notice

Published: January 30, 2026
Revised: February 9, 2026
...Corrected the omission of the title of the second recommended product from our company. Thank you to the reader who contacted us.

■Name:
Hiroki Nakano

■Faculty and major at the University of Tokyo:
2000: Entered undergraduate program (Faculty of Letters, Humanities III, Chinese language elective)
2002: Faculty of Letters, Department of History and Culture (Japanese History specialization)
2004: Graduate School of Humanities and Sociology (Japanese Cultural Studies, Japanese History)
2010 September: Withdrew from doctoral program after completing coursework

the publishing company where I currently work,
The University of Tokyo Press
Website ofhttps://www.utp.or.jp/

■How I spent my time at university
I moved to Tokyo to attend university and lived alone for the first time (I'm from Okayama Prefecture). I lived in a student apartment along the Inokashira Line, which was introduced to me at a property viewing event hosted by the university cooperative. All the residents were University of Tokyo students. I don't think there are many properties like that anymore.
From my third year of undergraduate studies, I moved to a place that was easier to commute to the Hongo campus, but I preferred the atmosphere along the Inokashira Line, so I moved back to the same apartment when I entered graduate school. I lived there for a long time and became close with the landlord, so even after I started working, I was allowed to stay there for a while as a special favor. Then, the University of Tokyo Press moved from the Hongo campus to a site adjacent to the Komaba campus, and I remember thinking that I had a connection to Komaba in my life.
After choosing modern and contemporary Japanese history as my major in undergraduate studies, I think I spent most of my time searching for and reading documents and historical materials, and learning how to read cursive script for that purpose. For part-time
jobs, I was introduced to them through my research and did things like organizing materials at the National Diet Library and several museums and archives, and creating problems for an education-related company. I also did a one-off part-time job at a publisher's returns warehouse.
During my doctoral studies, I worked part-time as an editorial assistant at the publishing company Mishima-sha. This was back when they had their office in a detached house in Jiyugaoka. A friend of mine worked at Mishima-sha and asked me to help with a book they were publishing by the author Kenichi Matsumoto. He said the proofs were heavily marked up in red ink and difficult to decipher, and that since I majored in Japanese history and could read cursive script, I could probably do something about it. That was the beginning of my work there, and I ended up helping out with various books for several years afterward. It was fun. If I hadn't had that part-time experience at Mishima-sha, I probably wouldn't have thought about working in the publishing industry later on.

■My relationship with books and the university co-op bookstore during my university days
Because my major involved reading books, documents, and historical materials (both printed and unprinted), I always had lots of books around me. Around the time I was a student, services that allowed you to specify a pickup store for mail-order books, such as Tohan's e-hon and Nippan's Honya Club, became more common, and I used the latter frequently because I could specify the university co-op bookstore. My
favorite bookstore was Shohara Asagaya. I liked the feeling that the store was packed with books. It wasn't just that there were a lot of books; the size of the store, the arrangement of the fixtures, and the way the shelves were displayed all had a synergistic effect that made me feel "happy to be surrounded by books," and every time I went there, I would think, "Oh, they have this book too." It's gone now.

■ How I Chose the Publishing Industry
Although I had progressed to a doctoral program, there were several occasions when I felt that I lacked the willpower to sacrifice everything else to dedicate myself to research. In other words, I felt that I couldn't adequately derive the motivation to concentrate on research from within myself. I thought it would be better to acquire a marketable skill before continuing aimlessly and reaching an irreversible point, so I decided to look for a job in an industry that would most accurately and highly value my career up to that point. I happened to see a job posting for an experienced salesperson on the University of Tokyo Press website and thought, "This is it." My resume only included editorial assistance at Mishima Publishing, so I didn't meet the requirements for an experienced salesperson, but I thought, "Even if I don't get the job, I'll just be rejected," and applied, and I was hired.

■What kind of work do I do?
For the first 10 years, I was in sales. Even though it was sales, my job was to do everything necessary for books to be distributed to the world, so it wasn't just typical bookstore sales. I also did various tasks related to distribution management, such as answering phones and managing and updating the website. For a few years, I was also in charge of social media.
Now I've moved to editing, so I mainly plan projects in the humanities field, receive manuscripts, and manage the entire process from planning to publishing the book with the help of printers, bookbinders, designers, and various other people.

