Interviewer: Is "Nokanan" a place name?
Satoh: Yes. It's written with the characters for "field" (no), "flower" (hana), and "south" (nan). I believe I started elementary school in Nokanan. After that, we went to Shimanoshita, and then to Utashinai, which I think was another coal-mining town. Then we went back to Ashibetsu. We moved around quite a bit.
Interviewer: Was that due to your father's work?
Satoh: Yes. My father sharpened saws at lumber mills—huge saws. There were circular saws and band saws, maybe 30 centimeters wide with teeth on one side. As saws are used, they stop cutting well, so his job was to sharpen them. He moved around various lumber mills, and we moved every time he changed jobs.
At that time, the only transportation was the train, so the concept of commuting didn't really exist. Nowadays, you might drive 30 minutes or an hour from Shimanoshita to Utashinai to commute, but back then, cars were considered one of the "Three Sacred Treasures" (luxury items). Owning one was out of the question for us.

So, we just moved. Move, move, move. In particularly busy years, we moved every year and a half. While he was often recruited for his skills, my father had a somewhat difficult personality and didn't always get along with people. Recruiters would say, "We need you, we’re relying on you," but once he started working, friction would develop with the owners, or he would become difficult to manage. After a year or two, things would sour, but then he would get called by another place because his skills were good.
This meant that I would enter a school, and a year later, I’d have to transfer. Just when I was getting used to it, I’d transfer again. I was a transfer student many times.
I don't know if you've ever experienced transferring schools, but it's awful at first. You go to a place where you know no one (laughs). You have to introduce yourself: "I'm Hideki Satoh, my hobbies are..." At first, you are all alone. Eventually, a class clown or someone friendly talks to you, and little by little, you build relationships. But those first few months are very lonely.
One time, I refused to transfer. My father said, "If you go, I'll buy a television." I agreed immediately. Back then, having a TV meant you were rich. Usually, we had to go to a shop or a wealthy friend's house to watch TV. In the evenings, kids would flock to these places around 5:00 or 6:00 PM to watch. Having a TV at home—even a black and white one—meant unlimited viewing. So, they bribed me with a TV. I said, "Okay, fine." But of course, once I started the new school, I didn't have friends immediately, so I still had to endure that loneliness until I gradually adjusted. And just as I adjusted, we would move again.

Once, around fifth grade, when we moved from Ashibetsu to Utashinai (I think), I said a tearful goodbye to my friends. Then, around my first year of junior high, we moved back to the exact same area. My old elementary school classmates were now in that junior high. When I stood up and said, "I'm Hideki Satoh," I saw several familiar faces. It was reassuring, but also embarrassing. I thought, "What was that tearful goodbye for?" (laughs).
(All laugh)
Satoh: "What were those tears for?" Anyway, I returned to that junior high. Around that time, the local lumber industry in Hokkaido was declining because foreign timber started coming in. The mill my father worked at had to close. My father decided to go to Tokyo to work in Kiba (the lumber district). He went alone at first.
He told them, "I've been sharpening saws for years, I'm confident in my skills." But by then, saw sharpening had become a licensed trade requiring a national certification. In Kiba, they wouldn't hire anyone without that license. So, even though he moved to Tokyo, he couldn't do the work he had done his whole life.
He struggled for a while, but eventually found work as a seasonal worker at Prince Motors (which was later absorbed by Nissan). They hired him temporarily for a season, but they recognized his technical skills with saws and eventually hired him as a full employee.
While he was in Tokyo, my mother and we three children stayed in Hokkaido, living off his remittances. Once he found steady employment, he told us to come to Tokyo. I believe I moved to Tokyo around my first year of junior high.

