Noritake Suzuki on "Tetsuko's Room" aired on July 22nd: "I don't want to go back to those days" - looking back on his "two-pants" life

Noritake Suzuki, a picture book author known for "Daipinchi Zukan," appeared on Tetsuko Kuroyanagi's long-running talk show "Tetsuko no Heya" (TV Asahi) on July 22nd. He talked about his journey to becoming a picture book author.

"I studied hard and completed the tasks given to me without any doubt, and I pushed forward, believing that if I did this, I would be happy in the future. After graduating from Hitotsubashi University, I joined JR Central and pushed forward without any doubt, but when I actually entered society, I realized that something was not what I had thought it would be."

As part of his training for new recruits at JR Central, he received training as a Shinkansen driver. "My hands started shaking when I thought about the 1,000 people sitting behind me. The timetable was in 15-second increments, so if I was even five seconds late, I would be asked, 'Why were you late?' It was an incredibly tense experience."

I left JR Central after two years. I was interested in the broad business field that railway companies have, and I joined the company hoping to do something interesting, but I didn't have the foundation and thought it wasn't the quickest way to do what I wanted to do. I thought I would be better off going out and using my hands and making things myself. At the time, there were a lot of subculture magazines lined up in bookstores. I left JR Central because I wanted to make a magazine, but I couldn't make a magazine by myself, so while I was wondering what to do, I worked as an advertising designer for about eight years.

When he first drew a rough sketch with a pencil, a senior colleague told him, "You're pretty good. You should try drawing seriously." He went to an art supply store and tried out various things with acrylic paints. He was bombarded with high-quality illustrations, popular illustrations, and illustrations from overseas, and little by little he tried his hand at them. He drew his first two picture books while working as a company employee. Looking back on working two jobs, he says, "It was really hard. My advertising job was busy, and I would start drawing at around 2am, draw until around 4am, then get up at around 9pm and go to work. I never want to go back to that time."