A Person Who Is a Writer and a Fortune Teller

Once upon a time, a mysterious woman named Hoshizuki lived in a small town nestled between the mountains and the sea. Hoshizuki lived a life with two faces: that of a writer and a fortune teller, spinning words by day and reading the stars by night.
Hoshizuki's work as a writer involved recording the town's events, writing guidebooks for travelers, and sometimes turning people's lives into stories. Her writing was clear and warm, crafted to resonate with the hearts of those who read it.
On the other hand, as a fortune teller, Hoshizuki consulted with people in a small, old wooden room. She did not use crystal balls or tarot cards; instead, she used a unique method of reading the characters a person had written. "A person's heart resides in their writing," Hoshizuki would say.
Strangely enough, her work as a writer and her work as a fortune teller complemented each other. The insight she gained from writing people's stories was applied to her fortune telling, and the understanding of human nuances she gained from fortune telling gave depth to her writing.
One day, a traveler in the middle of a long journey visited Hoshizuki. "Please tell my fortune for the path ahead," the traveler requested.
Hoshizuki handed the traveler paper and a brush and said, "Write down the places you have traveled to so far and what you felt there." When the traveler finished writing, Hoshizuki carefully read the characters, closed her eyes for a while, and thought.
"What you are seeking will not be found at your next destination. However, in a small village beyond that, there is something you have been searching for for a long time," Hoshizuki told them.
The traveler was skeptical, but followed Hoshizuki's words and continued their journey. And indeed, in that small village, the traveler was able to find the old book they had been looking for for years.
When the traveler returned to thank Hoshizuki, they asked, "Why do you walk two paths, as a writer and a fortune teller?"
Hoshizuki smiled quietly and replied, "Words record the past and the present, while fortune telling illuminates the future from the present. I stand between words and the stars, wanting to watch over the stories of people as they continue."
Later, Hoshizuki told the young people of the town, "Do not just follow one path; cherish the different talents within you. Even if they seem contradictory at first, if you can harmonize them in your heart, they will become a magic that is yours alone."
And so, the proverb "Characters are stars, the heart is the moon; those who see both illuminate the path" spread from this town.
And they lived happily ever after.
That was the preface for the 1045th Namunin Interview, written on April 22, 2025, at 6:51 PM, by someone who thinks so!!!!!

[Preface: qbc / Yasuhiro Kuribayashi (Writer / Organizer of Namunin Interview)]

Joining us this time is Anju!

Age: Late 40s
Gender: Female
Occupation: Writer and Fortune Teller

Current: Removing the excuses for why one can't do something. It was interesting that they ended up going in the direction of actually wanting to do it themselves. It was a 'gotcha' moment.

qbc:
What do you do for a living right now?

Anju:
I am currently a writer and a fortune teller.
I think people might see writing and fortune telling as completely unrelated, but to me, writing is translating from Japanese to Japanese, and fortune telling is a job where you translate the impressions or phenomena that come from cards or other sources into something understandable for the recipient, so in my mind, they are the same.
So, while I call myself a writer and a fortune teller, in my own mind, I am just someone who receives something and passes it on.

qbc:
How long have you been doing each?

Anju:
Both have been since around 2019.

qbc:
Is there a reason why both your writing and fortune telling careers started at the same time?

Anju:
At first, I wanted to be a writer, so I kept taking on writing projects.
At the time, there were tons of rewriting projects for fortune telling, so I was allowed to write a lot of those. Also, I had a lot of user experience through projects where I would call fortune-telling companies and write reviews about what kind of conversation we had or what kind of impression I got, so I was able to experience both the receiver and the sender, which is what made me think I could get involved in fortune telling.

Furthermore, there was one more trigger: I tried doing some live streaming activities. At that time, I have social anxiety, so I didn't know what to talk about. Since I had cards in front of me, I started doing things like 'Okay, I'll draw a card for tomorrow,' and I ended up learning the meanings of the cards, so I passed an audition in 2019, joined a fortune-telling agency in 2020, and became a professional. I continued writing in parallel with that.

qbc:
What were you doing before that?

