a boat capsized in rough seas off Henoko Point in Okinawa. The trip, intended for “peace studies,” ended in disaster when the vessel—part of a fleet typically used for political protests—sank in waters the school had never properly vetted.
The investigation that followed uncovered a catalogue of failures in the school’s safety management. It was revealed that no teachers were present on the boats, no advance safety inspections were conducted, and the school was entirely unaware that a high-wave advisory was in effect at the time of the incident. Most alarmingly, parents were never informed that their children would be boarding protest vessels, let alone ones operating in potentially hazardous conditions.
The aftermath has been marked by a perceived lack of accountability that has devastated the Takeishi family. Tomoka’s mother recalls arriving at the school in a state of panic, only to be told by the principal—who was casually scrolling through his phone—that her daughter had been confirmed dead. The school offered no immediate apology, and teachers failed to contact the family even while Tomoka was being transported to the hospital, denying the mother her final chance to speak to her child.
In July, the Takeishi family filed a criminal complaint against 11 individuals, including the former principal and several teachers, alleging professional negligence resulting in death. While legal experts initially cautioned that holding educators responsible for an accident at sea would be difficult, the family remains steadfast.
“We simply cannot accept a situation where no one is held accountable,” her mother said. “We did not want this to be swept under the rug.”
Tomoka, who had recently completed a summer program at Harvard and dreamed of working for NASA or JAXA, left behind a notebook with a reminder to “live each day with gratitude.” Her parents have now turned their grief into a mission, establishing a group to advocate for stricter international safety standards in school extracurricular activities.
“We must channel the lessons learned from the accident into building a safer society,” her father said. “This is the homework Tomoka left us.”
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