Yotaro Matsuura on the New Balance 996: Staying the Same Means Changing Every Day

Up before six, breakfast is two small rice balls with miso soup, then a 15km run, then home to start work. Lunch is homemade granola, dinner is fixed at 5pm, followed by an hour's walk in the evening, home by around 7:30, then bed. Yotaro Matsuura has kept this routine for roughly 15 years, never once changing the menu.

Born in Tokyo in 1965, Matsuura opened the curated bookstore COW BOOKS in Nakameguro in 2002, served as editor-in-chief of Kurashi no Techo starting in 2006, and has since been involved in projects like Cookpad's media outlet "Kurashi no Kihon," UNIQLO's "LifeWear Story 100" collaboration, and DEAN & DELUCA magazine. He is now Creative Officer at the apparel brand PAPAS, and his new book "Kangaesuginai de, Kangaeru" was just published by Kobunsha. This interview is a HOUYHNHNM spin-off feature for ABC-MART's "My Buddy 996" project, published on August 10, 2026, shot at PAPAS CAFÉ's Hiroo location.

He describes running in the most matter-of-fact terms: "It's on the same level as eating, brushing your teeth, taking a bath." He's kept it up for 20 years without exhaustion or muscle soreness. But he doesn't run in the 996 — he alternates between New Balance's Fresh Foam X 1080 and Fresh Foam X More. His reasoning is that wearing the same shoe too long trains your feet into a habitual drift, and rotating pairs actually helps maintain the body's sense of balance. It's one of the few places where he actively chooses to "change."

His relationship with New Balance goes back to his twenties, living in an apartment on 73rd Street in New York. There was a Foot Locker nearby, and that's where he bought his first pair. He remembers New York stores at the time treating New Balance as a genuinely important brand. Those shoes weren't cheap for him back then — something he had to work hard to afford, which felt "a bit out of place for a broke kid" at the time. But it's precisely because that desire was hard-won that the attachment has lasted to this day.

"Changing constantly is what it takes to stay the same"

For this shoot he wore the CM996 in a new colorway, a shade darker than the standard grey. His take on the shoe is direct: "After about two years, it develops a real character of its own." He believes a basic shoe like the 996 carries a built-in sense of ease — you don't have to overthink what to wear it with.

On the fact that the 996's silhouette has barely changed in decades, his read isn't the usual "a timeless classic" line — he flips it around: "Staying the same standard, in fact, means changing every day." He draws a parallel to his own life: a New Balance model that looks unchanged on the outside has actually had its midsole materials and construction continually updated inside. It's precisely because of that constant change that it can still appear today looking the same as it did in the past. He calls this state "not changing, but polishing" — anything left unpolished simply rusts.

This same logic extends to how he understands craftsmanship. He believes the handmade quality worth appreciating isn't something made to express the maker's individuality, but a tool made for the user, for daily life — that kind of care made for someone else is what he calls "kindness" and "love," and he believes objects made this way carry a certain life within them. He also mentions that when traveling, he insists on cooking for himself, asking shop staff how to prepare ingredients when buying them, then going back next time to tell them "it was delicious." He believes this kind of back-and-forth exchange is what makes the things you buy truly special.

The pair worn for the interview is the New Balance U996 3LE, priced at 16,940 yen, available at ABC-MART as part of the "My Buddy 996" project. For details, check ABC-MART stores or the official campaign site.