There, he found another position as an assistant teacher in an elementary school but was dismissed for health reasons in the summer of 1937. During his studies, he contracted tuberculosis and was forced to return to his hometown in 1936. In 1932, Nankichi went to study at the Tōkyō School of Foreign Languages (nowadays the Tōkyō University of Foreign Studies 東京外国語大学 Tōkyō Gaikokugo Daigaku in Fuchū). Niimi Nankichi at the Tōkyō School of Foreign Languages Meanwhile, his first children's song appeared in the May issue of Akai tori, and in the following year, the fairy tale Gongitsune was published.

In April of the same year, he started to work as an assistant teacher at the Second Elementary School in Handa, which he left in August 1931 for personal reasons. In March 1931, he applied to the teacher training centre in Okazaki but failed the health check. His literary talent showed early on when he impressed the audience at his school graduation ceremony with the recital of a haiku he had composed himself. In 1926, Nankichi enrolled at Handa Prefectural High School and began writing children's songs and poems influenced by Akai tori (赤い鳥, 'Red Bird'), a children's literary magazine published in Tōkyō between 19, as well as by the stories of Ogawa Mimei (小川未明, 1882-1961), a renowned author of children's stories and fairy tales. His father remarried two years later Nankichi's brother Masakichi was born three days after the wedding.

His mother died in 1917 when he was just four years old. Nankichi's brother had been born a year earlier but died shortly after his birth. Niimi Nankichi was born in 1913 in Handa City, Aichi Prefecture, as the second son of Watanabe Tazō, a tatami maker, and his wife Rie.

Buying Mittens by Nankichi Niimi