I went to Hirotaka Nakagawa's lecture

Yesterday, I went to a lecture by Hirotaka Nakagawa, who is famous for picture books like "Satsuma no Oimo" and "Ookikunaru tte iu koto wa."

It was more of a concert than a lecture! He is the person who wrote many masterpieces like "Niji," which was covered by Takeshi Tsuruno, and "Sekaiju no Kodomotachi."

My impression of seeing Mr. Nakagawa was that he is a "funny old guy."

Seeing a 61-year-old man joking around and having a blast was so much fun, and I laughed a lot.

I learned that Mr. Nakagawa was actually the first male childcare worker in Japan!

What was wonderful was how natural he was.

In the middle of the show, he brought children up on stage to watch a panel theater performance, and the one who volunteered for the role of the bakery lady, which had the most lines, was a girl around two years old.

Mr. Nakagawa made a surprised, playful face.

"I don't know what's going to happen, you know? This is going to be quite the public childcare demonstration."

He muttered.

He didn't have that performative, gentle childcare worker vibe at all, and he would say things like,

"Alright, the panel theater is over, so put the puppet here and hurry on home" (laughs).

It was fun.

At the end, the old guy sang an anti-war song.

I think the content was about not wanting to lose these fun, happy, everyday moments.

That must be the core of this funny old guy.

His delicate sensibility and sincerity came through so directly that the fun play songs and silly talk up until that point gained more depth in my memory.

The dark parts, the shadows, are important, aren't they?


That's why I realized I should just show my shadow side without hiding it, too.

Both toward children and toward other people.


It was a very educational lecture.

Here are Mr. Nakagawa's picture books.