utako was born in 1963 in nagoya, aichi prefecture. after graduating in the ritsumeikan university's department of sociology in kyoto, she moved to kokubunji, tokyo in 1987 and opened her tea shop, karel capek which is named after a czech writer. at the time she is planning on selecting and blending tea, doing recipes and sweet packages, she became active on illustrating and writing stories and creating characters, some of them are based on her real life experiences. in 2002, she opened the karel capek sweets shop in kichijoji, which focuses on tea and sweets. she also worked on designing products for tea and tea accessories.