Mr. Sato’s dad gives him some tough love when asked if he knows what his son does for a living

The elder Mr. Sato tells it like it is. Plus: an appearance by the Sato family cat!

My mom and dad, being the supportive people they are, often read my articles (even the one I wrote about anime ninja panties). However, not everyone on the RocketNews24 staff counts their parents among their regular readers.

Take, for example, Mr. Sato, our crack Japanese-language correspondent. Obviously, he’s not the first Mr. Sato, since his father obviously has surname seniority on him.

▼ Mr. Sato’s 65-year-old father, at the Sato family home in Shimane Prefecture

On a recent trip back home, Son Sato took time out of his busy schedule of courting death to sit down for a meal with his parents. Dad Sato has been working as a house painter since he was 18, an occupation he’s still actively engaged in to this day, and one that’s worlds apart from his offspring’s chosen line of work, which sees Son Sato getting Donald Trump and host club makeovers in the performance of his professional duties.

But as Son Sato sat at the table sipping his post-dinner tea, he began to wonder if his parents actually understand what he does for a living. Mom Sato and Dad Sato don’t own a computer. His dad still has a flip phone, and although his mom recently upgraded to a smartphone, she doesn’t really know how to browse the Internet with it. Occasionally Son Sato’s twin brother will show their parents an article their other kid has written, but they’re not capable of accessing the RocketNews24 site on their own.

On occasion, though, Mr. Sato will show up on Japanese TV, and his parents will catch a glimpse of him doing his job. As a matter of fact, he was just on a nationally broadcast program at the end of October, when he was interviewed on the streets of Tokyo as part of a segment on the growing popularity of Halloween in Japan.

▼ He was dressed in a tastefully understated costume at the time.

During the interview, the onscreen text introduced Son Sato as “a 42-year-old company employee at an IT firm.” That’s actually a pretty dry way of describing RocketNews24’s operations, and probably seemed especially incongruous with Son Sato’s attire at the time.

Dad Sato actually was the one who brought the interview up, saying, “Hey, you were on TV the other day, right? That Ten Something show, right? Prime Ten?”

“News Zero?” offered Son Sato, giving the name of the popular nightly program broadcast by Nippon Television.

“Ah yeah, News Zero.”

As his father’s words trailed off, Son Sato thought this would be a good time to ask a follow-up question, and asked “Pop, do you know what kind of work I do?”

▼ The fateful question comes at the 2:22 mark.

And how did Dad Sato respond?

“Nope.”

“And I don’t care.”

The statement was so blunt, even the Sato family cat was taken aback.

But then Dad Sato added a dash of kindness to his seemingly cold words.

“As long as you’re making a living and leading a good life, that’s all that matters, right?”

Son Sato was moved. Emotionally crushed, and yet deeply, deeply moved, because it turns out that even if Dad Sato doesn’t care at all about his son’s job, he still cares, in his own way, about his son.

SoraNews24 -Japan News-