- Yukio Mishima (三島 由紀夫, Mishima Yukio) is the pen name of Kimitake Hiraoka (平岡 公威, Hiraoka Kimitake, January 14, 1925 – November 25, 1970), a Japanese author, poet, playwright, actor, model, film director, nationalist, and founder of the Tatenokai. Mishima is considered one of the most important Japanese authors of the 20th century. He was considered for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1968, but the award went to his countryman Yasunari Kawabata. His works include the novels Confessions of a Mask and The Temple of the Golden Pavilion, and the autobiographical essay Sun and Steel. Mishima’s work is characterized by its luxurious vocabulary and decadent metaphors, its fusion of traditional Japanese and modern Western literary styles, and its obsessive assertions of the unity of beauty, eroticism and death.Ideologically a right wing nationalist, Mishima formed the Tatenokai, an unarmed civilian militia, for the avowed purpose of restoring power to the Japanese Emperor. On November 25, 1970, Mishima and four members of his militia entered a military base in central Tokyo, took the commandant hostage, and attempted to inspire the Japan Self-Defense Forces to overturn Japan's 1947 Constitution. When this was unsuccessful, Mishima committed ritual suicide by disembowelment.
- Birthplace: Shinjuku, Japan
- Birthdate: 01-14-1925
- Nationality: Japan
- Phonon-Assisted Exciton-Polariton Emission in a Microcavity, Wannier Exciton Superradiance in a Quantum-Well Microcavity, Excitonic Superradiance to Exciton-Polariton Crossover and the Pole ApproximationYoshihisa Yamamoto (山本 喜久, Yamamoto Yoshihisa) is a Japanaese physicist and winner of the Medal of Honour with Purple Ribbon.
- Birthplace: Tokyo, Japan
- Birthdate: 11-21-1950
- Nationality: Japan
- Kisho Kurokawa was a leading Japanese architect and one of the founders of the Metabolist Movement.
- Birthplace: Kanie, Japan
- Birthdate: 04-08-1934
- Nationality: Japan
Takeshi Shudo (首藤 剛志, Shudō Takeshi, August 18, 1949 – October 29, 2010) was a Japanese scriptwriter and novelist, best known for his work on the Pokémon franchise. He was a member of the Writers Guild of Japan.- Birthplace: Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan
- Birthdate: 08-18-1949
- Nationality: Japan
Yoshitsugu Matsuoka
The Responsa of Professor Louis Ginzberg, Halakha For Our Time, Rediscovering the Art of Jewish PrayerYoshitsugu Matsuoka is an actor who appeared in "Gamera: Rebirth," "Demon Slayer the Movie: Mugen Train," and "Trinity Seven: Heavens Library & Crimson Lord."- Birthplace: Hokkaido, Japan
- Birthdate: 09-17-1986
- Nationality: Japan
Sawako Ariyoshi
The Doctor's Wife, The River Ki, Hanaoka Seishū no tsumaSawako Ariyoshi (有吉 佐和子 Ariyoshi Sawako, 20 January 1931 – 30 August 1984) was a prolific female Japanese writer, known for such works as The Doctor's Wife and The River Ki. She was known for her advocacy of social issues, such as the elderly in Japanese society, and environmental issues. Several of her novels describe the relationships between mothers and their daughters. She also had a fascination with traditional Japanese arts, such as kabuki and bunraku. She also described racial discrimination in the United States, something she experienced firsthand during her time at Sarah Lawrence, and the depopulation of remote Japanese islands during the 1970s economic boom.- Birthplace: Wakayama, Japan
- Birthdate: 01-20-1931
- Nationality: Japan
- Daisaku Ikeda (池田 大作, Ikeda Daisaku, born 2 January 1928) is a Japanese Buddhist philosopher, educator, author, and nuclear disarmament advocate. He has served as the third president and then honorary president of the Soka Gakkai, the largest of Japan's new religious movements. Ikeda is the founding president of the Soka Gakkai International (SGI), the world's largest Buddhist lay organization with approximately 12 million practitioners in 192 countries and territories.Ikeda was born in Tokyo, Japan, in 1928, to a family of seaweed farmers. He survived the devastation of World War II as a teenager, which he said left an indelible mark on his life and fueled his quest to solve the fundamental causes of human conflict. At age 19, Ikeda began practicing Nichiren Buddhism and joined a youth group of the Soka Gakkai Buddhist association, which led to his lifelong work developing the global peace movement of SGI and founding dozens of institutions dedicated to fostering peace, culture and education.Ikeda's vision for the SGI has been described as a "borderless Buddhist humanism that emphasizes free thinking and personal development based on respect for all life." In the 1960s, Ikeda worked to reopen Japan's national relations with China and also to establish the Soka education network of humanistic schools from kindergartens through university level, while beginning to write what would become his multi-volume historical novel, The Human Revolution, about the Soka Gakkai's development during his mentor Josei Toda's tenure. In 1975, he established the Soka Gakkai International, and throughout the 1970s initiated a series of citizen diplomacy efforts through international educational and cultural exchanges for peace. Since the 1980s, he has increasingly called for the elimination of nuclear weapons.By 2015, Ikeda had published more than 50 dialogues with scholars, peace activists and leading world figures. In his role as SGI president, Ikeda has visited 55 nations and spoken on subjects including peace, environment, economics, women's rights, interfaith dialogue, nuclear disarmament, and Buddhism and science. Every year on the anniversary of the SGI's founding, 26 January, Ikeda submits a peace proposal to the United Nations.
- Birthplace: Tokyo, Japan
- Birthdate: 01-02-1928
- Nationality: Japan
Jun Henmi
Otoko-tachi no YamatoJun Henmi is an author.- Birthplace: Toyama Prefecture, Japan
- Birthdate: 07-26-1939
- Nationality: Japan
- Takashi Nagatsuka (長塚 節, Nagatsuka Takashi, April 3, 1879–February 8, 1915) was a Japanese poet and novelist. According to prominent historian Ann Waswo, Nagatsuka Takashi was born into a landowning family. Generally, he was born in Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan. More specifically, his place of birth was 国生村 (Kosshō Village) in 石下町 (Ishige Town), which was merged in 2006 with 水海道市 (Mitsukaido City) to form modern day 常総市 (Joso City). In 1896, poor health forced him to stop his middle-school education in Mito. In accordance with his duties as eldest son, he assisted his mother Taka in managing their six acres of arable land. He started experimenting in 1905 with different fertilizers, crop-rotation, charcoal-production, and commercial-grade bamboo-production. These are just some of his attempts to save the family's finances from the political career of his father Genjiro (who was elected during the late 1880s to the prefectural assembly), since he tended to absorb other people's debts. In Tokyo, he studied poetry with Masaoka Shiki starting 1900 until 1902, the same year Shiki died of tuberculosis.His only novel 土 ("Tsuchi"; "The Soil") was published in 151-installment series from June–November of1910 in the 東京朝日新聞 (Tokyo Asahi Shimbun; Tokyo Morning-Sun Newspaper), which eventually became today's 朝日新聞 (Asahi Shimbun ; Morning-Sun Newspaper) after a merger with the 大阪朝日新聞 (Osaka Asahi Shimbun; Osaka Morning-Sun Newspaper). Two years after its newspaper serialization, 土 was published as a complete work in book form in 1912. The novel depicts life in rural Japan and in Kossho Village. The characters are based on actual people although their names are altered. The novel's copyright expired in the mid-1960s. He died of laryngeal tuberculosis on February 8, 1915.
- Birthplace: Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan
- Birthdate: 04-03-1879
- Nationality: Japan
- Beyond national borders, The Invisible Continent: Four Strategic Imperatives of the New Economy, The Borderless WorldKenichi Ohmae (大前 研一, Ōmae Ken'ichi, born February 21, 1943) is a Japanese organizational theorist, management consultant, Former Professor and Dean of UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, and author, known for developing the 3C's Model.
- Birthplace: Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan
- Birthdate: 02-21-1943
- Nationality: Japan
Michizō Tachihara
Michizō Tachihara (立原道造, Tachihara Michizō, July 30, 1914 - March 29, 1939) was a Japanese poet and architect. He died at age 24 from tuberculosis, before either career could seriously get under way. Michizō struggled to find a way for an urban poet to root himself in traditional customs and still be "modern." Though a citizen of Tokyo, Michizō would rarely mention modern urban scenes in his work. Aside from several references to cars, Michizō chose to describe a vegetable, not a mineral realm. He described trains as vehicles of escape, rescuing him from being cooped up in his architectural office. The natural landscapes of the Shinano Highlands provided an endless parade of conventional imagery that Michizō would use in his work; such as birds, clouds, flowers, grasses, mountains, skies, trees, and wind. A sizable part of his poetry used poetic impulse, often causing his work to be labelled as "sentimental". He wrote openly about his feelings and expressed what was in his heart, allowing his verse to be both uncontaminated and genuine.- Birthdate: 01-01-1914
- Nationality: Japan
- Akira Kurosawa is unquestionably the best known Japanese filmmaker in the West. This can perhaps be best explained by the fact that he is not so much a Japanese or a Western filmmaker, but that he is a "modern" filmmaker. Like postwar Japan itself, he combines the ancient traditions with a distinctly modern, Western twist.
- Birthplace: Tokyo, Japan
- Birthdate: 03-23-1910
- Nationality: Japan
- Kottō; being Japanese curios, with sundry cobwebs, Lafcadio Hearn: Japan's great interpreter: a new anthology of his writingsPatrick Lafcadio Hearn (; Greek: Πατρίκιος Λευκάδιος Χερν; 27 June 1850 – 26 September 1904), known also by the Japanese name Koizumi Yakumo (小泉 八雲), was a writer, known best for his books about Japan, especially his collections of Japanese legends and ghost stories, such as Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things. In the United States, Hearn is also known for his writings about the city of New Orleans based on his ten-year stay in that city. Born in Greece to a Greek mother and an Irish father, a complex series of conflicts and events led to young Lafcadio Hearn being moved to Ireland, where he was abandoned first by his mother (leaving him in the care of her husband's aunt), then his father, and finally by his father's aunt, who had been appointed his official guardian. At the age of 19 he was put on a boat to the United States, where he found a job as newspaper reporter, first in Cincinnati, Ohio, and later in New Orleans. From there he was sent as a correspondent, first to the French West Indies, where he stayed for two years, and then to Japan, where he would remain for the rest of his life. In Japan he married a Japanese woman with whom he had four children, and became a naturalized Japanese citizen. His writings about Japan offered the Western world a glimpse into a largely unknown but fascinating culture.
- Birthplace: Lefkada, Greece
- Birthdate: 06-27-1850
- Nationality: Kingdom of Greece, Republic of Ireland, Empire of Japan, United Kingdom, Japan
- Takeshi Kitano might not be a household name in North America, but with his Japanese legacy, he probably should be. Kitano's career spanned many decades and spread across different genres, styles, and mediums. He was part of a popular comedy duo in the 1970s and 1980s. He hosted a popular game show. He starred in, wrote, and directed numerous movies, ranging from hard-boiled and violent yakuza-focused ones to light-hearted surrealist comedies. Kitano lived through trials and tribulations, including a turbulent relationship (or lack thereof) with his father and a life-altering motorcycle accident in the mid-1990s, just when he reached international acclaim as a filmmaker. Kitano, or Beat Takeshi as he was known in his acting roles, had a lengthy resume, with some of the most acclaimed Japanese films ever made to his name. He was often seen as the successor to Akira Kurosawa, and sometimes even referred to as the Japanese Woody Allen. Whatever he was exactly, he was a rare breed.
