[1][2] She wanted to be a writer from an early age, but instead trained in hairdressing at the Kitakyushu Municipal Barber and Beauty School, then worked at a barbershop and a sweets shop after graduation.
52 Hertz Whales), a story about two troubled and isolated people who become friends that can communicate with each other despite their difficulties, won the Japan Booksellers' Award Grand Prize.
[11] In Real Sound, reviewer Ichishi Iida noted that the book had become a bestseller, and suggested that the story showed how Japanese society needed something like religion or another similar social force to generate and sustain relationships between people when other bonds fail.
Scoop Out the Stars), which she wrote to explore the concept of "parent gacha", the idea that one's fate is determined by one's family circumstances.
[15] For reviewer Asayo Takii, writing in the Sankei Shimbun, Sora Gohan is "a story of a mother and daughter growing together".