A Beloved Child Star's Two Years Without a Home

Kanako Nakatake grew up in front of Japanese television audiences. At five she auditioned for the variety programme Appare Sanma Daisensei, hosted by comedian Akashiya Sanma, and became known to viewers as Kana-chan for her outspoken remarks. Sanma later remembered her as the cheekiest, most precocious child on the show, and fellow guest Takeshi Hotahara said her face had stayed with him since her childhood.

She left show business at 28, married and had a child. The couple later divorced. Daily Sports, in a May 2025 article when she was 42, reported that after the divorce her finances collapsed, and that she became homeless in Osaka at 33. The newspaper gives no dates for the marriage or the divorce.

Nakatake said the homeless period lasted about two years. She described getting through the winter cold by sleeping in cardboard, adding that it was surprisingly warm.

What changed things, she said, was making friends among other people living on the street. They taught her to collect aluminium cans for sale. She spoke of a surge in can prices around the time of the Covid-19 pandemic, when the price rose from around 3,000 yen to about 8,000 yen for 30 kilograms at its peak, and said it sometimes took her a day and a half to collect that much.

She now gets by, as she put it, somehow, on the money she saved from collecting cans. Her stated dream is to open a daycare centre for children. She shares updates on her YouTube channel, whose title translates as Kanako Nakatake Is Alive.