■Characteristics and appeal of the publishing company I work for
Our organization's greatest mission and unique characteristic is helping to deliver the results of research originating from the University of Tokyo to the world in the form of books (this is only our "greatest" mission; there are no restrictions on who we actually work with). I myself did not become a researcher, but during the process of training to become one, I had the experience of firsthand the difficulties and passion of people who dedicate their lives to research. The empathy that arose from that experience is part of my current motivation, so this mission is also the greatest appeal for me.
On the other hand, in order to widely communicate the content and value of research results to the world, a different approach and perspective from the research itself is required. When the content deviates from the student's specialization, it can be difficult to even understand, but there is a great sense of accomplishment in working alongside the author, thinking about "How can I convey the appeal of this research to people? What kind of thought process does the author have, and what do they value?" and finally releasing the finished product in the form of a book to the world.
While there are many people at the University of Tokyo Press who are not graduates of the University of Tokyo, I happen to be a graduate of the University of Tokyo myself. As a result, I often have opportunities to help people I have a direct connection with, and I feel a sense of fulfillment not only in my work but also in my personal life.

■What I feel about working in the publishing industry:
The amount of time I actually spend interacting with the books themselves is surprisingly short. In editing, the time and amount of work spent communicating with authors through the raw materials before they become books is overwhelmingly longer, and most of the work in sales is "setting the stage so that books can be distributed and bought in the world." There are probably many people in the industry who love books, and I think that love of books is very important, but I get the impression that the people who are most vibrant in their work are those who find joy in the act of "receiving people's thoughts and putting them into some form" or in "operating a system to distribute things effectively."

■Our Recommended Products and Reasons
1.
Modern and Contemporary Japanese History: From the End of the Edo Period and the Meiji Restoration to World War I 2.
Modern and Contemporary Japanese History: From the Interwar Period to Around the End of the Cold War
*Both are scheduled for publication in late March 2026.
We wanted to create a textbook on modern and contemporary Japanese history that both the authors and readers would think, "I wish I had studied with this book when I was a student..." together with young and mid-career researchers. I believe that a textbook that helps us understand the roots of the complexity of the society we live in today and cultivate the ability to think critically in order to survive is necessary for all people, regardless of whether they study history as an academic subject or not. This textbook teaches us that having a "question" is the first step.

2.
Hiroshi Takayama, "The Mysterious Medieval Kingdom: The Crossroads of European, Byzantine, and Islamic Cultures"
Since the first one is scheduled for publication (sorry!), I'd like to recommend another one from our existing publications.
When I started going to Komaba, the lecture I took in Building 11 by Professor Hiroshi Takayama made me truly realize, "So this is what it means for research to become a lecture..." I vividly remember Professor Takayama speaking haltingly but confidently in front of slides of stone tablets inscribed in four languages, describing the process of deciphering and interpreting them, and how he overcame previous research. I went on to study Japanese history, but the influence of taking Professor Takayama's lectures on Western medieval history at Komaba is immeasurable. This book was designated as supplementary reading for the lectures, and in reality, the lectures were based on the content summarized in this book, but I'm not sure if I would have been so moved just by reading the book. The binding, which makes use of Kay Nielsen's elegant paintings, is also wonderful.

■Recent trends in the publishing industry
show a noticeable shift towards B2C advertising. In a society where everything is competing for consumers' resources via smartphones, it seems that each company is striving to secure a means to reliably deliver information about their books to their target readers and encourage purchasing behavior, in a way that is linked to the strengths of their publications. I have
written an essay on this issue titled "Creating Promotion for Academic Publishing," so if you are interested, please read it in conjunction with this interview.
*Japan Association of University Presses, "University Press" No. 120 (2019.11)
"*Special Feature: The Current State of Publishing Promotion"
https://www.ajup-net.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/ajup120_all_191130.pdf

■Books I want University of Tokyo students to read:
Koga, Fumitake, "Groupthink: Why Do 'Excellent Men' Go Astray?" (Diamond, 2025)
Irving L. Janis, "Groupthink: A Psychological Study of Policy-Making Failures" (Shinyosha, 2022)
Many University of Tokyo students reading this interview will one day be involved in decision-making within some organization. You can never know too much about the power and dangers of the dynamics that operate within closed, homogeneous, and indigenous groups.

■Message to University of Tokyo Students:
"Don't choose the right answer, make what you choose the right answer."
In life, it's rare for the outcome to be irreversibly determined the moment you make a choice. What's important is the process before and after. If you can think this way, you should be able to have a good balance between the power to realize what you strongly want and the power to flexibly incorporate opportunities that arise unexpectedly through chance or connections with people into your life.

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Volume 3 is scheduled for release around the end of February.
A list of articlesthis pagecan be found on

○Planning and Management: University of Tokyo Co-op Komaba Bookstore.
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