- Birthplace: Tokyo, Japan
- Birthdate: 01-18-1947
- Nationality: Japan
- Possessing one of the most expressive faces in cinema history, Liv Ullmann will forever be associated with the work of her mentor Ingmar Bergman. She was his muse, his female alter ego inspiring him to look deeply into himself. More than any other Bergman actress, she embodied his core themes of anguish, loss and failure, and the nine films they made over 12 years represent the director at his peak, exploring his most private concerns. Throughout their collaboration, Bergman photographed Ullmann extensively in close-up, trusting her honesty completely, and the camera's proximity never intimidated the superb parade of emotions emanating from her luminous blue eyes and softly rounded features. Their professional life survived the dissolution of their private life, and years after she played her last role for him, Bergman asked her to interpret his autobiographical screenplay "Private Confessions" (1997) and allowed her to put her personal stamp on it as director, adding a new dynamic to their artistic relationship.
- Birthplace: Tokyo, Japan
- Birthdate: 12-16-1938
- Nationality: Norway
- Renaissance man of anime, Mamoru Oshii is respected around the world for his fantastic and philosophical storytelling and stylistic flair. As a young man, the future writer/director/animator was a fan of the filmmaking greats like Fellini, Godard, and Tarkovsky. After he graduating from Tokyo Gakugei University in 1976, he was hired as an artist at Tatsunoko Productions. There he worked on the "Urusei Yatsura" TV series, and went on to direct two "Urusei Yatsura" films in the early 1980s. Soon he worked on the very first original video animation (OVA), called "Dallos"; these are series made specially for release in home-video formats, and are a major part of the anime world today. Before long, Oshii was asked by his friend Kazunori Ito to join Headgear, where he went on to direct the "Patlabor" movies/series. Throughout the early 1990s, Oshii explored directing live action films, but it was in 1995 that he made his crowning achievement, a landmark in the world of anime: "Ghost in the Shell." The feature, a cyberpunk thriller, won Oshii worldwide acclaim and helped legitimize the anime genre in the eyes of the film world. After a five-year hiatus, he helmed the Japanese-Polish feature "Avalon," before taking on the hotly anticipated sequel "Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence." Since then, he has directed a number of features, including 2008's "The Sky Crawlers," which competed for the Golden Lion in the Venice Film Festival.
- Birthplace: Tokyo, Japan
- Birthdate: 08-08-1951
- Nationality: Japan
- Yoko Ono is a Japanese multimedia artist, singer, songwriter, and peace activist. Born in Tokyo in 1933 to an affluent and conservative family, Ono's life was marked by constant upheaval due to World War II, but she found solace in her creativity, leading to her enrollment at Gakushuin University, where she studied philosophy before moving to New York City in 1953. In the avant-garde art scene of the Big Apple, Ono truly found her voice. She became associated with the Fluxus movement, an international network of artists, composers, and designers who were noted for blending different artistic media and disciplines, during the 1960s. Not confining herself to one medium, Ono's work spanned performance art, film, and music. Her "Cut Piece" performance in 1964, where audience members were invited to cut off pieces of her clothing until she was bare, is still considered a seminal piece of feminist art history. Ono's life took a dramatic turn when she met John Lennon of The Beatles in 1966 at her own art exhibition in London. Their collaboration, both in music and activism, became legendary - with the couple using their celebrity status to advocate for peace during the Vietnam War. After Lennon's assassination in 1980, Ono continued to promote peace and love through her music and art. Her legacy is not only seen in the multitude of awards and honors she has received, but also in the countless artists across various fields who cite her as a major influence. Despite being often misunderstood, Yoko Ono's resilience and dedication to her art and activism remain a testament to her unique and enduring spirit.
- Birthplace: Japan, Tokyo
- Birthdate: 02-18-1933
- Nationality: Japan
- Yasushi Inoue (井上靖, Inoue Yasushi, May 6, 1907 – January 29, 1991) was a Japanese writer of poetry, essays, short fiction, and novels. Born in Asahikawa, Hokkaido in 1907, Inoue was raised in Shizuoka Prefecture.
- Birthplace: Asahikawa, Japan
- Birthdate: 05-06-1907
- Nationality: Japan
Mitsuo Fukuda
Reliability and degradation of semiconductor lasers and LEDs, Optical semiconductor devicesMitsuo Fukuda (福田 己津央, Fukuda Mitsuo, 福田 満夫 before 1990) (born November 28, 1960) is a Japanese anime and film director best known for his work on Future GPX Cyber Formula, Gear Fighter Dendoh, Mobile Suit Gundam SEED and Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny. He is also creative producer of Cross Ange. Anime directed by Fukuda that have won the Animage Anime Grand Prix award have been Future GPX Cyber Formula in 1991, Mobile Suit Gundam SEED in 2002, and Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny in 2004 and 2005.- Birthplace: Tochigi Prefecture, Japan
- Birthdate: 10-28-1960
- Nationality: Japan
- Noriko Sakai (酒井 法子, Sakai Noriko, born February 14, 1971) is a Japanese singer and actress. Under her former stage name Nori-P (のりピー), Sakai released her first single, "Otoko no Ko ni Naritai" (男のコになりたい, "I Want to Be a Boy") on February 5, 1987, nine days short of her sixteenth birthday. Over 40,000 copies of the single were sold. She is particularly popular in Hong Kong and Taiwan. Her best-selling single to date is Aoi Usagi (碧いうさぎ, "blue rabbit"). In August 2009, Sakai was arrested on suspicion of possession and abuse of drugs and sentenced to probation for three years. She divorced her husband Yūichi Takasō (高相 祐一, Takasō Yūichi) after the incident and temporarily stayed away from the media circle. After her probation ended, she began rehearsals for the theater, and signed on with Office Nigun Niiba, as a first step towards returning to the media committee.
- Birthplace: Japan, Fukuoka
- Birthdate: 02-14-1971
- Nationality: Japan
- Osamu Tezuka was a producer, writer, director, and actor who was known for producing "Metropolis," "Oh-Oku: The Women of the Inner Palace," and "Cleopatra, Queen of Sex."
- Birthplace: Toyonaka, Japan
- Birthdate: 11-03-1928
- Nationality: Japan
- Shūsaku Endō (遠藤 周作, Endō Shūsaku, March 27, 1923 – September 29, 1996) was a Japanese author who wrote from the rare perspective of a Japanese Roman Catholic. Together with Junnosuke Yoshiyuki, Shōtarō Yasuoka, Junzo Shono, Hiroyuki Agawa, Ayako Sono (also Catholic), and Shumon Miura, Endō is categorized as part of the "Third Generation" (that is, the third major group of Japanese writers who appeared after World War II). The 2016 film Silence, directed by Martin Scorsese, is an adaptation of Endō's 1966 historical novel of the same name.
- Birthplace: Toshima, Japan
- Birthdate: 03-27-1923
- Nationality: Japan
- Haruki Murakami (村上 春樹, Murakami Haruki, born January 12, 1949) is a Japanese writer. His books and stories have been bestsellers in Japan as well as internationally, with his work being translated into 50 languages and selling millions of copies outside his native country. His work has received numerous awards, including the World Fantasy Award, the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award, the Franz Kafka Prize, and the Jerusalem Prize. Murakami's most notable works include A Wild Sheep Chase (1982), Norwegian Wood (1987), The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (1994–95), Kafka on the Shore (2002), and 1Q84 (2009–10). He has also translated into Japanese works by writers including Raymond Carver and J. D. Salinger. His fiction, sometimes criticized by Japan's literary establishment as un-Japanese, was influenced by Western writers from Chandler to Vonnegut by way of Brautigan. It is frequently surrealistic and melancholic or fatalistic, marked by a Kafkaesque rendition of the "recurrent themes of alienation and loneliness" he weaves into his narratives. Steven Poole of The Guardian praised Murakami as "among the world's greatest living novelists" for his works and achievements.
- Birthplace: Kyoto, Japan
- Birthdate: 01-12-1949
- Nationality: Japan
- Series Written: Trilogy of the Rat
The Best Haruki Murakami BooksSee all
- 1The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle80 Votes
- 2Kafka on the Shore93 Votes
- 31Q8463 Votes
- Makoto Iwamatsu (岩松誠, Iwamatsu Makoto, December 10, 1933 – July 21, 2006) was a Japanese American actor, voice artist and singer best known for his roles as Po-Han in The Sand Pebbles (1966) (for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor), Oomiak "The Fearless One" in The Island at the Top of the World (1974), Akiro the Wizard in Conan the Barbarian (1982) and Conan the Destroyer (1984) and Kungo Tsarong in Seven Years in Tibet (1997). Almost all of his acting roles credited him as Mako. He was part of the original cast of Stephen Sondheim's 1976 Broadway musical Pacific Overtures, which earned him a Tony Award nomination for Best Actor in a Musical. He was also one of the founding members of East West Players.Later in his career, he became well known for his voice-over roles like Aku in Samurai Jack (2001–2004) and Iroh in Avatar: The Last Airbender (2005–2006). He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 7095 Hollywood Blvd.
- Birthplace: Japan, Kobe, Keihanshin
- Birthdate: 12-10-1933
- Nationality: United States of America, Japan
- Leiji Matsumoto (松本零士, Matsumoto Reiji, born Akira Matsumoto 松本晟, January 25, 1938 in Kurume, Fukuoka, Japan) is a well-known creator of several anime and manga series. His wife Miyako Maki is also a manga artist.
- Birthplace: Fukuoka, Japan
- Birthdate: 01-25-1938
- Nationality: Japan
- Yuu Watase (渡瀬 悠宇, Watase Yuu, born March 5, 1970, in Kishiwada, Osaka) is a Japanese shōjo manga artist. Watase received the Shogakukan Manga Award for shōjo for Ceres, Celestial Legend in 1997. Watase debuted at the age of eighteen with the short story "Pajama de Ojama" ("An Intrusion in Pajamas"), and has since created more than 80 compiled volumes of short stories and continuing series. In October 2008, Watase began their first shōnen serialization, Arata: The Legend in Weekly Shōnen Sunday. Their name is romanized as "Yû Watase" in earlier printings of Viz Media's publications of Fushigi Yūgi, Alice 19th, and Ceres, Celestial Legend while in Viz Media's Fushigi Yūgi Genbu Kaiden and Absolute Boyfriend the name is romanized as "Yuu Watase". In Chuang Yi's English-language versions of Fushigi Yugi (spelled without a macron or circumflex), the name is romanized as "Yu Watase". Yuu Watase is a pen name. They chose "Yuu" because they liked the name. In May 2019, Watase came out as x-gender, a Japanese non-binary gender identity.
- Birthplace: Osaka, Japan
- Birthdate: 03-05-1970
- Nationality: Japan
Jirō Akagawa
Sailor Suit and Machine Gun, Midnight suite, Tui li bo wu guanJirō Akagawa (赤川 次郎, Akagawa Jirō, born February 29, 1948) is a Japanese novelist born in Fukuoka, Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan.- Birthplace: Fukuoka, Japan
- Birthdate: 02-29-1948
- Nationality: Japan
- Yasunari Kawabata (川端 康成, Kawabata Yasunari, 11 June 1899 – 16 April 1972) was a Japanese novelist and short story writer whose spare, lyrical, subtly-shaded prose works won him the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1968, the first Japanese author to receive the award. His works have enjoyed broad international appeal and are still widely read.
