Aika Kanda Celebrates Her 100th Column as a Freelance Announcer

To put my thoughts into words

Amazingly, this column has now reached its 100th installment. It began in February 2023—2 years and 9 months ago. No matter how busy I was or how sleep-deprived, I never once skipped a week. There were times when I brought food into the Poka Poka dressing room, declared “I’m not going home until I finish writing!”, and worked as if I’d locked myself in. There were times when I kept dozing off whenever I sat down, so I walked around the room in circles for six hours while writing.

I never knew creating something could be this hard! Thanks to this experience, I’ve come to feel overwhelming respect—and a one-sided sense of camaraderie—toward not only columnists, but also composers, painters, game creators, designers, and anyone who puts creative work out into the world.

And that’s all because there are readers who look forward to each installment. Without you, I would have long ago thought, “Well, I’ll just say I couldn’t write it this week.” skipped a column, and gotten fired. I truly thank all of you from the bottom of my heart.

There are two principles I’ve insisted on since the start of this column.
First: I write every word myself and conduct the final check personally.
Second: I draw all the illustrations myself.

Some may think, “Well of course you write it yourself.”
But surprisingly, it’s not actually a given. A common approach is to have a writer interview the columnist and then write the column in their name. People who are too busy to write or who are good at speaking but not confident in writing often use that format.

When this series began, the editor also suggested an interview style. For a moment, I thought, “What’s that!? Sounds easy!” But after thinking it over, I declined: “No, I’ll write it myself.”

From experience, I’ve realized that the way I observe, understand, and talk about the world tends to be different from the norm—and it seems people find that difference interesting.

If I were paired with a writer who didn’t notice or appreciate that aspect of me, even if they listened carefully, they might convert my words into different expressions or rearrange them into a more typical flow. I felt that putting my inner world into language would be difficult unless it came directly from me. So I decided to handle everything myself from start to finish.

No one can draw it but me

I decided to make the illustrations entirely my own work because I knew the moments I would want to illustrate would never match those an illustrator might choose. At the root of this is, again, the fact that the way I see and interpret events is different from most people. Even if an illustrator and I read the same text, I can’t imagine us both thinking, “Yes! This is the moment I want to illustrate!”

Even with close friends I’ve known for years, our impressions of movies or dramas almost never match. So I judged it impossible.

By the way, what kinds of scenes have I been illustrating until now?
Not the big dramatic climax scenes—the ones that would typically stand out.
I draw the scenes that remain most vividly in my memory.

A view I saw just before my emotions began to move,
a brief glimpse of my husband’s back during a moment of trouble,
the tense grip of my own hand at the moment a problem was finally resolved.

These fleeting few seconds, deeply engraved in my memory, are not scenes I describe in detail in the text— and they are scenes no illustrator could draw.

For all these reasons, this column contains 100% of my spirit and effort. That’s why writing it weekly is very tough. Another magazine recently asked me to start a regular column, but I declined. I can’t write two columns with the same intensity. My writing soul burns—and will burn out—only here in FRIDAY!

You can post on X, or write a Yahoo comment. I won’t reply, but even an Instagram DM is fine.
Please—if even a little bit you think, “Kanda’s FRIDAY column is interesting!”
have the courage to express it somewhere.

I use those words as fuel, and I will keep giving this my all!!

Special Feature for the 100th Column Anniversary
Aika Kanda’s Selection!
The Illustrations I Want You to See Again Best-of Exhibition

From the very first installment, each column has been accompanied by striking illustrations. Here, she introduces her top picks, along with her own commentary.

Best of: My Masterpiece
No. 30

This illustration depicts the scene from our annual “Japan’s Earliest Halloween Party,” held at my home two years ago. I invite my celebrity friends—who are all very active in their fields—and we usually hold the party in early September.

Our traditional dish is my specialty: bacon rolls. It’s a dish where vegetables or cheese are wrapped in bacon, and I make about 100 of them every year. I wanted to convey their impact to the readers, so I carefully drew each bacon roll one by one.

I’ll probably never be able to draw this many bacon rolls again!

Best of: Most Memorable
No. 17

This illustration was drawn six months after Fuji TV’s “Poka Poka” began. My friends from junior high and high school celebrated my appointment as MC by playing the “Waratte Iitomo!” theme song and dressing me up as Tamori.
I drew this with the message to my co-hosts, the two members of Haraichi, “Let’s become Tamori!”

This was the very first time I drew the two of them. I’ve drawn them many times since, and now I can draw them in just a few seconds.
Haraichi, I love you both!

Best of: Self-Portrait
No. 87

This illustration was drawn for the column about my birthday this year. While looking at a recent photo of myself, I faithfully drew not only my face but also the wrinkles on my neck and hands. The gift I received was so perfectly suited to me that it made me wonder—am I able to understand others this well?

While drawing this illustration, I felt sad about how many wrinkles I had. But I also filled it with self-reflection: even at 45, I still haven’t fully matured. So I decided to reveal my true self to the world.

Best of: Most Complimented
No. 86

This illustration was from the installment where I, a frugal person, vented my anger about society’s prejudice toward people who like to save money. In our home, we fill the bathtub to only level 2 out of 10. My husband looks so cute lying down in the shallow water, and I wanted to capture that.

People around me said, “This Himura-san is so cute!” and inside I kept thinking, See? I knew it! Even though it looks like a simple drawing, capturing my husband’s body shape and texture requires a lot of daily observation (laughs).

Best of: My Favorite
No. 55

This illustration accompanied a story about my birthday last year. It shows me telling my husband about the first dream I had after turning 44, and him pausing the video he had been watching on his phone to listen.

My husband and I really treasure our daily bedtime conversation time. I drew the spacing, expressions, and atmosphere as realistically as if it were a photograph. Every time I see this illustration, I can’t wait for tonight’s conversation time to come.

Best of: Took the Most Time
No. 61

This illustration depicts something that happened on the plane during a work trip to Singapore. The person in the seat across the aisle looked exactly like celebrity Panzetta Girolamo, and I’m shown trying to confirm with a sideways glance whether he really was the man himself.

Drawing the aisle using proper perspective, the symmetrical rows of seats on both sides, the people sitting in them—one with legs crossed—and everyone eating all of those elements took about two hours to complete. I ran out of energy, and the airplane seats ended up looking like floor chairs.

Aika Kanda: Born in Kanagawa Prefecture in 1980. After graduating from the Department of Mathematics, Faculty of Science, Gakushuin University, she joined NHK as an announcer in 2003. She left NHK in 2012 and became a freelance announcer. Since then, she has been active mainly in variety programs and currently appears regularly as the main MC on the daytime show Poka Poka (Fuji TV).

★ Her first book compiling this column, “Where Exactly Does the Royal Road Lead?”, is now on sale to great acclaim!

—from “FRIDAY” November 14–21, 2025 combined issue