Mototaka Kohama (小浜元孝, Kohama Mototaka) was a Japanese basketball Head coach for the Akita Isuzu Motors, Isuzu Motors…Mototaka Kohama (小浜元孝, Kohama Mototaka) was a Japanese basketball Head coach for the Akita Isuzu Motors, Isuzu Motors Lynx/Giga Cats and Yokohama Giga Cats. He was known as the “Godfather of Japanese basketball,” and served as head coach of the Japan national basketball team three times. Growing up in Akita during WWII as a young boy, he was told to stop playing basketball because it was an American sport. The pioneer studied basketball coaching at the University of Kentucky.
Taiji Tonoyama (殿山 泰司, Tonoyama Taiji; October 17, 1915 – April 30, 1989) was a Japanese character actor who made many…Taiji Tonoyama (殿山 泰司, Tonoyama Taiji; October 17, 1915 – April 30, 1989) was a Japanese character actor who made many appearances in films and on television from 1939 to 1989. He was a close friend of Kaneto Shindo and one of his regular cast members. He was also an essayist. In 1950 he helped form the film company Kindai Eiga Kyokai with Shindo and Kōzaburō Yoshimura. He served in the Japanese military in China in the Second Sino-Japanese War and considered himself to have narrowly escaped from death. He was married but also had a mistress and maintained relationships with both women until the end of his life. He was a keen reader of detective stories and a fan of jazz music. He wrote a series of semi-autobiographical essays under the title Sanmon Yakusha (三文役者), meaning "third rate actor". Kaneto Shindo wrote a biography of Tonoyama called Sanmon yakusha no shi, meaning "The death of a third-rate actor", which he also filmed as By Player.
Kira Sugiyama (杉山 吉良, Sugiyama Kira; October 17, 1910 – December 12, 1988) was a Japanese photographer. Sugiyama was…Kira Sugiyama (杉山 吉良, Sugiyama Kira; October 17, 1910 – December 12, 1988) was a Japanese photographer. Sugiyama was born in Shizuoka prefecture. He attended Waseda Middle School but left after his parents died during the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake. In 1927 he joined Paramount News, where he learned to do photojournalism. In 1936 he published a series in a magazine depicting women moving. In 1938, Sugiyama was among the photographers involved in the Youth Reportage Photography Research Association (Seinen Hōdō Shashin Kenkyūkai), a group formed with the support of Photo Times in which Ken Domon and Hiroshi Hamaya also participated. During World War II he broadcast as a member of the Imperial Japanese Army, most notably at the battle of Attu. After the war, Sugiyama returned to Paramount News. He then transitioned to nude photography and became a pioneer in the field. In 1953 he went to Sao Paulo, Brazil. After returning to Japan, he began exhibiting his photographs in 1969. In 1978 he went to Attu Island and later exhibited the photographs he took in remembrance of his comrades there. Sugiyama died on December 12, 1988.
Takeyoshi Kawashima (川島 武宜, Kawashima Takeyoshi; 17 October 1909 – 21 May 1992) was a Japanese jurist. He was a…Takeyoshi Kawashima (川島 武宜, Kawashima Takeyoshi; 17 October 1909 – 21 May 1992) was a Japanese jurist. He was a prominent representative of post-war liberalism in Japan and the country's leading legal sociologist. Serving as Sakae Wagatsuma's assistant after 1932, Kawashima was appointed professor of civil law at the University of Tokyo in 1934. In his writings, he sought to develop a system of modern, Western, capitalist society based on the principle of the exchange of goods, which he contrasted to Japanese society with its remaining pre-modern and feudalist elements. His criticism of Japanese domestic ideology in The familial structure of Japanese society (日本社會の家族的構成; Nihon shakai no kazokuteki kōsei) (1954) was a popular success. As a collaborator on the post-war reform of Japanese family law, Kawashima was unable to realize his ambitious ideas, but served as a counterweight to conservatives including Eiichi Makino. In his 1963 article "Dispute Resolution in Contemporary Japan", he argued that although litigation is not a preferred method of dispute resolution anywhere, the Japanese have a particular cultural aversion to litigation. The article has sparked heated debate, generating various perspectives, notably John Haley's "The Myth of the Reluctant Litigant" and Mark Ramseyer's "Reluctant Litigant Revisited".
Kenji Miyamoto (宮本 顕治, Miyamoto Kenji; 17 October 1908 – 18 July 2007) was a Japanese communist politician. He was the…Kenji Miyamoto (宮本 顕治, Miyamoto Kenji; 17 October 1908 – 18 July 2007) was a Japanese communist politician. He was the leader of the Japanese Communist Party (JCP) from 1958 to 1977.