- Birthplace: Osaka, Japan
- Birthdate: 06-14-1899
- Nationality: Japan
- Yoshiyuki Tomino is a writer and director who is known for writing "Mobile Suit Z Gundam 2," "Gundam Wing," and "Mobile Suit Gundam I."
- Birthplace: Odawara, Kanagawa, Japan
- Birthdate: 11-05-1941
- Nationality: Japan
- Series Written: The Wings of Rean
- Yasutaka Tsutsui (筒井 康隆, Tsutsui Yasutaka, born September 24, 1934 in Osaka) is a Japanese novelist, science fiction author, and actor. His Yumenokizaka bunkiten won the Tanizaki Prize in 1987. He has also won the 1981 Izumi Kyoka award, the 1989 Kawabata Yasunari award, and the 1992 Nihon SF Taisho Award.
- Birthplace: Japan
- Birthdate: 09-24-1934
- Nationality: Japan
- Kazuo Koike (小池 一夫, Koike Kazuo, May 8, 1936 – April 17, 2019) was a prolific Japanese manga writer (gensakusha), novelist and entrepreneur.
- Birthplace: Daisen, Japan
- Birthdate: 05-08-1936
- Nationality: Japan
- Shintaro Ishihara (石原 慎太郎, Ishihara Shintarō, born 30 September 1932) is a Japanese politician and author who was Governor of Tokyo from 1999 to 2012. Being the former leader of right-leaning Japan Restoration Party, Ishihara is one of the most prominent conservative right-wing politicians in modern Japanese politics. His arts career included a prize-winning novel, best-sellers and work also in theater, film and journalism. His 1989 book, The Japan That Can Say No, co-authored with Sony chairman Akio Morita (1991 in English), called on the authors' countrymen to stand up to the United States. After an early career as a writer and film director, he served in the House of Councillors from 1968 to 1972, in the House of Representatives from 1972 to 1995, and as Governor of Tokyo from 1999 to 2012. He resigned from the governorship to briefly co-lead the Sunrise Party, then joined the Japan Restoration Party and returned to the House of Representatives in the 2012 general election. He unsuccessfully sought re-election in the general election of November 2014, and officially left politics the following month.
- Birthplace: Japan, Keihanshin
- Birthdate: 09-30-1932
- Nationality: Japan
- Katsuhiro Otomo (大友 克洋, Ōtomo Katsuhiro, born April 14, 1954) is a Japanese manga artist, screenwriter and film director. He is best known as the creator of the manga Akira and its animated film adaptation. He was decorated a Chevalier of the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2005, promoted to Officier of the order in 2014, became the fourth manga artist ever inducted into the American Eisner Award Hall of Fame in 2012, and was awarded the Purple Medal of Honor from the Japanese government in 2013. Otomo later received the Winsor McCay Award at the 41st Annie Awards in 2014 and the 2015 Grand Prix de la ville d'Angoulême, the first manga artist to receive the award.
- Birthplace: Tome, Japan
- Birthdate: 04-14-1954
- Nationality: Japan
- Nō: the classical theatre of Japan, Seeds in the Heart, The Tale of the Shining PrincessDonald Lawrence Keene (June 18, 1922 – February 24, 2019) was an American-born Japanese scholar, historian, teacher, writer and translator of Japanese literature. Keene was University Professor Emeritus and Shincho Professor Emeritus of Japanese Literature at Columbia University, where he taught for over fifty years. Soon after the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, he retired from Columbia, moved to Japan permanently, and acquired citizenship under the name Kīn Donarudo (キーン ドナルド, "Donald Keene" in the Japanese name order). His poetic nom de plume (雅号, gagō) is Kīn Donarudo (鬼怒鳴門), which he occasionally also used as a nickname.
- Birthplace: New York City, New York
- Birthdate: 06-18-1922
- Nationality: United States of America, Japan
- With his signature dark, visceral aesthetic, filmmaker Kiyoshi Kurosawa has helped build the reputation of Japan's already acclaimed horror genre. Kurosawa began directing in the 1980s with low-budget films that never gained widespread release. It wasn't until 1997's full-length feature "Cure" that he garnered the international critical acclaim that helped propel his career. After the success of "Cure," Kurosawa had the opportunity to take artistic chances: in 1998, he directed the crime films "Serpent's Path" and "Eyes of the Spider," two films that start from an identical premise but then evolve into very different stories. Kurosawa's next film, "Charisma," was another critical and commercial success, winning Best Film at the Japanese Professional Movie Awards in 2001. Later that same year, Kurosawa returned to the horror genre with the moody "Pulse," which solidified his unsettling aesthetic and drew critical comparisons to the legendary Stanley Kubrick. Based on the filmmaker's own novel, the film was as timely as it was disturbing: a modern updating of the standard ghost story, it deals in part with the suicides of young students viewed over the internet via webcam. Kurosawa continued to write and direct films through the 2000s, including "Ghost Cop," "Loft," and the extremely successful drama "Tokyo Sonata," a departure from the horror and thriller films he built his name upon.
- Birthplace: Kobe, Japan
- Birthdate: 07-19-1955
- Nationality: Japan
- Mitsumasa Anno (安野 光雅, Anno Mitsumasa, born 20 March 1926) is a Japanese illustrator and writer of children's books, known best for picture books with few or no words. He received the international Hans Christian Andersen Medal in 1984 for his "lasting contribution to children's literature."
- Birthplace: Tsuwano, Japan
- Birthdate: 03-20-1926
- Nationality: Japan
- Ryūnosuke Akutagawa (芥川 龍之介, Akutagawa Ryūnosuke, 1 March 1892 – 24 July 1927), art name Chōkōdō Shujin (澄江堂主人), was a Japanese writer active in the Taishō period in Japan. He is regarded as the "Father of the Japanese short story" and Japan's premier literary award, the Akutagawa Prize, is named after him. He committed suicide at the age of 35 through an overdose of barbital.
- Birthplace: Tokyo, Japan
- Birthdate: 03-01-1892
- Nationality: Japan
- Makoto Raiku (雷句誠, Raiku Makoto, born 23 August 1974 in Gifu, Japan) is a manga artist whose works have appeared prominently in Shogakukan's publication Weekly Shōnen Sunday. Starting off an assistant for Kazuhiro Fujita on his manga Ushio & Tora, he started creating several one-shots for the shōnen manga anthology such as Bird Man (about a young pilot), Hero Ba-Ban (about a cheerful, but weak superhero) and Genmai Blade (about a teenage medicinal exorcist, of which he created both a one-shot and a two-part story). By 1999, he had created the series Newtown Heroes, which was published in Shōnen Sunday Super, a seasonal publication featuring upcoming manga artists and one-shots from the main Sunday book.
- Birthplace: Gifu, Japan
- Birthdate: 08-23-1974
- Nationality: Japan
Reiko Yoshida
Tokyo Mew Mew 01, Tokyo Mewmew, Omnibus Vol. 3Reiko Yoshida (吉田 玲子, Yoshida Reiko, born December 31, 1967) is a Japanese screenwriter. She has written and supervised numerous screenplays for anime series, live-action dramas and films. Her major works include Kasumin, Kaleido Star, Aria, Maria-sama ga Miteru, D.Gray-man, K-On!, Bakuman and Girls und Panzer. In more recent works, she has supervised the screenplays for Majestic Prince, Non Non Biyori, A Town Where You Live, Tamako Market, Yowamushi Pedal and Castle Town Dandelion. In films, she wrote the screenplay for The Cat Returns, the original films that would make up Digimon: The Movie, Kyoto Animation’s hit anime film A Silent Voice, and the film adaptations of Osamu Tezuka's Buddha, the last one's second film was given a stamp of approval by the Dalai Lama. She wrote the story for the manga series Tokyo Mew Mew along with illustrator Mia Ikumi. Among her works, she was recognized for Best Screenplay/Original Work for Girls und Panzer at the Tokyo Anime Award Festival in 2014, and she won another Best Screenplay/Original Work award in 2017. In 2018, she wrote the screenplay for Violet Evergarden which aired on TV in Japan and is licensed by Netflix.- Birthplace: Hiroshima Prefecture, Japan
- Birthdate: 01-01-1967
- Nationality: Japan
Hideyuki Kikuchi
A Wind Named Amnesia, Vampire Hunter D: Mysterious Journey to the North Sea, Demon City ShinjukuHideyuki Kikuchi (菊地 秀行, Kikuchi Hideyuki, born September 25, 1949) is a Japanese author known for his horror novels. His most famous works include the Vampire Hunter D series, Darkside Blues and Wicked City.- Birthplace: Japan, Choshi
- Birthdate: 09-25-1949
- Nationality: Japan
- Series Written: Vampire Hunter D, Wicked City
- Masanobu Fukuoka (Japanese: 福岡 正信, Hepburn: Fukuoka Masanobu, 2 February 1913 – 16 August 2008) was a Japanese farmer and philosopher celebrated for his natural farming and re-vegetation of desertified lands. He was a proponent of no-till, no-herbicide grain cultivation farming methods traditional to many indigenous cultures, from which he created a particular method of farming, commonly referred to as "natural farming" or "do-nothing farming".Fukuoka was the author of several books, scientific papers and other publications, and was featured in television documentaries and interviews from the 1970s onwards. His influences went beyond farming to inspire individuals within the natural food and lifestyle movements. He was an outspoken advocate of the value of observing nature's principles.
- Birthplace: Iyo, Japan
- Birthdate: 02-02-1913
- Nationality: Japan
- Series Written: 季刊仏教
- Ai Kago (加護 亜依, Kago Ai), born February 7, 1988 in Yamatotokada, Nara, Japan, is a Japanese singer, actress, author, and former Guinness World Record holder. Kago began her career at the age of 12 as a member of the idol group Morning Musume. In the same year, she became a founding member of Minimoni. In 2004, she graduated from both the aforementioned groups and formed W with Nozomi Tsuji, but she was withdrawn from the group in 2007. In 2008, she embarked on a career in film and returned to music, releasing a jazz album in 2010 and becoming part of the group Girls Beat!! in 2013.
- Birthplace: Japan, Yamatotakada
- Birthdate: 02-07-1988
- Nationality: Japan
- Aki Hoshino (ほしの あき, Hoshino Aki, born March 14, 1977) is a Japanese bikini idol. She has appeared in various men's magazines, such as Sabra and television shows. In 2010, she was named one of the "7 most irresistibly cute Japanese idols" by the Thailand version of the men's magazine FHM.
