In early May 2025, Toru Tokushige was alone in his Tokyo office when the general came knocking. It was the Golden Week, Japan’s biggest holiday, and everyone else was on vacation.
Manabu Shimamoto, a retired major general, had come to implore the 56-year-old CEO of Terra Drone to help secure Japan’s future. Their country desperately lacked drones, Shimamoto explained. Small drones. Cheap drones. Drones that could literally fly off the production line. Drones that could swarm and kill.
Tokushige, whose publicly listed drone company has been entirely civilian since its inception in 2016, had spent years researching the military side of the…
