Harue Yamanoi (born 1973) is a Japanese writer and interviewer whose magazine and online work focuses on people and their experiences. Originally from Aichi Prefecture, she graduated from Doshisha Women’s College of Liberal Arts and completed a master’s programme at Kinjo Gakuin University. She worked in advertising, editorial production, and public relations for a resort facility before becoming a freelance writer. Her subjects have included entertainers, cultural figures, politicians, and businesspeople, alongside articles on lifestyle, interiors, food, and wine. Drawing on her experience of interviewing people, she has made adult relationships an ongoing subject of her work. Her own painful separation from a longtime friend prompted her to ask people of different generations how their friendships had ended. The resulting series appeared in Shinchosha’s online magazine Kangaeru Hito. Her 2026 nonfiction book “Tomodachi ni Natte Kokai Shiteru” was developed and revised from that series. Based on interviews with people ranging from their teens to their eighties, its ten accounts examined estrangement from childhood friends, ruptures among colleagues and fellow parents, and misunderstandings associated with changes in circumstances and ways of life. It followed both relationships that faded without explanation and those deliberately brought to an end, portraying the participants’ regrets and their feelings about friendship.