- Birthplace: Japan, Setagaya
- Birthdate: 03-14-1977
- Nationality: Japan
- Kintaro Hayakawa (June 10, 1886 – November 23, 1973), known professionally as Sessue Hayakawa, was a Japanese actor. He was one of the biggest stars in Hollywood during the silent film era of the 1910s and 1920s. Hayakawa was the first actor of Asian descent to achieve stardom as a leading man in the United States and Europe. His "broodingly handsome" good looks and typecasting as a sexually dominant villain made him a heartthrob among American women during a time of racial discrimination, and he became one of the first male sex symbols of Hollywood.After being expelled from the Japanese naval academy and surviving a suicide attempt at 18, Hayakawa attended the University of Chicago, where he studied political economics and quarterbacked the school's football team. Upon graduating, he traveled to Los Angeles in order to board a scheduled ship back to Japan, but decided to try out acting in Little Tokyo. There, Hayakawa impressed Hollywood figures and was signed on to star in The Typhoon (1914). He made his breakthrough in The Cheat (1915), and thereafter became famous for his roles as a forbidden lover. Hayakawa was one of the highest paid stars of his time, earning $5,000 per week in 1915, and $2 million per year through his own production company from 1918 to 1921.Hayakawa's popularity and sex appeal ("his most rabid fan base was white women") unsettled many segments of American society which were filled with feelings of the Yellow Peril. With two World Wars taking place throughout his career, and rising anti-Asian sentiment in the United States, the types of roles that he usually played were gradually "taken over by other actors who were not as threatening as Hayakawa in terms of race and sex". Hayakawa left Hollywood in 1922 and worked in Japanese and European cinema for many years before making his Hollywood comeback in Tokyo Joe (1949). Of his talkies, Hayakawa is probably best known for his role as Colonel Saito in The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), for which he earned a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. Hayakawa starred in over 80 feature films, and three of his films (The Cheat, The Dragon Painter, and The Bridge on the River Kwai) stand in the United States National Film Registry.
- Birthplace: Chikura, Japan
- Birthdate: 06-10-1889
- Nationality: United States of America, Japan
- Eiji Yoshikawa (吉川 英治, Yoshikawa Eiji, August 11, 1892 – September 7, 1962) was a Japanese historical novelist. Among his best-known novels are revisions of older classics. He was mainly influenced by classics such as The Tale of the Heike, Tale of Genji, Water Margin, and Romance of the Three Kingdoms, many of which he retold in his own style. As an example, Yoshikawa took up Taiko's original manuscript in 15 volumes to retell it in a more accessible tone and reduce it to only two volumes. His other books also serve similar purposes and, although most of his novels are not original works, he created a huge amount of work and a renewed interest in the past. He was awarded the Cultural Order of Merit in 1960 (the highest award for a man of letters in Japan), the Order of the Sacred Treasure and the Mainichi Art Award just before his death from cancer in 1962. He is cited as one of the best historical novelists in Japan.
- Birthplace: Minami-ku, Yokohama, Japan
- Birthdate: 08-11-1892
- Nationality: Japan
- Cowboy Bebop Film Manga Volume 1, Edo no onnatachi no enishi o moyau akai ito, Seiyo koten gotenShinichiro Watanabe, director of the ultraviolent and off-the-wall Japanese anime series "Cowboy Bebop," is one of the coolest names in international animation. Having begun his career at Japan's Sunrise studio as a storyboard artist, Watanabe was impressive enough to earn the title of co-director on the company's second installment in their giant robot anime franchise, "Macross Plus." Watanabe's effort, released in 1994, mesmerized audiences with its deft blend of traditional animation and early computer-generated imagery. The director was later granted creative control over a project of his choosing, and the result was "Cowboy Bebop," a genre-bending cartoon cocktail that drew influence from both film noir and spaghetti Westerns. The music and fast-paced editing style of the show also referenced American jazz. The series, and its feature-length follow up, received a roaring reception. Watanabe's name became synonymous with cutting-edge adult animation, and his next venture was "The Animatrix," a compilation of animated shorts inspired by the immensely influential '90s sci-fi film "The Matrix." Directing two of the nine parts, Watanabe continued to build an immensely impressive portfolio of animated work. He went on to direct another ever-unpredictable anime series: "Samurai Champloo," a hip-hop-infused historical farce set in feudal Japan.
- Birthplace: Kyoto, Japan
- Birthdate: 05-24-1965
- Nationality: Japan
- Yoshitaka Amano (天野 喜孝 (formerly 天野 嘉孝), born March 26, 1952) is a Japanese artist, character designer, illustrator and a theatre and film scenic designer and costume designer. He first came into prominence in the late 1960s working on the anime adaptation of Speed Racer. Amano later became the creator of iconic and influential characters such as Gatchaman, Tekkaman: The Space Knight, Hutch the Honeybee and Casshan. In 1982 he went independent and became a freelance artist, finding success as an illustrator for numerous authors, and worked on best-selling novel series, such as The Guin Saga and Vampire Hunter D. He is also known for his commissioned illustrations for the popular video-game franchise Final Fantasy.Since the 1990s Amano has been creating and exhibiting paintings featuring his iconic retro pop icons in galleries around the world, primarily painting on aluminium box panels with acrylic and automotive paint. He is a 5-time winner of the Seiun Award, and also won the 1999 Bram Stoker Award for his collaboration with Neil Gaiman, Sandman: The Dream Hunters.Amano's influences include early Western comic books, Orientalism, art nouveau, and Japanese woodblock prints. In early 2010, he established Studio Devaloka, a film production company.
- Birthplace: Japan, Shizuoka
- Birthdate: 03-26-1952
- Nationality: Japan
- Murasaki Shikibu (紫 式部, English: Lady Murasaki; c. 973 or 978 – c. 1014 or 1031) was a Japanese novelist, poet and lady-in-waiting at the Imperial court during the Heian period. She is best known as the author of The Tale of Genji, written in Japanese between about 1000 and 1012. Murasaki Shikibu is a descriptive name; her personal name is unknown, but she may have been Fujiwara no Kaoruko (藤原 香子), who was mentioned in a 1007 court diary as an imperial lady-in-waiting. Heian women were traditionally excluded from learning Chinese, the written language of government, but Murasaki, raised in her erudite father's household, showed a precocious aptitude for the Chinese classics and managed to acquire fluency. She married in her mid-to late twenties and gave birth to a daughter before her husband died, two years after they were married. It is uncertain when she began to write The Tale of Genji, but it was probably while she was married or shortly after she was widowed. In about 1005, Murasaki was invited to serve as a lady-in-waiting to Empress Shōshi at the Imperial court by Fujiwara no Michinaga, probably because of her reputation as a writer. She continued to write during her service, adding scenes from court life to her work. After five or six years, she left court and retired with Shōshi to the Lake Biwa region. Scholars differ on the year of her death; although most agree on 1014, others have suggested she was alive in 1031. Murasaki wrote The Diary of Lady Murasaki, a volume of poetry, and The Tale of Genji. Within a decade of its completion, Genji was distributed throughout the provinces; within a century it was recognized as a classic of Japanese literature and had become a subject of scholarly criticism. Early in the 20th century her work was translated; a six-volume English translation was completed in 1933. Scholars continue to recognize the importance of her work, which reflects Heian court society at its peak. Since the 13th century her works have been illustrated by Japanese artists and well-known ukiyo-e woodblock masters.
- Birthplace: Kyoto, Keihanshin, Japan
- Birthdate: 01-01-0973
- Nationality: Japan
- Eiko Ishioka (石岡 瑛子, Ishioka Eiko, July 12, 1938 – January 21, 2012) was a Japanese art director, costume designer, and graphic designer known for her work in stage, screen, advertising, and print media.Noted for her advertising campaigns for the Japanese boutique chain Parco, her collaboration with sportswear company Descente in designing uniforms and outerwear for members of the Swiss, Canadian, Japanese, and Spanish teams at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City and was the director of costume design for the opening ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. She won the Academy Award for Best Costume Design for her work in Francis Ford Coppola's 1992 film Bram Stoker's Dracula and was posthumously nominated for an Academy Award in the same category for her work in Tarsem Singh's 2012 film Mirror Mirror.
- Birthplace: Tokyo, Japan
- Birthdate: 07-12-1938
- Nationality: Japan
- Sion Sono is a director, writer, and actor who is known for directing "Prisoners of the Ghostland," "Himizu," and "Why Don't You Play in Hell?."
- Birthplace: Toyokawa, Aichi, Japan
- Birthdate: 12-18-1961
- Nationality: Japan
Akira Yoshimura
Karishakuho, Watashi no bungaku hyoryu, Sakurada Mongai no HenAkira Yoshimura was a prize-winning Japanese writer. He was the president of the Japanese writers' union and a PEN member. He published over 20 novels, of which On Parole and Shipwrecks are internationally known and have been translated into several languages. In 1984 he received the Yomiuri Prize for his novel Hagoku based on the true story of Yoshie Shiratori.- Birthplace: Tokyo, Japan
- Birthdate: 05-01-1927
- Nationality: Japan
- Shotaro Ishinomori (石ノ森 章太郎, Ishinomori Shōtarō, 25 January 1938 – 28 January 1998) was a Japanese manga artist who became an influential figure in manga, anime, and tokusatsu, creating several immensely popular long-running series such as Cyborg 009, the Super Sentai series (later adapted into the Power Rangers series), and the Kamen Rider Series. He was twice awarded by the Shogakukan Manga Award, in 1968 for Sabu to Ichi Torimono Hikae and in 1988 for Hotel and Manga Nihon Keizai Nyumon. He was born and named Shotaro Onodera (小野寺 章太郎, Onodera Shōtarō) in Tome, Miyagi, and was also known as Shotaro Ishimori (石森 章太郎, Ishimori Shōtarō) before 1986, when he changed his family name to Ishinomori with "ノ".
- Birthplace: Japan
- Birthdate: 01-25-1938
- Nationality: Japan
- Morihei Ueshiba (植芝 盛平, Ueshiba Morihei, December 14, 1883 – April 26, 1969) was a martial artist and founder of the Japanese martial art of aikido. He is often referred to as "the founder" Kaiso (開祖) or Ōsensei (大先生/翁先生), "Great Teacher". The son of a landowner from Tanabe, Ueshiba studied a number of martial arts in his youth, and served in the Japanese Army during the Russo-Japanese War. After being discharged in 1907, he moved to Hokkaidō as the head of a pioneer settlement; here he met and studied with Takeda Sōkaku, the founder of Daitō-ryū Aiki-jūjutsu. On leaving Hokkaido in 1919, Ueshiba joined the Ōmoto-kyō movement, a Shinto sect, in Ayabe, where he served as a martial arts instructor and opened his first dojo. He accompanied the head of the Ōmoto-kyō group, Onisaburo Deguchi, on an expedition to Mongolia in 1924, where they were captured by Chinese troops and returned to Japan. The following year, he had a profound spiritual experience, stating that, "a golden spirit sprang up from the ground, veiled my body, and changed my body into a golden one." After this experience, his martial arts skill appeared to be greatly increased. Ueshiba moved to Tokyo in 1926, where he set up the Aikikai Hombu Dojo. By now he was comparatively famous in martial arts circles, and taught at this dojo and others around Japan, including in several military academies. In the aftermath of World War II the Hombu dojo was temporarily closed, but Ueshiba had by this point left Tokyo and retired to Iwama, and he continued training at the dojo he had set up there. From the end of the war until the 1960s, he worked to promote aikido throughout Japan and abroad. He died from liver cancer in 1969. After Ueshiba's death, aikido continued to be promulgated by his students (many of whom became noted martial artists in their own right). It is now practiced around the world.
