Yuta Mikami

Intellectual disability (B). Born in Hirosaki City, Aomori Prefecture, in June 1983. After graduating from senior high school, he held various jobs in workshops for disabled people and regular companies, and is currently a member of the radiology department at Aomori Prefectural Central Hospital. He is a member of “Rainbow Aomori”, Aomori Prefecture’s “Group of the People [with disabilities] Themselves”. He is an active participant in gatherings related to disabled people, such as those of the Japan Federation of Joining Hands Child-raising Groups. His hobbies include travel, watching anime, and listening to music.

I have a mild intellectual disability, classified as “B” (in Aomori Prefecture, disabilities are divided into “A”, severe, and “B”, mild to medium). I think that someone who met me for the first time would not be able to tell whether I was disabled or not. At present, I am working in the radiology department of Aomori Prefectural Central Hospital as a member of staff appointed for the fiscal year. I am mainly involved with tasks such as collecting the glass badges (tools worn by radiologists and doctors when they enter the radiation controlled area) or calculating the various numerical values issued at the end of each month.

My hobbies are watching anime, listening to music, and travelling. I still watch more than ten anime shows a week. When I say “anime”, these are not the works which everyone knows (like Doraemon or Sazae-san), but rather works made for adults (what are known as “late night anime”). I think that the attractions of late night anime are their high quality and the wide range of genres. Moreover, I can come across works that I like. Of these, my particular favourites include Love Live! Series (the story of senior high school girls who aim to become school idols) and Laid-Back Camp (an anime on the topic of camping, which has also been made into a TV drama). Until the very recent past, late night anime could only be viewed on terrestrial broadcast channels in Kanto or Kansai, but in the last few years, they have become viewable any time, anywhere via satellite broadcasts or streaming services. Moreover, some are now broadcast at the same time on terrestrial broadcasting networks across the country. Most importantly of all, they are spreading around the world.

For this and other reasons, I have started going to AnimeJapan, held each year at Tokyo Big Sight exhibition centre, and gathering information about upcoming anime broadcasts. AnimeJapan is among the world’s largest anime exhibitions and, as well as the various companies and groups which exhibit, there are all kinds of anime-related stage events.

Second is listening to music, which has long been a hobby of mine. At first, I mainly listened to J-POP such as kiroro (a female duo from Okinawa) and Nao Matsushita (an actress and singer), but now I mainly listen to anime songs and songs sung by voice actors.

Today’s voice actors are also active as artists in their own right, and if there is a voice actor that I like, I go to their live performances. Before COVID-19, I went to performances in Sapporo (Saori Hayami) and Sendai (TrySail). Saori Hayami has a beautiful singing voice, so I could relax when I listened to her. In the case of TrySail (a trio of female voice actors), on the other hand, there were the shouts, clapping and cheering from the audience that you often get with idols, and this was too much for me at times. Nevertheless, I think that live performances are fun.

Another of my hobbies is travel. I have been to places like Tokyo and Osaka so far. The place I have been most often is Hokkaido, because I can get there easily by ferry or shinkansen from Aomori City, where I live. International flights also serve Aomori Airport, so I have been to Seoul in South Korea. I have also been to the locations of various anime.

COVID-19 erupted in the midst of this and transformed my life completely. There were various changes, such as no longer being able to go to live performances or travel.

I was able to enjoy live performances via streaming, but I still wished that I could see them in the flesh.

The number of COVID-19 patients is not yet under control, but I hope that a day will come next year when this number starts falling again. After that, I want to go on trips again and enjoy live performances by various artists. I also want to make the effort to go to anime-related events.