To provide a pulse driving device and a pulse drive method that can enhance a leading or trailing characteristic of a pulse waveform output without the need for supplying a large current to a capacitive load.

In the pulse driving device that is provided with a pulse drive element 1 to convert a pulse waveform input 10 into a pulse waveform output 11 that is a requirement of a load device and output the converted pulse waveform output 11 to the load device, an output circuit of the pulse drive element 1 is provided with resistors 4, 7 that adjust a leading or trailing slope of an output signal from the pulse drive element 1, with a switching element 5 that controls application of the output signal to the resistors 4, 7, and witch a waveform shaping control circuit 9 that outputs a switch control signal (a) for a prescribed time synchronously with the leading or trailing of the pulse waveform input 10. The switch control signal (a) outputted from the waveform shaping control circuit 9 applies on/off control to the switching element 5 so as to adjust the leading or trailing slope of the pulse waveform output 11 to have a characteristic in matching with the resistance of the resistors 4, 7.