- Birthplace: Tanabe, Japan
- Birthdate: 12-14-1883
- Nationality: Japan
Hisashi Inoue
Kirikirijin, The Face of Jizo, Tegusari ShinjuInoue Hisashi (井上 ひさし, Inoue Hisashi, 16 November 1934 – 9 April 2010) was a leading Japanese playwright and writer of comic fiction. From 1961 to 1986, he used the pen name of Uchiyama Hisashi.- Birthplace: Kawanishi, Japan
- Birthdate: 11-16-1934
- Nationality: Japan
Toshiki Hirano
The Vampire Dahlia, The Shinma MenaceToshiki Hirano (平野 俊貴, Hirano Toshiki, born Toshihiro Hirano (平野 俊弘, Hirano Toshihiro), October 3, 1956 in Tokyo, Japan) is a Japanese anime director, animator, and character designer. His wife is animator and manga artist Narumi Kakinouchi. Some of his works have appeared in the adult manga magazine Lemon People.- Birthplace: Tokyo, Japan
- Birthdate: 10-03-1956
- Nationality: Japan
- Masashi Kishimoto is a writer and actor who is known for writing "Boruto: Naruto the Movie," "Road to Ninja: Naruto the Movie," and "Naruto the Movie: Blood Prison."
- Birthplace: Nagi, Japan
- Birthdate: 11-08-1974
- Nationality: Japan
- Shuntarō Tanikawa (谷川 俊太郎, Tanikawa Shuntarō) (born December 15, 1931 in Tokyo City, Japan) is a Japanese poet and translator. He is one of the most widely read and highly regarded of living Japanese poets, both in Japan and abroad, and a frequent subject of speculations regarding the Nobel Prize in Literature. Several of his collections, including his selected works, have been translated into English, and his Floating the River in Melancholy, translated by William I. Eliott and Kazuo Kawamura, won the American Book Award in 1989. Tanikawa has written more than 60 books of poetry in addition to translating Charles Schulz's Peanuts and the Mother Goose rhymes into Japanese. He was nominated for the 2008 Hans Christian Andersen Award for his contributions to children's literature. He also helped translate Swimmy by Leo Lionni into Japanese. Among his contributions to less conventional art genres is his open video correspondence with Shūji Terayama (Video Letter, 1983). He has collaborated several times with the lyricist Chris Mosdell, including creating a deck of cards created in the omikuji fortune-telling tradition of Shinto shrines, titled The Oracles of Distraction. Tanikawa also co-wrote Kon Ichikawa's Tokyo Olympiad and wrote the lyrics to the theme song of Howl's Moving Castle. Together with Jerome Rothenberg and Hiromi Itō, he has participated in collaborative renshi poetry, pioneered by Makoto Ōoka.The philosopher Tetsuzō Tanikawa was his father. The author-illustrator Yōko Sano was his wife, and illustrated a volume of his poems: Onna Ni, translated by William I. Elliott and Kazuo Kawamura (Shueisha, 2012).
- Birthplace: Tokyo City
- Birthdate: 12-15-1931
- Nationality: Japan
- Koki Mitani is a writer and director who is known for writing "The Magic Hour," "Kiyosu kaigi," and "Suite Dreams."
- Birthplace: Tokyo, Japan
- Birthdate: 07-08-1961
- Nationality: Japan
- Shūji Terayama (寺山 修司, Terayama Shūji, December 10, 1935 – May 4, 1983) was an avant-garde Japanese poet, dramatist, writer, film director, and photographer. Many critics view him as one of the most productive and provocative creative artists to come out of Japan. He has been cited as an influence on various Japanese filmmakers from the 1970s onward.
- Birthplace: Hirosaki, Japan
- Birthdate: 12-10-1935
- Nationality: Japan
- Natsume Sōseki (夏目 漱石, February 9, 1867 – December 9, 1916), born Natsume Kin'nosuke (夏目 金之助), was a Japanese novelist. He is best known for his novels Kokoro, Botchan, I Am a Cat and his unfinished work Light and Darkness. He was also a scholar of British literature and composer of haiku, kanshi, and fairy tales. From 1984 until 2004, his portrait appeared on the front of the Japanese 1000 yen note. In Japan, he is often considered the greatest writer in modern Japanese history. He has had a profound effect on almost all important Japanese writers since.
- Birthplace: Tokyo, Japan
- Birthdate: 02-09-1867
- Nationality: Japan
- Gosho Aoyama (青山 剛昌, Aoyama Gōshō, born June 21, 1963) is a Japanese manga artist best known as the creator of the manga series Detective Conan (known in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom as Case Closed). As of 2017, his various manga series have a combined 200 million copies in print worldwide.
- Birthplace: Hokuei, Tottori, Japan
- Birthdate: 06-21-1963
- Nationality: Japan
- Kenzaburō Ōe (大江 健三郎, Ōe Kenzaburō, born 31 January 1935) is a Japanese writer and a major figure in contemporary Japanese literature. His novels, short stories and essays, strongly influenced by French and American literature and literary theory, deal with political, social and philosophical issues, including nuclear weapons, nuclear power, social non-conformism, and existentialism. Ōe was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1994 for creating "an imagined world, where life and myth condense to form a disconcerting picture of the human predicament today".
- Birthplace: Uchiko, Japan
- Birthdate: 01-31-1935
- Nationality: Japan
Shinran
The Essential Shinran, Tannishō, Shinran zenshuShinran (親鸞, May 21, 1173 – January 16, 1263) was a Japanese Buddhist monk, who was born in Hino (now a part of Fushimi, Kyoto) at the turbulent close of the Heian Period and lived during the Kamakura Period. Shinran was a pupil of Hōnen and the founder of what ultimately became the Jōdo Shinshū sect in Japan.- Birthplace: Kyoto, Keihanshin, Japan
- Birthdate: 05-21-1173
- Nationality: Japan
- Fumiko Enchi (円地 文子, Enchi Fumiko, 2 October 1905 – 12 November 1986) was the pen-name of Fumiko Ueda, one of the most prominent Japanese women writers in the Shōwa period of Japan.
- Birthplace: Asakusa, Tokyo, Japan
- Birthdate: 10-02-1905
- Nationality: Japan
- Akira Suzuki (すずき あきら, Suzuki Akira), also releasing works under the pseudonym Doitsu Suzuki (鈴木 ドイツ, Suzuki Doitsu), is a Japanese film, anime and manga author, director and editor. He is born in Sapporo, Hokkaidō. He has worked on AIKa R-16: Virgin Mission, Ranma ½, Kodocha, Maze, Daltanius, Trider G7, and Sailor Suit and Machine Gun, and the films Voice Without a Shadow, Eight Hours of Terror, Virus, Minbo and Nankyoku Monogatari. He works with labels HJ Bunko and MF Bunko J. Suzuki directed the movie Ranma ½: Ni Hao My Concubine.
- Birthplace: Sapporo, Japan
- Birthdate: 06-01-1961
- Nationality: Japan
- Series Written: Hyakka Ryōran Samurai Girls
- Osamu Dazai (太宰 治, Dazai Osamu, June 19, 1909 – June 13, 1948) was a Japanese author who is considered one of the foremost fiction writers of 20th-century Japan. A number of his most popular works, such as The Setting Sun (Shayō) and No Longer Human (Ningen Shikkaku), are considered modern-day classics in Japan. With a semi-autobiographical style and transparency into his personal life, Dazai's stories have intrigued the minds of many readers. His influences include Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, Murasaki Shikibu and Fyodor Dostoyevsky. While Dazai continues to be widely celebrated in Japan, he remains relatively unknown elsewhere with only a handful of his works available in English.
- Birthplace: Kanagi, Aomori, Japan
- Birthdate: 06-19-1909
- Nationality: Japan
- Naoko Takeuchi (武内 直子, Takeuchi Naoko, Japanese: [ta.keꜜ.ɯ.tɕi naꜜ.o.ko] born March 15, 1967) is a Japanese manga artist. She is best known as the author of Sailor Moon, one of the most-popular manga series of all time.She has won several awards, including the 1993 Kodansha Manga Award for Sailor Moon.
- Birthplace: Kofu, Japan
- Birthdate: 03-15-1967
- Nationality: Japan
- Yuki Saito (斉藤 由貴, Saitō Yuki, born on September 10, 1966 in Yokohama, Kanagawa Prefecture) is a Japanese actress, singer and narrator. She attended Kanagawa Prefectural Shimizugaoka High School (now Yokohama Seiryo Sogo High School).She is well known in Japan for being a member of LDS Church, as she refuses to work on Sundays. Saito used a fake cigarette while filming the 1986 film Koisuru Onnatachi due to her beliefs.In 1985, after making her singing debut with her single Sotsugyō and her debut album, Axia, she was cast in the lead role of Saki Asamiya in the first Sukeban Deka television drama series. She later revisited that story by playing Saki's mother in the 2006 movie, Sukeban Deka: Codename = Asamiya Saki. She has starred in and been cast in many television and film dramas and comedies, and has also done voice-over narration work. Saito has released twenty-one singles and thirteen original albums. She has also released a live album, eight "best of" compilation albums, and has been featured on five tribute albums where she covered songs by The Carpenters, songs from Walt Disney films, and others. Her father owns an obi shop in Yokohama, and her brother is the actor Ryūji Saitō.
- Birthplace: Minami-ku, Yokohama, Japan
- Birthdate: 09-10-1966
- Nationality: Japan
- Kenji Miyazawa (宮沢 賢治 or 宮澤 賢治, Miyazawa Kenji, 27 August 1896 – 21 September 1933) was a Japanese poet and author of children's literature from Hanamaki, Iwate, in the late Taishō and early Shōwa periods. He was also known as an agricultural science teacher, a vegetarian, cellist, devout Buddhist, and utopian social activist.Some of his major works include Night on the Galactic Railroad, Kaze no Matasaburō, Gauche the Cellist, and The Night of Taneyamagahara. Kenji converted to Nichiren Buddhism after reading the Lotus Sutra, and joined the Kokuchūkai, a Nichiren Buddhist organization. His religious and social beliefs created a rift between him and his wealthy family, especially his father, though after his death his family eventually followed him in converting to Nichiren Buddhism. Kenji founded the Rasu Farmers Association to improve the lives of peasants in Iwate Prefecture. He was also a speaker of Esperanto and translated some of his poems into that language. He died of pneumonia in 1933. Almost totally unknown as a poet in his lifetime, Kenji's work gained its reputation posthumously, and enjoyed a boom by the mid-1990s on his centenary. A museum dedicated to his life and works was opened in 1982 in his hometown. Many of his children's stories have been adapted as anime, most notably Night on the Galactic Railroad. Many of his tanka and free verse poetry, translated into many languages, are still popular today.
