Born in Tottori Prefecture in what is now the town of Iwami, he graduated from the law faculty of the University of Tokyo and joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
He served in several key posts including Consul-General in New York (1929–30), Delegate to the League of Nations (1930–32),[1][2] and Ambassador to Brazil (1934–38).
As a pacifist, he opposed Japan's 1933 withdrawal from the League of Nations, and as a Roman Catholic, he made appeals to the Vatican in order to put an early end to World War II.
He served as an advisor to the cabinet of Prime Minister Kantaro Suzuki late in the war.
[1] In the wake of the war he was regarded, along with fellow veteran diplomat Naotake Sato, as one of the remaining elder statesmen of his generation.