On November 4, GACKT posted a lengthy message on his X (formerly Twitter) account using the fable ‘The Tortoise and the Hare’ as a jumping-off point. Beyond the usual moral about ‘complacency versus persistence,’ he offered his own spin: that people cling to past successes even after those methods stop working once circumstances change, and he stressed the importance of accumulating data. He said the post was sparked by a lure-fishing buddy asking him why such a huge gap in skill had opened up between them over the past three years. On the 5ch Geinou Sports Hodo+ (celebrity/sports news) board, though, commenters focused less on the interpretation itself and more on taking GACKT himself to task, repeatedly bringing up his past NISA (Japan’s tax-free investment account) explainer and his cryptocurrency project.
【GACKT】 Explains the hidden lesson of the fable ‘The Tortoise and the Hare’ — ‘Past success is a cage that traps you’ — uses his own way of thinking to stress the importance of accumulating data
Musician and actor GACKT updated his official X account on November 4. Using the fable ‘The Tortoise and the Hare’ as his theme, he revealed his own take on the lesson lurking behind the well-known moral of ‘complacency versus persistence,’ posting a lengthy message aimed at anyone who feels like ‘things just aren’t going well in life.’
The trigger was a lure-fishing buddy asking him, ‘Why has such a huge gap in skill level opened up between us over the past three years?’
I'd rather watch Osaka night-view videos on YouTube than watch Peace-kun from Omiya Park (a local mascot/swan).
65AnonymousNov 4, 2026 12:58
Re: #2
Saito Kazuyoshi's song 'The Tortoise and the Hare' (a Japanese singer-songwriter's track of the same title) gives you a lot more to think about.
5AnonymousNov 4, 2026 12:05
I don't think the guy who originally wrote this fable was thinking that deeply about it.
7AnonymousNov 4, 2026 12:06
What's with him getting all needlessly complicated about this? (said in Kansai dialect)
8AnonymousNov 4, 2026 12:06
Well, NISA doesn't even let you diversify your investments.
9AnonymousNov 4, 2026 12:06
What about people who are neither the hare nor the tortoise?
10AnonymousNov 4, 2026 12:07
Like that one CEO everyone's thinking of — running the same old playbook doesn't cut it anymore, not even at an apology press conference.
12AnonymousNov 4, 2026 12:08
The real winners are the privileged class just sitting back and watching the hare and tortoise fight it out.
13AnonymousNov 4, 2026 12:08
Re: #1
Isn't the whole hare-and-tortoise story basically summed up by 'the tortoise never stopped trying'?
14AnonymousNov 4, 2026 12:08
This was basically the Brazil soccer match all over again.
15AnonymousNov 4, 2026 12:08
Go correct that baffling NISA explanation of yours first.
17AnonymousNov 4, 2026 12:09
GACKT — I thought he was going to make it as a chef, but instead he became Hiroyuki's disciple (Hiroyuki, the 2channel founder known for his debate style). Well, I guess that works too.
18AnonymousNov 4, 2026 12:09
Succeeding after changing your methods is hard — there's a much bigger chance you were just a one-hit wonder who got lucky once. In the end, it all comes down to politics.
20AnonymousNov 4, 2026 12:10
Why did they even race in the first place, again? Did the tortoise just go 'I can do this!' on a whim and challenge him?
21AnonymousNov 4, 2026 12:11
How do GACKT and the Kano Sisters (famous for their extravagant lifestyle) have so much money anyway? It really is a mystery.
22AnonymousNov 4, 2026 12:11
He's probably just getting fed the answers by staff on that celebrity authenticator show — does that even count as a 'success experience'?
23AnonymousNov 4, 2026 12:12
If he really valued his past successes, he wouldn't have left MALICE MIZER (his old visual-kei band) the way he did. Given how fast he went solo afterward, it was probably all arranged beforehand — but going solo doesn't guarantee you'll actually sell.
24AnonymousNov 4, 2026 12:12
The trouble with genuinely talented people is they give up the second they hit a wall.
25AnonymousNov 4, 2026 12:14
There was that whole trend of 'the scary true meaning behind fairy tales' stuff, wasn't there — all those far-fetched interpretations.
28AnonymousNov 4, 2026 12:15
Re: #25
The original Grimm's Fairy Tales are genuinely dark, though.
26AnonymousNov 4, 2026 12:14
Doesn't he have any good memories from Moriyama?
27AnonymousNov 4, 2026 12:14
Baby boomer generation: 'Tokyo Olympics! Osaka Expo! Just keep cranking up inflation and Japan's bound to bounce back!'
And the result →
31AnonymousNov 4, 2026 12:18
The hare never actually succeeded, so this doesn't even apply.
33AnonymousNov 4, 2026 12:21
Wasn't this supposed to be Achilles and the Tortoise? (Zeno's paradox, a different story entirely)
34AnonymousNov 4, 2026 12:25
So basically, the people who bought my coin lost money because they were the bad ones?
36AnonymousNov 4, 2026 12:26
The tortoise only won because the hare screwed up — he himself never actually worked on getting faster, right?
47AnonymousNov 4, 2026 12:32
Re: #36
The 'success experience' here is just that he won by never stopping.
38AnonymousNov 4, 2026 12:28
Isn't this a pretty straightforward reading, though? He's acting all cocky like he made some huge discovery.
40AnonymousNov 4, 2026 12:29
Re: #38
What he's saying is pretty ordinary, honestly. And it doesn't have much to do with the hare and tortoise specifically.
41AnonymousNov 4, 2026 12:30
Shut up — this whole thing falls apart the second you remember 'Gakuto Coin' (a mocking nickname for GACKT's failed crypto project).
43AnonymousNov 4, 2026 12:31
True success only exists in the place where you've given up on success.
44AnonymousNov 4, 2026 12:31
Judging by this, Miffy's original creator was apparently well aware of the Tortoise and the Hare lol
45AnonymousNov 4, 2026 12:31
Maybe he should've accumulated some data on NISA while he was at it.
48AnonymousNov 4, 2026 12:32
I'd be into it if it were more like a chill 'Hare and Tortoise go for a hike' kind of thing.
51AnonymousNov 4, 2026 12:36
'I used the Tortoise and the Hare to describe situations where a method works at first but stops producing results once circumstances change — yet people cling to that past experience and can't bring themselves to look for a different approach.'
Was there ever actually a scene in the Tortoise and the Hare where someone couldn't look for a different approach?
53AnonymousNov 4, 2026 12:40
Wait, GACKT went to Teikyo University, not just a high school grad?
Background and Points of Contention
GACKT frequently shares his personal philosophy of life on X, and this time he used ‘The Tortoise and the Hare’ to lay out his own particular lesson. The fact that it was sparked by such an ordinary, private moment — a question from a lure-fishing friend — is itself typical of how he communicates. The thread split roughly into two camps: those who took it as a ‘profound insight’ and those who saw it as ‘just stating the obvious, dramatically,’ with the latter view somewhat more dominant. What’s more, rather than dwelling on the fable interpretation itself, many replies brought up past criticism of his NISA explainer and his cryptocurrency project, meaning the debate centered less on whether his message had merit and more on how people feel about GACKT as a public figure. He’s far from the only one to offer a ‘hidden meaning’ reading of a classic fable, and whether the original story really contains a clear lesson about ‘the dangers of past success’ comes down to interpretation — worth noting that some commenters pointed out, quite faithfully to the source material, that ‘the tortoise simply never stopped trying.’
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