Anju:
Before that, after graduating from university, I did a lot of temp work, but I was working at a corporate research institute.
I'm a total science girl.
If you ask why I ended up in my current life, it's because I was in a traffic accident. I was doing a lot of leave of absence and reduced working hours, but the aftereffects were terrible, and when the company told me, 'We'd like you to quit,' it just so happened that my parents said, 'Come on home,' so I decided to go back.

qbc:
And that led to becoming a writer and a fortune teller?

Anju:
Yes.

qbc:
What kind of genres do you write for your writing work lately?

Anju:
Generally, I write about beauty, law, and chemistry. I also do fact-checking and proofreading for articles.

qbc:
What about the fortune telling side?

Anju:
Since I'm in an agency for fortune telling, I take on cases. Also, if someone asks me to do it personally, I say, 'It costs this much,' and do it.

qbc:
What kind of fortune-telling do you do?

Anju:
Mainly card-based.

qbc:
What kind of mindset do you have when doing each of them?

Anju:
As I said at the beginning, it's the same thing. Making things easy for the other person to understand is the same for both.
You receive something, expand on it, and put it into words that are easy for that person to understand. Like using analogies, breaking things down, or making comparisons.

qbc:
What kind of emotions do you feel?

Anju:
In terms of emotions, I want it to 'get across'.

qbc:
That's more of an intention, isn't it? I'd like to hear about emotions like joy, anger, sorrow, or pleasure.

Anju:
If we're talking about emotions, it is fun, isn't it?

qbc:
What kind of fun is it?

Anju:
Because you can change people with words.

qbc:
What kind of fun is it? The idea that you can change people with words, I thought that was interesting.

Anju:
For example, if there's a really good product and I write about it, and then someone says they bought it after seeing that, I'm very happy. It's like hunting, I suppose.

qbc:
There's the fun of hunting. Could you break down the fun of hunting a bit more?

Anju:
I say, 'Please buy this.' If there is someone who buys it, it's the joy of knowing that the appeal was properly conveyed to the person who bought it. But what is it?
It's like I laid out the tracks for them.
It's like a 'gotcha' moment.

qbc:
So that feeling is what's fun.

Anju:
It's fun. It's really fun.

qbc:
Is that the same for both writing and fortune-telling?

Anju:
It's the same for writing, but with fortune-telling, it's not 'buy this,' but rather 'how to make your life better,' so when I say, 'Wouldn't it be good to do this?' and show them the path, and they say, 'That's great, I'll do it,' it's the same kind of fun.

qbc:
As much as you can share, do you have any episodes from recent fortune-telling sessions where you were able to experience the fun of hunting?

Anju:
There was someone who really wanted to do 'a certain thing.' But doing that thing would take a lot of time and money. So, they were worried, saying, 'I don't even know if it makes sense to actually do it.' The person said that what they wanted to do wouldn't work with what they had done so far, but when interpreted from a different perspective, it was something that would work extremely well. They said it would take time and money, but we found that if they did it this year, it would take time and money, but if we broke it down and made a plan to do it in about three years, it wouldn't be much of a burden. Then, the person's face brightened up, and they said, 'Then let's try it. I really wanted to do it after all,' and that happened.

I help them dismantle their excuses for why they can't do something, and steer them toward being able to. The person said they wanted to do it, but they were just making excuses for why they couldn't. I take away those excuses. It was interesting to see them actually move in the direction of doing what they wanted to do.
I felt like I had pulled off a coup.

qbc:
Did you feel that sense of enjoyment even before you started fortune telling or writing?

Anju:
I wonder... If you asked me whether I had felt it before or not, I can't think of anything off the top of my head. Pulling off a coup... In experiments, I've had hypotheses connect successfully. But when it comes to interpersonal interactions, I don't think I've had that much.
It's similar to when I've gone through with an experiment hoping for a certain result, but it's a little different for me personally. Still, I feel like I've done things that are close to that.

qbc:
Do you have any other hobbies?

Anju:
Reading is a huge hobby of mine. I read about 100 books a year.
Other than that, I guess it's just wandering around the internet.

qbc:
What kind of books do you read?

Anju:
Quite a variety, from serious to lighthearted.
You know how libraries have classifications from 1 to 9, right? In terms of those, I mainly read 3: Sociology, 4: Natural Science, 5: Technology, and 9: Novels.

qbc:
Could you tell me about a book you read recently that you found interesting?