- Birthplace: Hanamaki, Japan
- Birthdate: 08-27-1896
- Nationality: Japan
- Author Kasuo Ishiguro's novels, with their unique, familiar, yet oftentimes otherworldly settings, were praised not only by readers, but by some of literature's most prestigious institutions, including his Nobel Prize in Literature in 2017. Born in Nagasaki, Japan, Ishiguro relocated to the United Kingdom when he was five, when his oceanographer father began conducting research at the National Institute of Oceanography in Surrey. Ishiguro would attend primary and secondary school in England, and later went on to attend the University of Kent, where he received a bachelor's degree in English and Philosophy in 1978. Ishiguro had a longstanding interest in the arts, moving in social circles that participated in music, graphic art, and fringe theater. His own interest in music would find him writing and recording songs of his own, even submitting demo tapes to record labels during his youth. Eventually, however, Ishiguro would earn a master's degree in creative writing at the University of East Anglia. In 1982, he published his first novel, A Pale View of the Hills. During that same year, he became a British citizen. Though he was raised in Great Britain and would not revisit Japan until years later, Ishiguro would later note that his sense of identity was strongly colored by the Japanese culture of his family's home. Many critics praised the particular image of Japan depicted in Ishiguro's novels such as An Artist of the Floating World, and the author himself later observed that his own complex sense of nationhood and identity influenced the unique description of the nation that he constructed in his novels. Neither a precisely accurate portrayal of the country nor a completely fictitious one, Ishiguro's idea of Japan was, like much of his work, a product of his unique perspective as a person and as an author. In 1986, the young writer was working in Notting Hill at a West London homelessness charity when he met a social worker named Lorna MacDougall. They were soon married, and later gave birth to a daughter named Naomi. As the '80s wore on, he produced several more novels, including The Remains of the Day, published in 1989. The period story followed the unconsummated romance between a housekeeper and butler working at an estate in early-20th century England. The book was a smash both critically and commercially, winning the prestigious Booker Prize for literature. It was adapted into a prestigious feature film by Merchant Ivory Productions in 1993, starring Emma Thompson and Anthony Hopkins. Ishiguro finally returned to Japan for the first time since his childhood immigration as part of the Japan Foundation Short-Term Visitors Program in 1989. He continued to find success as the '90s progressed, notably being made an Officer of the British Empire in 1995, not long after the publication of his fourth novel, The Unconsoled. He followed this work with When We Were Orphans in 2000 and Never Let Me Go in 2005, both of which were shortlisted for the Booker Prize. 2005 also found Ishiguro penning an original screenplay for a period drama called "The White Countess" (2005), which was brought to the screen by James Ivory. For his 2015 novel The Buried Giant, Ishiguro explored perhaps his most complex themes yet as a storyteller, using a semi-historical, semi-fantastical setting to explore ideas about the nature of memory and perception. In 2017, Ishiguro was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.
- Birthplace: Nagasaki, Japan
- Birthdate: 11-08-1954
- Nationality: United Kingdom, Japan
- Rumiko Takahashi (高橋 留美子, Takahashi Rumiko, born October 10, 1957) is a Japanese manga artist. With a career of several commercially successful works, beginning with Urusei Yatsura in 1978, Takahashi is one of Japan's most affluent manga artists. Her works are popular worldwide, where they have been translated into a variety of languages, with over 200 million copies in circulation. She has won the Shogakukan Manga Award twice, once in 1980 for Urusei Yatsura and again in 2001 for Inuyasha, and the Seiun Award twice, once in 1987 for Urusei Yatsura and again in 1989 for Mermaid Saga. She also received the Grand Prix de la ville d'Angoulême in 2019, becoming the second woman and second Japanese to win the prize.
- Birthplace: Niigata, Japan
- Birthdate: 10-10-1957
- Nationality: Japan
- Series Written: Ranma 1/2
Yūji Mitsuya
TenimyuYūji Mitsuya (三ツ矢 雄二, Mitsuya Yūji) is a Japanese actor, voice actor, director of audiography, voice director and sound supervisor from Toyohashi, Aichi Prefecture who is affiliated with Bring Up. He graduated from Meiji University. He is best known for his roles in The Lion King as Timon, Touch as Tatsuya Uesugi, Combattler V as Hyōma Aoi, Kiteretsu Daihyakka as Kōji Togari, Saint Seiya as Virgo Shaka and the TV Asahi version of the Japanese dub of the Back to the Future trilogy as Marty McFly. Mitsuya came out as gay on a TV show on January 12, 2017.- Birthplace: Toyohashi, Japan
- Birthdate: 10-18-1954
- Nationality: Japan
- Sakyo Komatsu was a writer who was known for writing "Japan Sinks: 2020," "Nippon Chinbotsu," and "Virus."
- Birthplace: Osaka, Japan
- Birthdate: 01-28-1931
- Nationality: Japan
- Masami Kurumada (車田 正美, Kurumada Masami, born December 6, 1953) is a Japanese manga artist and writer, known for specializing in fighting manga featuring bishōnen and magical boy. He is the founder of the manga studio Kurumada Productions or Kurumadapro for short. He is famous as the creator/author of popular manga, such as Ring ni Kakero, Fūma no Kojirō, Saint Seiya and B't X. His male protagonists are a reflection of the classical and modern society's archetype of the true men. The male characters in his works often display very masculine qualities and traits, and pursue to achieve courage and manhood perfection through sacrifice, selflessness and true heroism. He has won the best success award with Saint Seiya and the best inspiration award with Ring ni Kakero.
- Birthplace: Tokyo, Japan
- Birthdate: 12-06-1953
- Nationality: Japan
- Ayako Miura (三浦綾子, Miura Ayako, 1922–1999) was a Japanese novelist. She published over eighty works of both fiction and non-fiction. Many of her works are considered best-sellers, and a number have been remade as feature-length films. Her debut novel, Hyōten (氷点, "Freezing Point"), was published in 1964, and won the Asahi Shimbun's Ten Million Yen Award that same year.
- Birthplace: Asahikawa, Japan
- Birthdate: 01-01-1922
- Nationality: Japan
Ryōkan Taigu
Mugen no koto, Kochu Ryokan zenkashu, Abe-ke denrai 'jūyō bunkazai' Ryōkan bokuhōRyōkan Taigu (良寛大愚) (1758–1831) was a quiet and eccentric Sōtō Zen Buddhist monk who lived much of his life as a hermit. Ryōkan is remembered for his poetry and calligraphy, which present the essence of Zen life. He is also known by the name Ryokwan in English.- Birthplace: Izumozaki, Japan
- Birthdate: 11-02-1758
- Nationality: Japan
- Watashi no Nihon ongakushi, Nihon opera no yume, Techniques for Drawing Female Manga CharactersHikaru Hayashi (林 光, Hayashi Hikaru, October 22, 1931 – January 5, 2012) was a contemporary Japanese composer, pianist and conductor. Born in Tokyo, he was the cousin of flautist Ririko Hayashi. Hayashi entered Tokyo University of the Arts as a composition student but did not complete his studies. Studying under Hisatada Otaka, he produced many compositions including orchestral works. In particular, he was noted for his choral suite Scenes from Hiroshima (1958–2001). In exploring the possibilities of Japanese language opera, Hayashi composed more than 30 operas. He was artistic director and resident composer of the Opera Theatre Konnyakuza. His oeuvre also includes symphonic works, works for band, chamber music, choral works, songs and more than 100 film scores. He was a frequent collaborator with film director Kaneto Shindo. Hayashi is the author of more than 20 books including Nihon opera no yume (日本オペラの夢 The Dream of Japanese Opera).In 1998 Hayashi won the 30th Suntory Music Award. In September 2011, Hayashi collapsed in front of his home hitting his head. He was rushed to the hospital unresponsive.
- Birthplace: Tokyo, Japan
- Birthdate: 10-22-1931
- Nationality: Japan
- Hiroshi Takahashi (高橋 ヒロシ, Takahashi Hiroshi, born 12 December 1965) is a Japanese manga artist.
- Birthplace: Aizubange, Japan
- Birthdate: 12-12-1965
- Nationality: Japan
- Jun'ichirō Tanizaki (谷崎 潤一郎, Tanizaki Jun'ichirō, 24 July 1886 – 30 July 1965) was one of the major writers of modern Japanese literature, and perhaps the most popular Japanese novelist after Natsume Sōseki. Some of his works present a shocking world of sexuality and destructive erotic obsessions. Others, less sensational, subtly portray the dynamics of family life in the context of the rapid changes in 20th-century Japanese society. Frequently his stories are narrated in the context of a search for cultural identity in which constructions of "the West" and "Japanese tradition" are juxtaposed. He was one of six authors on the final shortlist for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1964, the year before his death.
- Birthplace: Nihonbashi, Japan
- Birthdate: 07-24-1886
- Nationality: Japan
- Masaaki Hatsumi (初見 良昭, Hatsumi Masaaki, born December 2, 1931), formerly Yoshiaki Hatsumi, is the founder of the Bujinkan Organization and is the current Togakure-ryū Soke (Grandmaster). He currently resides and teaches in Noda, Chiba, Japan.
- Birthplace: Japan, Noda
- Birthdate: 12-02-1931
- Nationality: Japan
- Natsuo Kirino (桐野 夏生, Kirino Natsuo) (born October 7, 1951 in Kanazawa, Ishikawa Prefecture) is the pen name of Mariko Hashioka, a Japanese novelist and a leading figure in the recent boom of female writers of Japanese detective fiction.
- Birthplace: Kanazawa, Japan
- Birthdate: 10-07-1951
- Nationality: Japan
- Masakazu Katsura (桂 正和, Katsura Masakazu, born December 10, 1962) is a Japanese manga artist, known for several works of manga, including Wing-Man, Shadow Lady, DNA², Video Girl Ai, I"s, and Zetman. He has also worked as character designer for Iria: Zeiram the Animation, Tiger & Bunny and Garo -Guren no Tsuki-.
- Birthplace: Fukui Prefecture, Japan
- Birthdate: 12-10-1962
- Nationality: Japan
- Little Boy: The Arts of Japan's Exploding Subculture, Summon Monsters? Open The Door? Heal? Or Die?, Tokyo Girls BravoTakashi Murakami (村上 隆, Murakami Takashi, born February 1, 1962) is a Japanese contemporary artist. He works in fine arts media (such as painting and sculpture) as well as commercial media (such as fashion, merchandise, and animation) and is known for blurring the line between high and low arts. He coined the term "superflat", which describes both the aesthetic characteristics of the Japanese artistic tradition and the nature of post-war Japanese culture and society, and is also used for Murakami's artistic style and other Japanese artists he has influenced.Murakami is the founder and President of Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd., through which he manages several younger artists. He was the founder and organizer of the biannual art fair Geisai.
- Birthplace: Itabashi, Tokyo, Japan
- Birthdate: 02-01-1962
- Nationality: Japan
- Color Walk (One Piece Illustration) Vol. 1 (Color Walk (One Piece Illustration)), One Piece, Vol. 72Eiichiro Oda (Japanese: 尾田 栄一郎, Hepburn: Oda Eiichirō, born January 1, 1975) is a Japanese manga artist, who is best known for his manga series One Piece (1997–present). With more than 450 million tankobon copies in circulation worldwide, One Piece is the best-selling manga and the best-selling comic series of all time, making Oda one of the best-selling fiction authors. The series' popularity resulted in Oda being named one of the manga artists that changed the history of manga.
- Birthplace: Kumamoto, Japan
- Birthdate: 01-01-1975
- Nationality: Japan
- Shigeru Miyamoto (Japanese: 宮本 茂, Hepburn: Miyamoto Shigeru, pronounced [mijamoto ɕiɡeɾɯ]; born November 16, 1952) is a Japanese video game designer and producer at Nintendo, where he serves as one of its representative directors. He is the creator of some of the most acclaimed and best-selling game franchises, such as Mario, The Legend of Zelda, Star Fox, F-Zero, and Donkey Kong. Miyamoto joined Nintendo in 1977, when it was moving into video games away from the Japanese playing cards it had made since 1889. His games have been flagships of every Nintendo video game console, with his earliest work appearing on arcade machines in the late 1970s. He managed Nintendo's Entertainment Analysis & Development software division, which developed many of the company's first-party titles. As a result of Nintendo president Satoru Iwata's death in July 2015, Miyamoto fulfilled the role of acting president alongside Genyo Takeda until being formally appointed as the company's "Creative Fellow" a few months later.
- Birthplace: Sonobe, Japan
- Birthdate: 11-16-1952
- Nationality: Japan
- Takeo Arishima was a novelist.
