Born in 1889 in Tawaramachi, Asakusa, Tokyo, to a family of bag merchants. Recognized by Nagai Kafu for his novel 'Morning Glory' while still a student at Keio University, he went on to work across novels, plays, and haiku as a multi-talented man of letters. Throughout the Taisho and Showa eras, he published many works set in Asakusa, depicting the sentiment of Tokyo's shitamachi in his distinctive style. He left important marks on theater with plays such as 'Otera Gakko' and 'At the Fishing Pond,' and taught at institutions including Bunka Gakuin and Keio. In haiku he founded and led the journal Shunto (Spring Lamp), carving out a unique territory that captured the subtle textures of daily life and the refined sensibility of old Edo. In his later years he lived in Kamakura, moving between Kamakura and Tokyo. He received the Order of Culture in 1957. He died suddenly on May 6, 1963, while dining at the home of the painter Umehara Ryuzaburo, aged 73.

Multi-talented and sociable, yet inwardly burdened by loneliness and melancholy. He combined the bravado of an Edokko with the sorrow of a modern man, and that contradiction gave his works their distinctive shadow and light. He loved sake, theater, and his friends.

His novels and haiku set in Asakusa and the shitamachi preserved in words the vanishing landscape of old Tokyo. He nurtured many poets in the Shunto lineage and remained an emblematic figure of 'literary-man haiku' in postwar poetry. Materials commemorating him are still held at the Keio University libraries and around Sensoji Temple.