Event period: May 1st to August 31th, 2025 Event location: Instagram and email Click here to view previous years’ essay content winners Oyakoday Special Award Cao Hagan Quilt Rug and Photo Picture Book “Taisetsu na Mono” “Yuna-chan is such a good girl, she doesn’t cause any trouble.” – by Yuna Furuya / age: 19 / Abiko City, Chiba Prefecture, Japan “Yuna-chan is such a good girl, she doesn’t cause any trouble.” Those words became a kind of curse. Born as the eldest daughter in a rural family, my reputation was tied to the reputation of the house. My education-focused parents took me to cram school before I even started elementary…
Event period: May 1st to August 31th, 2024 Event location: Instagram and email Click here to view previous years’ essay content winners OYAKO DAY Special Prize Kaohagan Quilt Rug and “Taisetsuna Mono” Photo Book You made this song while you were still inside of Mommy’s Belly – by Kengo Tanimoto / age: 67 / Higashiyamato City, Tokyo I started writing lyrics as a hobby and began posting them on a songwriting website that existed at the time. Around then, my daughter was in her last year of kindergarten. She would take the enka or pop songs I wrote and make up melodies on her own to sing them. Then one…
Period: May 1 – August 31, 2023 Archive Parent and Child Day 20th Anniversary Special Award Caohagan Quilt Rug & Photobook “Taisetsu na Mono” The Gift I didn’t see coming – by Tenjiku Tsutomo / age: 67 / Tokushima City, Tokushima Prefecture My Mother left me a gift I didn’t see coming. The year my mother turned 88, I celebrated my 60th birthday, At the time, you could see her dementia was getting worse and that she was getting weaker. “This will be my last year making sekihan” she said putting the fresh plate of Red Rice with Azuki beans in front of me. The steam coming up from it had a…
Event and Application Period: May 15th – August 7th, 2022 Click here to view previous years’ essay content winners Oyako-Day Essay Contest: Grand Prix EPOS H3PRO Hybrid Wireless Closed Gaming Headset When I grow up, I want to be a PIG – by MISAWA Tomiko / age: 63 / Tokorozawa City, Saitama Prefecture “When I grow up, I want to be a pig” Sometimes I still remember that particular page in my collection of composition exercises. It was just near the end of elementary school. It was supposed to be “florist” but someone wrote in “pig”. Now who would do such a thing. If my mother saw it, I was…
Period: May 25 – July 26, 2021 Archives Oyako Day Essay Contest Grand Prize EPOS GTW 270 Hybrid Sealed wireless earphones (with dongle) My Mom in Africa Tomoaki ANDŌ Age: 79 Toyonaka City, Osaka Prefecture “Mam? You think you’re going to call me Mam? Let’s try Mom for starters.” I’d been at my new post in East Africa for barely three months when the lady next door threw down this challenge. At the time, I was just 26 and still a bachelor. After three months of calling for Mam this and Mam that, I threw in the towel. The truth was that I’d been eating dinner with her family since the day…
Period：2020/5/25 〜 2020/7/27 Archives GRAND Prize Sennheiser MOMENTUM True Wireless Premium Earbuds “Thanks for Everything, Lies Included” KOMATSUZAKI Kaoru age: 28 Saitama Prefecture, Tokorozawa City “I’m going to buy a bento.” My Father’s words hovered in the ICU clean room where I had been isolated. I was nine, diagnosed with leukemia, and was always feeling sorry for my Father. My therapy was a cycle of recurrent pain. The worst was the bone marrow tests. They’d jam a fat needle into my back like it was busting through a wall. And each time I would howl, that’s when my Father would head out to pick up another box lunch. Left alone…
Period：2019/5/16〜7/29 Archives Grand Prize Sennheiser’s MOMENTUM True Wireless premium earbuds Papa’s Angle Yukari MARUYAMA Age: 33 Shizuoka Prefecture, Fuji City “Papa, you should take a picture….” Rugged pink cherry blossoms. A dark blue ocean. Red and yellow leaves. Silver-white snow banks. No matter how beautiful a background I put behind me or how much I coaxed him, my father would just stand there with his single lens reflex hanging on his neck and scratch the side of his head. “I’m a landscape photographer. I don’t do people.” “I’m the only daughter you’ve got, but you still think the scenery is more important!!” I used to say. Ever since I was a little…
Period：2018 March 28 – July 23 Jump to the previous essay contest results GRAND Prize SHOULDER TO SHOULDER Oi Kenichi | age: 47 yr. | Tokyo In my second year of junior high, I had a fight with one of my classmates and got in trouble because I hurt him. At the time, I was in the middle of a relapse into adolescent revolt. But, since I was also defending some friends this classmate had bullied, I thought I had done the right thing and didn’t have any second thoughts about it. As it was, I wasn’t taken to the teachers room to discuss how the incident occurred. I was…
開催・応募期間：2018年3月28日〜7月23日 2017年のエッセイコンテスト受賞作品はこちら2016年以前のエッセイコンテスト受賞作品はこちら GRAND Prize SHOULDER TO SHOULDER Oi Kenichi Age: 47 Tokyo In my second year of junior high, I had a fight with one of my classmates and got in trouble because I hurt him. At the time, I was in the middle of a relapse into adolescent revolt. But, since I was also defending some friends this classmate had bullied, I thought I had done the right thing and didn’t have any second thoughts about it. As it was, I wasn’t taken to the teachers room to discuss how the incident occurred. I was immediately given sole blame for the injury. When I kicked up a storm about how he’d bullied…
Period：2017 March 28 – July 24 Jump to the previous essay contest results GRAND Prize Specialty products from Kudamatsu City, Yamaguchi Prefecture I COULD HAVE PICKED A BETTER MOTHER HARADA Eri | age: 28 yr. | Hyōgo Prefecture Always at work, never at home; oh, how I hated my mother. When I thought I heard her at home, I’d find her standing there at the kitchen sink with her back to me. By middle school, I was fed up with everything. One day something happened at school that bothered me and everything went haywire. At home, I blew my top and turned on my mother. “If only I could have…