Shinichi Suzuki (鈴木 鎮一, Suzuki Shin'ichi; 17 October 1898 – 26 January 1998) was a Japanese violinist, philosopher…Shinichi Suzuki (鈴木 鎮一, Suzuki Shin'ichi; 17 October 1898 – 26 January 1998) was a Japanese violinist, philosopher, composer, and educator and the founder of the international Suzuki method of music education and developed a philosophy for educating people of all ages and abilities. An influential pedagogue in music education of children, he often spoke of the ability of all children to learn things well, especially in the right environment, and of developing the heart and building the character of music students through their music education. Before his time, it was rare for children to be formally taught classical instruments from an early age and even more rare for children to be accepted by a music teacher without an audition or entrance examination. Not only did he endeavor to teach children the violin from infancy and early childhood, his school in Matsumoto also did not screen applicants for their ability for admittance. Suzuki was also responsible for the early training of some of the earliest Japanese violinists to be successfully appointed to prominent western classical music organizations. During his lifetime, he received several honorary doctorates in music including from the New England Conservatory of Music (1956), and the Oberlin College Conservatory of Music. He was proclaimed a Living National Treasure of Japan, and in 1993 he was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Yoshiko Kawada (17 October 1895 – 23 March 1970) (川田芳子 in Japanese, or かわだ よしこ in kana) was a Japanese actress on…Yoshiko Kawada (17 October 1895 – 23 March 1970) (川田芳子 in Japanese, or かわだ よしこ in kana) was a Japanese actress on stage, and in silent and sound films.
Colonel Yasuyo Yamasaki (Japanese: 山崎保代; often spelled as Yamazaki; October 17, 1891 – May 29, 1943) was a Japanese…Colonel Yasuyo Yamasaki (Japanese: 山崎保代; often spelled as Yamazaki; October 17, 1891 – May 29, 1943) was a Japanese Army officer who commanded the Japanese forces on Attu during the Battle of Attu in World War II. Yamasaki was a native of what is now part of Tsuru, Yamanashi, where his father was a Buddhist priest. He graduated from the 25th class of the Imperial Japanese Army Academy in 1913 and served in the Siberian Intervention from April 1918 to December 1920. In May 1928, he was part of the Japanese expeditionary force to mainland China during the Jinan Incident. Yamasaki was promoted to colonel in March 1940. Later that year, he assumed command of the 130th Infantry Regiment. In February 1943, Yamasaki became commanding officer of the 2nd District Force of the North Sea Defense Force, a position in which he went to the Aleutians. He arrived on Attu in April 1943 by submarine. His orders were to hold the island without outside help. The 2,650 defenders under Yamasaki did not contest the American landings on Attu, but rather dug in on high ground away from the shore. The battle produced some of the bloodiest fighting in the American Theater and the Pacific Theater, similar to the battles of Iwo Jima and Okinawa. On May 29, the last of the Japanese forces suddenly attacked near Chichagof Harbor in the first and only instance of a banzai charge on American soil. The charge was led by Yamasaki himself, who was killed later that day, sword in hand, and assaulting Engineer Hill. His attack penetrated American lines far enough to encounter shocked rear-echelon units of the American force. After furious, brutal, close-quarter, and often hand-to-hand combat, the entire Japanese force was killed almost to the last man: only 29 prisoners were taken, with none of them officers. American burial teams counted 2,351 Japanese dead, but it was presumed that hundreds more had been buried by bombardments over the course of the battle.
Tokubei Kuroda (黒田 徳米, Kuroda Tokubei; October 17, 1886 – May 15, 1987) was a Japanese scientist and academic. He is…Tokubei Kuroda (黒田 徳米, Kuroda Tokubei; October 17, 1886 – May 15, 1987) was a Japanese scientist and academic. He is best known as a pioneering taxonomist and malacologist specializing in Japanese marine and terrestrial Mollusca.
Harumichi Tanabe (田辺 治通, Tanabe Harumichi; 17 October 1879 – 30 January 1950) was a Japanese bureaucrat and politician…Harumichi Tanabe (田辺 治通, Tanabe Harumichi; 17 October 1879 – 30 January 1950) was a Japanese bureaucrat and politician in the early Shōwa period.
Count Soejima Taneomi (副島 種臣; 17 October 1828 – 31 January 1905) was a Japanese diplomat and politician active during…Count Soejima Taneomi (副島 種臣; 17 October 1828 – 31 January 1905) was a Japanese diplomat and politician active during the early Meiji period.
