He was born in an area that is now part of the city of Suwa, Nagano Prefecture, Japan.

Alaskan Tale (アラスカ物語, Arasuka monogatari) is about the adventures of Frank Yasuda [ja].

"Stowaway-ship Suianmaru"; translated by David Sulz) deals with the Meiji era entrepreneur, Jinzaburo Oikawa (及川 甚三郎, Oikawa Jinzaburō) from northern Miyagi prefecture, who went to Canada in 1896 to export salmon roe back to Japan.

In 1906, he chartered the schooner Suianmaru to smuggle 82 fellow villagers out of Japan and into Canada.

His 1973 two-volume novel Kokou no Hito (孤高の人) has been adapted into a manga series of the same title in which he is credited as writer.