Interviewer: Was that around 1963?
Satoh: Yes, around 1963 or 1964, just before the Tokyo Olympics. I was in my first year of junior high, and my grades were decent at the time.
Interviewer: Where in Tokyo did you live?
Satoh: Hachioji. I enrolled in Hachioji 7th Junior High School. My father worked at the Nissan Prince factory in Musashimurayama. It was a huge factory. It's gone now; I think it's become a shopping mall.
Interviewer: Is that where the Aeon Mall is now?
Satoh: Yes, that's right. He wanted housing near the factory, but we didn't have much money. There was a housing complex in Hachioji run by the Employment Promotion Corporation. It was in a town called Kobiki-cho. There was a crematorium right nearby. We used to joke, "If I die, just drag me over there, it'll be fine." We moved into a small apartment in that complex. It was a 2K layout—one 6-mat room, one 3-mat room, and a tiny kitchen of about 2 mats. A family of five lived there.
Childhood: Play, Study, and Family Environment
Interviewer: Before junior high, back in elementary school, what kind of games did you play with your friends?
Satoh: I remember playing marbles and menko (we called them patchi in Hokkaido). You throw thick printed paper discs to flip or knock others out of a ring. We also played sword fighting (chanbara). The younger kids would just run around following the older kids. We certainly didn't have video games.
Interviewer: Did you go to rental bookshops or read manga?
Satoh: I didn't read or see much of that. Rental bookshops existed, but I rarely used them.
Interviewer: What programs did you watch on the TV you were bought?

>>729498126
> and since I was Hideki, my brother became Naoki
why?

I didn't start reading novels seriously until I came to Tokyo, right before entering high school. I read a lot of the so-called "masterpieces" then, though I’ve forgotten them all now. Before that, I barely read.
Interviewer: For manga, people like Osamu Tezuka were active around the time you were born, with Astro Boy, for example.
Satoh: I remember Shonen Magazine and Shonen Sunday. This was around 4th or 5th grade. I remember buying Sunday or Magazine when it was first published. Later, Shonen Champion came out, and then Jump.
Interviewer: Sunday was founded in 1959.
Satoh: Ah, so I was nine. That sounds right. I was in Ashibetsu then. I remember begging my parents to buy it for me.
Interviewer: How were you with your studies in elementary school?
Satoh: Honestly, I wasn't very good. But I was the type who tried hard if I was praised. Female teachers were good at that. I still remember my first-grade teacher in Shimanoshita. It was a rural school with few students, so 1st and 2nd graders were in one class, 3rd and 4th in another, and 5th and 6th in another. The teacher would teach the 2nd graders while we 1st graders did self-study, and vice versa.
Her name was Ms. Shimomura. I've forgotten her face, but I remember her name. She was very good at praising me, so I studied hard. I used to say my best subject was math. At the school play, I was chosen to read a book aloud because I was good at it, and I got a decent role in the play—not just standing there. So, in 1st and 2nd grade, I did reasonably well.
But then I would transfer. The textbooks would be different, the progress would be different, and the new teachers wouldn't praise me right away. My grades would drop. If I got a male teacher who didn't have the sense to praise me, I'd lose motivation completely.

Around 4th grade, back in Ashibetsu, I had a female teacher again who praised me well, and I studied hard. My mother said I would fill up a Campus notebook in just a few days. My grades were decent then. But then I’d transfer again, get a male teacher, and slump again. Overall, my grades were probably bad if you averaged them out.
My mother once told me that when I was very small, a fortune teller said, "This child is a late bloomer" (laughs). So whenever I was doing poorly, she would encourage me by saying, "The fortune teller said you'll be great later on, so maybe it's true!"
Interviewer: How was your relationship with your siblings? Did you play together?
Satoh: I was born in 1950, my sister in 1954, and my brother in 1955. Since there was an age gap, it was less about playing together and more about me taking care of them.
We were poor, so my mother worked. That left the three of us at home to cook and clean. We divided the chores—who washes the dishes, who cooks the rice, who cleans the rooms. I did my share and made them do theirs, but since they were 4 or 5 years younger, I often ended up doing everything myself. It was annoying, but I had no choice. I hated washing dishes the most. But we had to do it.
Our meals were simple. A common dish was whale meat. It came in blocks, half-frozen—what they call "partial freezing" now to sound fancy. We’d slice it thin and eat it as sashimi with onions sauce. Back then, we’d complain, "Whale again?"
(All laugh)
Satoh: It’s probably delicious if you eat it now. But as it thawed, blood would seep out onto the plate. That, plus miso soup, was a typical meal.
We rarely ate meat other than whale. Once, I asked my mother to let us try beef. She told me, "Hideki, beef smells like milk. It's no good." When I finally ate it years later, it wasn't smelly at all—it was delicious!

