Free Announcer Aika Kanda “Go for it, Boy of Five Forks!

The willfulness and true feelings of 12-year-old Aika

I took the junior high school entrance exam because I failed the elementary school entrance exam. At that time, my local school was a school for those who had failed the entrance exam. Therefore, I had no intention of attending the same junior high school as those children, and naturally, I chose to take the junior high school entrance examination and started attending cram school.

I thought I would smile and be overjoyed when I got the acceptance I had longed for. But in reality, I cried. I was surprised, and then I realized. The truth was that studying was hard for him.

I could not talk with my classmates in elementary school at all. I couldn’t understand a word they were saying about a TV show they had watched yesterday, because I had been so busy studying that I hadn’t seen the show. At the time, I thought to myself, “I’m not like those kids who watch TV! But I think I was really lonely.

I knew that my parents had been fighting because of my studying for the entrance examinations, and that my brother was being told by my parents, “Be quiet! I knew that my parents had been fighting because of my studying for the exams, and that my brother had been getting angry with my parents for “being quiet! When I thought that passing the exam would put an end to all that, my 12-year-old self was so relieved that I burst into tears.

I wonder if that five-way street boy has made up his mind. My guess is that he will start cram school this spring, at least according to his parents’ wishes. And for the next three years, he will spend his days studying. It must be hard for him. If I could stop him, I would. But I don’t have the right to do that to a child from another family. So I want him to do his best. Or rather, I have no choice but to do my best.

In my case, I really hit it off with the friends from junior high school that I met after the hardships I went through, and even now, at the age of 44, they are still my closest friends. So I have no regrets about taking the junior high school entrance exam, and I definitely hope you are smiling now, three years from now. I wish that every time I pass that five-way intersection.

Aika Kanda was born in 1980 in Kanagawa Prefecture. After graduating from Gakushuin University with a degree in mathematics, she joined NHK as an announcer in 2003, and left in 2012 to become a freelance announcer. Since then, she has been active mainly in variety shows, and currently appears regularly as the main MC of the daytime TV program “Poka Poka” (Fuji Television Network).

Her first book, ” Where are you going on the road called Royal Road? is now on sale by popular demand!

From the March 28, 2025 issue of “FRIDAY