Those who used to work under Asahi Kasei Corp. honorary fellow Akira Yoshino felt a new sense of joy at their former boss receiving this year’s Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his development of lithium-ion batteries, believing the recognition is the result of the effort made as “Team Yoshino.”

  Yoshino’s courteous and never-give-up attitude in research influenced many of his colleagues.

  Asahi Kasei employee Naoki Matsuoka, 43, was on hand in Stockholm for the award ceremony held Tuesday.

He belonged to the company’s “Yoshino Lab” in Fuji, Shizuoka Prefecture, for about 5½ years, starting in April 2010. Matsuoka is the last direct disciple of Yoshino who received his support in research until the lab closed at the time Yoshino was becoming a company adviser.

 In preparation for the lab’s closure, Matsuoka was sorting through research records of several hundred stored files and found one labelled “Yoshino” on the back cover. It was a research notebook describing the history of the creation of a prototype lithium-ion battery using plastic polyacetylene as a negative electrode to conduct electricity.

 The file featured notes written meticulously in pencil with words that included, “In particular, applications for lightweight batteries are rapidly increasing in Japan and abroad,” and “We concluded our efforts would best be served by focusing in the area of polyacetylene research.”

 The notes are the very history of the research that later changed the world.

  “We cannot throw this out,” Matsuoka advised Yoshino and stored it in Asahi Kasei’s main research office in Kurashiki, Okayama Prefecture.

 Matsuoka is now working on the development of new battery materials. He recalled these words from his boss: “Nothing fresh emerges from the average. In order to clear a hurdle, someone has to get 100 points.”

  Toshio Tsubata, who worked with Yoshino for about 13 years and now is the head of Asahi Kasei’s fuel cell materials business promotion department, describes Yoshino as a “tenacious person.” Tsubata said he remembers Yoshino’s “tough boss” demeanor.

 Tsubata, 55, recalled that whenever young researchers hit a rut in their research efforts and tended to want to give up, Yoshino used to say: “‘A cup is round when seen from above, but becomes oblong when viewed from the side. Everything changes, depending on the angle from which you view it.’

 “I was told to become a researcher who is recognized not by the company, but from the outside, and he led by example,” Tsubata said.

 In 1985, Yoshino and two others applied for a patent on the basic structure of a lithium-ion battery. One of the three was Kenichi Sanechika, now 64, who was in his fourth year in Asahi Kasei at the time and currently is a Japan Science and Technology Agency adviser.

 Back then, Yoshino had fewer than 10 people working under him, and he wanted to make his lab a place where he could ask researchers to handle any work regardless of age, believing that “No matter if they are newcomers or in the middle of their careers, researchers are all professionals.”

 There used to be a piece of paper on Yoshino’s desk with four kanji characters reading, “Yuiga Dokuson” (I alone am honored). Sanachika remembers Yoshino told him the reason he chose the quote, “I purposely placed that there to avoid becoming self-righteous.”

  Sanechika stayed in Japan and watched the news of the award ceremony. “Yoshino-san is going to be the same Yoshino-san even after receiving the Nobel Prize,” he said.