Occasionally, we had "Genghis Khan" (grilled mutton). Later, we had "meat pot" (niku-nabe), which was like sukiyaki but made with pork instead of beef, simmered in onions sauce. That happened maybe a few times a year.
Right around when I entered junior high, I tried instant spaghetti napolitan for the first time. I don't recall if you boiled it or stir-fried it, but I was incredibly moved. It had almost no ingredients, just ketchup-flavored noodles, but I thought, "How can something this delicious exist?"
People say the food in Hokkaido is delicious, especially seafood, but in the Sorachi District (central Hokkaido), we had no refrigerators. Logistics were poor, relying on trains. Seafood had to be eaten immediately or it would be frozen or processed. I rarely ate truly fresh, delicious seafood.
I remember in Shimanoshita, there were only two shops. One nearby sold groceries but had no fridge. My mother bought some fish paste or fried cakes for us to eat. When she grilled them, maggots came crawling out because of the heat. I was horrified.
Interviewer: It was a pit toilet system back then, right?
Satoh: Yes. If you looked down the toilet, you'd see maggots. Seeing the same things come out of our food was shocking.
But looking back, it makes sense. There were no fridges, and flies were everywhere. We used sticky fly ribbons that would turn black with flies. Hygiene was impossible. Everyone from my generation experienced this.
However, Shimanoshita was a beautiful place. There was a small river behind our house that flowed into the Sorachi River. The water was very clean. We played in the water, which was only knee-deep.
There were lots of sculpin and loaches. Sculpin are small fish with big heads and mouths. They are stupid fish; once they bite the bait, they don't let go. We used earthworms as bait. A neighbor raised pigs and had a pile of rice bran or something where you could dig up

handfuls of earthworms. We'd thread them onto a string into a ball—dozens of them. When you dropped this ball of worms into the water, the sculpin would bite, and you could just lift them out. We didn't eat them; we’d just catch them and throw them back. It was cruel, really.
Interviewer: Worms work well for fishing.
Satoh: Since the water was flowing, it was hard to see into it. We didn't have goggles, so we used a piece of glass. We’d press the glass against the surface of the water to see the bottom clearly. "Oh, there's a sculpin!"
About 10 years after I joined the company (Sega), I went to Hokkaido to recruit students. Sega wasn't well-known then, so few people applied. I took my wife along, treating it as a summer vacation. I took her to Shimanoshita to show her that beautiful river. But when we got there, the river had dried up and turned into a ditch. It was better left in my memory.
I also have a memory of my mother getting very angry at me for some mischief. She dragged me to the edge of the ravine behind our house and said, "I don't need you anymore! I'm throwing you in the river!" She dangled me over the edge. But the cliff was covered in vines, and I had hooked my feet into them.
(All laugh)
Satoh: She was pulling and pulling, saying "I'm going to drop you!" but I was holding on tight with my feet in the vines. Eventually, she got scared because she was pulling so hard and I wasn't falling. Later we laughed about it.
We didn't have an indoor bath. In Shimanoshita, there was a hot spring about a 30-minute walk away. We went there once a week. On the way, we passed radish fields. Since I was hungry, I’d pull up a radish, scrape the skin off with my teeth, and eat it raw while walking. The green parts were actually sweet.

