Conducted by Yu Taguchi via Zoom, April 22, 2026
Transcribed and translated by Yu Taguchi
Editor’s Note: Underlined content is hyperlinked (each underlined element is a clickable link), leading to further aspects of the content shared, here. (This convention is consistent, throughout Wordgathering.) This interview includes all of the elements listed in the contents, below, including five images (with an image description of each in both English and Japanese).
This interview has been published in both English and Japanese.
Yu Taguchi created the original story for The World as Seen Through Dementia based on her interviews with Kosuke Sakamoto. Sakamoto, a certified care worker and Tokyo Metropolitan Dementia Care Instructor, served as Yu’s primary source throughout the project.
- English Translation
- 日本語原文（参考）/ Japanese Original
- The World as Seen through Dementia: Manga Cover and Select Pages
Back to Top of Page | Back to Manga Does Not Draw Lines | Back to Volume 20, Issue 1 – Summer 2026
About Kosuke Sakamoto
President and CEO of Kurashiasu Co., Ltd. Certified Care Worker and Tokyo Metropolitan Dementia Care Instructor. Sakamoto has been working in elder care since 1996. After serving at a special nursing home for the elderly, he went on to launch and manage a wide range of community-based care services, including home care support, home-visit care, assistive equipment provision, welfare transportation, small-scale multifunctional home care, and group homes. In 2012, he founded Kurashiasu Co., Ltd., and currently operates day services, home-visit care, and home care support offices in the Nishi-Tama area of Tokyo. Drawing on his frontline experience, Sakamoto advocates for an approach to dementia care that looks beyond surface-level behaviors to understand the emotions, relationships, and living environments that shape them. He shares this perspective through training programs, lectures, and writing. His published works include Surprisingly Effective Ways to Ease the Stubbornness of People with Dementia (Subaru-sha, co-authored with Ruka Fujiwara) and 60 Tips to Prevent Inappropriate Dementia Care: The Pitfalls of “Good Intentions” (Chuohoki Publishing, co-authored). Sakamoto also serves as a board member of NPO 9612G Project and as a certified nature observation instructor, leading fieldwork activities such as nature walks and camping to broaden the perspectives and awareness of care professionals.
About Yu Taguchi
Yu Taguchi is a welfare journalist based in Tokyo, Japan. The original story creator of the published manga, The World as Seen by Dementia (Takeshobo, 2023), she has contributed over 50 articles on disability, caregiving, and social welfare to major Japanese publications including Bunshun Online (文春オンライン), Nikkan SPA!, and Shueisha Online (集英社オンライン). She founded and served as editor-in-chief of “Aideal Hiroba,” a disability and minority-focused web platform that reached one million page views in its first year of operation. Yu Taguchi is the mother of a child with a disability. “My Son’s Favorite God Is the One His Parents Threw Away,” her first publication in English, is also published in Japanese—with thanks to the author—in this issue of Wordgathering.