Anju:
There's a book called "Aisuru yori mo aisaretai" (I'd rather be loved than love), which is a translation of the Manyoshu into the Nara dialect.
I think there have been many such attempts before, like translating The Tale of Genji or The Pillow Book into modern Japanese.
The concept of this book is what the poems of the Manyoshu would be like if they were in modern language, and it's actually real, contemporary language. It even includes things like Instagram hashtags. And because it uses the Nara dialect, it has a slightly softer feel to it.

What was really interesting about this was that, while it was fascinating to see the Manyoshu turned into modern language like this,I also thought at the same time: if I look at this in 10 years, the version I turned into modern language will seem outdated. On the other hand, the Manyoshu itself is absolutely immutable, isn't it? So in 10 years, it will probably be turned into different words again. That's why I want to recommend it. It shows you what the current language is like.

qbc:
Was there anything else?

Anju:
Because of the recent Taiga drama "Dear Radiance," I've been devouring modern translations of "The Pillow Book" and "The Tale of Genji," so my head is pretty much in the Heian period. Among those, "Aisuru yori mo aisaretai" was the best.

qbc:
What kind of things do you look at on the internet?

Anju:
Mostly X (Twitter).I like looking at gender-related topics.

qbc:
Is there a reason for that? For looking at gender-related topics?

Anju:
Isn't it interesting? It's always on fire.

qbc:
Is it more accurate to say you're interested in the places that are on fire?

Anju:
No. I do like gender-related topics, but...
Which is it? Do I like that it's on fire...?
Since the customers who come for fortune telling are mostly vulnerable people or women, I think about gender quite a lot, but when I start looking at gender-related topics, I notice they're always on fire. I can't take my eyes off it.
I feel like I've been watching this for years and years.

qbc:
Gender is a pretty broad topic, so what kind of things are you interested in?

Anju:
The glass ceiling for women.

qbc:
What is a glass ceiling?

Anju:
Metaphorically, it is the implicit barrier that prevents women from advancing in their careers.
I have experienced it myself; when I was working as a temp, a male temp joined the same department, and for some reason, only the male temp was offered a permanent position, soit is a glass ceiling that I am personally involved with.

It is interesting to see that many people feel this way, andI find it very fascinating, or rather I like it, when I see how our predecessors have struggled to try and break through that glass ceiling, and how those who followed have worked hard to push the wall up, step by step.

qbc:
What do people say about your personality?

Anju:
Something I was told recently is that I am "like a teacher." At the time, I was working as a computer instructor and a student said it to me, so I wondered what "like a teacher" meant, but I heard it was meant in the sense that my analogies are good and easy to understand.

qbc:
Is there anything else?

Anju:
When I work as a fortune teller, I get called teacher. So that makes sense. Also, for some reason, there is a feeling that people try to push me into leadership roles. Like, "You should become a department manager or something." So I wonder to myself if they think I am easy to dump chores on, or if they think I am reliable.

qbc:
What kind of personality do you think you have?

Anju:
I think I am a spoiled brat.

qbc:
What do you mean by a spoiled brat?

Anju:
First of all, the fact that I do not lead a regular life makes me think I am a bit of a social misfit, so that is a point for being a spoiled brat.
Living with my parents again because of an accident is also,from a social perspective, it looks like I lack self-control. It looks like I am not living on my own. It looks like I am not independent, so I think I am a spoiled brat.

Furthermore, when I tell various people that I am a writer, it often does not get through, and no matter how many times I explain the profession of a writer, they do not understand.I feel like I am someone who earns money doing a so-called shady job, so I am socially spoiled as well. I am a spoiled brat, including the fact that I do not have a job I can clearly explain.

qbc:
What kind of job is one where you are not being spoiled?

Anju:
Well, when I was working at a company, I was not being spoiled. Because I was doing things properly.

qbc:
I see. That is one thing, but do you feel a sense of inferiority now?

Anju:
I do feel a sense of inferiority.

qbc:
Is that something you have felt since around 2019?

Anju:
It has been the whole time.

qbc:
Do you feel it from the bottom of your heart?