Satoh: There were candy stores and dry goods stores. In Ashibetsu, the population was maybe 40,000 or 50,000. As I said, we gathered at a shop to watch TV. On Sundays, kids of all ages would gather to watch National Kid. After the show, we’d play. That shop was our community hub.
Childhood: Outdoor Play
Interviewer: Did you play mostly at home or outside, catching bugs and such?
Satoh: We caught dragonflies. In Hokkaido, starting in August, the number of dragonflies is incredible. We didn't have nets because our parents wouldn't buy them. So we used spiderwebs. We bent a wire into a loop, attached it to a stick, and caught spiderwebs with it. If you layered 5 or 6 webs, it became a sticky net. When you swiped at a dragonfly, its wings would stick to the web.
We aimed for the big ones, like the Oniyanma (golden-ringed dragonfly), or the silver Shiokara dragonfly. I once ate a dragonfly. I took off the head, tail, legs, and wings and ate the body. It wasn't good. I also ate a bee—I removed the stinger and ate it. It was actually a bit sweet.
Interviewer: You mean the bee itself, not the larvae?
Satoh: The bee itself. I ate all kinds of things. Snacks were rare. Once a year, we’d get a big tin of alphabet or number cookies. We’d get 5 or 6 pieces a day.
We also bought "ears" from the cracker (senbei) factory nearby. When they pressed the crackers, the excess dough would squeeze out the sides. They cut these "ears" off before selling the round crackers. We could buy a whole bag of these scraps for 5 yen. They were delicious.
Interviewer: Like buying bread crusts?
Satoh: Exactly. I actually prefer the crusts of bread. My wife now knows to buy the bread with the heels still on it for me.
Interviewer: Back to bugs...
Satoh: In Hokkaido, there are no cockroaches.
Interviewer: It's too cold.

Satoh: When I first saw a cockroach in Tokyo, I thought it was just a beetle. In Hokkaido, we had stag beetles and grasshoppers everywhere. When I took my wife to Shimanoshita, she was terrified by the sheer number of dragonflies and grasshoppers jumping around.
People assume that because I grew up in Hokkaido, I must be great at skiing. I did ski, but we couldn't go every day. Snow was mostly just a nuisance. I maybe went skiing 5 times a season.
Later, when I joined the company in Tokyo and went skiing with colleagues, the equipment was totally different. In my childhood, we used rubber boots and simple bindings. In Tokyo, the boots were hard plastic and went up to the knee. I couldn't move my ankles! I was used to steering with my ankles. I went straight down the hill and was terrified because I couldn't turn.
Childhood: Toys
Interviewer: What was the first toy you remember getting?
Satoh: Toys... we were poor, so not many. But I loved plastic models, especially tanks. This was probably around first year of junior high. I have a confession: I once shoplifted a plastic model. It was a Tiger tank that cost 2,500 or 2,600 yen. That was a huge amount. My father’s bonus was 10,000 yen, so this was a quarter of that.
The shop was being renovated or cleaned, and the merchandise was outside. I just... took it. I ran home and assembled it frantically.
We also used to steal crops from fields—potatoes or whatever. Once we got caught and chased. As we ran, we threw the potatoes out of our pockets. I don't know why—maybe to destroy the evidence?

We also ate mulberries. They turn purple when ripe and are sweet and juicy. If you pick them too hard, they burst and stain your hands purple. We’d climb the trees and eat them until we fell out.
My mother used to pickle huge amounts of radishes and cabbage for winter. My father would pound mochi (rice cakes) alone—dozens of liters of rice. It was impressive physical labor.
Regarding the tank model: the batteries would run out very quickly. I remember researching how to fix that. I learned about "condensers" (capacitors) that could store electricity and "transformers" that could change voltage. I wondered if I could use them to run the tank. But I didn't know I needed a rectifier to convert the AC to DC, so I couldn't make it work.
Childhood: Allowance
Interviewer: Did you receive a monthly allowance?
Satoh: No monthly allowance. If I got New Year's money from relatives, my parents would "hold onto it" for me.
Interviewer: And they just kept it?
Satoh: When I needed something, I’d ask. Or I’d ask for 30 or 40 yen to go see a movie. I remember seeing The Longest Day. But there was no fixed monthly amount.
For Christmas, we’d get a cake. That was the one time a year we ate cake. It was delicious.
Interviewer: Nothing for birthdays?

Satoh: I don't think we did anything for birthdays. We really had no money.
Interviewer: That was normal for the time?
Satoh: Yes, especially in rural Hokkaido. In Shimanoshita, there were maybe 1,000 people. We did have one big event: the Emperor's train passed through. The Showa Emperor was traveling to Furano. The train didn't stop at our station, but all the schoolchildren lined up to wave as it passed. Later, my father took us to Furano to stand outside the hotel where the Emperor was staying, just to be part of the excitement.
Interviewer: Was it a steam locomotive with a Japanese flag?
Satoh: I think so. At that time... I wonder how many schoolchildren were at that elementary school back then? At most, maybe 50 or 60 students in total? So that would mean about 10 students per gradeere decorations on it.

