SAITO Tamaki

Born in Iwate Prefecture, 1961. SAITO completed his Ph.D. in medicine at the University of Tsukuba, and currently serves as a professor of social psychiatry and mental health in the Faculty of Medicine at the university. He specializes in the psychopathology of puberty and adolescence, and the treatment of as well as support and education surrounding the hikikomori problem. He has extensive knowledge of manga, film, and general subcultures and has written a wide range of books ranging from paperbacks to full-blown art and literary criticism. His collaboration with contemporary artist KAIHATSU Yoshiaki, titled Otaku Room, was featured as part of the OTAKU: persona = space = city exhibition at the Japan Pavilion in the Venice Biennale: International Architecture Exhibition in 2004. His published works include Beautiful Fighting Girl (University of Minnesota Press, 2011), Sekai ga doyo no yoru no yume nara: Yanki to seishin bunseki (If the World Were a Saturday Night’s Dream: Yankees and Psychoanalysis, Kadokawa Shoten, 2012), which won the Kadokawa Foundation Art and Science Award, and Kokoro wo yandara ikenai no? Utsubyo shakai no shohosen (Is It Wrong to Be Mentally Ill? A Prescription for a Depressed Society, coauthored with YONAHA Jun, Shinchosha, 2020), which won the Kobayashi Hideo Prize.