Anju:
Ever since I was forced to quit my job. After all, I think of myself as someone who is "living by parasitizing something."

qbc:
What do your family, partner, or people close to you say about you?

Anju:
My parents have always told me, 'I'm glad you're here.'
My parents are getting on in years now, and people around them tell them, 'It's nice to have a young person around,' and since they're starting to have a little trouble with their legs and lower back, or a little trouble with their cognitive abilities, they tell me, 'You're reliable,' and 'I'm glad you're here.'

qbc:
What is your favorite food?

Anju:
I love sweets in general. Also, rolled omelets with cheese in them.

qbc:
Do you make them yourself?

Anju:
I make them myself. They were always in my lunch box when I was younger.
Apparently, I didn't really like rolled omelets back then, but they were always in the lunch boxes my mother made, and now, when I think about making a rolled omelet, I only eat the kind with cheese in it. I make them myself, though.

qbc:
What kind of cheese is it?

Anju:
Melting cheese. The sliced kind. It gets hard when it's in a lunch box, but it's delicious when you eat it freshly cooked.

qbc:
I see.

Anju:
I'm recreating my mother's flavor now, and I'm eating it in a delicious state, too.

qbc:
Thank you.

Past: I was walking and got hit by a car.

qbc:
I'd like to ask about your past, but what kind of child were you?

Anju:
As far as I can remember from my childhood,I was always reading books.
Because I was always reading books, there's an episode my mother often tells me about:because I read books and such, I had a strange vocabulary, so I would win if we got into an argument.

qbc:
I see.

Anju:
But I'm often told that that's not a good thing.I was told, 'The world doesn't revolve around your sophistry.'

qbc:
How were you in kindergarten?

Anju:
Kindergarten, it was a three-year program, but I joined in the second year due to my father's job transfer.

qbc:
You mean you joined in the second year?

Anju:
So, I really didn't understand the sense of distance with my so-called classmates. When I was in the senior year of kindergarten, there was a system where we were supposed to take care of the younger children, but since I didn't have any memories of being taken care of myself, I said, 'I don't know how to do that.' I really didn't want to go to kindergarten.

qbc:
You remember quite a lot. Those kinds of small details. Were you reading books back then?

Anju:
I was.

qbc:
Do you remember what kind of books you were reading?

Anju:
I read a lot of picture books, but if I had to name some famous ones, there were Miyoko Matsutani, Kimiko Aman, and also Eiko Kadono. I was often taken to lectures and autograph sessions for those kinds of picture book authors.
My mother was someone who did a lot of reading aloud, so even before I entered kindergarten, she would gather the neighborhood children and hold reading sessions.
I also read quite a few fairy tales. Things like Cinderella or The Little Mermaid.

qbc:
What kind of student were you in elementary school?

Anju:
In elementary school, I transferred in the second grade, so I couldn't fit in.
The thing is, the school had combined classes for 1st and 2nd, 3rd and 4th, and 5th and 6th grades, so because I joined in the second grade, I couldn't fit in, and for that whole year, I really felt like I had nowhere to belong.

qbc:
What kind of situation was that?

Anju:
Every day I would cry and insist, 'I don't want to go.'

qbc:
How were the other grades?

Anju:
After I became a third grader, that 'I don't want to go' feeling disappeared.I suppose I had just assumed that someone who came in halfway through wouldn't be accepted.

qbc:
I see. So you were accepted.

Anju:
When I became a third grader, there was a complete class reshuffle all at once. Everything was shuffled.
From then on, I didn't have that 'I don't want to go' feeling anymore.

qbc:
What about middle school?

Anju:
In middle school, well, I didn't understand history, so I was done for.

qbc:
You didn't understand history?

Anju:
Yes. I was more of a science-oriented girl, but even within social studies, I didn't understand history at all. I was completely baffled by what was going on, and I was done for.

qbc:
What do you mean by 'done for'?

Anju:
My grades were in a terrible state. I also didn't understand geography.
So, social studies was a huge drag on my grades. It wasn't like I was sleeping in class, and I was supposed to be studying properly, but I always felt like nothing was sinking in.

qbc:
What kind of feelings or emotions did you have at that time?