- Birthplace: Tokyo, Japan
- Birthdate: 03-04-1878
- Nationality: Japan
- Fumio Demura (出村 文男, Demura Fumio, born September 15, 1938) is a well known Japanese master of karate and kobudo (traditional weaponry). He was Pat Morita's martial arts stunt double in the first, third and fourth Karate Kid films. Demura holds the rank of 9th dan in Shitō-ryū Karate.
- Birthplace: Yokohama, Japan
- Birthdate: 09-15-1938
- Nationality: United States of America, Japan
- Fumi Yoshinaga (よしなが ふみ, Yoshinaga Fumi, born 1971) is a Japanese manga artist known for her shōjo and shōnen-ai works.
- Birthplace: Tokyo, Japan
- Birthdate: 10-20-1971
- Nationality: Japan
- Kōbō Abe (安部 公房, Abe Kōbō), pen name of Kimifusa Abe (安部 公房, Abe Kimifusa, March 7, 1924 – January 22, 1993), was a Japanese writer, playwright, musician, photographer and inventor. Abe has been often compared to Franz Kafka and Alberto Moravia for his modernist sensibilities and his surreal, often nightmarish explorations of individuals in contemporary society.
- Birthplace: Kita, Tokyo, Japan
- Birthdate: 03-07-1924
- Nationality: Japan
- Yoshishige Yoshida (吉田 喜重, Yoshida Yoshishige, born 16 February 1933), also known as Kijū Yoshida, is a Japanese film director and screenwriter.
- Birthplace: Fukui, Japan
- Birthdate: 02-16-1933
- Nationality: Japan
- Sohn Kee-chung (Korean: 손기정; Korean pronunciation: [son.kidʑʌŋ]; August 29, 1912 – November 15, 2002) was a Korean athlete and long-distance runner. He became the first Korean to win a medal at the Olympic Games, winning gold in the marathon at the 1936 Berlin Olympics as a member of the Japanese delegation.Sohn competed under the Japanese name Son Kitei, as Korea was under the colonial rule of the Japanese Empire during his career. He is the very first athlete who broke the 2:30 barrier in the history of marathon.
- Birthplace: Sinuiju, Pyongan, North Korea
- Birthdate: 08-29-1914
- Nationality: South Korea
- Oda Makoto (小田 実, Oda Makoto, June 2, 1932 – July 30, 2007) was a Japanese novelist, peace activist, academic and Time Asian Hero.
- Birthplace: Japan
- Birthdate: 01-01-1932
- Nationality: Japan
Seicho Matsumoto
Yoshinogasato to Yamataikoku, Tenpo zuroku, Shosetsu to koshi e no tabiSeichō Matsumoto (松本 清張, Matsumoto Seichō, December 21, 1909 – August 4, 1992) was a Japanese writer. Seichō's works created a new tradition of Japanese crime fiction. Dispensing with formulaic plot devices such as puzzles, Seichō incorporated elements of human psychology and ordinary life. In particular, his works often reflect a wider social context and postwar nihilism that expanded the scope and further darkened the atmosphere of the genre. His exposé of corruption among police officials as well as criminals was a new addition to the field. The subject of investigation was not just the crime but also the society in which the crime was committed.The self-educated Seichō did not see his first book in print until he was in his forties. He was a prolific author, he wrote until his death in 1992, producing in four decades more than 450 works. Seichō's mystery and detective fiction solidified his reputation as a writer at home and abroad. He wrote historical novels and nonfiction in addition to mystery/detective fiction. He was awarded the Akutagawa Prize in 1952 and the Kikuchi Kan Prize in 1970, as well as the Mystery Writers of Japan Award in 1957. He chaired the president of Mystery Writers of Japan from 1963 to 1971. Credited with popularizing the genre among readers in his country, Seichō became his nation's best-selling and highest earning author in the 1960s. His most acclaimed detective novels, including Ten to sen (1958; Points and Lines, 1970); Suna no utsuwa (1961; Inspector Imanishi Investigates, 1989) and Kiri no hata (1961; Pro Bono, 2012), have been translated into a number of languages, including English. He collaborated with film director Yoshitarō Nomura on adaptations of eight of his novels to film, including Castle of Sand.- Birthplace: Kokura, Japan
- Birthdate: 12-21-1909
- Nationality: Japan
- Hiroshi Sugimoto (杉本博司, Sugimoto Hiroshi, born 23 February 1948) is a Japanese photographer and architect. He leads the Tokyo-based architectural firm New Material Research Laboratory.
- Birthplace: Japan, Tokyo
- Birthdate: 02-23-1948
- Nationality: Japan
- Mitsu Dan is a Japanese gravure idol and TV personality.
- Birthplace: Yokote, Japan
- Birthdate: 12-03-1980
- Nationality: Japan
Fumi Hirano
Fumi Hirano (平野 文, Hirano Fumi, born April 23, 1955 in Tokyo) is a Japanese voice actress and essayist who is best known for voicing Lum Invader in the anime series Urusei Yatsura. Fumi attended Tamagawa University in Machida, Tokyo where she graduated with a degree in Theatre from the Department of Fine Arts in the College of Humanities. She is affiliated with Aoni Production.- Birthplace: Tokyo, Japan
- Birthdate: 04-23-1955
- Nationality: Japan
Takayuki Kubota
Realistic Defensive Tactics, Baton techniques and training, Ninja Shuriken ManualTakayuki Kubota (窪田 孝行, Kubota Takayuki, born September 20, 1934) is a Japanese American master of karate. He founded the Gosoku-ryu style of karate, and is the founder and president of the International Karate Association. Kubota holds the title of Sōke for his development of the Gosoku-ryū style of karate. He is also the inventor and holder of the trademark of the Kubotan self-defense key chain.Kubota was a self-defense instructor for the Tokyo Police department in the 1950s, where he was noted for his expertise in practical karate. He has devoted his life to learning, creating, and teaching the application of self-defense techniques to military, law enforcement, and civilian personnel. He has earned black belt degrees in karate, judo, aikido, kendo, and iaido.- Birthplace: Kumamoto, Japan
- Birthdate: 09-20-1934
- Nationality: Japan
- Kiyoshi Nagai (永井潔, Nagai Kiyoshi, born September 6, 1945, in Wajima, Ishikawa), better known by the pen name Go Nagai (永井 豪, Nagai Gō), is a Japanese manga artist and a prolific author of science fiction, fantasy, horror and erotica. He made his professional debut in 1967 with Meakashi Polikichi, but is best known for creating Cutie Honey, Devilman, and Mazinger Z. He also pioneered the ecchi genre with Harenchi Gakuen. He is credited with creating the Super Robot genre and for designing the first mecha robots piloted by a user from within a cockpit with Mazinger Z. In 2005, he became a Character Design professor at the Osaka University of Arts. He has been a member of the Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize's nominating committee since 2009.
- Birthplace: Japan, Wajima
- Birthdate: 09-06-1945
- Nationality: Japan
- Utagawa Hiroshige (, also US: ; Japanese: 歌川 広重 [ɯtaɡaɰa çiɾoɕiɡe]), born Andō Hiroshige (安藤 広重; 1797 – 12 October 1858), was a Japanese ukiyo-e artist, considered the last great master of that tradition. Hiroshige is best known for his horizontal-format landscape series The Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō and for his vertical-format landscape series One Hundred Famous Views of Edo. The subjects of his work were atypical of the ukiyo-e genre, whose typical focus was on beautiful women, popular actors, and other scenes of the urban pleasure districts of Japan's Edo period (1603–1868). The popular series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji by Hokusai was a strong influence on Hiroshige's choice of subject, though Hiroshige's approach was more poetic and ambient than Hokusai's bolder, more formal prints. Subtle use of color was essential in Hiroshige's prints, often printed with multiple impressions in the same area and with extensive use of bokashi (color gradation), both of which were rather labor-intensive techniques. For scholars and collectors, Hiroshige's death marked the beginning of a rapid decline in the ukiyo-e genre, especially in the face of the westernization that followed the Meiji Restoration of 1868. Hiroshige's work came to have a marked influence on Western painting towards the close of the 19th century as a part of the trend in Japonism. Western artists, such as Manet and Monet, collected and closely studied Hiroshige's compositions. Vincent van Gogh even went so far as to paint copies of two of Hiroshige's prints from One Hundred Famous Views of Edo.
- Birthplace: Edo
- Birthdate: 01-01-1797
- Nationality: Japan
- Kim Seungok (The romanization preferred by the author according to LTI Korea) (born December 1941) is a South Korean novelist and screenwriter.
- Birthplace: Osaka, Japan
- Birthdate: 12-23-1941
- Nationality: South Korea, Japan
- Takeshi Kaikō (開高 健, Kaikō Takeshi, 30 December 1930 – 9 December 1989) was a prominent post-World War II Japanese novelist, short-story writer, essayist, literary critic, and television documentary writer. He was distinguished by his knowledge, intellect, sense of humor and conversational skills, and although his style has been criticized as wordy and obtuse, he was one of the more popular Japanese writers in the late Shōwa period.
- Birthplace: Tennōji-ku, Osaka
- Birthdate: 12-30-1930
- Nationality: Japan
Nisio Isin
Death Note Another Note: The Los Angeles BB Murder Cases, Koimonogatari, Uprooted Radical (Part Three): The Blue Savant and the Master of NonsenseNisio Isin (西尾 維新, Nishio Ishin, born 1981), stylized NisiOisiN to emphasize the palindrome, is the pen name of a Japanese novelist and manga writer. He attended and left Ritsumeikan University without graduating. In 2002, he debuted with the novel The Beheading Cycle (クビキリサイクル, Kubikiri Saikuru), which earned him the 23rd Mephisto Prize at twenty years of age. He currently works with Kodansha on Faust, a literary magazine containing the works of other young authors who similarly take influence from light novels and otaku culture, and Pandora, the Kodansha Box magazine. He was also publishing a twelve volume series over twelve months for the Kodansha Box line; Ryusui Seiryoin was matching this output, and the Kodansha Box website stated that this is the first time in the world two authors have done twelve volume monthly novel series simultaneously from the same publisher. In February, 2008, his novel Death Note Another Note: The Los Angeles BB Murder Cases, which is based on the Death Note manga, was released in English by Viz Media. Del Rey Manga has already released the first and second volume in his Zaregoto series. His Monogatari, Katanagatari and Zaregoto novels have been adapted into anime. The sequel (Nisemonogatari) novel has also been adapted as an anime, as well as most of the "Monogatari Series" to date. Another of his works, Medaka Box, has been adapted into a two-season anime series, along with his light novel Juni Taisen, which has also been adapted into an anime.- Birthdate: 01-01-1981
- Nationality: Japan
- Series Written: Monogatari, Bakemonogatari, Katanagatari, Zaregoto Series, Ningen Series
- Masashi Sada (さだ まさし, Sada Masashi, born April 10, 1952) is a Japanese singer, lyricist, composer, novelist, actor, and a film producer. Sada formed the folk duo Grape with Masami Yoshida in 1972, and they made their debut as recording artists a year afterward. The pair rose to fame owing to the hit song "Shourou Nagashi" (精霊流し) composed by Sada, which peaked at the number-two position on the Japanese Oricon chart in 1974. They broke up in 1976, after producing some hit singles including "En-kiri Dera" (縁切寺) and "Muen Zaka" (無縁坂). Sada released his first solo album entitled Kikyorai shortly after Grape's dissolution. Following the commercial success of the number-one hit single "Amayadori" (雨やどり, Shelter from the rain) in 1977, he enjoyed a recording career as one of the most popular Japanese male artists during the late 1970s and the first half of the 1980s. Throughout his career as a musician, Sada released over 35 solo albums and 70 singles, and multiple live albums or compilations. Since the release of Shourou Nagashi, published in 2001, Sada has also worked as a novelist.