Satoh: I don't think we did anything for birthdays. We really had no money.
Interviewer: That was normal for the time?
Satoh: Yes, especially in rural Hokkaido. In Shimanoshita, there were maybe 1,000 people. We did have one big event: the Emperor's train passed through. The Showa Emperor was traveling to Furano. The train didn't stop at our station, but all the schoolchildren lined up to wave as it passed. Later, my father took us to Furano to stand outside the hotel where the Emperor was staying, just to be part of the excitement.
Interviewer: Was it a steam locomotive with a Japanese flag?
Satoh: I think so. At that time... I wonder how many schoolchildren were at that elementary school back then? At most, maybe 50 or 60 students in total? So that would mean about 10 students per gradeere decorations on it.

skipping junior high and college and he was hired at sega:

Satoh: Around late March, I met up with friends who were all talking about their new jobs at companies like Trio, Fujitsu, or Casio. I realized I was the only one without a job.
I went to my school on March 25th or 26th. The career counselor scolded me: "You said you weren't going to get a job!" He offered to introduce me to a company called Fujisoku that made switches. I said, "Switches sound boring." He got angry and told me to go find a job myself in the reference room.
I went to the reference room and saw a brochure for Tomy. I liked plastic models, so I thought a toy company would be interesting. I called them, but they said applications were closed. It was still March, so I was shocked. Years later, I told Mr. Tomiyama (President of Tomy) this story, and he was surprised that they had rejected someone just because it was March.
College Years: Visiting Sega Directly
Satoh: I looked for another company and found Sega. They weren't making toys, but they made slot machines and jukeboxes. Being a foreign-owned company, they had Saturdays and Sundays off, and the starting salary was good (32,000 yen). The location was Otorii, very close to my school in Samezu.
I decided to just go there directly. It was past March 25th, so HR was done with recruiting. However, the HR section manager happened to be a graduate of Tokyo Metropolitan University (part of the same system as my college). He was bored, so he showed me around. I cheekily asked for a tour.

He showed me the factory and the jukebox department. Sega dominated the jukebox market then. Famous singers would visit to ask for their records to be included. I saw Keiko Fuji walk by. He showed me the library with over 100,000 records. Then he showed me the R&D department and the Production Technology department.
He asked what I thought. I said, "I'd join if it's R&D or Production Technology. I don't want to work in the factory." Lucky for me, R&D was looking for three people but had only found two. There was one vacancy. I was sent to interview with the R&D manager immediately.
Interviewer: A walk-in interview? That is amazing.
Satoh: We talked about lasers or something—I just bluffed my way through. He warned me that I would start by doing manual labor like cutting metal and wood. I said I loved making plastic models, so that was fine. I was hired. The HR manager asked for my transcript and health check, but I had nothing with me. I had to rush to get them prepared before April.
I entered Sega purely on luck and bluffing. If there had been a formal exam, I never would have passed.

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I love reading boomer stories

Be poor as fuck and then upward mobility just happened through pure happenstance *gives the boss a confident handshake"

here is the whole thing btw: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1rQN0MITyAF9FZb-tnINfoq5c99DivcoAFvztjONBEMU/edit?tab=t.0

be aware AI translation is very dodgy and pretty much cuts all nuance, but you get a the broad picture

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>>729499973
was an interesting read, thanks

Interesting nostalgic story. Why is sega so fucking stupid and incompetent though?

>>729500975
It's says right there, they where burning money up their asses when shit was doing great but when shit hit the fan they came to realize how bad they where with money, specially when they worked with IBM.

>>729499973
Read every post. He had a difficult childhood, and moving a lot, must be hard af on kids. Thanks for the dump.

Good day to you.

>>729499732
>I just walked in and gave them the trusty firm handshake
Every time.

>>729499973
Many such cases, people were hired for a good attitude or something.

>>729503131
i moved around just as much as he did and i didnt have the luxury of 2 parents i had a harder shonen protagonist childhood than this gook where is my free willy wonka ticket