Anju:
I knew that when I got to high school, I would be divided into humanities and sciences, so I really wanted to go to high school early.
I wanted to free myself from the subject called 'society' as soon as possible.

qbc:
Do you mean from the subject of social studies?

Anju:
Yes, from the subject.

qbc:
What was high school like?

Anju:
The high school was a school I had admired and entered, but it was a super Spartan school. I couldn't keep up.
During the first orientation, we were made to run. It was so Spartan that I hyperventilated. Thinking 'I can't keep up with this,' I repeated the cycle of not wanting to go and not going for about half a year. My mother said, 'Since you went to the trouble of getting into that school,' so she would drive me back and forth, and I went while arguing about this and that.

It became much easier after I became a second-year high school student. I was freed from social studies, and the number of subjects I liked increased.
When I became a third-year student, everyone was like, 'We're going to college,' so I followed the crowd and decided to go to college too.

But the math teacher was scary.

qbc:
What do you mean by scary?

Anju:
They were all teachers who would walk around with a bamboo sword—not that they would hit students with it, but they would bang it against the blackboard or slam it onto the floor. The math teacher was like that. So, I was trembling while I was there.

qbc:
I see. Was that teacher considered unusual even at that school?

Anju:
No, I heard later that the top math teacher had worked at a school for the blind. Since students at a school for the blind can't see, it seems they have to make sounds to get around.
So, he had to always carry a bamboo sword to signal, 'I'm walking here now' or 'I'm here.' I heard before or after graduation that he was making those loud noises for that reason.
My homeroom math teacher had also worked at the same school for the blind for several years, so he was just following that practice.

qbc:
I see. What path did you take after high school?

Anju:
I went on to a science university, and it was a happy, happy development.

qbc:
What specifically did you study?

Anju:
Chemistry. I studied chemistry. It was fun.

qbc:
What kind of things were fun?

Anju:
When a peak appears exactly where you aimed for, the experiment is a success.
The moment that appeared, or seeing what percentage the yield reached, or having things go exactly as I thought they would—it was always as fun as mixing red and blue to get purple.

Then, developing that further, I would think, 'If I add more red, will it turn bluish-purple?' and I would try it, and it would happen—it turned bluish-purple, or reddish-purple—and the feeling of building on what I had accomplished was interesting.

qbc:
Had you always found that interesting?

Anju:
It just so happened that the university had very well-equipped experimental apparatus, so all the students had many hands-on experimental assignments.Up until high school, even if I knew such things existed, I couldn't touch them, so being able to actually touch them, handle them, and see how they worked was incredibly interesting.
And the things that came out of using them were exactly what I had aimed for. That was the kind of fun it had.

qbc:
I see. What did you do after graduating from university?

Anju:
After graduating, I failed a bit at finding a job. I joined a research institute as a temp worker. I was doing research on next-generation and next-next-generation technologies.

qbc:
How many years did you do that for?

Anju:
15 years after graduation. I was involved in that kind of next-generation work for about 15 years, and after that, I got a job at a small chemical company.

qbc:
What was your life like during that time?

Anju:
During that time, I was working about 200 hours of overtime a month.
I'd wake up, and since it only took about 10 minutes to get to the office, I'd go in and spend the whole time working—constantly doing something, whether it was moving my hands, running experiments, compiling data, or whatever else.

qbc:
What happened with the accident?

Anju:
I was walking and got hit by a car.

qbc:
How severe were your injuries?

Anju:
I was in a wheelchair for about three weeks.

qbc:
Did you break any bones or anything like that?

Anju:
My bones were fine. But the pain was so intense, there was nothing I could do about it.I'm still going to the hospital, and it seems the diagnosis is chronic pain.

qbc:
And that's why you resigned, right?

Anju:
That's right.But I had to take leave so many times that I feel like I caused the company a lot of trouble.
Because my body wasn't moving the way I wanted due to the aftereffects, I couldn't even carry an 18-liter square tin can anymore.
If I couldn't handle that, I couldn't do experiments or anything else. I knew I had no choice but to quit, andwhen the company told me, 'I guess that's it, right?', I felt it couldn't be helped.

