From Accountant to Sushi Chef: The Story of a Man Who Chose His Hands in the Age of AI

Recently, a piece of news from the United States was reported in Japan with a mixture of surprise and fascination.

“An accountant changed careers and became a plumber. His salary tripled.”

At first glance, it might just sound like a quirky career-change story. But I believe there are at least two larger narratives behind why this news spread so widely:

1. AI has started to threaten white-collar jobs.
2. The rise of AI is turning our old assumptions about “which jobs make money” upside down.

And for me, there was a third reason I simply could not ignore this story: I myself have gone through a very similar kind of shift in my own career.

I worked in the accounting industry for about fifteen years. To be honest, I was never the “high-performing superstar” type. I often felt suffocated by the work, and deep down I kept whispering to myself: “I want to live somewhere else, as someone else.”

I always carried a vague hope: “Someday, I want to have my own business.” But I had no idea what I should do or what I was actually capable of.

That is why I chose accounting. I told myself, “If I learn this, it will probably be useful no matter where I go.” So I studied, built a career, got qualifications, and spent my twenties and thirties living that way.

And yet, life has a way of twisting in totally unexpected directions.

Because of one particular turning point, I became “someone who makes sushi” in my forties. If my eighteen-year-old self, who had just moved from the countryside to Tokyo, saw me now, he would probably fall over backward. “You took off the suit and picked up a knife? Seriously?”

I grew up watching my father work as an accountant. He ran a small accounting office in a rural town, supporting local small businesses and self-employed people. In a way, he was like a community doctor—only for numbers.

So for me, choosing to study accounting was a very natural flow. I wasn’t necessarily thinking of “taking over the family business,” but I did believe that this path would keep me from going completely off course in life.

And what about sushi?

For a family like mine, growing up in the countryside, sushi was a special treat— something you only ate on certain occasions. Sitting at a counter and having a chef make sushi just for you was a luxury that might happen once a year, if at all.

The idea that I would someday become a sushi chef was simply unimaginable. I grew up “outside” that world.

In fact, for the past thirty years or so, the sushi industry inside Japan has not exactly been booming. A shrinking population, changes in the restaurant business, rising labor costs… It was not the kind of field where sushi chefs’ salaries were making headlines.

And yet, here we are in a time of major upheaval.

AI is slowly swallowing up white-collar work. The more a job can be done entirely in front of a computer, the easier it is for AI to take over.

In the middle of all this, I now make sushi with my own hands. I sharpen my knives, break down whole fish, cut the tuna, season the rice, and serve each piece of nigiri directly to the guest sitting in front of me.

I left the accounting office about five or six years ago—right before AI became such a dominant phrase in everyday conversation. Looking back, I sometimes feel that my decision to quit at that timing might have quietly saved me.

At the very least, I can say this with confidence today:

Leaving the accounting firm, and deciding to learn sushi from scratch— those were the “best and greatest decisions” of my life so far.

When I saw the news about the accountant who went through training to become a plumber, I thought:

That story is essentially the same as my decision to acquire the skills of a sushi chef.

In both cases, the work is something AI still cannot replicate.

Hand-formed nigiri sushi is more than just “cooking.” You read the expression on the guest’s face, talk with them, and create something together in that moment and space. It is a living, physical experience.

This “skill of working with my hands” has brought far more joy to people than I ever imagined. I am surprised by it almost every day in my work.

And now, I can finally say from my heart:

“I’ve taken my life back into my own hands.”

When I think about the guests who visit my class, I often think of the children.

Many of them start using an iPhone while they are still in their early teens. On the train, in the living room, wherever they are, their faces are lit by a screen.

Then those same kids come into my studio, put their phones away for a while, and start forming sushi with their own hands—shaping the rice, placing the fish on top, and saying “Itadakimasu” before taking a bite.

The expression on their faces in that moment is incredible. A mix of nervousness, pride, and just a little embarrassment—it’s a look you can’t quite describe in words.

I have no doubt that they will grow up to use IT and AI more naturally and more skillfully than any generation before them. That is an unstoppable trend, and in many ways, it is a very positive one.

At the same time, I can’t help but wish for something else:

That they will also keep nurturing the sense they touch here— the feeling of “using your own body to act on the world.”

What I want children to feel in this class is not just “how to make sushi.”

I want them to experience what it feels like to create something with their own hands, and then see someone right in front of them smile and say, “This is delicious.”

In that moment, a strange and wonderful joy rises up from somewhere deep inside. You realize, “Through my own body, I’m really connected to the world.”

No matter how intelligent AI becomes, that particular feeling will only ever live inside human beings.

From accountant to sushi chef. From a purely rational point of view, it may not look like a “safe” or “standard” career path.

But since I began making sushi with my own hands, I have finally been able to say:

“I feel like I’ve finally started living my own life.”

And now, in this era, if there is someone out there who is also searching for “a way to live using their own hands,” I hope, quietly, to be someone who can give them a gentle push forward.