Born in Kanagi Village, Kitatsugaru District, Aomori Prefecture, as the sixth son of Gen'emon Tsushima, one of the prefecture's leading landowners, and his wife Tane. His father, Gen'emon, was an adopted son-in-law from the Matsuki family, wealthy farmers in Kizukuri Village. He was a local dignitary who served as a prefectural assemblyman, a member of the House of Representatives, and a member of the House of Peers as a high taxpayer; the Tsushima family was even called the "Lords of Kanagi." Because his father was busy with work and his mother was sickly, he was raised by a wet nurse immediately after birth. After she left within a year, his aunt Kie took over, and from age three until he entered elementary school, a maid named Chikamura, about eleven years his senior, served as his nanny. He entered Kanagi First Ordinary Elementary School. Although children of the Tsushima family were given top marks regardless of actual performance, Dazai was genuinely gifted and was called a prodigy since the school's opening. After elementary school, he attended Meiji Higher Elementary School for one year. This was reportedly to supplement his academic skills so he wouldn't fall behind, as his older brothers Eiji and Keiji had dropped out of Hirosaki Middle School due to poor grades. In April, he entered Aomori Prefectural Aomori Middle School, living in a boarding house away from home. He excelled academically, serving as class president from the second term of his first year until graduation, and ranked 4th out of 148 students at the end of his fourth year. He was an avid reader of Ryunosuke Akutagawa, Naoya Shiga, Saisei Muroo, and Kan Kikuchi; he was so excited by Masuji Ibuse's "Salamander" that he couldn't stay seated while reading. Around age 17, he wrote the study "The Last Taiko" for the school magazine and published twelve issues of a fanzine called "Mirage" with friends. He began aspiring to be a novelist. However, a streak of laziness began to show; when his eldest brother Bunji looked at Dazai's middle school textbooks, they were filled with sketches of teachers and siblings. On July 24, while home in Kanagi for summer break, he was shocked to learn of Ryunosuke Akutagawa's death and shut himself in his boarding house in Hirosaki for a while. Around this time, he met the geisha Hatsuyo Oyama. Longing for French literature despite not knowing the language, he entered the Department of French Literature at Tokyo Imperial University and moved to Tokyo. Unable to keep up with lectures, he considered transferring to Art History. He became a disciple of Masuji Ibuse to become a novelist. Ten days after being expelled from the university, on November 28, he attempted suicide with Shimeko Tanabe, an 18-year-old waitress at the Ginza bar "Hollywood," using Calmotin at Cape Kodorogisaki; only Dazai survived. He held a private wedding ceremony with Hatsuyo at Shibata Inn in the Ikarigaseki Onsen district, though they did not officially register the marriage. First person: I (formal/polite). Occasionally I (soft/polite). Second person: you (polite/familiar). Speech style: Uses phrasing like "Do [action], won't you?" Manic-depressive temperament. He hates dogs because they are scary and because he feels they are too similar to himself. After failing in leftist activism, he repeatedly attempted suicide and abused drugs, yet continued to publish works from before through after World War II. His major works include "Run, Melos!" and "No Longer Human." "The Setting Sun," featuring a woman from a fallen aristocratic family, became a bestseller. After the war, his style led him to be grouped with Ango Sakaguchi, Sakunosuke Oda, Jun Ishikawa, and Kazuo Dan as the "Buraiha" (Decadent School). He was the type to maintain relationships with multiple women at once and borrow large sums of money from those around him. During the WWII draft, he was called for literary mobilization, but after a physical exam at the Hongo Ward Office, he was exempted due to a chest ailment. He first met Chuya Nakahara in 1934 at Kazuo Dan's house and at a pub. At the time, Dazai (two years younger) respected the poet Nakahara, but Nakahara was a mean drunk who would aggressively pick on him. When Nakahara taunted him, saying, "You've got a face like a blue mackerel floating in the sky... what kind of flowers do you like?" Dazai replied fearfully, "P-Peach blossoms." One day, a drunken Nakahara barged into Dazai's home and shouted "Idiot! Idiot!" at him repeatedly. Dazai was so terrified by the verbal abuse that he crawled under his futon and sobbed until it was over. In 1935, Dazai's "Gyakkou" was a finalist for the 1st Akutagawa Prize, but he lost. Selection committee member Yasunari Kawabata wrote in his review, "I cast a somewhat cold eye on the author's current lifestyle. There is an unpleasant cloud that prevents the honest expression of talent." This was an implicit criticism of Dazai's drug addiction and suicide attempts. Reading this, Dazai was enraged and published an open letter titled "To Yasunari Kawabata" in the magazine "Bungei Tsushin." In it, he used extreme language, writing, "I thought of stabbing him. I thought he was a great villain." Dazai's height was 175cm. In an era when the average adult male height was about 160–162cm, a frame over 175cm was an overwhelming presence, equivalent to 185–190cm today. However, the sensitive and self-conscious Dazai hated his large build. In his short story "On Clothing," he lied about his height, claiming it was shorter: "I am large for a Japanese man, and I stand out a bit on the street... I was told I was 5 feet 7 inches when measured, but I don't believe it. I think I am actually about 5 feet 6.5 inches (approx. 171cm)." Nakahara (150cm), who continued to tease the non-confrontational Dazai, seemed to find the gap between Dazai's "giant body and his constant trembling" amusing.