Mirai: If chemistry hadn't existed when I was in junior high school, I think my life would have been over.

qbc:
I'd like to ask about the future.
If you imagine the future 5, 10, 30, or 40 years from now, all the way to the point of your own death, what kind of future do you envision?

Anju:
Until I die... Let me think about that.
I think I'll start something new.

I've been working as a writer and a fortune teller for about five years, and I used to think of them as different things. It was only the other day that I realized they were the same thing to me.
So,even if I start something new, work on it in parallel for a few years, and then realize, 'Oh, this is the same thing too,' I'll just keep doing that over and over...
My job titles might increase, but I think I'll just have more things that I realize are 'the same thing' inside myself. As for what that is, I can't really say right now.

qbc:
You can't imagine what kind of thing it might be at all?

Anju:
I don't really have an image of that right now. Thinking about it on the spot, I just can't picture it at all. Maybe I'll be using AI... I don't know if I'll prefer something that appeals more visually.
It will definitely be something web-related, something that uses the web rather than face-to-face interaction.
I don't have an image of myself having achieved FIRE, so I think I'll probably keep working.

qbc:
Is there a certain mood you'd like to be in, or anything like that?

Anju:
I do have a desire to keep pursuing something forever.
Like wanting to read this book. I feel like I can't die until I finish reading this new book. That's the kind of feeling I have.

qbc:
What has been the most enjoyable thing in your life so far?

Anju:
The first thing that came to mind was when I achieved results at work.

qbc:
When was that?

Anju:
I was working hard on that in 2014. A few years later, the effort I put in finally started to be properly recognized.

qbc:
Conversely, what was the most painful thing?

Anju:
The most painful time was exactly when I was working hard to achieve those results at work.

qbc:
It was painful?

Anju:
No, it was incredibly painful.

qbc:
What was painful about it?

Anju:
It was painful because I didn't know how to phrase things to communicate what I had done.
That was the hardest part. It was really tough.I was doing that all the time. It even appeared in my dreams.

qbc:
It appeared in your dreams?

Anju:
Yes. Well, I do have dreams about work quite often, but at that time, I really didn't know what to do, and I was constantly thinking about how to avoid having small errors in my wording pointed out.

qbc:
If I may ask a question about the future, what kind of life do you think you would have had if you hadn't had that accident?

Anju:
I felt like I could do anything at the company I was at before, so I definitely thought about whether I could climb the corporate ladder through office politics.

Also, since I had built up a track record, it would have been easier to change jobs. I might have moved to a company that looked interesting or one with better conditions than the one I was at then.
I think I would have become a workaholic. For better or for worse.
I enjoyed creating things and putting them out there.

If that had been my life, I might have been creating and releasing things as a hobby as well.

This might sound strange, but when I was working with UV-curing resin, I would use it for work, but I also used it for fun on my own. Even though I didn't have to.
What I did for work was just making test pieces, which wasn't interesting at all, but for my hobby, I was trying to make cute accessories. I was doing it with the feeling of wanting to create something new, so I like to think I would have managed to balance both.

qbc:
One more question about the future, if I may. If you hadn't studied chemistry, what would you be doing?

Anju:
Ah... Ah... I don't think I would have been able to go to school.
I wonder what I would have done...
If I had touched a computer somewhere, I might have become a computer teacher. But the reason I encountered chemistry now is because I was using computers.

If chemistry hadn't existed when I was in junior high school, I think my life would have been over.
If chemistry hadn't existed at the high school level, I probably would have gone into information technology. If I had gone that route, I think I would have become a programmer or a computer teacher. I think so.

qbc:
The final question is, is there anything you'd like to leave us with? It could be a last will and testament, a message to the readers, or just a monologue; if you have any final words, I'd like to hear them.

Anju:
To the friend who told me about the 'Nameless Interview'.
The site said 'ordinary people are interesting,' and I am very grateful that they taught me that there are things that can only be drawn out through interviews, and that this is a format for summarizing them.
I was influenced by that and was able to take a step forward (https://note.com/andyoudivination), so I am grateful for that connection and the bond I was given.

Afterword

Life is full of strange coincidences!
[Interview, Editing, Afterword: qbc]

[Editing: Honshu]

#NamelessInterview #Interview #Writer #FortuneTeller

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