TBS Female Announcer Kaede Ito Embraces Unconventional Career Shift to Painter, Inspired by Shinobu Sakagami and Hikaru Ijuin; Reveals Solo Move to Germany

Shinobu Sakaue and Hikaru Ijuin …….

The venue was decorated with flowers sent by many celebrities. All of them were people who pushed him to become a painter. Kaede Ito, 30, a former TBS employee, who held a solo exhibition of paintings titled “How Long Can a Person Keep Dreaming?

Since I was at TBS, Mr. Sakagami and Mr. Ijuin told me, ‘You have a lot of energy, so do what you want. Thanks to those words, I was able to take the plunge. Now he is based in Germany, where he is engaged in creative activities, but he is constantly troubled and suffering. I would be happy if you could find some courage in my struggles as a Japanese artist in the world through my works.

Mr. Ito’s path to becoming a painter was not a smooth one. We would like to introduce the troubled and exciting life of Mr. Ito in his own words.

Qualification as a portrait painter acquired at university

Mr. Ito has been interested in painting since he was a child.

When I went to the zoo with my mother, we used to draw pictures of living creatures together. My mother had a good sense of aesthetics, and she gave me good advice, saying, ‘You should use these colors. I was in the badminton club in high school, and I designed the student T-shirts for the sports festival. I remember I was particular about the font of the letters.

After graduating from high school, he went on to study at Rikkyo University’s Faculty of Letters.

After graduating from high school, I went on to study at Rikkyo University’s Faculty of Letters. I took the English Proficiency Test, the Secretarial Test, and the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (……). My mother told me, ‘You should take it because it’s interesting,’ so I took a correspondence test and became a portrait artist. This certification became a turning point for me when I later became a female announcer.

When she was in elementary school, Ms. Ito saw Yukari Nishio (formerly of Nippon Television Network Corporation, now freelance) and other female announcers on TV, and she admired them as “intelligent and dignified women. At university, she was a member of the Broadcasting Research Association.’ After joining TBS in April 2004 and taking the first step toward her dream of becoming an announcer, she was away from the world of painting for a while.