Also showing off his cooking skills on the Nagon Official YouTube Channel An episode that’s not about being rough-around-the-edges Kō’s encounter with cooking began when he started living alone. At first, he did it out of necessity. “I started living on my own around 18. I didn’t have much money, so convenience store food was expensive, but I was still hungry, so I couldn’t get full without cooking for myself. I started cooking to save money.” Gradually, he began to enjoy cooking on his own. “I never felt that I was bad at cooking. I think part of it comes from seeing my mom, who was good at cooking. But the bigger factor was probably the experience I got at restaurants I worked at as a student. I even made staff meals there, and that’s where I learned some of the know-how.” Still, his cooking is entirely self-taught. It’s far from fancy knife work. “I can’t finely and quickly shred cabbage by chopping ‘ton ton ton,’ and I’m not good at filleting fish because I’m clumsy.” “When I worked at a major izakaya chain, they put me in the kitchen because they thought I could cook. One time, I was told to fillet a horse mackerel that had just come out of the live tank. I couldn’t bring myself to fillet a live fish, so I quietly put it back in the tank. Yes, it was swimming around happily (laughs). But, of course, I got scolded. I didn’t have the skills, but the truth is, I had always felt sorry for that mackerel, and after closing time, I would secretly feed it, so I had grown attached” In telling this story, Kō shows a side of himself that’s a bit different from his usual rough-around-the-edges image.