- Birthplace: Japan, Nagasaki
- Birthdate: 04-10-1952
- Nationality: Japan
- Taichi Yamada (山田 太一, Yamada Taichi, b. June 6, 1934) is a Japanese screenwriter and novelist. His real name is Taichi Ishizaka (石坂 太一, Ishizaka Taichi).
- Birthplace: Asakusa, Tokyo, Japan
- Birthdate: 06-06-1934
- Nationality: Japan
Michio Morishima
Tại sao Nhật Bản thành công?, Marx from a Von Neumann viewpoint, Ideology and economic activityMichio Morishima (森嶋 通夫, Morishima Michio, July 18, 1923 – July 13, 2004) was a heterodox economist and public intellectual who was the Sir John Hicks Professor of Economics at the London School of Economics from 1970–88. He was also professor at Osaka University and member of the British Academy. In 1976 he won the Order of Culture (文化勲章, Bunka-kunshō), Japan's equivalent of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics.- Birthplace: Osaka, Japan
- Birthdate: 07-18-1923
- Nationality: Japan
Masuji Ibuse
Black Rain, Two stories by Masuji Ibuse, CastawaysMasuji Ibuse (井伏 鱒二, Ibuse Masuji, 15 February 1898 – 10 July 1993) was a Japanese author. His most notable work is the novel Black Rain.- Birthplace: Kamo, Japan
- Birthdate: 02-15-1898
- Nationality: Japan
- Iwao Takamoto (April 29, 1925 – January 8, 2007) was an American animator, television producer, and film director. He began his career as a production and character designer for Walt Disney Animation Studios films such as Cinderella (1950), Lady and the Tramp (1955), and Sleeping Beauty (1959). Later, he moved to Hanna-Barbera Productions, where he designed a great majority of the characters, including Scooby-Doo and Astro, and eventually became a director and producer.
- Birthplace: Los Angeles, California
- Birthdate: 04-29-1925
- Nationality: United States of America, Japan
- Matsuo Bashō (松尾 芭蕉, 1644–1694), born 松尾 金作, then Matsuo Chūemon Munefusa (松尾 忠右衛門 宗房), was the most famous poet of the Edo period in Japan. During his lifetime, Bashō was recognized for his works in the collaborative haikai no renga form; today, after centuries of commentary, he is recognized as the greatest master of haiku (then called hokku). Matsuo Bashō's poetry is internationally renowned; and, in Japan, many of his poems are reproduced on monuments and traditional sites. Although Bashō is justifiably famous in the West for his hokku, he himself believed his best work lay in leading and participating in renku. He is quoted as saying, "Many of my followers can write hokku as well as I can. Where I show who I really am is in linking haikai verses."Bashō was introduced to poetry at a young age, and after integrating himself into the intellectual scene of Edo (modern Tokyo) he quickly became well known throughout Japan. He made a living as a teacher; but then renounced the social, urban life of the literary circles and was inclined to wander throughout the country, heading west, east, and far into the northern wilderness to gain inspiration for his writing. His poems were influenced by his firsthand experience of the world around him, often encapsulating the feeling of a scene in a few simple elements.
- Birthplace: Ueno, Mie
- Birthdate: 01-01-1644
- Nationality: Japan
- Tarō Hirai (平井 太郎, Hirai Tarō, October 21, 1894 – July 28, 1965), better known by the pseudonym Edogawa Ranpo (江戸川 乱歩), also romanized as Edogawa Rampo, was a Japanese author and critic who played a major role in the development of Japanese mystery fiction. Many of his novels involve the detective hero Kogoro Akechi, who in later books was the leader of a group of boy detectives known as the "Boy Detectives Club" (少年探偵団, Shōnen tantei dan). Ranpo was an admirer of Western mystery writers, and especially of Edgar Allan Poe. His pen name is a rendering of Poe's name. Other authors who were special influences on him were Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, whom he attempted to translate into Japanese during his days as a student at Waseda University, and the Japanese mystery writer Ruikō Kuroiwa.
- Birthplace: Naga District, Mie
- Birthdate: 10-21-1894
- Nationality: Japan
Mari Yaguchi
Mari Yaguchi (矢口真里, Yaguchi Mari) (born January 20, 1983) is a Japanese singer, actress, and television personality. She rose to fame after joining the Japanese idol girl group Morning Musume in 1998 as a second generation and was the leader of subgroups within the Hello! Project collective, such as Morning Musume Sakuragumi, Mini Moni, and ZYX. After leaving Morning Musume in 2005, Yaguchi has continued to appear on television in dramas and variety shows.- Birthplace: Yokohama, Japan
- Birthdate: 01-20-1983
- Nationality: Japan
- Kazuki Takahashi (Takahashi Kazuki, also known as Kazuo Takahashi, October 4, 1961 - July 4, 2022) was a Japanese manga artist and game creator, best known for creating Yu-Gi-Oh! Takahashi started as a manga artist in the early 1980s with short works for various magazines, such as Weekly Shōnen Sunday and Weekly Shōnen Magazine. His first major work was Tokio no Taka (闘輝王の鷹, Fighting Hawk), a one-shot published in Weekly Shōnen Jump in 1990. One of his earliest works, Tennenshoku Danji Buray (天然色男児BURAY), was published from 1991 to 1992 and lasted two volumes. However, Takahashi considered many of his early works to be a "total flop". In 1996, Takahashi launched Yu-Gi-Oh! in Weekly Shōnen Jump, where it was serialized until 2004. The series became a huge success and has sold over 40 million copies. The series has also received several media adaptations, notably an anime television series and a trading card game.
- Birthplace: Tokyo, Japan
- Birthdate: 10-04-1961
- Nationality: Japan
Masashi Tanaka
Gon, tome 4, Here todayMasashi Tanaka (田中 政志, born June 10, 1962) is a Japanese manga artist best known for Gon, his silent manga starring a miniature dinosaur. He began publishing Gon in 1991. GON is possibly his most well known work, famous being a silent comic throughout its entire run. Other manga by Tanaka include: Demon (1985) Flash: The Wild West Bandit (1986) Miss Marvel no Sutekina Shoobai (1987) [Miss Marvel's Beautiful Business] Bouken Victoria-gou (1988) [The Adventure of Strong Victoria] Mikakunin Prince Buttai U.P.O. (1990) [U.P.O: Unidentified Prince Object] Samurai Daibouken (1991) [A Samurai's Great Adventure]Tanaka also wrote and drew another samurai story that was translated into English and published under the title In Dreams in issues 24, 25, and 26 of Cheval Noir in 1991 and 1992. The story Demon, listed above, was translated into English and serialized in issues 40 to 44 of Cheval Noir in 1993. He later worked on the game Street Fighter EX.- Birthplace: Gotsu, Japan
- Birthdate: 06-10-1962
- Nationality: Japan
- Yuichi Kimura is a comedian and actor.
- Birthplace: Japan, Ukyō-ku, Kyoto
- Birthdate: 02-09-1963
- Nationality: Japan
- Shinji Aoyama (青山 真治, Aoyama Shinji, born July 13, 1964) is a Japanese film director, screenwriter, composer, film critic, and novelist. He graduated from Rikkyo University. He won two awards at the 2000 Cannes Film Festival for his film Eureka.
- Birthplace: Kitakyushu, Japan
- Birthdate: 07-13-1964
- Nationality: Japan
- Tite Kubo (久保 帯人, Kubo Taito, born June 26, 1977) is a Japanese manga artist. He is best known for his manga series Bleach, which has sold over 120 million copies as of 2018.
- Birthplace: Fuchu, Japan
- Birthdate: 06-26-1977
- Nationality: Japan
- Birthplace: Hyuga, Japan
- Birthdate: 02-22-1972
- Nationality: Japan
- Hiro Mashima (真島 ヒロ, Mashima Hiro, born May 3, 1977) is a Japanese manga artist. He gained success with his first serial Rave Master, published in Kodansha's Weekly Shōnen Magazine from 1999 to 2005. His recently concluded Fairy Tail, published in the same magazine from 2006 to 2017, is experiencing even greater popularity with over 60 million copies in print. Fairy Tail won the Kodansha Manga Award for shōnen manga in 2009, and Mashima was given the Harvey Awards International Spotlight award in 2017 and the Fauve Special Award at the 2018 Angoulême International Comics Festival.
- Birthplace: Nagano, Japan
- Birthdate: 05-03-1977
- Nationality: Japan
Zeami Motokiyo
Zeami jihitsu nohonshu, Kadensho, Noh PlaysZeami Motokiyo, also called Kanze Motokiyo, was a Japanese aesthetician, actor, and playwright. His father, Kan'ami, introduced him to Noh theater performance at a young age, and found that he was a skilled actor. Kan'ami was also skilled in acting and formed a family theater ensemble. As it grew in popularity, Zeami had the opportunity to perform in front of the Shogun, Ashikaga Yoshimitsu. The Shogun was impressed by the young actor and began to compose a friendship with him. Zeami was introduced to Yoshimitsu's court and was provided with an education in classical literature and philosophy while continuing to act. In 1374, Zeami received patronage and made acting his career. After the death of his father in 1385, he led the family troupe, a role in which he found greater success. Zeami mixed a variety of Classical and Modern themes in his writing, and made use of Japanese and Chinese tradition. He incorporated numerous themes of Zen Buddhism into his works and later commentators have debated the extent of his personal interest in Zen. The exact number of plays that he wrote is unknown, but is likely between 30 and 50.- Birthdate: 01-01-1363
- Nationality: Japan
- Banana Yoshimoto (吉本 ばなな, Yoshimoto Banana) (born 24 July 1964) is the pen name of Japanese writer Mahoko Yoshimoto (吉本 真秀子, Yoshimoto Mahoko). From 2002 to 2015, she wrote her name in hiragana (よしもと ばなな).
- Birthplace: Bunkyo, Tokyo, Japan
- Birthdate: 07-24-1964
- Nationality: Japan
- Yayoi Kusama (草間 彌生, Kusama Yayoi, born 22 March 1929) is a Japanese contemporary artist who works primarily in sculpture and installation, but is also active in painting, performance, film, fashion, poetry, fiction, and other arts. Her work is based in conceptual art and shows some attributes of feminism, minimalism, surrealism, Art Brut, pop art, and abstract expressionism, and is infused with autobiographical, psychological, and sexual content. She has been acknowledged as one of the most important living artists to come out of Japan.Raised in Matsumoto, Kusama trained at the Kyoto School of Arts and Crafts in a traditional Japanese painting style called nihonga. Kusama was inspired, however, by American Abstract Impressionism. She moved to New York City in 1958 and was a part of the New York avant-garde scene throughout the 1960s, especially in the pop-art movement. Embracing the rise of the hippie counterculture of the late 1960s, she came to public attention when she organized a series of happenings in which naked participants were painted with brightly colored polka dots. Since the 1970s, Kusama has continued to create art, most notably installations in various museums around the world.
- Birthplace: Japan, Matsumoto
- Birthdate: 03-22-1929
- Nationality: Japan
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